We have hit a Nerve

My and Lauri's love story has hit a Nerve!

Nerve.com included the tale of how I met my wife Lauri Shaw, fell in love and married, in a feature article on Couchsurfing.com.

Foreign exchange

Freelance journalist Justin Clark (Justin's CS profile) became a member of Couchsurfing (CS) two summers ago. He began offering his couch up to complete strangers in return for, well, nothing. Eventually, he became interested in how people hook up on CS and sometimes fall in love. This week on Nerve.com, his article Foreign Exchange tells how CS can be both a cheap way to travel and sometimes a medium for falling in love. About his CS experiences, Justin says:

"My L.A. apartment has been coveted by a fifty-year-old Pakistani chemical engineer, an evangelical preacher from Nigeria and a mother from Alabama who wanted to know how far I lived from the film studios in Hollywood."

How our story ended up in Nerve.com

Justin began researching his article by creating a discussion group on Couchsurfing, asking for members' stories. Lauri found Justin there and contacted him both to tell about our love story and how CS is often used to find 'more excitement' while travelling. Justin listened to our story and the information we had on hooking up on CS. A large part of the article was taken up by Lauri and me falling in love and marrying in just over a month.

"Lauri Shaw had a different experience. A thirty-year-old music journalist from Los Angeles, she flew to London last December to visit friends. After deciding that three weeks was too long to impose herself, Shaw looked for a host on CouchSurfing, where she met Jack, a marketing executive. Jack, thirty-three, agreed to host her at the end of her trip for three nights, and bought tickets for the two of them to go ice skating. The two ended up meeting ahead of schedule the next night, to go to a CouchSurfing party. What Shaw did not know was that Jack was already in love. 'In the middle of the ride down the escalator at Angel Station, he kissed me,' says Shaw. 'I had two choices: slap him or kiss him back.'"

"Before the end of the month, the two were discussing ways for Shaw to stay in London. On the night of their ice-skating date, Jack proposed. They were married less than a month later in Big Sur, California."

"'People our age know that marriage is a real possibility. We hem and haw about whether we should. If we were in the same city, Jack and I would have stalled. We'd have been afraid of commitment and taken it for granted.'"

We've posted our wedding pictures right here on eyeflare.com.

...And the story continues

So, after our whirlwind romance, where have we ended up?

Lauri and I have just made the six-month mark in our marriage. We live in North London in a flat that we love. Around us are our friends, some of the best people we have ever met. Lauri is working as a freelance writer and I am about to launch a new online project. We inspire each other more every day, both professionally and personally.

It's not perfect. We never expected it to be. Getting to know someone after you have married them is not easy. We passed on the option to walk away from our relationship with no strings attached. Given that option, we may have taken it by now. But just like we chose to marry for our love, we stay together for it. We work hard at our relationship, because we know how nearly we didn't even meet.

- By Jack on 17 July, 2007 in Stories.