Stephanie and Jeff
It’s funny how some things work out- I was in the middle of training for my 3rd Ironman triathlon, and was out on the Chicago lakefront path for an 18 miler. Somewhere around mile 15 I saw a tall, good-looking guy stopped at a water fountain and immediately noticed his Ironman tattoo. I made it my mission to catch up with him. We leap-frogged back and forth a bit before stopping at the next water fountain to awkwardly chat. We exchanged stories about triathlon and complained about how hot it was that day, and the entire time I was trying to come up with ways to extend the conversation to give him enough time to ask for my number. Much to my dismay he didn’t! We parted ways that day, and I spent the next few days referring to him as the “cute Ironman that didn’t get my digits.”
Fast forward two months- My PhD was keeping me so busy that I hadn’t had a lot of time to date, much less go out and meet any new people so I decided I would sign up for Match. I emailed back and forth with a few people and went out on a couple dates. I went out with a guy named Jeff who was also a local triathlete, so I knew at the very least we would have something to talk about. The first date was really fun, if not a little awkward (Phd student in cancer epidemiology and an IT guy makes for pretty geeky chatter), so we set up a time for a second.
Somewhere on the second date, we started talking about Ironman tattoos. I described the little red one on my ankle, and as he started to describe his, I realized something. I had seen that tattoo before. I immediately realized this was that SAME GUY I had talked to at the water fountain only 2 months back. I blurted out “I think we’ve met before!” and he also immediately remembered that day. I couldn’t believe it!
A year and a half later we are still together and living together. Sure, our initial meeting didn’t involve Match, but we would have never started dating if we hadn’t connected online. We owe you! 🙂
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4 Comments
Jeff and Steph are a tremendous couple in so many ways, not least of which is their collective Ironman-training-fueled appreciation of all things BBQ and bacon.
As an update: I proposed to her while we were in Hawaii for a triathlon with Team In Training. We are making plans for a wedding in 2013.
congrats Jeff, couldn’t be happier for you.
As an update to our story, we were engaged while in Hawaii a couple weeks ago and are planning a wedding in the Spring of 2013.