I went to one of the biggest online dating websites - www.match.com - and signed up. I entered my information, and it gave me a list of ‘matches’. I looked at the list and read the profiles, and the one that seemed most interesting was the one at the top. I re-read it, and decided to send an email. When I clicked on the email button, it popped up and told me I had to pay. I almost declined, but then thought about it and figured if I went to a bar or something to meet somebody, it would cost me that much or more. I whipped out the credit card and signed up, and then sent out my message.

The next day, I got an email message back, which I almost deleted, since I didn’t recognize the sender. She told me a little bit about herself and asked a couple questions of me. I replied back with the answers to her questions, and asked a few more questions myself. A couple emails back and forth later, she asked if I used any chat programs, and I said that I did and so we took our ‘relationship’ to the chatting phase.

After about an hour of chatting, I found out that she’d been using a fake name until this point.  Pretty smart huh? She told me her real name was Tressa, and she suggested we talk on the phone instead of on the computer. I called her and we started talking around 11pm. I remember saying “Wow” a lot, as we just kept talking and talking….and talking…and talking. The next thing I remember is noticing that the sun was coming up. It was seven hours later, and it was time to get ready for work. We made plans to meet during the day and said goodbye.

There had been a storm the night before, and all of our servers at work had been shut down, so I had to go in to the office to start them back up. I took the rest of the day off, and went home and went to sleep at around 7am. At around 10 am, Tressa called me and said that she couldn’t sleep, so she wasn’t going to let me sleep either. She told me that she had decided to come to Canada to meet me, instead of me going to meet her somewhere in the USA. We agreed to meet in Windsor around dinner time, and I gave her directions on how to get to Windsor.

At this point, the story gets interesting, and it gets very long. I will try to keep it as brief as possible. First of all, Tressa called me on the way to Windsor and said she would be late because she needed to stop at her bank. I told her not to bother, that she wouldn’t need money for anything. After some convincing, she said ok and we hung up. A few minutes later she called back and told me that she’d be even later because she just realized that she would need money to get through the tunnel. I told her not to worry about it, that I lived close to the tunnel, and that I would come over and meet her downtown in Detroit and give her some money for the tunnel. I told her how to get to a gas station right near the tunnel, and I headed over to Detroit to wait for her. 

I got to the gas station and found a perfect parking spot, where I’d be able to see all the cars as they exited the highway. I called Tressa to tell her I was there waiting. At this point she said that she thought she was lost because there was all kinds of “industrial stuff” around. After a while, I figured out that she had followed I-75 across the city and was headed toward Toledo. I had told her to go downtown, but I failed to mention that I-75 merges into I-375 toward downtown. I told her that I thought I knew where she was, and that I’d come and find her and she could follow me back to Windsor.

Oh, at this point I should mention that her cell phone battery was dying, and she had no charger for it. She told me to call and let it ring once any time I needed to call her and then she’d go to the payphone at the gas station where she was parked and call me back.

As I was getting closer to where Tressa was waiting, I called and told her I’d be there in about ten minutes. Then I hit construction. Lots of construction. About 20 minutes went by and I called Tressa to tell her not to give up, that I would get there eventually. Roughly another 20 minutes or so went by, and I finally got to where she was, and I finally got to meet the girl who had intrigued me so much on the phone.

My first thought was that I wanted to give her a hug, but I didn’t do it because I didn’t want to freak her out. My next thought was that she was even prettier in person than in the pictures she’d sent me. After we did our “Hello’s” I said something that was totally not planned, but anyone who knows what a big Bruce Springsteen fan I am will never believe wasn’t planned. I said “Someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny”. For the non-Bruce fans out there, that’s a line from the song “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”. Anyway, after that we left and she followed me to Windsor.

The rest of our first date consisted of a nice dinner at Piccolos in Windsor, which has since become one of our favorite places. We then went and got coffee at Tim Horton’s and took it to a park on the river. We sat and talked on a bench along the water for a few hours, held hands and eventually had our first kiss. It was truly an amazing night.

After first talking to Tressa on the phone, I knew that there was some kind of connection, and after meeting her and spending time with her, I knew almost immediately that she was “The One”. I had never believed that people know when they meet that special person, but I can honestly say that it’s true. I was so excited that I wanted her to meet my family right away, and the next weekend we made the rounds and she got to meet my brothers and sister, as well as my Dad. I met Tressa’s parents shortly after that as well.

As the first few weeks of our relationship unfolded, I know we probably freaked our families out because it wasn’t long before we were talking about getting married. I knew pretty much from the start the day I was going to ask her to marry me. I wanted to do it on my Mother’s birthday, March 26. Tressa had told me that she would know the day I was going to ask because I’d be acting funny. As it got closer to March, I started telling Tressa that I wanted to ask her soon, but it was hard to save up the money for the ring, and that it might have to take several more months to get it. She totally went for that story, so on March 26^th she was totally shocked when I asked her to marry me.

 - Rob