The abbreviated story of "us"

I thought I'd take a break from posting about my compulsive home decorating to sharing the story of "M"...and how we met, since it's a tad untraditional. You remember M, don't you? Here he is!

Where oh where might I have been lucky enough to find such a handsome specimen?

wait for it.....:

That's right, folks. I'm a walking, talking, match.com success story. (still waiting for our commercial deal. srsly. I emailed them like twice. third time's a charm?!)

Let's back it up though and tell the whole story. It was the winter of 2009, November to be exact, (the day before Thanksgiving to be more exact) and I had just been dumped by my ex for the 4th (and final, oof) time. One of my good friends, Leah, was an avid online dater and she suggested prior to the breakup, "If E ever gets stupid and breaks up with you again, you should make a match profile!".... sure, I thought. We'll see. Well, true to form, he did, and not more than 4 days later I did. I created an online profile "just in case" and made it invisible. I wasn't ready to launch myself onto the world. A few days later, after a long evening of studying at school, I said "f&$% it." and I "launched" so to speak.

I had a "free" subscription at the time. That means I could see how many messages I had, but couldn't read them. All I could see were my "winks" (think "poke" function on FB). I created a gmail account with the same name as my match.com name, and tried to sneak language into my profile to get people to email me so I could avoid paying for a subscription. It worked a few times but on the whole people weren't catching on. Then, browsing through my winks, I saw this picture:

Me likey. I browsed the rest of his photos and profile. I liked what I saw: marketing? can transition from suits to jeans flawlessly? Law and Order addict? catholic boy? loves hockey? sign me up! One problem: I couldn't email him since I was still on my free subscription. SO I did what any normal gal would do- cracked for a free 3-day trial, where I sent him my personal email address (as well as 4-5 other guys) and then bailed on Match.

I waited, and waited, and emailed with some people who turned out to be a wee bit creepy (another story all together), and had all but given up on "the one I caved for"... when one day, "Matt _____" popped up in my gmail inbox. My heart stopped. My first thought was, "is this Matthew_____ from Match?" since the names didn't match. ( he had used his middle name on match and his last name was in the email). We emailed back and forth for a few weeks (Dec. 6th to Dec. 29th)... I was only really using my gmail account for "M" emails back then, so I'd log in and wait eagerly as it loaded, desperate to see that little (1) at the top of the page. We arranged to meet on NYE at 1:00 to go ice skating at a local indoor rink. Quite symbolic, to be meeting on the day of the year that "they say" sets the tone for the rest of your year.

The rest is history. He was the first, and last, online date I ever went on. Below is a picture of us on our 1-year anniversary. We made a promise that no matter what we do that night, we'd go ice skating at the same rink we met at on NYE afternoon.

and here we are (below) on our 2-year anniversary skate a few months ago.

Lots has happened in between. We attended our first winter carnival in January 2010 and took our "first photo ever" together (below)...that's us sitting on an ice chair. Brr.

I went to the tiny island nation of Malta for a study abroad for law school in the summer of 2010, and after only 6 months of dating, M flew thousands of miles to see me for a week while I was there. (below) that's us on the island of Gozo at a hotel

[Actually, my trip to Malta was my first real attempt at blogging. I mentioned my travel blog before, which I tried to convert into a "lifestyle blog" and failed. Anyway, here it is, in case you want to read firsthand about my trip to Malta, and M's visit.]

We attended a lot of sporting events those first two years, here are a few of them:

annndddd we attended, and were in, a ridiculous amount of weddings.

(Below) Clockwise from top left

1. guests. M's cousin

2. MOH, and M officiated! (that's right ladies, he's an ordained minister ;-)

3. guests. M's college friends

4. guests. M's college friends

5. guests. my cousin

6. Best man. M's college friends

7. (center) guests. M's college friends
I suppose we're at "that age".... and yes, I chose to put a bunch of pictures that show me (gasp) wearing the same dresses to multiple events! haha. When you have 4-7 weddings a year, like I do, you'd try to get at least 2 uses out of a dress. I'd do it where the weddings were for different groups of people. (so sneaky).

The last 2+ years have been incredible. We've had our ups and downs, but the "relationship" aspect of us as a whole has just come so naturally. There was never any fuss about being "official", there was never any fuss about dropping those 3 little words, and when it came time for M to house shop, there really wasn't much question of how involved I was going to be in the process since we both knew I'd be moving in the same time he did. The only thing that took a LEEETLE bit of convincing was TJ. But seeing M's face when TJ trots over, hops into his lap, and falls asleep tells me that it probably wasn't as tough a battle to convince him as I thought. Sometimes I forget we met on Match.com, until someone asks us..and then I think "oh yeah. that really happened that way, didn't it. ha!"

So, that's the abbreviated story of 'us' ... :-)

-Kelly