Eric graduated from the University of Virginia and Lisa from the University of Vermont in May 2010. Both moved home after graduation and were living in the same town of Highlands, New Jersey. They spent six months living three minutes from each other, but never crossed paths. That all changed in an instant though, which sets the stage for their story.

February 23, 2011: Hoping to meet some new people in the area, Lisa decided to create a JDate profile. She saw her matches and browsed the website, but was not sure what to expect. The next day, within 24 hours of creating the profile, her very first message popped up: it was from Eric. Lisa was elated to see that a cute guy had already messaged her, so she called her mom to ask what to do since she had not yet paid for a subscription and could not read Eric’s message until doing so. Her mom offered to give her the $40 to pay for a month’s subscription and told her to just see how it went – Lisa agreed. Little did she know that decision would change the rest of her life.

 

Eric and Lisa exchanged messages and eventually cell phone numbers, then one week later on March 4th, had their first date. They met at “Off the Hook,” a restaurant in Highlands, seeing each other in the parking lot beforehand. Eric’s first words to Lisa were, “Are you Lisa?” and upon confirming this, they went inside to enjoy dinner together. As the conversation persisted, things just seemed to click: Eric went to UVA, Lisa went to UVM; Eric was in AEPi and Lisa was in ADPi; they were both the same age with similar interests, and enjoyed getting to know each other. Eric asked Lisa out on a second date for the following night and the rest is history.

People say sometimes you just “know” – know that this person is different than all the others, know that they will make an impact on your life, know that you were never this happy before they came into your life. This was certainly the case for Lisa and Eric – both of them “knowing” shortly after they first started dating – and 3.5 years later, Eric asked Lisa to marry him. This is the classic meant-to-be story and they would not have it any other way.

Lisa and Eric
Red Bank, New Jersey

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