Caitlin was frustrated. The 28-year-old physical therapist from Buffalo had come to CatholicMatch with high hopes. She described herself as “a hopeless romantic who wants a fairytale love story.” After dealing with problems on Match.com stemming from dates with Catholic men who didn’t believe in or follow Church teachings, she was hoping for something different.
It wasn’t working out that way.
There are two ways to deal with a problem. One is to become angry and isolated and the other is to speak up. Caitlin chose the latter. She ventured into the forums and, without losing her temper, just asked bluntly if there was something wrong with her. Why were the men of CatholicMatch seemingly uninterested?
Once she spoke up, she found that reality was different from what she perceived. Her question brought her into the view of Philip, a 34-year-old lawyer from Virginia. He was feeling the same way in his efforts to attract a Catholic woman. Philip replied in the forum thread and went on to send Caitlin a message on what turned out to be the eve of her birthday.
After five days of sending several messages a day Philip and Caitlin took their developing friendship to the phone and the first conversation lasted three hours.
The distance between them worked against a quick face-to-face meeting, but very early on, they knew that, at the very least, they wanted to be exclusive with each other. After three months they were able to exchange visits to each other’s hometowns.
