“Damn it!” I thought as I realized that going through a divorce meant that I was to once again enter the dating scene. Having been married for 12 years means that I was way out of practice on what was the new way to meet guys, make new friends (because most of mine were happily married). I was cursing my ex-husband pretty frequently.
Then a friend introduced me to match.com and said you should give it a try. So one lonely night when I had no date (and no potential dates on the horizon) for that week I decided, what the heck! So I got out some digital photos of myself and started to create a profile on match.com. The creative side of me came out when it came to what my “username” would be - Love2Boat2. I was hoping some dapper young man who loved to go boating would be interested at least because of the username I picked.
Things started out slow…I winked at a few people and got several winks back. The bad thing about it was that I was using photos that I was eventually told did me no justice. The common reaction I would get from most of my match.com dates was that you look much better in person than you do in your profile. That was good news to hear!
I had several dates that went well and led to second and third dates and so on. I had guys interested in me that owned their own real estate companies all the way to a police officer. I had been married to a preacher's son who ended up leaving me for one of my close friends. So I steered clear of the super-religious kinds of guys as I felt that I might get burned again.
I dated one guy off of match.com pretty seriously for about a year, but realized he was not the “settling down” type so I got back active on match.com when I realized that I wanted to one day remarry and live the happily ever after dream that most girls dream. I got a wink from a guy whose profile was ImaTallGuy. I checked out his profile and jackpot - one of his favorite hobbies was going out in his boat. I winked back.
I got an email from ImaTallGuy expressing interest in meeting for lunch. I hated to do it to the poor guy but I had to respond that I couldn't for a couple of weeks as I was working in Myrtle Beach for two weeks and wouldn't be back in the Charleston area for awhile. I just knew that he would take it as a turn-down and never email me again. He responded with sorry to hear that, but please get in touch with me when you get back in town.
Two weeks of working in Myrtle Beach, I was eager to get back home to Charleston and check my match.com matches to see what was up. I was surprised to have several emails from ImaTallGuy again. I emailed him back to tell him that I was back in town and to see if he was still interested in a lunch date. He quickly responded with a strong yes.
It was October 2005 and we decided to meet at Moe's in Mt. Pleasant. I personally didn't like Moe's, but didn't want to blow the chance to meet this guy again, especially after putting him off for two weeks. We were meeting Friday for lunch at noon. I showed up all dolled up in my best black suit and looked good. I arrived at Moe's and looked fast and furious for the 6 foot 7 inch tall guy that I knew would be easy to pick out in a crowd. But I couldn't find him anywhere. So I did what any upset girl would do - ate. Yes girls, I ate lunch at a place I didn't like much just hoping that he was running late and would show up before my lunch hour ended. But he never showed.
I got back to work and logged into match.com (yes, on company-time - I was getting desperate - ha!) and found several email messages from ImaTallGuy. He was emailing me to tell me he couldn't make it to lunch as his boss insisted that he go to a job at the Naval Weapons Station in North Charleston at the exact hour we were to meet. I started to doubt him, but was intrigued by his story that he called Moe's and asked if there was a blonde young lady there with steam coming out of her ears. (His profile said he had Billy Murray's sense of humor - another thing that attracted me to him…I love to laugh.)
