The magazine you’re reading has been responsible for many things over the years, some of which we’d even own up to, but as far as we know we’ve never inspired two complete strangers to fall in love. So imagine our surprise when we received a letter regarding our April 2005 profile of Morristown native Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist.org, the mother of all classified ad pages. “If it wasn’t for your magazine’s article,” wrote Ann Hannah (nee Bianchetti) of Old Bridge, “I never would have posted an ad on craigslist.org and would never have met the man of my dreams.”
Hannah, 34, had tried Internet dating sites before. “The older you get, the harder it was to meet people,” she says. “I just wasn’t meeting single men my age.” It’s fair to say that her initial forays into cyber-romance did not exactly yield Prince Charming. “There would either be no chemistry,” she says, “or they would just be psychos.”
A week after reading the article, she placed a personal ad on craigslist.org, and a few weeks later, Art Hannah, an e-commerce manager from Gillette, responded. His reply caught her eye. “He was very funny,” she says. “He wasn’t trying to be fake.” They traded e-mails and spoke by phone for a few weeks before meeting in person.
“I was nervous,” says Art, who’s 41, “but only because I knew that I liked her a lot. I wanted the chemistry we had generated online to carry over to real life.”
When the two met, Ann Bianchetti says, “we felt so natural and comfortable.” The couple was married last August. Can you blame us if we feel just a tiny bit proud?