Dear JDate,

Dina and I met on JDate by chance. It was late at night and I was almost ready to go to bed when the instant message window popped up. Much later that evening, when I finally made it to bed, I knew I had found someone special.

After a few weeks of email, instant messages and phone calls, Dina and I met for coffee. My first thought, after the happy realization that she’s even cuter than her profile pictures, was that she was a very cool person with whom conversation came easy. And that makes sense, because when married people tell you that their spouses are their best friends, chances are they mean it for some big, important reasons.

A year and a half to the day after that first coffee, I found myself down on one knee in a Los Angeles restaurant, in awe of how lucky I am.

Tips for other JDate members:

Honesty is the most important thing, because with internet dating, you have hundreds of options at your fingertips and dishonesty can come back to haunt you. Patience and tenacity come in a close second. You could spend weeks searching profiles, emailing and instant messaging and having dates that don’t go anywhere…but then the random IM you receive at midnight turns out to be the one that works. And much later, when you’re proposing (or being proposed to), you realize how smart a move it was to stay up just a little while longer.

Dina & Jesse
Los Angeles, California