Mail order husband (Crazy people, do not come here from Google)

Raise your hand if you knew I met my husband online.


Raise your hand if that surprises you.


Raise your foot if someone in your immediate family or close circle of friends met their spouse online.

So why were you surprised it worked for me, too? Granted, I smell kind of funny, but the Internet isn't scratch-and-sniff so my odds were as good as anyone's, I guess.


Here's the thing. I didn't get married until I was 32 (well, two days shy of it, anyway) and it was totally due to lack of trying. I just was never into the idea of marrying young, probably because my parents were 27 and 26 when they married and never put any pressure on us to rush. Considering I'm the only who's married, they may have regretted that, but . . . that's another story.


I dated a ton. I'm not a troll. From the time I turned 16, I dated regularly, pretty much. (Do the math. That's A LOT of years of dating. This is why I'll NEVER run out of stories to tell. I can write books FOREVER.) But as I got older, it got harder. By my mid-twenties I settled into some longer term relationships (a year-ish) and then I'd get restless and do the single thing again. There are a million complicated but boring reasons for this. And by my late twenties, I was a single, full-time working mom (a fascinating story I'll probably never tell you), and if you think that makes dating hard, you're right. It makes marriage even harder.


But we're talking about dating. I lived in a large city (250,000 people) and we had 2.5 stakes (large LDS congregations there), but most of the single people were young and living at home with their parents. Guys in the late-20's range were either total players or divorced and battle-scarred. Finally, after trying more conventional dating (singles dances and blind dates) and realizing I didn't have a ton of choices in my area, I turned to the Internet. (This is why online dating is a fairly major plot point in all of my novels.) By then, online dating had lost its stigma as a refuge for the desperate. In fact, I'd already had two aunts and one uncle on different sides of my family marry someone they met through an online dating site. 


Besides, how can it be MORE embarrassing to say you're marrying someone you met online than someone you met in a bar?


It's way more embarrassing to say you met your husband in a bar. Especially if you're Mormon. (Okay, no lie, part of me wishes this is exactly what I got to say because it would be hilarious if it were true. To me. But my sense-of-humor ain't exactly right.)


I'm a total pragmatist. I figured I had very little time to date while caring for my son and an ill parent, not to mention throwing my heart and soul into teaching 8th grade. I didn't want to waste that little free time I did have on dates that weren't going to pan out. I had high hopes that the Internet dating thing would let me filter out creeps, weirdos, and flat out bad matches.


. . . 


Um, internet dating really is just your average singles dance, only online. Luckily, I have a fair amount of common sense and I patiently sorted through my options. I still had some wacky dates, but I had some really fun ones, too. And going the internet route DEFINITELY made it easier to find possibilities in southern California I would never have known about otherwise. And vice-versa.


I tried the online thing off and on for a couple of years as time allowed. And it was fine. But then life got crazy, and I had no time for boys. Only books. So I went looking for something to read. And that's when I found Kenny.


But this is already a long blog post so I'll tell you the rest of the story tomorrow. My publisher just asked me to write up an article on online dating because it's a major element in all of my books. The article is going to the Deseret News. If you've got some experience in online dating and wouldn't mind me hitting you up with a few questions, would you shoot me an email at writestuff.jacobson at gmail dot com? Or you can drop me a comment and I'll track you down that way if your email is enabled for return comments.


If you want to win a copy of my book, The List, where you get to see a unique spin on internet dating, then just leave a comment on this post. If you want to win some other cool stuff (a Huntington Surf and Sport sweatshirt or tee shirt, cool wooden jewelry, or an OC ramps shirt) then just go to this post and follow the easy directions. There's a few different ways you can enter, all of them simple.


Lastly but not leastly, Stephanie at Diapers and Divinity reviewed The List. I think I already know what she's going to say because she sent me a pretty in-depth email of her opinion a week or so ago. It was a fun conversation because I write very much out of her normal genre to read, so I was fascinated by her insights. But you'll have to go over there and see for yourself what she thought. And she's always thoughtful. That's what I love about that girl.


I'll be back tomorrow with the rest of the tale of how I went looking for a Friday night read and found a husband.