How we met.

20 months ago today, I shared a coffee and a sandwich with a very special woman. I remember being as nervous as all get out, sweaty palms, deodorant working overtime, it was a couple of weeks before Christmas and I recall it was over 30 degrees. It was a mid week meeting, Wednesday to be exact and Honey came to town to meet me for the first time.

We had met earlier, about a month earlier but that was via a modern medium of introductions. It was via RSVP.com.au. “Internet dating” was how we met, in fact J found me and I replied that I was interested in chatting via email at least. Our profiles matched up pretty well, some areas of difference but you need variety, you need to be able to learn from one another.

Being in our late 30’s (when we met) and both having children, made this method of dating the best option for both of us.

I was led to RSVP by a work colleague (Barb) who had dumped her husband and being in her late 40’s wasn't interested in the pub/club thing coz that was going to be too much hard work. She’d met 5 or 6 "RSVP" guys either via email or over coffee and the last one was Mr Right for her. She even told me that they were going to get married, not sure if they did, I should ask her one day, but anyway, she said to me, over a boozy lunch “Capeman you ought to try RSVP, there are loads of girls on it and one of them will be right for you”. Thanks Barb, I sort of looked at her with a “what the f@ck are you talking about?”

A few days later, I was playing a game on the PC and I was just about to shutdown and I thought, I ought to give that site a go. Fired up the net and headed to RSVP.com.au. I don’t know why, but I thought to myself, is anyone looking over my shoulder, why do I feel a little ashamed? I used the free search facility and looked up my likes (see turn ons below) and up popped a plethora of women. Skipped through them, refined the search, narrowed the field to a few then thought “now what?” I did nothing. I just shut it down, shut down the PC and didn’t return to RSVP for nearly 4 months.

On the second go, I had a little more confidence. This time I prepared my profile, photo and posted it up there. Up there on the net for the all the world to see. I started searching and made some preliminary kisses*. All my kisses came back unopened [sniff].

But then, in early November 2003, a kiss landed in my mailbox. Honey had sent me a kiss and I thought woo hoo. After I stopped shaking, I clicked on the profile button and thought hmmm, she’s encoded her email address here, I’ll send her an email. Otherwise, you can pay RSVP 5 or 10 bucks to be introduced, but Honey had carefully hidden it in her profile so only the cleverest of detectives would be able to bypass the elaborate security system RSVP employed. I sent an opening email, and Honey replied a day or so later. So we back and forth-ed emails until it was obvious we had to meet. I think we spoke on the phone first and we set the first official lunch date.

December 10 was the day and we met near my office building in the city. That meeting went well, we talked and talked and talked, I was instantly smitten and thought to myself, we need to explore this more. 20 months later, we are going as strong as ever. Lots of ups, a couple of downs, plenty of learning and lots of fun.

So, I can honestly say, there is nothing wrong with Internet dating.

*kisses are emails sent to the target person who can either accept or decline the offer.