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Knowing my man in uniform and I first laid eyes on each other toward the end of June a year ago, I began looking through my email history to establish an anniversary. I imagine the coming weeks and months will be full of many of these little markings. Today is the first of them.
On this day, one year ago, my husband and I "met". In the interest of full disclosure, it was eHarmony that introduced us. I still have that email from 6/21/2011 that starts off, "*** from Fort Leavenworth, KS requests communication with you". And, so it began. We've commented several times over our marriage how uncanny the matching abilities of the site were. We just really are very well-suited for each other.
I never expected to actually meet my husband online. I was only on eHarmony to convince myself that I was still "out there" in the dating world. Between working a Presidential and a statewide campaign back-to-back followed by moving to a smaller town and starting nursing school killed my social life. I was enjoying my reprieve from the stresses of dating, with plans to move to the Seattle area after graduating. After making my home somewhere in the Puget Sound, establishing a job with Harborview (loose inspiration for Grey's Anatomy), and getting some whale watching under my belt, I would finally feel like resuming romantic pursuits.
I had been on other online dating sites. I can only sum up those experiences by saying I met some truly crazy men. And, by crazy, I mean legitimately, diagnosably, and quite evidently mentally unstable. I also met inappropriate ones. I still firmly believe that the quality of single women on dating sites far exceeds that of the men. But, I liked that eHarmony weeded out the crazies. It costs money to communicate. It takes time and effort to go through the personality evaluation. It was an entirely different ballgame.
So, today, I give credit to the eHarmony logarithms. For me, they made a world of difference. Maybe one day we’ll get around to submitting a video to be one of those couples you see on the commercials.
I know I still owe you more on the gardening. I’ll now also owe you the tale of our first date, which is the next anniversary coming up. Incidentally, for you trivia nuts out there, today is also the date in history on which New Hampshire became the 9th state to ratify the constitution, thus giving us the needed number to officially embrace it. Good on ya, NH!
After a 10 year career in politics and then returning to school, Melissa Hafen is a brand new Army wife, stepmom to five and Kansan.
Melissa attended Brigham Young University and then began her career in Washington as a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill. She spent time in the private sector prior to working for a presidential campaign in 2007-8. Following that adventure, she helped the Lt. Governor of Virginia in his reelection campaign as his Political Director.
Through the hospitalization and subsequent death of her father, in 2010, Melissa discovered her strengths and passion lied in nursing. Prior to meeting and marrying her husband, she was in nursing school in VA.
Melissa is also a big sister, an auntie, a dark chocolate connoisseur, an ardent lover of beaches and mountains, and a sewing novice.
