For years, Meg Harris, 28, of Weehawken, NJ, tried every dating app out there, from “Singles Meet Cheese” to “Date This App” to “Uber”. They all proved utterly fruitless. On the eve of her 26th birthday, she solemnly vowed to stop using Internet dating and to start putting herself out there or to, as her wrist tattoo read, Lean In.
“I am officially done with Internet dating. I’m ready to go to a bar and connect with someone who is blacked out and wearing a checkered button down,” she promised herself and her mother.
A mere three weeks and four pounds of Pop Chips later, she found herself with a group of friends at the Manhattan cocktail bar Brother Jimmy’s BBQ in Murray Hill. She also found herself in luck. This was the night she met Doug Reed, 30, of “My Parents’ Place”. It was no coincidence that the two met, as Doug goes to this bar every Wednesday-Sunday. They locked eyes by the “Put Some South in Your Mouth” welcome sign (Meg would later come to find out that this is how Doug signs all of his e-mails). Have I already met this guy 50 times tonight? Meg remembers thinking. Thought Doug, through a haze of Bud Light Lime Straw-Ber-Ritas: Hoagies.
Doug initiated the conversation by asking Meg where she lived. Meg then asked Doug where he lived. Then Doug asked Meg where she lived. At this point, Meg thought she would go use the bathroom to drown herself in the toilet. She excused herself and yawned.
Little did Meg know that this was the momentous yawn that would forever change the course of her life.
“Hey, no yawning yet, it’s the weekend and this is a bar,” said Doug. And just like that, with those 12 magical words, Meg was smitten. She was so taken aback by his originality and assertiveness that she had to take him right then and there on the beer soaked floor. Meg said that something in her soul shifted when Doug adorably called her out for being tired at the end of a workweek, at a packed bar, in the middle of a conversation she could have carried as a toddler. She fell instantly and madly in love.
The rest is history: conversation stalled, they got another drink and they repeated this for the next two years. They are engaged to be married this coming October (“Like Oktoberfest, like beer” –Doug) and are registered at Bass Pro Shops. Their engagement was announced yesterday on Facebook and thus far, has received 16 likes and been reported twice.