5 Years Have Passed

By Jaime Garza On February 18, 2013

So, at the end, did you ever find Waldo? My Waldo took 47 years to find. When you are trying to find him outside of the page, it becomes quite interesting. In my case it was “her” that I was looking for. Let me explain the situation. In 2007 I decided to join eHarmony to look for a possible partner. I also joined Yahoo! Personals and Match com, but those were a little too much for me, especially Yahoo! Personals. People there knew what they were doing and I was just a new guy trying to make sense of it. Overwhelming.

Before I started ,I was living with two roommates that were kind, but I was pretty much going to work and back from work, straight home. I would go to the movies by myself, or to restaurants asking for a table for one. I was not really connecting with people, and my children at the time were having sporadic and rare interactions with me. So I was ready to move on to the next phase of my life, eager for deeper connections. It was November of 2007.

eHarmony was nasty. I do not mean it was bad, but since I selected every checkbox on the questionnaire, I was getting around 20 hits a day, sometimes more. If I ever let a day pass by, reading the amount of responses was overwhelming. I had paid for three months, thinking it would be enough but it was too much action, and required daily focus. But I decided that I was going to figure out that puzzle. At some point I was answering every first questionnaire since I was rarely being accepted. eHarmony had very few Latinas and a ton of very christian women. I was not getting the connections I expected.

Eventually I found one person with a very particular profile and no picture. Everyone else liked walks on the beach, music, and hikes. Her, she was passionate about social causes and worked trying to make the world better. She confessed later on that she did not get many hits, perhaps for her profile. I was intrigued and followed the development of that quest carefully with a lot of interest. Eventually I saw the picture and then realized that she was latina too. On the last day of her subscription we finally connected in the third stage, the “open communications.” It was my 47 birthday. And just like that we both collected our email addresses.

Following Dr Warren’s advice we decided to meet in an in-and-out place, easy to get in yet safe and secure: Baja Fresh. On a day like this 5 years ago exactly I meet her for around half an hour and I became quite attracted to her, drawn to the peace and calm that I noticed in her. I had found my Waldo, in a very unlikely event. And so it started.