We feel incredibly fortunate to have found each other at this stage in life! Dating in the 2020s is bizarre to say the least. And after you reach a certain age--it's a bit like hunting for treasure at a garage sale.

Terri absolutely did not want to use a dating app, but several friends (you know who you are) were pretty persistent. Eventually, she decided to give it a whirl, if for no other reason than to prove them all wrong. She figured when she failed to meet someone, her friends would have to cease and desist.

Certain it was a waste of time and money, she signed up for the shortest timeframe possible and created a profile on eHarmony, hoping the cost and the personality assessment would at least weed out the weirdos. Darin, too, was counting on the technology. He was serious about finding someone - in GREENSBORO - and saw eHarmony as a way to skip a few steps.

Terri had been on the app for two weeks when Darin first messaged her. He'd thought long and hard about engaging. After all, he'd limited his search to just Greensboro and she was in Durham! (How in the heck had she shown up in his feed?)

Having just joined, Darin was still fighting the profile format to tell his story and hadn't gotten around to posting a photo. His struggle was cute but Terri had a strict "no photo, no interaction" rule. Still, she kept returning to his message because he was her highest match. (Darin had a few higher matches but he said he didn't like their faces, lol.)

Finally, he uploaded a photo and Terri decided to take the plunge. She replied to his message and a week later, we took our conversation offline. Our first date was in Durham and for us, it was magical. We walked downtown, enjoyed a beverage on the rooftop of The Durham Hotel (which we had all to ourselves), and then walked to dinner at Bar Virgile. Soon afterward, we closed our eHarmony accounts and have never looked back.

Gifts