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Following Her Gut
Sheryl Daija, 44, joined JDate in late 2007. Like Ron, she had recently ended a 13-year marriage. Most of her time immediately post-divorce was devoted to making profound changes in her life -- like developing the social activist site The Power of Peace and splitting time between NYC and a country home upstate.

Once she felt settled, JDate was a way for her to dip her toe back in the dating pool. "I took time after I got divorced to rediscover myself, so when I got online I was pretty clear about what I wanted and what I didn't want," she says, adding that she relied on intuition more than strategy when she finally decided to "try again."

"I think it was a combination of luck and fate," says Sheryl. "I was definitely pretty selective in who I responded to." Both she and Ron think that using an ethnic-based dating service helped them narrow down their options from the get-go. (Imagine how many women he'd have had to weed out had he used a mainstream site like match.com!)

Fortunately, Sheryl avoided the common mistake of being too selective. "Women tend to discount men on things they read in their profile," says Burbach. "The problem with this is that not every profile accurately reflects a dater's personality."

Ron was the third person whom Sheryl met (altogether!) through online dating.

Their Date With Fate
However they got there, Ron and Sheryl's coffee date in January 2008 clicked from the get-go. They shared easy and nonstop conversation. Sheryl remembers telling a friend that she had a sense that their "souls were talking to each other."

The two also discovered that they already shared an anniversary -- they'd both originally tied the knot on May 30, 1993.

By their fifth date, the two knew that they'd be married. Exactly one year to the day after their first date, on Jan. 13, 2009, they were.

(Click Next to read what Sheryl thinks about Ron's go-go-go dating approach.)


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