I Work for CatholicMatch. Guess Where I Didn't Find My Wife?

George Foster

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Dating & Relationships

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November 29th, 2018

True story. I’m getting married to the girl of my dreams in a month….and guess what? We were both on CatholicMatch and yet we never saw each other’s profiles.

Yep, that's me on the left. How did she agree to this?!

It was only through God’s crazy providence and some absolutely wild twists and turns that we found each other and began dating...within 6 months we were engaged and now we will be happily tying the knot next month! I know, kind of sounds like a crazy person's fairy tale, but it’s 100% true.

Here’s what happened. Several months ago I was at the bar with my buddy Russ. We were just shooting the breeze when he said “You’ll never guess who I went out with last week.” He was right. I couldn't guess. The answer was a girl who I hadn't talked to in 20 years. Mandy.

The more I thought about Mandy, the more I thought “Why am I not dating her? I mean she's gorgeous and Catholic. What’s holding me back?”

Well, there were several reasons...

1. She was a bit older than I was considering.
2. I wasn’t really looking for someone who had an annulment.
3. Oh...and she used to be my babysitter.

The more I thought about it the more I thought it was just too unlikely. However I thought it would make a pretty decent movie. So I spent the next two months producing The Pitch a “fictional” short film about a man (played by myself) who reconnects with his babysitter after 20 years and decides to ask her to marry him...by proposing through a video pitch.

Well I finished the movie and was pretty darn happy with it. I thought the babysitter saga had run its course.

That was until my mom called Mandy’s mother on the phone to discuss the logistics of a visiting pilgrim image of Our Lady of Guadalupe when guess who answered the phone...Mandy aka “The Babysitter.” My sainted mother, the queen of discretion and of having my back, blurted out “George just made a movie about you!”

Guess who was mortified? This guy.

About a week later after I felt I had exhausted all of my other date options, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and do the one crazy thing that I had subconsciously been hoping to do for months. I messaged Mandy on Facebook and sent my babysitter the movie I made about me wanting to marry my babysitter.

It was the longest 22 minutes of my life.

Now there was a 99% chance that she would ask for a restraining order because, if we are being honest, I had been flirting way too hard with that line between romantic and downright nuts. But through some miracle I got a response I had never expected: First she corrected me for making her fictional character older than she was…(creative license) and second, she said that I owed her dinner. I couldn’t believe it.

We were engaged 3 months later on September 8th, the Blessed Mother’s birthday.

Yeah. I made a movie about marrying a girl who I hadn't seen in 20 years...sent that girl the movie, and am now marrying that girl.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Here’s the thing, God is mercy and at the end of the day I am sure that He knows best and His timing is perfect. At the same time I can't help but kick myself when I’m reminded of the fact that my wife-to-be was literally only a click away, but we never connected with each other because we were dating online the wrong way. (She says I was never on her search results because of my age, and that she would have excluded me anyway because I was living with my parents).

I spent years on CatholicMatch and working for CatholicMatch producing video courses on how to date. And, if I had listened a little closer to my own advice (specifically, Lesson 17 in “Matched: The Definitive Course to Catholic Online Dating”) and applied the lessons to my online dating life, I may have been able to save myself a few years of singleness.

The vocation of marriage is too important to approach halfheartedly. And likewise dating is too important to approach inhibited by self imposed obstacles, fears, or lack of dating know-how.

If you don't want to be a casual “online-dating-dabbler” and if you really want to make the most of your time on CatholicMatch, then enroll in Matched today and start learning how to approach online dating the right way.

God’s blessings on your search,

George

The Guy Behind the Camera at CatholicMatch

St. Raphael, pray for us.