Dear JDate,

It was the end of July 1999. I had been on JDate for about a year and had met some interesting people and some not-so-interesting people. When I got home from a not-so-successful JDate, I decided to pick one last person and then give it up for a while.

Michael, on the other hand, had joined JDate and had made no effort to meet one single person. We began by emailing each other a few times and found we had a few things in common. We then had a number of phone conversations and were both interested and eager to meet. It turns out we only lived 10 miles from each other.

We decided to meet at a Barnes & Noble (safe place). Michael was already there when I arrived, and he was so nervous he had to sit down. After talking for a bit, we went to have a pizza for lunch in the same shopping center.

Our first date was three days later. That was the night we fell in love. We were sitting at a table having a drink and our pinkies accidentally touched. We both felt a jolt of electricity go through us. That was it!

The rest is history, as they say. We dated for six years. We were waiting for his youngest to go off to college and finally got married on June 11, 2005. We had an incredible honeymoon to Istanbul, the Greek Isles and Athens. Was it kismet? No, it was JDate, and without it, we know that we would never have met.

Thank you.

Ilene & Michael
Sunrise, Florida