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SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2010
WHAT YOU’LL FIND ONLINE •Our OnLove questionnaire, which couples can fill out to be considered for coverage. •Vidoeos, photos, advice and polls
TRACY A WOODWARD/THE WASHINGTON POST FATE? Jessica Exelbert and JustinRubin lived in separate cities when they first encountered each other, so it didn’t go anywhere. Then they had a chance meeting that didn’t go anywhere. But the third time . . . BY ELLENMCCARTHY JessicaExelbertwas twoweeks away frommoving
to Australia when she woke up and felt a bulging lymph node on the side of her neck. She’d attended high school, college and dental school in Maryland andby2008wasanxious forayear-longfellowshipon the other side of theEarth. At theurging ofher sister andbrother-in-law, both
physicians, the 29-year-old agreed to have an ultra-
soundonherneck.The resultswere inconclusivebut, after a biopsy the following week, Exelbert was told shehadthyroidcancer. “Cerebrally, I knew itwas gonna be fine. Emotion-
ally, I was devastated,” says Exelbert, who’d already been told by her sister that thyroid cancer occurs more frequently in women than men but is usually highly treatable inyoungpatients. She deferred her fellowship and had surgery in
December,hopingshe couldstillmake it toSydneyby Marchifher scanswere clear. Living athomewithherparents inRockville inthe
meantime, Exelbert, a social person by nature, tried to busy herself with as many outings as possible. In January, shewent alone to adinner andpaneldiscus- sion at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, hoping to run into people she knew. Sure enough, therewere a few friends from college — and a man named Justin Rubin. She’d first encountered Rubin two years earlier
through an instant message conversation on the online dating site JDate, which caters to Jewish singles. They’d chatted about TomStoppard dramas, their
familiesandcareers.Shehopedhewouldfollow upby asking for adate. But Exelbert lived in Baltimore at the time,which
madeher “geographicallyundesirable” toRubin,who lived inWashington and didn’t have a car. He didn’t write. Still, when they ran into each other at a party three weeks later, they recognized each other imme- diately. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh, she’s cuter in personthanshewasonJDate,’ ”
hesays.Bothfoundit too awkward to acknowledge that they knew each
‘Yeah, I love you for
that reason, too’ Jessica Exelbert & Justin Rubin
other through theWeb site, however, so the connec- tionwentunspoken. But afterExelbert reintroducedherself at theSixth
& I event, Rubin quickly referenced facts fromtheir online chat, asking if she’d moved home to the
Washingtonarea.She saidshehad,butwashoping to relocate toAustralia inthenext sixweeks. “I talked to her for anotherminute and then Iwas
like, ‘Okay,nice seeing you,’ ”he recalls.Workhadput himin a badmood that day and he didn’t seemuch point ininvesting time onsomeonewhowas about to leave the country. “Hewas coldandnot very social,” she says. Exelbert’s family and doctors convinced her that it
was best to stay in the area, even though her scans were
clear.She rekindleda romancewithamanshe’d previously dated, but it was short-lived; he broke up withher ona Saturdaynight after twoweeks. She’d had her makeup done earlier that day, so
instead ofwashing it off, Exelbert asked her sister to take photos she could use when she rejoined JDate thenextday. Rubin, a Chicago nativewho does policywork as a
special assistant to the assistant secretary of the Army, had been in a dating dry spell for months. Perusing the profiles on JDate, he noticed Exelbert’s
picture.Tocommunicatewithherhehadtobecomea paying member of the site, so he took out his credit
card,paidthe$40 fee andwroteher anote. “Aren’tyougoingtoAustralia?”heasked. “Whendo
youleave?” Sheexplainedthatshewasn’tgoingandtheybegan
tradinglengthye-mails that ledtoa90-minutephone call laterthatweek.Whentheydiscoveredthey’dboth signed up for the same Scotch tasting event, they decidedto go together. “Iwasn’t really surewhether itwas just as friends,”
she says. “Ihonestly thought itwasmoreplatonic.” But the flirting increased as the drinks were
poured and after the event he invited her to join him
fordinner.Thatnight,alongbusyMStreet inGeorge- town, they kissed. She declined his invitation to join himfor Shabbat dinner the next evening, but agreed
toseehimthedayafterthat.Andasanafternoonwalk turned into a late movie, dinner and dancing, their seconddate stretchedover 24hours. Soon they were introducing each other to their
friendsandcelebratingholidays
together.Their fami- lieswere similar, aswere their values and visions for the
future.The two seemedtomove at the samepace, filling every evening with plans to go out or make dinner for friends. “We just fit,” recalls Rubin, 30. And soon into the
relationship,he thoughthewouldmarryExelbert. But he never said as much to her. And when she would ask Rubin, “How do you think things are
going?” it sounded to himlike, “Something is wrong and she’s breakingupwithme.” “Iwouldalways stopthe conversation,”he says. LastMay, she brought the subject up again.When
Rubin said he “hoped itwas going towardmarriage,” Exelbert interpreted the response as anequivocation and felt wounded by his doubt. “I’mlike, ‘He hopes? Whydoesn’the know?’ ” she recalls. They decamped to separate quarters and sought
guidance fromtheir respective friends and families. Rubinquickly came to the decisionthathewanted to propose to Exelbert, as shementally prepared to pull away inself-protection. The next day, on the advice of hermom, she called
Rubin and listed all the reasons she loved him and was inthis relationship. “AndI’mgoing througheach bullet and he’s agreeing with me. Like, “Yeah, I love youfor that reason, too,’ ” shesays. “SoI’mlike, ‘Idon’t understand!Why can’themake adecision?’ ” At the end of the night (after a dinnerwith friends
through which she tried to remain pleasant) he sat her down and asked for a few days — “to think of something romantic.” Almost a week later, she began to worry he’d
changedhismind.Soeventhoughhe’dplannedtoask heronSaturday,hermoodwassoheavyonFridaythat hedroppedto one knee aday early. “Andsadly enough, it still tookme a fewminutes to
get out of the badmood,” laughsExelbert,now31. The next day Rubin was reading the announce-
mentsat synagogueandsaid, “Onemorething:Mazel tov to JessicaExelbert for getting engaged.” The two weremarried Nov. 19 at the Ritz-Carlton.
An elaborate chuppah was a symbol for the life they want to create: one that’s open and shared with the people they love. “Afriend of ours put it nicely recently—that Iwas
always this welcoming person and Jess helped build my [apartment] into a home,” he says. “There’s just a
verynaturalchemistryandconnection.Shehelpsme, Ihelpher andwe come together.” “I knewvery early onthat shemademy life better,” he adds. “Shemademe better.”
mccarthye@washpost.com
NUPTIALS
DATING Local ‘Bridget Jones’ ready to tell all BY ELLENMCCARTHY Itstartedwithaparticularlybaddate.A
date Rachel Machacek had met online, who didn’t crack a smile the whole night andthenliterally ranaway fromherwith- out somuchas a farewellhandshake. The Adams Morgan resident was 32
J. THOMAS PHOTOGRAPHY Kanika DeSandies & Sherman Lambert Jr.
Kanika DeSandies, 29, is a speech language pathologist. Sherman Lambert Jr., 29, assesses real estate values. They live in Lorton.
Wedding date: Oct. 30.
Location: Alfred Street Baptist Church, Alexandria;Willard Hotel,Washington. Guests: 330
Howthey met: A 12-year-old Sherman was waiting for his parents after church when Kanika introduced herself, and a youthful friendship blossomed into teenage dating before the two lost touch. Years later, Kanika moved back home after graduate school, and their relationship rekindled.
The proposal: On Thanksgiving in 2009, Kanika and Sherman were gathered with
Thewedding: The couple created a simple, elegant, black-and-white affair with a focus on fun for their 300-plus guests. Highlights included an upbeat first dance— Kanika and Sherman performed a Chicago-style stepping routine—and a seven-tier wedding cake.
The honeymoon: The pair first trekked to DisneyWorld for three days, where they visited the new Harry Potter theme park and rode the Incredible Hulk roller coaster, then jetted off to St. Thomas for a week of snorkeling, sailing and jet- skiing.
—Michelle Thomas
friends and family preparing to say grace over the feast when Sherman asked for the group’s attention. To Kanika’s surprise, he bent to one knee and asked her to marry him.
then and had been single for seven years, often spending Saturday nights with her cat, a batch of cookies and a litany of complaints about the difficulties of dat- ing. To getmotivated, she immersed her- self in theworld of dating self-help books and wrote about her experiences for The Post’s now-defunct Sunday Source sec- tion. A book deal followed, sending
Machacek on a year-long adventure to investigate “what happens when you use all the resources you possibly can tomeet anddate the opposite sex.” “The Science of Single,” which hits
bookstores Jan. 3, is her account of that experiment— amemoir that’sequalparts funny, mortifying and insightful and stands tomakeMachacekintotheBridget Jones ofWashington. The book traces her forays into singles
events, online dating, matchmaking ser- vices, blind dates and dating coaches. Approaching the endeavor with a not-so- scientific method that turns her into a romance-seeking guineapig, she encoun- ters debacles any veteran singleton will recognize:dates thatbearnoresemblance to their online profile, conversations that run dry in two minutes, and baffling be- havior — in her case, a man who drank from the same water glass as a dog and another who loudly declared that their waiter smelledlike a vagina. Theworst kind of disappointmentwas
KRISTI MCKEAG
BOOKED: RachelMachacek recalls a year of dates in “The Science of Single.”
alsothemost common:Theguys shewent outwithweren’twhoshehopedthey’dbe. “I was heaving these enormous expecta- tionsonmydates,”saysMachacek,now37. “Like, ‘Okay, thismight be The One.’ And this poor guywho doesn’t even knowme, doesn’tknowwhathe’s infor—’cause I’ve already planned out my wedding dress and where we’re getting married and all that stuff.” The process of forcing herself into so-
cial situations helped her acquire amore realistic tack when it comes to dating: These days, “I’m usually thinking, ‘Ugh, this probably isn’t gonna be the one. But I’ll get to know someone and maybe they’ll knowsomeone.’ ” Ayear of nonstop dating—with all the
implicit highs and lows — also proved to Machacek, who works as a marketing
manager and freelance writer, that she could do it. She could take charge of her social life, proactively find dates and sur- vive eventheworst of them. Sittingathomewiththecatandcookies
“is so much easier — it’ s safe, and you know it,” she says. “I’ve been okay with living a single life, for themost part. But I don’t reallywant that forever. Iwouldlike tobewithsomeoneeventuallyand[hiber- nating] does not bring you any closer to
that.Not evenclose.” Washingtonians will recognize refer-
ences to places like the Diner and Cafe L’Enfant, where Machacek’s dates take place. One of the things she quickly real- ized is that “Washington is so smallwhen it comes to dating.” And she knows it’s about to get a lot smaller for her once the book is published and her prospective datesdiscover it viaGoogle. “Some guys do have a problemwith it,”
shesays. “Andif theyreadthat, Imightnot have the chance toexpresswhoIamnow.” ButMachacek is proud of the book and
hopes itwill give solace to other singles. “It canbe lonelybeing single,whenyou
don’t have someone to come home to and share your life with. In some ways its really awesome, ’cause you’re free to do whatever theheck youwant.But I felt like I was having fewer and fewer people to commiserate with,” she says. “So I really wanted to create something that people couldactually commiseratewith. “Andhopefully inspire them,” she adds.
“If they’renotopentothepossibilitiesor if they haven’t explored all the dating possi- bilities,maybe they’ll go, ‘Oh, okay, if she didthat, I coulddo
that.No onedies.’ ”
mccarthye@washpost.com
Machacek reads from“The Science of Single” at Politics and Prose on Jan. 9 at5p.m.
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