At 23, David had just about had enough of online dating. He hadn’t really meant to date online anyway; he’d set up his account as a means to start meeting people in his hometown of St. Louis while on a temporary job assignment in Indiana, and it wasn’t as if singles, even Catholic ones, were thin on the ground in St. Louis.
Not to mention his first attempt at meeting someone long distance had ended in disaster and left him bitter at the whole concept. After four months on CatholicMatch, he was ready throw in the towel and let his subscription lapse.
Then Stacey took his interview.
“I thought she was pretty from the first,” he said.
Stacy was 22 years old, with blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a friendly, welcoming smile. In addition, he found from her profile and interview responses that she liked playing guitar, that they both like the outdoors, and that they had a shared love for bad puns. Even better, he found she had answered ‘Yes’ to all her faith questions.
The only problem was that she lived in Topeka, while he lived in St. Louis.
Nevertheless, he was intrigued enough by her profile and responses that they started messaging. One of the first things she asked was whether Topeka was too far.
If it had been, it wasn’t anymore.
After a week of messaging, they started talking on the phone. Stacey, for her part, was amazed at how easy it was to talk to him. “He seemed genuinely interested in learning more about me and my life!” she exclaimed.
It was so easy for them to talk that one night they were shocked to find that six hours had gone by and it was already two AM.
David had asked to meet her after their second phone call. Neither was interested in casual dating; they wanted to figure out quickly whether they would work together, and that meant meeting. Nevertheless it was a month and a half before their conflicting schedules allowed them to make the trip to Kansas City, part way between them, in October 2015.
The first meeting
As it happened, David knew Kansas City; he’d lived there for a time, and carefully planned out how they would spend their day. Neither ate much as Stacey had recently been sick and David was too nervous. Instead, he showed her around town. He was grateful that she trusted him enough to let him drive her around. Before long, they started sharing bad jokes.
“What do you call a sleep walking nun?”
“A Roamin’ Catholic.”
David took her to the World War I Memorial. As they walked about, he asked if he could hold her hand. Stacey had been hoping he would. They walked down to Union Station, discussing love languages and the ring Stacey wore on her right hand. “With a great deal of nervousness, I told David that I made a promise to God that I would save my first kiss for the man who asked me to marry him,” she explained. When David told her respected that, she had a good feeling he’d be the man she’d share it with.
The first date was wonderful, and before Stacey went back to Topeka, David asked her to be his girlfriend.
She said yes.
They high-fived.
Of course, the distance was still an obstacle, and face-to-face dates would be a challenge to arrange. They tried to see each other as many weekends as possible, but the separation was still a challenge.
Then they came up with an innovative way to deal with it.
Distance makes the heart grow fonder
“We arranged an Adoration date for ourselves every week,” David explained. “She visits a chapel in Topeka, and I visit one in St. Louis.” Separated by three hundred miles, but both before the Lord and each praying for the other, they literally put Christ at the center of their relationship.
As she finished one of these adoration dates in November 2017, a little over a year after that first date in Kansas City, Stacey left the chapel to find that David was opening the door for her. Turns out, he’d taken a half-day off of work to drive out to see her. He had a basin and a jug full of water.
Leading her to the front pew, he washed her feet, then they read from Ephesians about how a husband must love his wife as Christ loved the Church. Then, getting down on one knee, he asked her to marry him...after first asking her to stand up so that he wouldn’t be taller than her.
“David is always finding ways to make me feel special,” Stacey said. “The long distance wasn’t ideal, but it did help us to become really good at communicating and planning.”
Now preparing for their wedding in August, David and Stacey continue to make one another smile, laugh, and draw closer to God. By centering on Jesus and exercising a little pious creativity, they were able to overcome the obstacles of distance to build a relationship full of laughter and happy tears.
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