Love 2.0
July 15th, 2008 @ 4:36 pm by Miss Sweet Tea
Blogging for Weddingbee is a trip, I tell you! Thanks so much for the love so far, but let’s see if I can keep your attention as I give you the short version of Mr. Sweet Tea’s and my 5 1/2 years together.
[Please ignore the red-eye! It was either this photo or one of us in lucha libre masks, and I think camera-shy Mr. ST would be less horrified with this one.]
I wish I could say that Mr. Sweet Tea and I had love at first sight, but that’s not quite accurate. Love at first byte, perhaps? You guessed it- we met via online personals when we were both living in New York City. This is a fact that I’m not ashamed to share, though I have felt uncomfortable at times, considering that a lot of my social justice organizing has been against international internet pen-pals, aka the mail-order bride industry. (I promise this is a topic I will blog about in more length, but for now, let’s move on with the story).
When I met Mr. Sweet Tea, I had just come back from studying abroad the summer and fall semesters of my junior year in college, and had randomly signed up on this hipster NYC-based personals site in the hopes of meeting new guys and girls to hang out with. I was not looking for a serious relationship, and definitely not with this dude. To be honest, I was hoping to meet a nice lady friend, but you can’t help who you fall in love with, no? Anyway, this all happened over my winter break when I was down South visiting my family; we emailed back and forth for a few weeks until I came back to New York, and went on our first date the day after I moved into my dorm. Mr. Sweet Tea was my first internet blind date and is now, obviously, my last! So much for playing the field, eh?
In between that first meeting and now, a lot has happened for Mr. Sweet Tea and me. I graduated college and worked for a nonprofit agency for two years; he continued working at his Dot Com Company then found a sweet gig with Even Cooler Dot Com Company. After I finished college, we lived in the awesomest apartments ever in Brooklyn, where we could be bougie foodies every night of the week. We adopted the cats: Inez from the fantastic Brooklyn shelter BARC and Kali from my mom. By summer 2005, we had even started looking at getting a custom engagement ring designed at a place like Little King, or buying a vintage e-ring from Doyle & Doyle. It seemed, at this point, that we were destined to become those urban hipsterish twenty-somethings they show on (gag) American Apparel ads or in background shots of Sex and the City.
Then I got into grad school in California and nearly blew the whole thing…
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21 Responses to “Love 2.0”
Miss ST — I’m bouncing up and down in my seat because: 1) my guy and I met via online hipster NYC personals; 2) our pup is from BARC; 3) my engagement ring is from Little King; and 4) we may make the Brooklyn-to-California move in the future. Even if that’s where our similarities end, I’m so looking forward to more posts from you! 
come on! don’t stop there…more more more
I am on the edge of my seat…
P.S. I also met my FH online (match.com)
How are there this many online “nyc hipster” based dating sites? What are they? What qualifies people as being “hipster” enough to join? Is it that important that your mate be a “hipster”? Are there enough people out there who are “hipsters” which merit “hipster only” dating sites?
I live in NYC. I have been confused for, and exhibit certain traits of, a hipster.
And I have never been so befuddled as I am now.
@John: Well, if you want to get technical, there actually is an entire network of personals sites run by the Spring Street Network- all the personals from Nerve, Salon, the Onion, and a few others are connected so you can see the profiles of people signed in through one site. The hipster network is vast, my friend!
Oh thooooooooose.
I had never thought of them as “hipster” personals, but thinking about it now, I don’t know how I could ever not think of them as that.
I thought there was some massive cutenychipsters.com site out there that you guys were talking about.
Thx for the clarification!
John: For all I know it’s the same site (the one I used is now defunct). I don’t think this is the place for a lengthy discussion of hipsters, but for the record, I meant it tongue-in-cheek. My neighborhood of Brooklyn is generally considered hipster central and that’s where the website was based.
Miss ST, I can’t wait to read more of your story, and I’m so thrilled that you’ll be blogging about your social justice efforts. Glad you’re here!!
@Mrs. Bee: Oh, cute! I love hearing about other internet couples, because when me and the Mr. first started dating, there were far less of us out there. Now a lot of my friends have met their partners that way, but it’s still a fairly recent trend, don’t you think?
@Mrs. Bee: That’s how GB 2.0 and I met too! (through our blogs, not yours :p)
I met Mr. Banana on match.com! And many of my other friends met their SOs there too.
@Miss Sweet Tea: well we met over 4 1/2 years ago and you met mr. st 5 1/2 years ago so I guess it was a novelty back then.
Now three good friends of mine met their husbands through their blogs as well (like miss gb!) — it’s definitely becoming much more common!
Can’t wait to hear more! Met my future hubby online, too. Haha I did a lot of lying to my friends/family those first few months, though!
[...] readers, perhaps it was unfair to end my last post that way, because the rest of the story is not as dramatic as I made it out to be. Sure, Mr. Sweet [...]
Hooray for meeting online! At least it isn’t as lame as Live Journal.
Just had to share- we visited Doyle & Doyle for our wedding bands and ended up going with Little King! Loooove their stuff.
Miss Sweet Tea, San Diego/New Orleans
Age and Occupation: 26, Graduate Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Web Monkey
Engagement Date: December 1, 2007
Wedding Date: December, 2008
Blogging Since: July 14, 2008
Venue: Small church ceremony, museum reception
About Me: I'm an East Coaster living on the West Coast, planning a wedding in the South. I teach, study and write about pop culture, race, and sexuality for a living- now if only my dream job paid! After Mr. Sweet Tea, my other loves are scuba diving, traveling, being a semi-pretentious foodie, and fighting for social justice. I can't wait to have our best friends and family together in our favorite city to
celebrate with us!
I love reading stories about how couples met, especially when they met online, as that’s how I met my boy. Our stories don’t have to be any less interesting and yours proves that!