We Knew It Was Time to Meet When Our Messages Became Novels

Like many before her, Michelle was skeptical of online dating.

She insisted that it was something she would never do, until one day her friend started teasing her for it, joking that she’d make up a profile for her. Though she laughed it off with a good grace, the joke made Michelle (now 25) reconsider the idea of online dating. After all, she knew she wanted to meet someone who shared her Catholic faith and values.

So, she decided to take a chance and create a profile on CatholicMatch.

Not too long after that, a fellow named Joseph (now 26) happened along. He’d been on CatholicMatch for about six months at that point, and had had a few dates without finding anyone he could connect with. But now Michelle’s profile caught his eye.

“I thought she was really cute,” he said, “and based on her profile it seemed like we had a lot in common. She seemed like a very down-to-earth girl with a great sense of humor.”

Taking the initiative, Joseph messaged her.

It was one of her first contacts on the site, and she in turn took a look at his profile.

“I was struck by how tall he was. I really liked that, and I thought he was very cute. As I scanned his profile, I was inspired by the way he spoke about the faith and struck by the fact that he had spent some time at the seminary.”

The first message was, of course, answered back. Then there was another, and another. Each time they grew longer, from a few words, to a few sentences, to paragraphs. “I remember looking forward to his messages with great anticipation,” Michelle said.

“And inevitably, he made me smile with each message.”

After a few months of this process, the couple found that it just would not do; they had too much to say to each other to keep working through emails: it was time for a face-to-face.

Joseph lived in Pennsylvania and Michelle in New Jersey, which meant about a ninety-minute drive for one or the other, but they met at a restaurant partway between their respective homes. That date consisted of four hours of talking and laughter and still seemed to end too soon.

“It was the best first date I ever had,” Joseph said. “We were able to joke around and have fun with each other as if we had known each other for years. I had never connected with anyone so quickly and so genuinely.”

Needless to say, this first date was not the last.

For the next two years, they met up at just about every spot between their respective homes, but their favorite was a park where they could picnic and rent bikes and which held a beautiful lake view.

The connection formed in the first moments of that first date only strengthened as their courtship wore on. In particular, they found that reading together, especially books of devotion, was a favorite way to spend time with one another.

It also added to one of the things Michelle was coming to love about Joseph: that his influence was helping to deepen and reconnect with her faith in ways that she hadn’t even know she was missing. Their relationship, in fact, was showing that most promising of signs: that it was bringing out the best of both of them.

Part of this was simply the fact that they were forced to appreciate whatever time they had together.

The distance, while not as extreme as some, was nevertheless a barrier that prevented them from taking their time together for granted. Each meeting was seen for what it was: a gift, and one that they had to make the most of.

“The more time we spent together,” the couple recalled. “The harder it was to say goodbye and to be apart.”

One day, after a couple years of dating, they met up at that favorite spot of theirs in the park. Joseph came with a brand-new bike as a present to Michelle, complete with a poem he’d composed for her.

This date they spent on a scavenger hunt that Joe had set up through all their favorite spots in the park, ending in front of that beautiful lake view.

As a finishing touch, he proposed.

And so ended Michelle’s skepticism of online dating and Joseph’s disappointment with its results; in a gloriously happy relationship and approaching marriage that never would have happened without CatholicMatch.

Their wedding date is now marked for November 30, 2019 and Michelle sums up the whole experience in these words: “I thank God every day that I get to spend the rest of my life with my best friend!”