by Danielle Welch

Created on: August 06, 2011   Last Updated: August 08, 2011

I am a Craigslist addict.  Craigslist is my go-to for everything: pets, used furniture, jobs, even dating.  Yes, I realize that I'm just begging to be murdered, and I don't know what keeps me coming back.  Craig has never given me a piece of furniture or a decent job, nor is the pet category anything more than depressing.  But the romance section has held my interest since I was eighteen and discovered "Missed Connections" (despite my most fervent hopes, I never found one meant for me).  It's that category - "Romance and Long-term Relationships" - that gave me the most meaningful thing in my life.

I'm a shy girl.  Well, not shy so much as impatient.  When I started living on my own, I set out to date at a rate I was never allowed to when living under my parents' thumbs.  And waiting for guys to ask me out was simply taking too long, so in an uncharacteristic burst of pro-activity I began searching for dates online.  And oh, what an adventure that was.  I met men who were far older than me, men who insisted on paying for dinner (a novel experience at eighteen), men who drove Mercedes and BMWs - men who had no serious interest in me whatsoever.  I also met men who sent me highly misleading pictures, men who chewed food like cows chew cud, men who I feigned emergency and illness to get out of dates with.  Dating via Craigslist was anything but dull.  

Eventually, I tired of dating but couldn't break my addiction of posting ad after ad on that List of Craig.  One ad brought a particularly interesting response which I nearly ignored due to his inability to write coherent sentences or spell words correctly.  It was signed "Frog", he described himself as a "veggie", and he called the recent meteor shower "ace."  I simply had to talk to this man.  We talked on the phone and via email for a couple of weeks and eventually he invited me over for a homemade dinner of tater-tot tacos - which, as a fellow vegetarian and Mexican-food lover, I was eager to sample.  On the night before we met, we talked on the phone for a bit and after we hung up, he sent me a text saying, "If there's anything you need, let me know."  Jokingly I texted back, "Well, I've always wanted a pony."  (It's every little girl's dream, after all.)  "Lol follow your bliss," was his response.  He was a funny guy.

The first time I walked into his apartment, I heard Cat Stevens' "Tea for the Tillerman" on the record player, smelled delicious food, and found that his picture was very misleading - he was much handsomer than I'd ever hoped.  He was, I found, an amazing cook.  And an amazing conversationalist.  We spent six hours talking and laughing, without ever running out of things to say to one another.  At one point during the evening he told me to close my eyes.  When I opened them, he was holding out a stuffed pony and saying, "It comes with a star you can name.  You said you wanted one."  I was speechless.  

Two years later, he became my husband.  That pony still sits on my dresser, reminding me every day of the rush of love I felt for that strange, wonderful man on the first night we met.  

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