How a Blog Commenter Sweet-Talked Ann Althouse into Engagement
Ann Althouse
Photo by Zane Williams
Blogger and Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse provoked something of a firestorm after a whirlwind engagement to a commenter on her blog known simply as “Meade.”
The New York Times reveals the mystery suitor and details the courtship. Meade is 55-year-old Laurence Meade, a divorced garden designer and caretaker for a Cincinnati estate, the story reveals. An August wedding is planned.
“I don’t have the education she has,” Meade told the Times. He took courses in history and horticulture in college but never graduated. “I don’t have the social status she has. But I was powerfully drawn to her.”
Meade began commenting on Althouse’s blog four years ago and developed a “blog-crush” on the blogger, the story says. He became flirtatious in his comments and made his move after Althouse blogged about Clint Eastwood’s movie Gran Torino in January.
Althouse described one of the film’s lessons this way: “A young man should perceive when a girl likes him and he needs to ask her out to dinner and a movie before somebody else does.”
Meade’s response: “OK. Want to have dinner with me and see it again?”
Althouse’s reply: “Yes, but you’ll have to come to Madison.”
Meade complied with the request. After the first date—they saw The Wrestler rather than a Gran Torino repeat—he returned home. But they met again, the day before Valentine’s Day, at an Indiana café halfway between their homes. They spent two more weekends and a 10-day vacation together. The engagement was announced in Althouse’s blog in March.
“After 4+ years of writing at each other, we met in real life and found real love,” Althouse wrote.
