Weddingbee Blog

Before I get to how Mr. Guinea Pig and I started out, I’ll begin this post by saying that when you first sign up for an online dating site, the possibilities seem very exciting. ‘You mean, I can just check these boxes and a list of guys will pop up with every quality I ever wanted?!’ So I immediately went through the ‘Advanced’ options of the search feature and created my dream guy. Let’s see, he had to be 6’3” or taller, dark hair, blue eyes … you get the idea, I’ll spare you my whole long, 25-point list (which included ‘must speak Russian’).

(Peter Facinelli, although I’ve never actually seen Twilight)

I anxiously await as the spinning wheel of my browser takes me closer and closer to the list of guys just waiting to hear from me. Hold breath. Nervously clap hands. Hum. There it is!

“Sorry, there are currently no profiles that meet your criteria within a 250 mile radius of your location.”

What?! Well, that is a surprise! Maybe it’s the Russian… grumble, go back, uncheck box. Try again. “Sorry!…” Maybe it’s the graduate school requirement… I’m sure you can see where this is going. The point of this very long tangent is that on my first day of online dating, I learned an important lesson: you cannot ‘order up’ a person to fall in love with. I had this list on the computer in front of me with things I thought were ideal, but then I realized that 95% of the topics on that list were pretty superficial. In fact, the nature of the search itself is superficial! Sure, you could select political leanings, or religious beliefs, but where was the check box for “Believes in equal rights for all people”, or “has a sense of humor that will always cheer me up”, or “will understand when I pick random fights that I’m just hungry”? The most important qualities for me were not something I could use checkboxes for. It was a great reality check (ha. check).

So! On with the story. After my initial disappointment at not finding a Russian-speaking, fire-juggling, science-loving male model, I decided maybe I could deign to browse the local section with a few less stringent requirements (no smoking, taller than 5’9” – what?! I’m 5’11”!). After winking at someone whose profile I found intriguing, match.com brought up 3 similar profiles I might be interested in based on the information in the first profile.

Ooh! Who’s that redhead playing guitar?! And that was my first glimpse of Mr. Guinea Pig.

(Mr. GP and I right after I moved in)

I then did something I had never done – I initiated conversation. Normally, I winked at someone, then sat back and waited for them to email me. This guy, though. Boy, his profile was funny, and he has two cats! And look at those brilliant blue eyes! So I picked up from something he said in his profile and sent him a short note saying something like “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?” along with some more mundane questions about his life while sliding in a little more info about me. Fascinating, I know. His response?

To quote Dwight Schrute:

(NBC’s The Office)

“I CAN travel anywhere, except Cuba, and I WILL travel to New Zealand and walk the Lord of the Rings trail to Mordor and I will hike Mount Doom.”

In seriousness, I would probably go to Ireland.

Well if that doesn’t win your true love and affection, what would?!

Okay, so my first thought was – great, a brush off. No answers to any other questions, no follow up questions, no interest. But I wrote back anyway (and found out much later that Mr. Guinea Pig had written that slightly odd response in an attempt to play it cool - guess it worked!) and we began emailing outside of match.com. This was about a month into my subscription, and it was then that I decided I had had enough of online dating, so I canceled my membership. Mr. GP and I continued to talk for 3 months by email, with me all the while thinking – it’s just my luck that I sign up for online dating, and what do I come out with? A pen pal!

Finally, two days before I got back to Baltimore after Christmas, Mr. GP asked if I wanted to get together sometime. Yes! Yes! Yesyesyes! Calm down Miss Guinea Pig, act casual. ‘Sure, I could be free Saturday afternoon’. So we decided to meet for coffee at a local cafe, and awkwardly hugged when we met because after all, I knew so much about this stranger. We got to the counter and discovered that neither of us drinks coffee. Oops. With mugs of tea steaming, we sit down and started talking. We talked so long, the café was closing. So, we started walking, and ended up at a restaurant down the street, splitting a blueberry whole wheat pancake. 5 hours after our first hug, I finally had to leave and Mr. GP asked if we could do something the next day. After another awkward hug, we went our separate ways, smiling like idiots.

3 dates in 3 days later, and we were certain we’d found a good thing. My friends were starting to get excited. 2 months later, we talked about moving in together. At 6 months, I moved in and conversation turned to what we thought about marriage, etc. At 11.5 months, Mr. Guinea Pig proposed!

It seemed so fast when I write it out like that, but at the time, we both saw it coming from a mile away. I used to be one of those snobs who said there was no way I would ever marry someone I hadn’t dated for at least 3 years. But there I was, talking about marriage after 6 months. 6 months! Sometimes, you just know.

How long did you date before getting engaged? Does anyone else have a longer engagement than they’d been dating?!