Dear JDate,

From the first date I went on with Michael, I knew we would be together forever and that one special day I would be writing to JDate to share our amazing story.

Our story starts here…December 2004 I had just moved to South Florida after graduating college and leaving all of my friends in New York. I had moved south for an amazing job offer and because my parents basically begged me to make the move with them to the 6th borough – Palm Beach County! Living in Palm Beach County didn’t exactly seem like the perfect place for a 21-year-old girl from NY to meet a young hot Jewish guy…but, I moved anyway, under the pretence that I would eventually move back to NY.

One weekend I traveled up north to visit my girlfriends, and they all asked me if I had met any great guys or made any guy friends. My answer was “no” and they told me they were going to have to take matters into their own hands and sign me up for JDate. That way, I could meet someone of the male gender who wasn’t 80 and popping wheelies in his wheelchair at temple to impress the ladies.

At first, I was very against the idea of meeting dates online, but little did I know that the most important person I would ever meet was just a click away! So that cold northeastern night, my girlfriends made me a free JDate profile. It was the joke of the evening and kept us laughing all night at the bar.

Then, about three weeks later, I was home in Palm Beach at 1 am on a Saturday night playing fetch with my parent’s dog and was feeling like a complete loser. All of a sudden a light bulb went off in my head and I remembered that silly night up north when my girlfriends signed me up for JDate. So I decided to log on and check it out (it wasn’t like I had anything else better to do).

I grabbed my computer and enthusiastically typed in those 5 golden letters J-D-A-T-E. To my pleasant surprise, once I logged on, I realized that I had about 250 messages. I was overwhelmed with excitement and I felt my life about to change for the better. However, shortly after, I realized I really had to take the plunge and fork over the $35 dollars a month to officially join and read my JDate emails. Once I grabbed my Visa and completed the transaction, I felt like a kid in a candy shop opening all of the emails, until I realized, they were mostly guys clicking that “pre-made pick up line” button and sending it off to every girl in a 25-mile radius of their bachelor pad.

So after checking and deleting all of my emails, I decided to take a stab at the site myself. I typed in male, 21-26 in Palm Beach County. The second match profile which came up was a guy named Michael, I remember thinking, WOW – he’s VERY attractive, and delved into his hilarious profile. I laughed so hard, that I realized I must email this hottie and find out what he was really about! So I did, and all I could think of at 2 am on a lonely Saturday night, was “You’re Cute…” The next day I woke up and logged on to see if my mystery man wrote back…SCORE – he did, click, I opened up the email anticipating a lengthy response complimenting on how beautiful I was, or how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, but to my surprise, all he wrote was “You’re cute too…” Before I could even analyze it any further, he instant messaged me through JDate. We started chatting, and the next thing you know we talked for about three hours and I realized I had a serious crush!

Monday came and went as we chatted on AIM for another two hours, sending kissing faces via IM to say goodnight. Tuesday rolled around and I logged-on for another flirty conversation with my new JDate love and then I decided to drop the bomb, “Are we ever going to talk on the phone?” He said, “Sure” and gave me his home phone number. So I called him, which was so not like me, but I really liked this imaginary man! He answered and before we knew it we spoke for about four hours. Wednesday night rolled around and he invited me to meet for drinks on Friday night, I agreed, and the rest is history. After that Friday night when we met, I floated out of the restaurant, we fell in love, started dating, and three years later we got engaged on Valentine’s Day 2008.

I have truly met my soul mate and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with Michael, and I know he feels the same way! But, seriously, who meets their soul mate on JDate the first night they EVER login? It’s pretty unbelievable, but totally true! Talk about a match made in dot-com heaven!

Sincerely yours,

Elana & Michael
Florida