Most people come to CatholicMatch for the first time because they’re looking for a spouse. Katty came for a different reason—she was looking to find out her temperament.
“I heard about CatholicMatch from a friend in college,” Katty recalled. “We were hanging out one night, talking about the temperaments. I created a profile just to find out what my temperament was.”
It wasn’t until five years later that, after leaving religious life, she used that profile to look for a spouse. “For me, online dating was a tool that if He chose to, God could use to lead me to my vocation,” she said. “I also knew that I was looking for—a faithful, virtuous man with whom I actually had chemistry. That was hard to find—so online dating just seemed like a practical thing to do.”
Everything didn’t click right away. A long-distance relationship didn’t work out, and Katty wasn’t in a rush to try again. But there was a chat request waiting from Kingsley, so she took out a full subscription and decided to give it a chance.
But distance was still an issue. Katty lives in Jacksonville, and with long distance not having worked out before, she wanted someone who was also in Florida, so they could meet right away. Kingsley lived in Maryland so Katty was surprised by Kingsley's offer to come to Jacksonville the following week.
“On Sunday we talked on the phone for the first time and the next Saturday we met in front of Assumption Catholic Church here in Jacksonville,” she said. “The moment we met was a classic—we were on the phone, I was behind him, but he didn’t know.” Katty blurted out “Oh, my gosh I see you!” She admitted to being terrified, while he enjoyed the moment.
What Katty found out in spending time with Kingsley is that he was exactly what she was looking for. “His big smile and that twinkle of playful mischief in his eyes won me over,” she recalled. Katty added that a big moment came when Kingsley met her mother, and they had an immediate connection. “My heart was filled with love and gratitude to God,” she said. “He treasures the memory. I think he also liked listening to us joke around in Spanish, though he had no clue what we were saying.”
Kingsley and Katty have a connection that goes deeper than even faith and chemistry. They enjoy a lot of the same activities. He moved to Florida two months later, and together they like to spend time with friends in their young adult community, from game nights to movies to outings for dinner or sporting events. He visits her house each night so they can take a walk, and she is currently teaching him to ride a bike, with plans to go on the trails together soon.
This past June, Kingsley and Katty had dinner together at a Mexican restaurant. They went for a walk on the beach afterward and found a spot where the crowd had thinned. “He had me turn and face the water and wanted to sing for me and asked me to choose the song,” Katty said. She chose a mutual favorite, Sparrow.
Kingsley sang the song, holding her from behind. He pulled a hand back to get the ring, asked Katty to turn around and went to one knee to propose marriage. She accepted.
Kingsley and Katty are preparing for their wedding next April. He is a biostatistician, analyzing data for a pharmaceutical company, while Katty is in the midst of a career change. The transition is simply a time for both of them to trust deeper in Divine Providence.
“We always see God’s love coming—or at least we should,” Katty said. “But the depth and passion of His love just the very fact that He loves us still blows us away. I always said that though the most important thing for me was to find someone who shared my deep love of the faith, I had a deep desire to fall in love with a person, not a set of ideals.”
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