This is me and Laurie, the love of my life.I sat in front of my laptop for hours on New Year’s Day and more hours on the bus heading back to NYC wondering what I was going to say about this.
2 separate pieces. Both were erased.
It’s rare that I write about my personal life these days, which I find a little ironic since the reason I started blogging to begin with was to write about my personal life.
Today will be one of those rare times. Completely raw and unedited. And for good reason.
When I first started this company back in March of 2009, I was having a blast.
By June, I was able to quit my job as a hotel manager and had so much more free time. Having that freedom made me a much more confident and ambitious person.
Needless to say, my dating life was amazing. In fact, I was VERY happy living the single life.
One day that September, I received a direct message on Twitter from some random woman. Apparently, she was an online dating coach, thought we could collaborate and should meet.
I figured it was worth a meeting. I know nothing about online dating and at best, she could help me get online and meet more women :)
That Sunday in Boston, before I met her at City Bar, I figured I’d check out her site to see what she was about.
She was pretty cute.
Still, setting expectations low and hoping for an amazing OKCupid profile, I went to the bar and she happened to know a mutual friend who was still there. I figured it made sense to have him stay and hang with us. We were just taking business so it wasn’t a big deal since he’s heavily involved in the dating space.
7 hours and 8 drinks later, no business was talked about. In fact, I knew nothing about this woman. The only thing I knew was that our friend demanded we work together and swore we’d take over the dating world.
This was the post he put up that very next day. (Thanks, Dave!)
After he left, we were both pretty hungry and we walked down Boylston Street to her favorite pizza shop by Berklee, to which we were greeted by a closed sign.
Talking business wasted wasn’t going to do any good for either of us anyway so we decided to get together again the next day to finally talk about what the hell we were going to do together, since “we HAD to.”
At that point, I thought it would be cool to get that pizza we were craving but at a classier place since I’m all about the coolness. So we met at Cafe 47.
Great pizza, great wine and even better conversation.
We talked about how we got into our businesses, where there could be opportunities to collaborate and eventually talked about our personal lives.
Four or five hours later, Cafe 47 was kicking us out.
As I was walking her back to her car, it started to rain and instinctively I put my arm around her for cover. A simple gentlemanly thing to do.
When I got home, I laid in bed and thought to myself, “What the hell just happened?”
From that point, there was a sequence of events that occurred that included:
- Her being a special guest on a live WingmanTV episode
- That night, decided to date and see where things go
- Her meeting my mother and father the next day
- Collaborating on an online web show
- Beating one of my best friend’s 3-month “honeymoon test”
- Not just surviving, but flourishing in a long-distance relationship for over 15 months
- Moving in together in New York City...
...and now, I’d like to announce that Laurie, the random woman who DM’d me on Twitter -- whom many of you know as @eFlirtExpert -- and I are engaged.
I won’t lie. It wasn’t an easy journey coming to the decision -- and it never is, don't let anyone fool you.
But when the moment came, it was clear as crystal.
And it was a no-brainer. There’s no one else that could even come close to how amazing she is and I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else.
Laurie is an incredible woman and I am SO fortunate to have someone in my life who supports, loves, encourages and motivates me unconditionally. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her and I show it to her every day.
And despite all the naysayers telling us, “you won’t survive,” “you can’t have a business relationship and a romantic relationship,” we came through -- quite easily, in fact.
And life is just getting started for us.
I love her so much and there’s nothing I look forward to more than spending the rest of my life with her, getting married, being a father to our children and growing old with her by my side.
I want this to be a lesson for everyone. It was only so long ago that I thought I couldn't lead a fulfilling life with an amazing woman in it -- and I've blogged and talked about that experience. I worked my face off improving myself, my life and my focus.
And now, I have both and couldn't be happier.
It just comes to show how dramatically you can turn your life around if you're willing.
As you know, we’re pretty public on Twitter about everything so it should come to no surprise that we’ll be public about the wedding, the planning and all that.
If you want to follow along or just send your congratulations, send it to @URwingman & @eFlirtExpert using the hashtag #lovenation.
And if you’re curious about my fiancée’s perspective on the engagement, check out her article.