How I Met My Husband

Love is not dead! It’s a new year and Valentine’s day is coming soon. For some it’s a very romantic and joyous time to celebrate. For others…it’s the most hated holiday of the year. If you haven’t found your perfect someone yet, don’t give up! In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I’m sharing the story of how I met my husband, when I was sure I wouldn’t. 

Online Dating Can be Overwhelming!

It was 2016 and online dating was not something I’d tried before. But meeting new people seemed impossible in my little area. I was a little bored, a little lonely and very much skeptical of anything to do with dating. In the matter of several months I’d answered hundreds of messages, had many first dates and some seconds…but they were all a bust. I could go on and on about how terrible some of these dates went, but I’ll save that for another time. 

Online dating can easily become overwhelming. I hate to compare it, but it’s like when you’re online shopping for a special occasion dress. Hours turn to days and days turn to weeks. If you deal with indecision, you know how hard this can be! You finally find your dress, but when you receive it, it doesn’t fit correctly or simply isn’t what you’re looking for. Next thing you know, you’re returning it and it’s back to square one. It’s an exhausting cycle. 

Before I met my husband, I tried several dating sites…like Plenty of Fish, Ok Cupid, Match, Christian Mingle and probably some I don’t remember at this moment. Some of these sites were like ghost towns with no one located anywhere near my location. I was close to giving up on online dating when I joined a dating site called Zoosk. While the site was better than some of the others  and full of singles near me… I still didn’t feel I was making any meaningful connections. 

The First Message…

Although I barely took online dating seriously at that point, deep deep …deep down I still had that little morsel of hope. 

One day scrolling through messages I received one that stood out from the rest. It was actually in sentences. And it was more than a line or two. The first thing I noticed was that he didn’t use any weird username. His username was his actual name. That made him seem pretty serious. And like he didn’t have a million things to hide! From his first message, I could see that he’d taken the time to read my profile. That was so important to me because 80 percent of guys who contacted me clearly hadn’t read anything in my profile. Let’s not even count all the messages that just say, hey or what’s up. 

Anyway, back to my husband. He was direct, but polite and flattering. I’d never come across his profile before because he was located just outside of my search criteria. However, he was able to find me because he didn’t narrow down his search results. 

No Way, You’re 25 Years Older Than Me!

I checked out his profile and realized he was a whopping 25 years older than me. Yes….you heard me right… 25 years! He was fit, tall and handsome. His smile! Oh, but nothing could work between us, …right? That’s a huge age gap…and I’m mature but I’d never considered dating someone much older than me. 

I enjoyed messaging him, but I was being nice when I told him we can be friends. He told me he’d be my friend but ultimately he’s looking for a relationship. I continued messaging him, sure that like most online conversations, that it’d fizzle out in just a matter of weeks. So what did age matter? 

A couple of weeks passed and we continued to sporadically message each other. He asked me to start messaging on Facebook. He thought it would be better because sometimes I forgot about logging on to the dating site. I forget passwords almost as fast as I create them. I hesitated because I had a Facebook but I barely used it. In the end I added him as a friend. 

We Hit it Off 

Instead of messages waiting in our inbox, we were able to chat in real time. Eventually he convinced me to talk on the phone. Which is surprising, because I hate talking on the phone. It’s awkward, especially with new people. We hit it off…that first conversation lasted hours. He said he could already tell he really liked me. 

He seemed nice but everyone seemed nice at first. I was skeptical. But off and on we went until two weeks before Christmas when I agreed to meet in person. Our first date was supposed to be a movie. Lame… I know you’re not supposed to go on first dates to movies, but it was the best we could do. We live 2 hours away from one another and decided to meet in the middle. 

It Hurts to Get Stood Up…

The traffic was horrendous. I arrived 15 minutes late. He wasn’t there. And go figure, he didn’t use a cellphone. There was no way to contact him. I thought I missed him and sat at the theater for over 30 minutes looking for his truck and never seeing him. 

In the realm of online dating being stood up happens quite a bit. And I’d been stood up before. It hurts. Even if you don’t have a deep connection with someone, being stood up is like a slap in the face. It’s rude and a waste of your time and gas. Where I live everything is far. 

I looked at my cell for the time. I’d give him five more minutes. I was sure I was being stood up by this point. When there was one minute left I turned on my car. Ok, I remember thinking. This is it. Another failed online dating attempt. It really wasn’t surprising. I put my seat belt back on. 

When I looked up a dark burgundy dually came into sight. Is that him??? And moments later pulled up next to me. We both rolled down our windows. He was smiling and looked really smart in his driving glasses. I could tell he was happy to see me and I smiled back just as big. 

My husband was in love at that moment. I was in deep like, but I was still a little skeptical. But, hey! It turns out this was my first love. My first boyfriend. My first fiancé. A lot of firsts! We got married 5 months later and will celebrate our 5 year anniversary soon.