Online dating sites, the modern equivalent of the lonely hearts column — can they be a tool in the search for a Catholic spouse? They can be — in fact, I met my husband on the Internet. On a Catholic dating site, to be precise. Initially, this was something we were somewhat embarrassed of, and we even toyed with the idea of coming up with an alternate meeting story to tell friends, family, and future children. After all, what kind of nerd finds the love of their life online? We thought at first that our meeting on the Internet was fairly unusual for a Catholic couple. As time has passed, however, stories like ours seem to be increasingly common. Some Catholic couples we have heard of even have extended online courtships before they finally travel to meet face to face. Before long, we’ll find it alarming if a couple hasn’t met on the Internet — “You went out on a date with him? Before even finding out what his spelling, grammar, and punctuation was like?!”
After graduating in 2004 with one of those practical liberal arts degrees, I took a job teaching high school in the San Diego area. I had no friends there, no social network, no family, and I lived on my own in a crummy apartment. Naturally, I turned to the Internet for solace. But my initial forays into Catholic dating sites proved disappointing. There weren’t many guys putting up profiles, and the average age of Catholic dating site users was quite a bit older than my own. Also, almost universally, they seemed to list that their favorite food was “pizza,” their favorite film was “Braveheart,” and their favorite music was “anything classical.” I didn’t doubt their sincerity, their devotion to the Church, and their love of children, since most of them went on at length emphasizing the aforementioned qualities. But we didn’t share any common interests.
In the hopes of finding someone to watch Wes Anderson films with, I tried a couple of secular online dating sites. I only went on a few dates as a result (most o
f the guys seemed just as boring as the ones on the Catholic dating sites, and without even the upfront advantage of having a clientèle largely interested in marriage and children), and they ended disastrously. One fellow who had compatible tastes in movies and music was, as it turned out, very much into medieval re-enactment, and spent most of the date discussing his favorite hobby, chain mail making. Another date ended up largely being spent having a knock down, drag out debate about Catholicism (Him: “You’re a sheeple!” Me: “Am not!”). It was obvious that those secular dating sites weren’t getting me anywhere, other than providing me with painfully funny anecdotes.
After the above failed experiment, I spent several months dating a Protestant who I met in real life (IRL is the Internet acronym). Since he was a Baptist by denomination who attempted to follow the teachings of the Bible to the best of his ability, he was all right with the Catholic chastity thing (another advantage which most of the online dating site guys lacked). We shared common interests and activities. Over the course of our relationship, though, I was forced to re-evaluate my thesis that cultural compatibility was really the most important quality to find in a man. My beliefs as a Catholic (and his beliefs as a non-Catholic) began to dominate our conversation. Although I took him to Mass with me a few times, there was never a St. Paul on the road to Damascus moment. Eventually, we were both mature enough to admit that he was not going to ever convert to Catholicism, and I couldn’t see myself having a future with a non-Catholic.
So, in early 2006, I took another look at the Catholic dating sites. I’m not sure whether more people were using the sites, or whether I was viewing the profiles from a more mature and tolerant perspective, but it seemed to me that there were a more diverse and interesting group of profiles available now. So, I gave CatholicMatch.com a shot. Which is, of course, where I met my husband. My sister, who was reading the website over my shoulder, actually pointed his profile out to me; she told me that she knew him from her days at Campion College, and that he was a real nice guy. I took a look, decided that he was too tall and had a somewhat alarmingly cruffy beard, and never contacted him. Fortunately for both of us, he contacted me a few weeks later, and we met in person a few days later. I think it was his invitation to go shoot rats at the dump that really won me over (we went swing dancing instead). Despite our height disparity, we really hit it off. He shared my love of the movie Ghost World, and my extreme dislike of Southern California. Within a year, we had moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area and were married in my home parish in Oakland. Two years later, we have two children (!) and have a happy (if hectic) home life.
Not all online dating stories end as happily as ours. And, through God’s grace, many find their eventual spouse early in life (in high school or college), or otherwise stumble serendipitously into marital bliss, without any need for the Internet. But sometimes, in God’s infinite wisdom, we have to be a bit more proactive to meet the man or woman we are going to marry. The search for a Catholic spouse can be difficult. You aren’t looking just for someone with shared interests, similar tastes in cinema and cuisine, someone whose bad habits you can tolerate for up to five months at a stretch. You are looking for someone who shares and seriously practices your faith, and someone who you could see yourself being married to for a lifetime. Given how important compatibility is in a lifelong marriage, and given how few single Catholic men and women there can be in any particular area, online Catholic dating sites can be very useful in the proactive search for a husband or wife.
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