Dear JDate,

I am writing to thank you for bringing my husband and me together. Although we lived within a 10-minute drive of each other and had mutual friends, no one would have put us together if it wasn’t for JDate. We would like to share our story with you as a way of saying thank you and to encourage other JDate users to believe they too can find “The One” in the vast sea of profiles!

One cold, wintry December night, I was with a friend who had just told me her brother was going out with someone he met on JDate (they are also still happily together). Having just got a new laptop for Chanukah, we decided that for a laugh, I too should sign up on JDate and see what it was like. We weren’t really expecting to find someone and, being 21, Internet dating was something that was totally new to us.

We had great fun examining all the profiles, but encountered one problem: we wanted someone who was more observant than most people on JDate and who kept Shabbat and kosher. However, once we found that you could narrow down your search to look for people who had ticked those boxes, we found 60 people who fulfilled those criteria in London, the city where I live. We flicked through some of the profiles and I thought the sixth one sounded nice, although there was no picture. I decided to nervously send a cringe-worthy email along the lines of “Hi, saw your profile, thought you sounded nice, please tell me more about yourself.” Then, two profiles later, I found someone who had a great picture and a really witty profile. “Damn,” I said to my friend, “I’ve emailed the wrong person!” Quickly, I sent the same email to that person, too. However, he straight away emailed back and told me that he was 28 and I was only 21, and therefore I was far too young for him. I eagerly emailed back that age is all in the mind and I was very mature, but he was having none of it. Feeling disappointed, I logged off and switched my laptop off.

A week later, I had almost completely forgotten that I had signed up to JDate when I got an email back from the first person I originally emailed, who said his name was Justin. “Oh no,” I thought, I’m not really interested and it was a silly idea to sign up. Nonetheless, I decided it would be rude not to email back as I had emailed first. Well, what can I say – straight away it became clear to me that this was someone who was a genuinely nice person and we started avidly emailing back and forth for two weeks. Eventually, Justin asked me if he could add me to Facebook®. I was convinced this would be the end because he hadn’t yet seen my photo and I was sure he would think I was fat and ugly! I quickly deleted all the less-than-flattering photos of me that were on Facebook® and hesitantly accepted him as a friend. He obviously thought I was alright, because later on that night he asked for my number and asked me out!

We had a great first date and many followed. Friends who knew us both were shocked that we were dating, as I am much louder and more outgoing than Justin. But I think we both realized early on that we suited each other perfectly. After dating for around nine months, Justin proposed and we were happily married a few months later.

I never would have thought that I would meet my partner in such a way but I am so grateful to JDate for bringing us together.

Many thanks,

Estee and Justin
London, UK

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