Dear JDate,

Michael: I had been on and off JDate for almost two years with some fun first dates, but nothing that really amounted to anything. Then one day a woman (Melissa) IM’d me and we started chatting. Her profile was completely filled out and interesting and we had a good conversation on IM so I asked her out for that weekend.

Melissa: I had just renewed my JDate subscription after an absence and I had been on JDate for 15 minutes when I came across Mike’s profile. I thought he had potential and a great smile so I IM’d him. We chatted for an hour and had a great connection and a lot to talk about and when he asked me out for that weekend, I was as giddy as a schoolgirl.

Michael: I wanted a very romantic date where we would definitely have something to talk about over dinner so we went to the movies first (A Scanner Darkly) then dinner at Red Sky and then we were supposed to go to an Indian festival on Penn’s Landing. When I got to the movie theater we walked right by each other, but she called me on my cell phone. I turned around and there was this beautiful woman looking all over like she lost someone. I didn’t need to worry about having something to talk about because she talked without a breath for the entire date. By the end, I knew everything about her and her family for the last 20 years. The Indian festival was canceled, but we walked around Penn’s Landing and talked until the last train was scheduled to leave Market Street Station.

Melissa: The morning of our date was spent running around looking for the perfect outfit. We had talked the night before and I was so excited to meet him; something just “felt right.” That afternoon I took the train downtown and had to call him multiple times to ask him how to get to the movie theater. When I finally saw him for the first time, it was truly love at first sight. Talking with him just came naturally, and I was a little nervous so I just couldn’t stop talking, but it was what got me a second date.

Michael: The first date had gone well. My mom said that probably the reason she couldn’t stop talking was because she was nervous (thanks Mom), so I asked her out for a second and a third date. She was fun, exciting, kind, smart and thoughtful, but most of all she was loving and caring and was always supportive and looked out for me as much as she did herself. By the third year, I knew I had found the perfect woman for me. In July 2009, I bought a ring with my dad. But the next weekend was my cousin’s wedding and it didn’t seem right to propose on my cousin’s big day.  Every weekend had another conflict of some sort for the next three months. Then she decided to take me out to Atlantic City for a night and I knew it was the perfect time. I took her down to the beach and gave her a photobook with pictures and stories from our entire relationship up until this moment. On the last page I had a picture of the ring and when she got there I pulled out the ring and asked her to marry me. It only took a second for her to say ‘Yes’ and then tackle me into the sand. We walked and talked up the beach and boardwalk for an hour and then called our families, followed by a deluge of congratulatory texts and phone calls.

Melissa: Looking back on our relationship, my love for Mike has grown. I never thought I could love someone as much as I love him and I look forward to spending the rest of my life with him. He is so caring, loving and truly my best friend. I didn’t think that when we went to Atlantic City for the night he was going to propose. When I got down there he kept saying he wanted to go to the beach. I’m not really a beach person, but I decided to go anyway. When we picked a place in the sand he told me he had something to give me and he pulled this beautiful photobook out of his backpack. All I remember is reading the book and the wind flipping to the last page with a picture of the ring and reading his message to me asking me to marry him. All of a sudden he pulls a ring out of his pocket and I was in complete shock. It felt like it took forever to tell him ‘yes,’ but it was only a second. After that we walked along the beach and boardwalk. A little while later we called our families and friends.

Thanks JDate for helping us find our soul mates.

Melissa and Michael
Willow Grove, PA