by Amy Gio

Created on: November 23, 2008   Last Updated: March 03, 2010

Must love kids and dogs

This was my catch phase. Pretty corny, but very true. I took out a personal ad on yahoo personals, 14 months ago. My husband and I had separated, with no chance of reconciliation. So there I was, single for the first time in 20 years, with 2 children. I didn't have a job, because I had been a housewife and mom for 12 years. How would I ever meet anyone? All of my friends, married. I felt like the chances of me meeting anyone that was really interested in me would never happen. The best I could hope for was an occasional date here and there. I was going to be alone, but I hoped that wouldn't be the case.

So, as I was saying, I took a peek at the yahoo personal ads, out of curiosity. What sort of really quality guys would need an Internet ad? Could they all be pathetic creeps? To my surprise, I received 200 emails from men in the first day. I didn't respond to any of them. I sent out 2 icebreakers to guys that I found in my own search. They were both attractive, but younger, never been married and with no kids. I never expected what happened next.

I recieved a response back from the first guy I had an interest in. His name is Chris. Chris had just turned 35, had never been married, had no kids, but he was a total hottie. Completely out of my league. I figured chatting with him would be harmless. We sent each other more photos, and instant messaged. We then took it to the phone. I liked everything about him, and he seemed to be interested in me, so we decided to meet. Coffee, Starbucks, 8:30 in the morning. My kids had a half day of school that day, so if it wasn't going well I could be out of there early with a good excuse.

We met in the parking lot. Wow, I couldn't take my eyes off of him. He was definitely hot. My head was spinning that this guy wanted to have coffee with me. So we ordered our coffee and sat in the back corner of Starbucks, and talked, and talked and talked. He was so easy to talk to. Never were there those awkward and uncomfortable silences. Before I new it, it was time to get my kids from school. But, I didn't want it to end. I had made some strict rules about dating and my kids. No one was going to meet my kids. Never, not until I knew it would become something more than casual dating. But here I was, needing to leave, and wanted to continue our coffee to lunch.

I explained that I needed to go, and asked if he wanted to continue our date and meet my kids. I figured that might make him run for the hills, but it didn't. Why isn't he running? A brief moment of fear ran through me, should I be doing this? My kids are the world to me, I don't want them to get hurt by any of this. But in my heart, I knew it would be just fine. So off we went to pick up my kids and take them to lunch.

The kids were great and so was Chris. Everyone got along very well. After lunch, I offered to take him back to his car, which was still at Starbucks. And then I broke the really big rule, I invited back to my home. He accepted my offer quickly. Needless, to say, he stayed for dinner, did card tricks with my kids. Once the kids went to bed, we could focus our attention back on each other. We finally kissed. OMG, it was awesome. He left at 2:30 in the morning, after some more talking and kissing. He had to be at work at 7:30, he's a fire fighter and was going on shift for 24 hours.

That was the only day in 13 months that we have been apart. I found out that good guys still exist. We are very happy together, like a family should be. He has brought me back to the person I once was, before I became so bitter and jaded from my marriage. So, can you find your true love online? I definitely did. If you don't try, you will never know.

Learn more about this author, Amy Gio.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.