I had been on and off Catholic Match for many years, going back to
2003. I e-mailed plenty of girls over the years, but got few
responses. The few I did correspond with, and eventually met in person, simply didn't click with. Hey, I tried. I suppose I could have
given up on the search a long time ago, but I decided to press on. Marriage was my vocation, the subscription price was certainly
reasonable, and I truly wanted to meet someone who shared my Catholic
faith and values. I had tried the other Catholic sites, but found them
lacking in members. I felt if I was going to meet someone online, it
was going to be through Catholic Match.
In early January 2009, I
came across Katherine's profile. She was very pretty, very smart, and
had great values. I also noticed she lived less than 30 minutes from
me. To top it off, I noticed her member number was even lower than
mine was. I sent Katherine an emotigram, with words to the effect of
"nice to meet another long timer here". I didn't expect a reply back,
but as a hockey fan I realized that I'll never get a goal unless I
shoot the puck. Katherine responded favorable to my emotigram, and we
began to correspond via e-mail. We met on January 30.
The
relationship grew throughout 2009, and as the year came to a close it
became apparent that Katherine was the one woman I wanted to spend the
rest of my life with. She was so different from all the other girls I
dated. Besides our faith and our traditional family values, I learned
there were many other things we had in common. Kathy actually liked
watching hockey games with me. She loved kids, she loved dogs, and she
even liked scrapple and the TV show The Simpsons. Wow! More
important, I noticed how Katherine enjoyed being around my family as
much as she enjoyed being around her own, which in my experience was
truly rare.
On the evening of December 30, which was our 11-month anniversary, I offered to take Katherine out to a fancy
restaurant near Rittenhouse Square in downtown Philadelphia. Afterwards I suggested we walk a couple blocks to Rittenhouse Square park. I had intended to propose in front of the lit Christmas tree in the
center of the park, but when we got there the lights we out. As Homer
Simpson would say "d'oh!" Now what? I saw there were smaller trees at
the park entrance that were lit, and I suggested we go see them. Once
we got there, quickly (it was freezing cold) got down on bended knee
and proposed. I will never forget the look on Katherine's face when
she saw the ring.
Thanks, Catholic Match, for bringing us
together. For those of you who have read this story and have been on
the site for while without success and feel like giving up, I say,
don't. The best is yet to be.
