Married couple remembers first date misunderstanding
BUFFALO TWP — Even though they had talked through text for about three months before meeting, Rachelle Savannah thought her date, Scott Haberberger, had left her with the bill after eating at Chili’s in Butler Township in 2009.
Rachelle said she paid the bill thinking it could be her first and last date with the person she met online after Scott went to the bathroom just as the bill arrived at the table.
Ever since then, Scott has more often than not picked up the tab when eating out.
“We were both on good speaking terms, then the bill comes, and he goes to the bathroom. Here’s me like, ‘Did he leave?’” Rachelle said. “I told our server, I said, ‘I think he left,’ because you never know.
“I paid the bill, and I just sat there for a couple more minutes, and then here he comes back from the bathroom.”
Rachelle Savannah Haberberger and Scott Haberberger met on Match.com in 2009 — a time when online dating was a different world compared to now, they said.
Although they now live in a house in Buffalo Township, the couple met when Scott was living in his hometown, Saint Marys, and Rachelle was working in Baltimore.
Each of their personal living situations led them to create online dating profiles, Rachelle because of her constant movement and Scott because of the small dating pool in Saint Marys.
Rachelle set her discovery radius to be within 200 miles of Butler, because of her nomadic living situation at the time.
“I had moved back with my parents in Butler to do a travel assignment in Pennsylvania, but I still lived in Maryland,” Rachelle said. “That’s why I started doing online dating because I was moving around so much that I wasn’t meeting people.”
Scott said his sisters convinced him to create a dating profile on Match.com, saying he was unlikely to find a match in person in his hometown in rural Saint Marys. His radius of 10 miles became 50 miles, then 100 miles.
“I was a little apprehensive at first,” Scott said. “I had to expand my radius, and I’m glad I did.”
Neither Haberberger remembers who sent the first message, but Scott said the website used some kind of system where one person could send a “flirt” or “wink” to another person.
When the two finally scheduled to meet somewhere in Saint Marys, Rachelle nearly canceled.
“I had a bad day at work, and I said, ‘I’m not meeting him for the first time in person on a bad day,’” Rachelle said.
That’s when Scott proposed coming to Butler.
“So we met at Chili’s, and we had a great conversation,” Rachelle said.
Their amended first date went well, until Scott went to the bathroom.
The Habersbergers went on to have three weddings — an official ceremony with a justice of the peace, a beach ceremony in Mexico and a reception at the Lyndora Legion.
“That was my dream — I wanted a beach wedding,” Rachelle said. “We basically said to people, you can come to one, you can come to two, you can come to three.”
Despite the initial awkwardness of their first date, Scott and Rachelle said they are glad they tried a dating website. Scott just suggested people be cautious when meeting people in person, and Rachelle urged patience.
“It takes patience, because it’s not going to be the first person you meet,” Rachelle said. “We would have never met, if it wasn’t for that.”
