John and Ginny were both widowed, and with her at age 68 and him at age 80, they didn’t fit what most people would perceive as the customary demographic for online dating. But their story would prove that online dating—indeed love itself—is not simply for the young, but the young at heart.
They each heard about CatholicMatch in their respective parish bulletins, he in Colorado and her in Idaho. Ginny was the only one with any experience in online dating, and it hadn’t gone well.
“I had vowed to simply try and meet a potential partner ‘the old fashioned way’,” she said. “Well, that approach hadn’t been going so well for me. So she decided to give the online idea another try.
With no prior experience in online dating, John had no preconceived notions about what might happen, but he had made up his mind on one thing—he wanted a woman near his Colorado home. It was by a fluke that he even connected with Ginny.
“He felt a long distance relationship would probably prove to be both awkward and problematic,” Ginny recalled. But it was a search of new members that ended up showing her profile. And as luck would have it, a family graduation had him traveling to her hometown in Boise, a twelve-hour drive away.
“Knowing that he’d be coming through in the not-to-distant future, John sent me an initial email,” Ginny told CatholicMatch. “That quickly escalated to a few more emails, followed by an endless string of lengthy telephone calls."
John and Ginny logged in some serious time getting to know each other by phone—she later said that cellphone records indicated around 140 hours. By the time he showed up in Boise, there weren’t any surprises left, and given the connection they forged, that was a good thing.
After his week in Boise, John was ready to go back home, and they had both concluded that nothing more would be gained by just talking on the phone. Ginny had a flexible living situation, and was able to just walk away for the summer and spend time with John back in Colorado.
Today, John and Ginny are engaged, and set to be married next April. “Life is simply wonderful,” Ginny said. “We were simply two people who had beaten those sadly overwhelming odds, and managed to truly fall in love over the Internet.”
Those odds become less overwhelming though, when people take chances and step out in faith. John and Ginny did so. They were young at heart.
