Today I get to share the first “How did they meet?” story, and it’s mine!
What life stage were you in when you met your husband? I was 25, in the last months of a degree completion program, and working in my church office and youth ministry. Nearly all of my friends were already married, and all of the women (except for one) in my family had been married by 21, so I felt like an old maid!
Were you looking for a relationship? Oh yes. Looking, praying, longing.
How did you meet?
As I shared in my first post, I was not surrounded by eligible, single men. The adults in my church were 20+ years older than I was. I was in a degree completion program, and most of the people in my classes were older and/or married.
After talking to a classmate from my first two classes in the degree competition program (a few years older, but not married), he ghosted me. Pouf! Vanished. Stopped responding to calls or texts. Dropped out of the degree completion program. Gone. And with his departure, the number of single men in my degree program dropped to 0. If you’ve ever been ghosted, you know how painful and confusing it is. Let’s just say, I was a little scarred.
One day in church, my mom passed me a note saying an acquaintance had met her boyfriend on Christian Mingle. I responded with a note saying, “Don’t insult me!” In my mind, there were reasons people were on online dating sites. Reasons like social awkwardness, being unattractive, or poor hygiene. I did not want to put myself in those categories.
Eventually, I realized I wasn’t even in the proximity of eligible men. With that realization, and a good friend who was in a similar life stage and church/work environment and was online dating, I signed up for Christian Mingle.
My first round online yielded a guy whom my pastor and another pastor remembered as being married when they had met him at a church camp. After a month of talking to the other person I met on my first round online told me a girl he had almost dated the previous year had contacted him saying she was still interested. He didn’t know what to do because they had history and had known each other in person, but he and I were talking. He he decided to pick up his relationship with the other girl. I took a break from online dating after that.
When I joined again the next year, I was getting discouraged. I received some pretty strange messages.
I was feeling pretty sorry for myself by Valentine’s Day. I checked my notifications on Christian Mingle that night and braced myself as I opened a message with the subject: “Strange Request”. After all of the strange messages I had received, I was afraid to see what this new guy wanted.
The message was from a guy named Thad, and he said he thought I would be a good match for his roommate. After reading his profile, I thought he might be a good match for my friend who had online dated. I responded that I wouldn’t be opposed to talking to his friend, and with her permission, I shared my friend’s contact info. He called her a couple of times, and Thad and I were still emailing as I waited for him to connect me with his roommate who had been out of town when Thad first messaged.
A couple of weeks after his first message, he told my friend he was interested in someone else, and she asked if it was me. Being put on the spot, and not wanting to hurt my relationship with my friend, he lied and said it was someone in his hometown. A coupled of days later, he admitted to her that it was me he was interested in.
My friend told me about the plot twist, and I was perplexed. I had seen Thad as the friend of a prospect and the prospect of a friend. I didn’t know what I thought about him as a prospect for me! Then one night we instant messaged instead of emailing. We talked until 2AM. It was back and forth and back and forth, and so easy. I knew then I’d give him a chance.
His birthday was later that month, and the insecurities from past relationships (being ghosted and being dropped in favor of someone known in person) sprang up with a vengeance as he got together with friends that night. Not only was Thad not repelled by my clingy, insecure self, he called me. He reassured me he was not those other guys, and then he prayed for me. When the call ended, I knew I loved Thad.
We met in person for the first time four days later. It wasn’t the best first date. He nervously tried to impress me, but…it just came across awkwardly. Because he lived about two hours away, he stayed at a hotel after our date, and we met for breakfast the next day. After breakfast, he went with me to buy ingredients for cookies I had signed up to take to church. To my amazement, shopping with him did not feel awkward. I realized I was completely comfortable, and I knew I had found someone special.
The night before he proposed several months later, I discovered I had written my very first letter to the mystery man I would marry on Easter, when I was 15–exactly ten years to the day before we met in person for the first time. We got married a year to the day we had met in person for the first time, and that date also happened to be Easter.
We’ve been married for almost six and a half years now, and I’m still amazed by God’s goodness to me through a “strange request.”
How did you know he was the one? First it was his graciousness to me in my insecurities, then how natural it felt to be with him, and then when I saw his depth as we faced obstacles.
How long did you date before getting engaged? Seven months.
Was he what you were looking for or the type of person you saw yourself with?Haha! No. He’s goofy, he likes attention (he danced in the middle of Duncan Donuts on our first date), and he’s a drummer. But, he’s also kind, intelligent, funny, gentle, gracious, and loyal, and those were qualities I was looking for.
Imperfect Pearl 