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One afternoon, Gared messaged me on the Facebook Dating App with the words “Ello beautiful”. When I saw this message, late that evening, I was surprised how flattered I felt by his approach. Normally I would become instantly annoyed and somewhat guarded when a man would make conversation me that way. Instead, I imagined him saying these two words with a silly British accent and it instantly put a smile on my face. I responded to his message with “Hola Handsome…” which is also something I usually wouldn’t do, but, I felt like I could be silly with him right away - hoping he would imagine me saying it with some charisma … Because, I received this message late at night, I also ended my message inviting conversation to continue the next day. He respectfully obliged and messaged me the next afternoon - July 1, 2023. In this message after asking how I was doing, Gared then asked me to tell him about myself. I saw this as an open invitation to rid myself of him early on if he didn’t like what he read. So, I wrote a paragraph describing all the qualities of myself I figured would make him run if he wasn’t looking for a woman like me and wrapped it up with, “Your turn ☺️” His response to this surprised me even more. He described himself as “a little old fashioned” and asked if he could call me later and tell me about himself. This was a welcomed invitation to the next level of communication. Our first phone conversation occurred that night when Gared surprised me with a FaceTime call while I was in the grocery store! The funny part of this is that God knew the desire of my heart was to meet a man in the store and my first face to face moment with Gared was while I was in the store 😅

When Gared FaceTimed, I was not exactly dressed up since it was later in the evening and I had just run out for a quick few items. I was nervous he wouldn’t be seeing me at my best, but then, I thought to myself, “Well, if he doesn’t like the way I look, then that’s fine” 😅 To both of our surprise we were more than pleased with what we saw on the other line. Gared was quick to inform me of why he FaceTimed rather than regular called. “Hi, I just wanted you to know I’m a real person…” he said, which made me giggle bashfully in appreciation. This was the beginning of his open and honest communication, which was something I didn’t believe existed in new relationships anymore. I was hopeful. I learned during our conversation that it was Gared’s birthday, yes, the same day we were FaceTiming for the first time. So, of course we had to celebrate with a little candle and song :):) I love birthdays. After an amazing 4 hour FaceTime call and learning enough about each other to know we wanted to meet we decided to do so the next day. The kids and I were headed to Vegas, so Gared and I decided to squeeze in a brief meeting at Black Rock Coffee Bar. The rest is history ❤️