A ROSE AMONG THORNS

In 2002 Lakewood neighbor Rose Villasana signed up for a three-day trial on match.com because it was free, and why not?

She’d just gotten out of a two-year relationship, and her friends were always talking about their online dating experiences — albeit not always positively.

“I wasn’t really looking hard, but I figured, ‘Eh, what the heck?’ ” Villasana remembers.

She filled out as little of the questionnaire as possible and didn’t even add a photo to her profile, but soon enough requests began coming in anyway.

She knew what she was looking for: an intellectual liberal who likes the arts. When Harry Ingram contacted her, he seemed to fit the bill. And as a bonus, he lived nearby in the M Streets.

Ingram had been using match.com for a while and had taken the time to fill out a well-rounded profile, so he typically ignored those without sufficient information and photos, but Villasana lived so close by, he figured it was worth a shot. some of the same people.

“And that was the end of it,” Villasana says.

That is, the end of Ingram’s online dating run and Villasana’s practically non-existent online dating run.

A couple of days later, Villasana shut down her profile without having talked to any other potential partners. She called a couple of their mutual friends and grilled them about Ingram — just to be safe. Everyone confirmed he was a good guy.

They started a friendship, which turned into a romantic relationship, which continued for eight years. In January 2010 they married in Washington, D.C.

They met for coffee at the Lakewood Starbucks and hit it off. It wasn’t exactly sparks, but it was comfortable. They shared common interests and discovered they knew

They still live in the Lakewood area, and they continue to tell the story of how they met whenever they can.

“We love our story,” Villasana says.