Boy Meets Girl...

It's a modern spin on the classic tale of "boy meets girl"...complete with dating websites, profile pages, and e-mails. No, I am not reviewing the latest Nicholas Sparks novel I read, or the chick-flick I watched last night. Rather, I am talking about my best friend, and the exciting weekend she has ahead of her.

My dear friend, Amanda, I cannot say enough about her: She's ambitious, funny, creative, picky, and on a quest to find true love - the real deal.

Having met her during our freshman year of high school, I have been a fortunate witness to the majority of her dating life. I believe it was both our love of Jesus and our fascination with the lofty notion of romance and otherworldly-love that served as the foundation of our friendship.

We were, and continue to be, dreamers, she and I. We believe fiction should imitate real life, not the other way around. We know that fairy tales are the stuff of real experiences, which are crystallized by memories, photographs, and diaries (both public and private).

Over the course of our 9 years of friendship we have indulged each other’s overdeveloped sense of fantasy and have shared memories that most can only dream of.

High school was fraught with late-night escapades, sneaking out of the house, planning surprises for our high school boyfriends (who were also best friends), and envisioning a future complete with beautiful weddings, adorable children, and a shared lakefront property.

We breathed new imagination into every experience.

As we moved on to college, we realized the possibility for adventure was limitless. In the summer following our First Year, with two bagels, a car full of clothes, and no plan of which to speak, we traveled to Hilton Head, South Carolina to assume new identities as “Summer Locals”. In no time, we had made our mark - we were a hit!

There were no rules, no responsibilities, no persons, nor pasts with which we were burdened, only our $7/hr jobs which afforded us plenty of beach time, and a host of new friends.


As adults, having recently set out on our latest adventure: real life, our quest for fantasy has remained, only now in an adapted capacity for the real world.

While I, after a host of failed relationships, have finally found my prince charming, Amanda continues to search, refusing to settle “for anything less than butterflies” {which brings me to this weekend, and the exciting unknown which lies before her}.

If you’ve been following her blog, the story of her love life has probably replaced your bedside romance novel. But if not, let me bring you up to speed:

Amanda, a few months ago, signed up for an eHarmony account – judge not, as she has met some very interesting people, whom she has quickly been able to dismiss as “just not the guy for her” (before even subjecting herself to what were bound to be waste-of-time first dates). However, one male suitor, with whom she’s been speaking, has caught her attention; enough so, that they will be meeting each other, for the first time, this weekend in New York City. {I will be meeting him as well (and promise to report back with an honest opinion), as it is customary for the best friend to vet all new male prospects}.


Her weekend wardrobe is chosen, her nails done, her hair colored, cut, and blown out. She is now on her way to meet a boy of whom she, in only a few short weeks, has grown incredibly fond…

Ah, Amanda, the eternal optimist – I, a reformed skeptic of your decision to replace conventional social gatherings with this cyber community of dating hopefuls, applaud you and wish you the best of luck!