My Match.com Experience (Or How I Met My Husband)

Let's go back to December of 2004. I had graduated a year before and was currently teaching Kindergarten. I had recently ended a relationship with a U of Memphis football player who decided he liked football better than me and I was feeling hopeless. How was I supposed to meet someone?? I certainly was not interested in the divorced/single dads that were hitting on me at work, nor was I interested in meeting guys at the bar. So when you are in mid-twenties....where are you supposed to meet someone. Most of my girlfriends from college lived in other cities so it's not like I was going out all the time. One day, a friend from high school told me that another mutual friend was on Match.com....the internet? This I had to see for myself.

So...I logged on to see our friends profile. And then my curiosity got the best of me. I started browsing through the pictures and found myself saying, "Wow, these boys are pretty cute!". Then I decided to check out the girls....you know...my competition. The girls weren't that cute. I might really have a shot at this stuff. So I signed for for a free trial. I filled out the long form and loaded some decent pictures of myself....what's the worst that could happen?

Well.....let me just say....I started getting messages right away. From cute boys. This was fun!! We could only "wink" at each other...no conversations...since this was just a free trial and all. So I decided to just bite the bullet and sign up for three months. It was cheap....much cheaper than going out. I justified it to myself that this way they could buy me food and drinks....it was actually cheaper this way. I started off just emailing with people. It was so much better than meeting random people. I got to decide who could talk to me. My standards were high.

On the list:

*They must have graduated from college and have a good job.

*They must not smoke.

*They must be a Christian.

*They must be single (never married, no kids, etc.)

*They must not hunt.

Pretty easy huh? If we hit it off through emails, we would talk on the phone. If they made it past that round I would meet them for dinner, coffee, etc. I went on A LOT of dates....I mean A LOT! Some of them were great, some of them were bad. Sometimes I thought that they were great and then I never heard from the guy again. boo! Sometimes they probably thought the date was great and I was like...."no way!". It was nice to have to go out and tell your story, talk about yourself, etc. I have always been the kind of girl who went from boyfriend to boyfriend so I did not have a whole lot of experience "dating". Most of the guys were really nice. I kept a notebook to help me remember who was who...crazy huh?

Then I got the email....the one where I knew something was special. His profile was hilarious. His screen name was SillyMonkey (mine was Sassy Kindergarten Teacher...ha! Well....I am....). He talked about bigfoot on his profile...and gnomes. and monkeys. I had to know more. I sent his messages to my best friend, Kristy and she liked him from the start. We talked on the phone and hit it off right away and made plans to go to dinner. He warned me that he was moving back to Minnesota in a month and that he couldnt get too serious with anyone. No problem I said... we could still hang out. We made plans...and he broke them. I decided to give him one more chance.

We met for dinner at Bahama Breeze. He was shorter than I expected. He was cute though and had a nice truck. We split the Coconut Shrimp...neither of us double dipped in the sauce...we poured it on our plates. We were on our best behavior. Joe ordered fish to make himself look sophisticated :) The conversation was awesome. I felt like I had known him my whole life. I called my mom from the bathroom to tell her how much I liked him and how it was going. I told her we were going to go to The Blue Monkey. She was concerned. We took our own cars and went to the Blue Monkey to hang out some more. Joe's friends showed up and somehow we ended up at Backstreet (a gay club right down the street). I had never been to a gay club and had certainly never seen a drag show...I kept thinking "This guys is crazy...but fun!!". We then went to Ihop....keep in mind this was probably 3 in the morning. My mom was freaking out telling me that i should NOT be staying out so long with someone that I have just met...."it's not lady like she said"...silly Southern mama....

When it was finally time to say goodnight, Joe told me how much he liked me...in the parking lot...of the gay club. He told me that he wanted to kiss me....but he wasn't going to...he was going to wait. I was on cloud nine. I kew from that night on that he was something special and that we were going to be together.

Joe was supposed to go home to Minnesota for Christmas and did not make his flight, so I invited him to come to Christmas with my family....the rest is history. He decided NOT to move back to Minnesota and we were engaged 6 months later...when you know, you know right?!

And I finally did that kiss from him :)