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Black Men And White Women

Lisa & Mark -
Atlanta, Georgia, United States

From Study Date to Sudden Kisses

You might not think that members with the usernames “1BamaYell” and “1StreetPoet” would be a good match, but in the case of Lisa and Mark, they were.

At the beginning these two didn’t know that, of course. Were they savvy veterans of the online dating game? “It wasn’t my first experience,” Lisa informs us. “I was looking for ‘My Forever,’ you might say!”

“I travel a lot, and I love adventure of all kinds,” says Mark. “I embrace diversity and thought it would be fun. I’ve been online before... briefly. I was confident that I’d have fun, and I was open to love.”

While he was open to finding romance, that doesn’t mean he pursued this goal relentlessly. One reason was his vagabond lifestyle. “I was on and off [the site] for a year, but I’ve lived in four states this year,” he explains. All that moving around didn’t lend itself to long-term relationships.

Lisa was a latecomer to this situation. Just “two or three weeks” after posting her profile, she heard from Mark. “I reached out to her with a Flirt,” he remembers. “She was beautiful, and I loved her screen name.”

Haha, turns out that Bama Yell was a plus for Mark, after all! But what did Lisa like about this stranger who contacted her through our site? What convinced her to respond to that Flirt? “Reading the ‘love’ in his heart, between the lines,” answers Lisa. And the quality of “his conversations” told her that they should convene in real life.

Mark was certainly ready to go there. “We clicked immediately, via cell,” he remembers. “And she has a wonderful sense of adventure!”

The pair took an unconventional approach to their first date. “We went on a double date,” reports Lisa. Mark adds, “We met at Comfort Suites, and I helped her study.”

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t romantic, however. Lisa says her first reaction to Mark was a physical impulse. “I wanted to kiss him,” she laughs. He wouldn’t have minded. “She was gorgeous... Wow,” he says, looking back at that night.

What surprised Lisa about their first meeting was “how well he got along with my friends, who are not like him at all.” And Mark didn’t expect “her kisses.” Sounds like she indulged her first instinct, after all…

After such a great date, Lisa was sure they would “definitely” see each other again. Mark nods. “No doubt!”

Lisa learned more about her man over the course of the next few months. Things that didn’t come across in his profile included “how protective he is, in a good way.” Mark was moved by how Lisa overcame some things in her upbringing, saying he was happy to discover “how courageous she is, because she wasn’t raised to date/fall in love with people like me.”

Lisa nods. Mark was “completely the opposite” of the guys she’d been dating up to that point, not to mention what she thought was her “type.” However, Mark knew that she was the sort of woman he wanted to meet, from the beginning. “She’s similar to my type,” Mark says when asked about it.

There were problems to solve here, though. “My loved ones, and distance,” Lisa replies when asked about obstacles the couple faced. Mark says “none,” though, when asked the same thing. He would rather talk about how this relationship has changed his life for the better. “I have the missing piece,” he says. “It’s made me more excited about the future!”

We always offer couples the opportunity to pass along a few words of advice to seekers of a love like theirs. Lisa demurs. “I wouldn’t want to give any advice necessarily,” she says. “Everyone’s situation is different.”

Mark, however, is enthusiastic. “Go for it! Don’t waste time,” he tells our readers. “The greatest ‘sin’ that most of us commit is taking time for granted. Waiting for the perfect opportunity. Love yourself enough to be true to yourself, no matter what anyone else says. Love yourself!”

For Mark and Lisa, there’s plenty of love to go around.