Dear 100hookup,

About a year before we met, Perri was over at her close friend’s house, and her friend’s thirteen year-old daughter said, “Let’s find you a guy.” They started going through online profiles and saw my profile and picture. They thought I was cute, but Perri didn’t have an email account yet and wasn’t comfortable emailing me from her thirteen year-old friend’s email account.

Fast-forward one year. Perri decided to sign up for 100hookup.com as a lark. She says she wasn’t really taking it seriously, and so she honestly spoke her mind in her profile. She came across my profile and recognized my picture as the same one from before! So, she decided to email me.

That was in May of 1998. We exchanged an email or two, and then, for some reason, I forgot to write her back. I figure I must have saved her email to get back to it later, and it got lost in my “inbox.” When I did find it two months later, I wrote back immediately and apologized, asking if she could forgive me for not replying to her message. Luckily for me, in those two months she had been in a relationship and was also busy with school. So, she wouldn’t have been able to date me anyway. My timing was good. By the time I wrote her back, she had ended her relationship and was almost finished with graduate school.

I was leaving on a cruise with some friends in the first week of August, and Perri emailed me to have an “umbrella drink” for her on the ship. We eventually exchanged phone numbers, and I called her when I returned from my vacation. I remember one of our conversations was during President Clinton’s address to the nation about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. We sat on the phone talking about it.
Perri & Michael

We set a date to meet on September 2nd at Austin Grill in Bethesda, Maryland. Our date lasted a few hours. We had dinner and then walked up to Montgomery’s Grille for a couple drinks. The following weekend was my sister’s wedding, so I made sure to call Perri on Friday to tell her what a great time I had had with her. I was leaving on business the following Monday, so I wanted to make sure we spoke beforehand.

A date here and there turned into entire weekends together. She met my father after we had only dated for one month. Then I met her mother the next night. Eventually I met the whole family – step-dad, aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandparents! I think we could definitely predict the future when my parents told me that I could invite Perri on a cruise with my family the following January.

On July 31, 1999 both of our families met for dinner at Due restaurant in Pikesville, Maryland. Perri’s parents, my parents, my sister and my brother-in-law were all there. I had requested that the waitress bring out the ring with Perri’s wine glass. She brought out a glass with a white satin ribbon wrapped around it, and the ring dangling from the ribbon. Perri did a double take when she saw the ring and I proposed.

Perri and Michael were married on November 4, 2000 in Washington D. C.

Perri & Michael
North Bethesda, Maryland

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