Matchmaker/Dating Coach Claire with her husband at their wedding. (Photo credit: Khristel Studios)
Story Time!
Claire here (matchmaker, dating coach, social media person for Friend of a Friend Matchmaking, general love-enthusiast) and today's the 5-year anniversary of meeting my husband. We met on OkCupid, but it turned out that he was actually a friend of several friends. We had been in the same rooms before but somehow never made a connection. (Be it matchmaker or algorithm, introductions help!)
I don't know what kind of a mood I was in when I was swiping through their somewhat Tinder-esque Quickmatch function, but I came across his photo/mini profile and I was intrigued. There wasn't a ton of information to go on, one of his photos made me (now lovingly) roll my eyes a bit -- he was playing guitar shirtless, and he definitely could have been a bro, but I was in just such a place to shrug and like him anyway. He seemed fun and he had a nice smile.
A lot of my previous online dating experience (and the vast majority of my dating was online dating experience) was all about long chats, days and sometimes even weeks of messaging back and forth, and building so much momentum that a fair amount was riding on our meeting by the time we actually got to it. When it worked, it worked. When it didn't, it sucked.
His first message to me was "Hi", but he quickly turned around with a short but sweet message indicating that he read my profile/liked what he saw and capped it off with a nod to my Simpsons fandom à la Bart writing fake love letters to Mrs. Krabappel. We exchanged a few witty retorts but left it at that. I was getting sick and couldn't go out that night, so we decided to pick up a couple of days later.
We decided on drinks and I bathed and wore a generically okay outfit. It was very no-pressure, which is definitely not my usual. I got there a few minutes early, grabbed a table, and didn't brace myself, although I probably should have. He walked in and that was it. 5 years later and I still feel pretty good about my decision.
So, what's the lesson here? Well, there are a few:
- Get out there and actually try to connect with people.
- Even if someone great is out there, you can use assistance in actually meeting them. Alternately: flirt with everyone at every concert you go to. It could be your future partner!
- Be open-minded. A heart beats beneath that shirtless torso, you know.
- You don't need to know everything about someone ahead of time, you don't need to wait too long to meet up, and you don't need to exchange epic and increasingly intense missives beforehand.
Most importantly, my husband and I don't adhere to a lot of the norms embraced by the standard dating culture. We're both generally open and thoughtful people, so that didn't come into play for our connection, but I can only think of all of the suckers who didn't get to meet us because their preferences and settings (either on OkCupid or in life) kept them away from us by design. Investigate your height restrictions, your sizeism, your racial bias, etc... (I am all too happy to help!) You don't want to miss out because you aren't open to learning about what shaped your preferences and how to expand/move past them.
I hope this was not only saccharine and a little smug, but maybe useful.