A Divine Message that Sealed the Deal
Our story didn’t begin on JDate. It began at a dive bar in downtown San Diego on May 23, 2008.
Why, then, do we have the chutzpah to enter this contest, you ask?
Our relationship was affirmed by JDate three weeks later with the words “Ready to meet your next match?”
You see, we were introduced by a mutual friend who thought nothing of the introduction. He didn’t know Todd very well at all, so he left me “in the dark” to determine whether or not he was the guy for me. He could confirm that Todd was a decent Jewish guy, but didn’t know him well enough to say, “I think this could be the start of something wonderful for both of you.”
From May 23rd to June 8th of that year, we went on a few casual dates. We had fun. We played games of “20 questions” trying to get to know each other through text messages and phone calls. We traveled between San Diego and Orange County to see each other with that first-date-butterfly-feeling for a few solid weeks. I was skeptical because I didn’t know Todd from a hole in the wall, as they say, but I was open to the idea of learning more about him. Neither of us knew where things would end up, but we hoped for the best.
Everything changed on June 8, 2008. My Blackberry buzzed with the indication of a new email. It woke me up in the early hours of the morning which it hardly ever does, with the subject line “Ready to meet your next match?”
I opened up the email with blurred vision and read: “KINGddot is a 25-year old living in beautiful Carlsbad, California. Want to learn more? Click here?”
Goosebumps overcame my body. The familiar face in the profile picture was Todd. I was living in Irvine, 45 miles from Carlsbad. He liked Mexican food, I liked sushi. He’s a Republican; I’m a Democrat. He wants five kids; I want two or three. How did JDate know that Todd was the one for me?
It knew better than either one of us skeptics did.
I truly believe in signs. I trust in fate and that things always, always happen for a reason. I can’t say that Todd or I would have necessarily communicated through JDate if we hadn’t met through a mutual friend three weeks prior, but I knew for certain that JDate, via a much higher power, was trying to tell us something. I forwarded him the email. “Did you see this? Of all the nice Jewish boys within a 45-mile radius of Irvine, they pick you?” I sent the message to several of my friends as well, who are disbelievers in online dating. “See,” I wrote to them, “JDate knows what it’s talking about!”
It was the first and only message like that I had ever received from JDate because that night, I cancelled my membership. I knew this relationship was about to take off!
Todd and I spent the next year and half in an intense long distance relationship, making the drive once or twice a week to see each other 45 miles away. We traveled together, met each other’s families, enjoyed many sushi AND Mexican food date nights, and discovered how compatible we truly are. Though we both credit our mutual friend for the introduction, when we both think back to the day our relationship became “official,” it was the day our story began on JDate.
Fast forward three years, and we are happily married, living in Irvine, California. Our Rabbi told the JDate story at our wedding and our family and friends cried happy tears. It’s hard to overlook the beautiful and divine message we received that day in June when our skepticism turned in to certainty that we were exactly where we were meant to be. We are honored to be a JDate “statistic;” committed not only to each other and our family, but to sustaining Jewish traditions for years to come.
Taryn & Todd
Irvine, California