Their third date was meant to be another pleasant walk through downtown, but a rogue squirrel had other plans.
Anne had come home one day to find her house in a mess: an errant squirrel had somehow found its way inside, leaving curtains, a downed lamp, and other items strewn across the floor. She enlisted her father and even the police to locate and apprehend the unruly rodent.
When she informed her date, Steve, of her situation, he suggested an alternative for their date: “squirrel mitigation activities.”
“I am actually pretty experienced at sealing critter entrances,” Steve told her.
Steve—by profession a fireman, but also veteran of several personal home repairs—showed up armed with tools and supplies, clambered onto her roof, and crawled through her attic and basement squirrel-proofing her house, Anne recalled.
At the end, it was mission accomplished. And that means more than just successful squirrel mitigation. (Although that too was accomplished.)
“When he came out of the attic, in dirty old work clothes and covered in insulation, I thought I had never seen anyone look so handsome. From then on it was only a matter of time,” Anne said.
Anne, now 40, had met Steve, 46, a few months earlier on CatholicMatch. Neither of them had been married before. Anne had joined in August 2015 after realizing that there were no promising prospects in her small-town community in Michigan, about half an hour from the nearest mid-sized city. But first, she had to overcome many of the misgivings she had about online dating.
Well, I guess she won't just come knock on my door
“I had some preconceived notions that online dating turns people into commodities—show me your list of desirable qualities, and I’ll decide whether you’re worth communicating with. I was also concerned about the awkwardness of meeting someone in person for the first time after getting to know him pretty well on an intellectual level. I already knew that it takes me a while to warm up to and relate to a new person, and I was dreading such a meeting with someone I really wanted to relate well with,” Anne said.
Steve says he was also skeptical.
But, eventually, their desire to meet someone trumped her fears about online dating.
“I finally came to the conclusion that my future wife was not going to find me and knock on my door without some help,” Steve said.
Anne said that once she set up her profile, her fears were alleviated. “I realized that I was giving people a chance to get to know me a little, and having an opportunity to get to know them, not making a listing of my desirable qualities,” Anne said.
She also found many of the profile questions as a welcome opportunity for some healthy introspection. “I loved that CatholicMatch put faith front and center, as an integral part of who I am as a person, and allowed me to express aspects of my spirituality as part of my profile,” Anne added.
Anne and Steve—who lived about two hours away in Grand Rapids—had met and started chatting in September 2015. “I liked his active lifestyle, his eloquent writing, and his desire to be more Christ-like,” Anne said.
Initially, however, the pair took things slow. They didn’t start talking over the phone until the following February, meeting for their first date at the end of the month. “By then I was so attracted to him, to his personality and the person I had gotten to know on the phone, that I expected to be swept off my feet the moment we met,” Anne said.
I still felt shy and awkward, darn it
Instead, as they walked through the streets of the small downtown area, her hopes were frustrated: “Much to my disappointment, I still felt shy and awkward on our first date,” Anne said.
Nonetheless, despite being so self-conscious, Anne says she was able to “connect the person I had just met with the person I had already gotten to know.” And, if length of time is any measure of a successful date, this one certainly was—they chatted for hours, grabbing pizza and winding up at a park bench in a Marian grotto at a local parish.
But the home repair date was the turning point. After that, their relationship intensified to daily phone calls and prayer along with weekend Masses together, despite the distance. By mid-summer 2016 they were engaged and they married in February 2017.
“Looking back, I think that, despite my nervousness, meeting online made things less awkward, not more so. We both knew what the other’s expectations were—looking for a relationship with a sincere Catholic that may ultimately lead to marriage. We had established a baseline of compatibility before we met. And I knew myself well enough to hang in there after the uncomfortable first meeting, rightly supposing that my comfort would increase over time,” Anne said.
“I’m glad that I got over my fears and misconceptions and decided to try CatholicMatch, because it changed my life forever!” she added.
“The main thing I can say is that it worked,” Steve added. “The faith questions were the most important part of the profile, and the question prompts were very helpful. For everyone who is out there struggling, do not give up. Your mate is out there, but you will have to get out of your comfort zone to find them. Never fear rejection, pray hard, and be sure to listen for His answer. Don’t be afraid to put your life and your heart out there. It sounds cliché, but be yourself.”
A very important date
Their story also illustrates the importance of trusting in divine Providence.
Anne notes that there is a special significance to the date they were married, the 11th, which happens to also be the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. But that specific date wasn’t intentional. The Diocese of Lansing had a nine-month waiting period that Anne and Steve were hoping to speed up. Anne, then 39, felt like “there was no time to waste.” The couple prayed to Our Lady of the Wedding at Cana for help.
The February date came seven months after their engagement—cutting out what they viewed as an unnecessary additional two months. It also came right before Lent, another goal they had had.
“We didn’t even know it was Our Lady of Lourdes until several friends pointed it out,” Anne notes.
Then she remembered the Marian grotto they’d come upon during their first date.
“After our wedding, when we got a chance, we went back to that church, because I had a suspicion,” Anne said. “Yes, the grotto was a shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes. She was watching out for us the whole time.”
Perhaps that rogue squirrel wasn’t so rogue after all.
Photo credit: Melanie Reyes Photography
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