Our First Date

Six years ago, Dustin and I went on our first date.

It's a pretty crazy story, and I figure I should write it down before I get any older and these kids make me any crazier.

Most everyone knows that we met on Match.com.  I had been on the site for about a week when Dustin "winked" at me. I "winked" back and after two weeks of emailing, we decided to meet in person.

Dustin, being the planner that he is, decided that we should go to a place called "Momo's Tea Zone'. He emailed me all the details, including a link from Google Maps on where this place was located.

The time came for me to meet him and I showed up at the exact location he had specified. I went up to the door of MTZ and it was closed -- like out of business and had clearly been out of business for awhile.

My first reaction was that I was in the wrong place, but after checking and double-checking and triple-checking I was certain I was in the right spot. This is when I started to realize that my date was cruel and this was his way of telling me he didn't want to pursue anything with me any longer. He sent me on a wild goose chase to a closed location. Nice. I got the hint.

Where I thought I was supposed to go.

I drove around the parking lot of the strip mall and noticed there was a place called 'Momo2' that was at the other end of the strip mall. When I drove by I saw a bowling alley inside, so even though the name was close, I didn't think this was the right spot. After all, he was clear with his directions and the name in the email.

Where I ended up.

It was now probably 20-ish minutes after the date was supposed to start and so I started driving home.

About 4 minutes later he called.

We had never spoke on the phone up until this point - just email communication.

When I answered the phone he was almost frantically trying to explain that he got to the tea place and realized he told me the wrong name/location. He didn't have my phone number with him (this was before the days of smart phones), so he had to call his friend Kevin (who was living in Texas), to have him hack into Dustin's email account and look for the email with my phone number in it.

He asked me to come back and meet him.

I turned around and went back. Thank God.

We both agree that it was a good thing this happened because it really lightened the mood. When I walked in, he hugged me and apologized for the mix-up. It made a blind-Internet-date not feel so awkward; we had something to laugh about and instantly talk about.

Dustin helped me order my very first bubble tea and we sat down to talk.

I left 2.5 hours later. We never stopped talking once. The only reason I ended the date was because I needed to work the next morning, otherwise I would have stayed and talked all night.

He walked me to my car and we decided to meet up that weekend for date #2.

So fast-forward six years and here we are: married for 4.5 years, own our first house in Oxford, PA, have two kids and one on the way (I'm 29 weeks pregnant today), and Dustin has a new job he loves.

Thanks Match.com. :)

Back at the scene of the crime: me and Dustin on our one-year dating anniversary in 2007.