In May of 2004 I went to national conference in Washington DC for work.  There was a group of about six of us who traveled together for the 4-day trip.  Among those traveling were one of my immediate co-workers, Lauren, and our boss, Mary.  We’d been working together for six years so knew each other enough to know some of the details of our lives outside of work.

These ladies happened to know that I was doing the on-line dating thing.  I didn’t really hide it from anyone.   It was, and frankly continues to be, a perfectly acceptable way to meet someone who might be date-able.  Working in the field of social services and education the opportunities find a man to date are about  as plentiful as peanuts in a preschool classroom.  And for those of you who don’t make a regular appearance in a classroom of 4 and 5 year olds, most of them are peanut-free in this day and age!

Back to the conference…we were waiting in line to check in at the hotel and Mary asked me, “how’s your love life going?”  Well, the fact that just a month prior I’d had my heart torn from my chest and stomped on was still a bit of an open wound, I told her–not great.  The conversation then when something like this:

Mary:  Turning to Lauren standing in line next to her, “What about Steve?”

Lauren:  “Steve, yeah, she’d get along great with him.  He’s funny and talented.”

Mary:  “Where is he now?”

Lauren:  “In my bathroom!  He’s building a bathroom for me this week.”

Kelly:  “Ladies!  You’ve known me for six years … who’s Steve, and how come you’ve never mentioned him before?”

By the time we’d left DC to come home Lauren had taken one of my business cards with my home phone number, cell phone number and email address scrawled on the back, and promised to talk to “Steve” when she got back.

Three days later, he called.  The rest as you can imagine, is history, and the story of that first phone call is definitely for another kind of blog!  So, to Lauren and Mary for doing what no on-line dating site could have ever done, and saving me a bucket of money (because the day after I met Steve I discontinued all my on-line dating memberships), THANK YOU!