Online dating: An act of God, not desperation

Nervous, I hurried to the airport coffee kiosk. I needed something to keep my fidgety hands occupied. His plane had just landed and he’d be walking toward me any minute—this man I loved but had never met face-to-face.

Fear and excited anticipation rushed through my body. I tried to remember what he looked like in the photo I saw on the online dating website. I panicked and prayed “no” as several unattractive people started my way. I’d never finished a cup of coffee so fast.

And then there he was. A guy who knew pretty much everything about me. A guy I’d joked about marriage with, and he with me, during hours-long phone conversations and fun emails full of questions. We’d even communicated by snail mail. I sent him homemade pop-up cards and he sent me a care package when I was sick. He addressed it to a Mrs. Whitney Williams—a bold move since that was his last name, not mine, at least not yet. But this was our first real meeting, set in the middle of the busy Denver airport. We locked hands—this familiar stranger and I.

After a phone call to his mother to let her know his flight had landed, and assure her I was not a creepy man looking to harvest his kidneys, we were on our way. He stayed at my boss’ house for the weekend so we could see if real-life matched up with our already growing, long-distance love.

It did. I finished up my summer internship in Colorado and moved back to Waco, Texas, to finish up my last semester at Baylor University, just an hour and a half away from where he lived and grew up. Funny how God worked that out.

We got married a year later, once he made sure I looked good in camouflage. To call hunting and fishing his hobbies is a drastic understatement.

It’s been three years now, and just last week we saw the small flicker of our first baby’s heartbeat on a sonogram screen. The baby is due in August. The same month we met. The same month we wed.

Surprisingly, we don’t get a lot of flack for meeting online, aside from his dad accusing us of “cyber-smooching” from time to time.

This is the time of year many people choose to give online dating a try. Although it has become more and more common for people to meet through the web, some still see it as a last-ditch act of desperation. If you’re considering it, don’t let the stereotypes dissuade you.

Sure, creepy people lurk on online dating sites—just like they do in bars and your church’s singles group. And sure, some people who use online dating sites are desperate. But there are also some people out there like me, who at the non-desperate age of 21 decided to see what God might bring my way during a dating site’s seven-day free trial.