Erik and Allison were both looking for a spouse who shared their Catholic faith. Each was running into obstacles along the way, but they were of a different variety.
“I started online dating about the same time I came back to the Catholic Church,” said Erik, who is a “re-vert” to the faith. “The selection of Catholic prospects was slim. I was looking for a needle in a haystack.” He had come familiar with CatholicMatch through advertising on other sites and decided to become a member.
Allison had been through the pain of divorce and annulment, and had gone through a healing process. “Work was my coping mechanism of choice to deal with the pain,” she recalled.” All of the energy that I had longed to put into a marriage and a family had been poured into a fast paced, demanding professional career.”
It was after Allison began to regain her work/life balance that she looked at dating again, but even here there was no rush to get back in the game, so to speak. “I was pretty comfortable in my post-annulment single lifestyle,” she said. “Also, the online dating process was hard because I felt exposed and vulnerable having my personal profile on a website for all male members to see.”
What eventually spurred Allison to take the chance and try online dating was her belief that she was indeed called to the vocation of marriage, and she had to stay true to that call.
Allison would appear as one of the matches that CatholicMatch emailed to Erik, and he looked at her profile. It didn’t take long for him to be impressed.
“I found stunning pictures with an intriguing profile,” he said. “She was a high-octane Catholic woman and seemed very down to earth.” Erik decided he would follow up the next day, but Allison was even quicker. When she saw he had viewed her profile, she return clicked, was no less impressed, and sent him a message.
Erik and Allison connected immediately and wasted no time in taking things offline. “My online search had been going on for about five years,” he told CatholicMatch. “I had learned the value of talking on the phone as soon as possible.”
When they met in person, the connection they felt only grew and the conversation flowed freely. They would both look back and note how comfortable they were in each other’s presence.
“I never felt as if we were two people just talking to hear ourselves talk,” Erik said. “I never felt like we were circling each other like two weary fighters, waiting for an opening…I can’t tell you how many first dates I’ve had that seemed like they were contests. Things were different with her from the get-go.”
Erik & Allison each noticed how easy and comforting it was to be in the other's presence.
