Art Joye knew how to have fun in life and certainly tried to spread fun and laughter everywhere he went.

We met online and lived about two hours apart.  When Art first contacted me on the dating website, his profile picture was of him in a wrestling outfit which showed off his nice physic at the time but I felt it was a little much.  (This doesn’t show the entire photo, but it is all I have.)

Then he had pictures of his Ferrari, Rolls Royce and his Porsche and that was even more off putting for me.  I’m not into “things” and was clear about that in my profile.  My profile said something like “I would rather live in a tent with someone I love and who loves me madly, than live in a mansion with someone who merely co-exists in a relationship.”  I felt that men who tried to “sell” themselves on dating websites with their nice cars and houses were very shallow.

Art said he would like to meet me the next time he was up my way as he often had to go to Winston (about 25 minutes away) on business.  I told him we could see if that would work out when he was up next but that I wasn’t too thrilled with a long distance relationship.

Shortly after that I met someone else on the dating app and we hit it off beautifully and started regularly seeing each other.  This other gentleman and I agreed to remove our profiles from the dating website.  We dated for about six months and it didn’t work out.  After a time I put my profile back on the dating website but I set a restriction that no one could contact me who lived more than 30 miles away.  (Art lived over 100 miles away, so it blocked him.)

One day when going through mail from the app, there was a note from Art!  It was so sweet and said he was devastated when I pulled my profile because he really liked what I had to say and my sense of humor and thought we would hit it off.   He said he tried to write me when he saw I was back on the website, but it would not send his note because of my mileage restriction.  He said he was so frustrated and then he decided to create a whole new profile and state that he lived in a town 25 miles away so he could contact me!  Very clever!  I decided since he had gone to such lengths that I would agree to meet him.

He was going to Winston for business the next week so we decided to meet at a restaurant there (The Old Fourth Street Filling Station) after I got off work.  It was lovely restaurant with a beautiful courtyard.

We had an enjoyable evening for the most part but he talked a lot about the tough divorce he had gone through the previous year.  Above it all, his humor and sweetness showed through.  He walked me to my car, gave me a hug and I drove home thinking he might be worth a second date.

The next week he called and was going to be in Winston again and asked if we could meet at the same restaurant after work.  The food and atmosphere was great and the spring weather was beautiful for eating in their courtyard.

We had another wonderful meal.  Afterwards Art suggested we walk over to Grace Court, which was a lovely little park just a few blocks away.  It had a beautiful gazebo and sidewalks meandering throughout the park.  We walked a little bit and then sat on a bench and talked.

It was April so as evening approached it started getting dark and a bit chilly, but we couldn’t stop talking and sharing our stories.  We huddled close and held hands and talked for hours.  Yep he was worth the second date.

He invited me to come to his house on the lake in Shelby the following weekend and go out his boat.  I agreed.

So began a series of adventures with his man…a few tough and heartbreaking, but most were definitely excellent.  We began to call our dates and experiences as we moved in together “excellent adventures”  because we always had such fun and sometimes weird experiences.  After a while we dubbed ourselves, AREA, Inc. ~ Art and Rosie’s Excellent Adventures.

The adventures began April 1, 2008.