He Followed Her in Circles...Literally!

Jeffrey’s wife died unexpectedly leaving him widowed at the age of 46.

Ten years later, after his children had grown, he decided it was time to start looking for someone new and so he created a profile on CatholicMatch.

One thing he knew, as he began his search, was that he was not going to ‘settle.’ He meant to find someone special, whom he could have a truly loving relationship with. “The frustration [of dating],” he said, “is more about finding the right person when we are more experienced and wiser in life because we know exactly what we are looking for, not settling for anything less.”

About two weeks later, someone found his profile.

This was Christine, who had been divorced from her first husband in 2006 and then entered the Church in 2011. At the time of her becoming Catholic, she had considered dating and even made an account on CatholicMatch and gone on a few dates, but in the end, she had decided that it wasn’t time either for her or for her family. So, like Jeffrey, she had put off seeking a new relationship until her children were grown, and then signed up again in mid-2019, just in time to find Jeffrey’s profile.

It didn’t impress her much. “I felt it lacked cared and depth, it was very short,” she said. “I wondered if he could care about a relationship if he was not able to put much in a profile.” So she ignored it and moved on.

That would have been the end of the story, except that he reached out to her with a kind message full of thoughtful questions.

This prompted her to give his anemic profile a second look. This time she noted his evident dedication to his faith (seven-out-of-seven Catholic beliefs) and that, coupled with his questions, made her decide to give him a chance.

Their subsequent texts and emails confirmed her second impression of him as a caring, thoughtful man. Wasting no time, Jeffrey suggested they should meet in person soon. So, five days after making the first contact, they arranged to meet in Syracuse, NY for the first date (Jeffrey lived in Rochester, Christine in Ogdensburg, making for a three-hour drive between them and putting Syracuse at about the half-way point).

The first date involved meeting at the Syracuse Zoo (both sides brought snacks, further endearing them to one another), then lunch, then Saturday evening mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. “I was nervous and anxious,” Jeffrey recalled. “Like a kid on the night before Christmas. The date turned out to be one of the best times of my life.”  

“Before we met in person, I felt I really liked Jeffrey based on all our texting,” Christine said. “I was hoping he was the same in person as on his texts. I was not disappointed.”

The first date went perfectly…until it came time to part, where the encountered a slight snafu.

Christine decided that she ought to try to help Jeffrey (who was unfamiliar with Syracuse) find his way back to the thruway. She figured it was down to her to help, as she had SIRI and navigation apps on her iPhone, while his archaic flip-phone couldn’t do anything but text. Unfortunately, though, even with SIRI’s help, Christine kept missing the right road, with Jeffrey following her in a circle. As she couldn’t call him (his phone’s barely-functional battery wouldn’t allow him to take calls), she couldn’t explain the problem. In the end, she pulled over on the side of the road to vent her frustration at not being able to communicate with him, waving her arms in the air, and swearing that she would put him on her own cell phone plan just to ensure this would never happen again.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey was sitting in his driver’s seat watching her and thinking, “she’s so cute. I want to marry her.”

From then on, their greatest challenge was figuring out how to spend more time together. Though there was still one more test that Jeffrey had to pass.

See, when Christine first became Catholic, she sought an annulment for her first marriage. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to find all the documents she needed, and so she gave up, thinking that, after all, she had no plans to marry again. A few years later, in 2015, Elaine of the annulment office suddenly gave her a call out of the blue saying, “The Holy Spirit woke me up and said I was to help you get this annulment done.” Well, there isn’t really anything to say to that except, “Ok.”

This time they were able to get everything taken care of and the annulment was granted. As she left Elaine’s office, Christine said “If I ever do remarry, I will make sure you meet the person first.”

So, she dutifully brought Jeffrey around for Elaine’s approval. He got it.

They were married in December 2019, only a few months after their first meeting. “For me,” said Jeffrey, “The highlights were seeing our children were so happy for us and the moment when we finally said ‘I do.’” It was “a small and simple wedding with big happiness.”

Jeffrey summed up the online dating experience in these words:

“We have to believe that the perfect match is out there and we will find each other, so don’t give up. It took me ten years to find my Christine, and I feel so blessed and grateful.”