“Why join a dating site if you’re not going to answer your messages?” was Mary Ellen’s thought. One too many times, the messages she sent received no reply. When she joined CatholicMatch, Mary Ellen had never expected that it would take her a year to find Mr. Right, considering there were so many like-minded people on the site. She was having serious doubts as to whether she would be renewing her membership.
Erik thought online dating was the lazy way to meet women. “I saw dating as something you did face to face.”
But the problem was he wasn’t finding the “one” by the traditional dating route. “I no longer wanted to live and practice my faith alone. I was ready to find someone that would ultimately become my wife.” So he decided to give CatholicMatch a shot. He was on the site only a month when he came upon Mary Ellen’s profile.
Mary Ellen also lived in Ohio, and Erik admired how important her faith was to her, so he sent Mary Ellen a message.
Would Politics Keep Them Apart?
In O
ctober of 2014—after talking for three or four weeks—they met up at a Starbucks for their first date. Mary Ellen found herself thinking that Erik had beautiful eyes—much more striking in person than in his profile photos. In turn, Erik liked looking at Mary Ellen’s smile.
On their date, they talked for two hours about their faith, Pope Francis, and about their lives. “After the first date, I could see how important faith was to Erik,” Mary Ellen, 31, says. “This was something I was looking for in a significant other.”
Mary Ellen thought that the date went well, and she thought it was likely that there would be future dates.
Erik, on the other hand, left Mary Ellen doubting if he would ask her out again. He had enjoyed himself, but he was concerned that Mary Ellen might be too liberal. “I prayed after the first date asking God if dating Mary Ellen was right. Through lots of prayers and asking God what to do, I realized that it wasn’t a big deal having different political views within a relationship because there are larger issues couples face,” Erik, 34, explains.
No Rash Decisions
Erik was glad that he didn’t make a quick judgment, and he gave Mary Ellen another chance. For their second date, they
met up for Mass at Erik’s home parish, St. Margaret of York Parish, in Loveland, Ohio. On this date, he got to know Mary Ellen even more, and he realized that she could be the one. “You can learn a lot about someone by going to Mass together,” she says.
For their third date, they went to Mass Mary Ellen's church, Immaculate Heart of Mary, in Anderson Township, Ohio. Erik noticed that “Mary Ellen got more and more beautiful with each date.”
At the beginning of their relationship, because of Erik’s job, they were only able to see one another every other weekend. Then it turned out that both of them would be moving to Cincinnati for their jobs, and this provided an opportunity for them to see each other more often and to attend some Cincinnati Red’s baseball games together.
Politics No Big Deal
It was nearly a year into their relationship before Mary Ellen realized that Erik had almost not gone on another date with her because of his first impression of her being liberal. “I was a little surprised that Erik thought that on the first date, but I was glad he continued to build a relationship with me,” she says.
For Mary Ellen, having different political views didn’t seem to be a deal breaker. “My parents have different political views, and they are happily married.”
The couple says, “After dating for a while, we both learned that our viewpoints are not always that far off from each other.”
The Best Kind of Joke
In late July 2016, before heading off to Sunday Mass, Erik jokingly told Mary Ellen that she had to see what he was looking at on Facebook. “This is going to make you mad!” he told her.
He got her pretty riled up before showing her the post.
When he turned the phone over, “There was a picture of the ring in a box!” she remembers.
Then Erik went down on one knee and asked Mary Ellen to marry him. She said yes.
The couple plans to wed at Mary Ellen’s church, Immaculate Heart of Mary.
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