As they watched the spectacular fireworks bursting in the sky on July 4, neither could have imagined sharing this moment just a few weeks before. Frank and Gioia met on CatholicMatch. Both had tried various other dating sites, but had no success.
“We talked, probably for just a couple days,” Gioia recalled. “He was in New Hampshire, I'm in New York, and each day was started out with a four-hour phone call. We had some fireworks in my area, and my grandkids couldn't go because they ended up sick, so Frank said he'd wanted to eventually get out and meet me and have a date. And I said, ‘Well, the fireworks are coming up, would you like to meet and do that?’”
“I said yes in 3.2 seconds,” Frank recalled. “Best six-hour drive I’ve ever taken. It was a great day.” They held hands from the beginning. Both were a little nervous before their first in-person meeting, but the nerves faded quickly. “I don't know how I knew it. I just knew he was a safe individual,” Gioia said.
Frank said, “I was a little nervous on the trip, but once I met her and looked at her, looked in her eyes and saw what was in her heart… No worries.”
The physical distance would be a challenge in their budding relationship.
Frank worked five days a week as a controller for Peterbilt, a trucking company. Gioia had worked for 30 years in a corrections facility, and had recently been assaulted by an inmate. “So I had several surgeries after we met, and he was with me through everything, you know, so it was a difficult period, and we got through it and got closer,” Gioia said.
Frank accompanied Gioia to doctor visits on a regular basis. Frank assured her that she would never have to go back into that field of work. “If I had to work 24 hours a day to keep us going, I would never have her go back into that,” he said.
On one date, they visited an antique store. Gioia found an Italian dining room table and hutch with nine chairs. She said she’d love to have it. Frank bought it and had it delivered. “It gave her great joy, and it gave me great joy to get her a little something that meant something special to her, especially considering our Italian heritage, because that's the type of table that all my relatives had growing up,” Frank said.
Gioia had dabbled with other dating sites, but had poor experiences.
“I never tried Christian Mingle, because I had heard from other people there's a lot of fake Christianity and whatever on there, so I didn't even bother with that,” she said. “I'd only done Match and Plenty of Fish, but it was absolutely horrendous. The people were fake, the pictures were fake, a lot of the discussions right away started heading toward having phone sex. Morally, people just weren't at all what I was willing to settle for, or get into.”
At church one Sunday, she saw an ad for CatholicMatch in the bulletin. “I will give this one last shot,” Gioia said, “and the funny part is, I was only on it one day. I had talked, texted with one other gentleman who I deemed to be very fake, not to the standards of going to church every week, and not what I was looking for. When I asked him certain questions, he couldn't really answer, and I said, 'You're not a devout Catholic, are you?’ And he's like, 'Well, no.’”
Gioia started to delete her account, but then noticed Frank’s profile. Though he was planning to delete his account as well, he sent Gioia a message. “And I'm like, okay, before I hit the delete button, let me go through and read his message,” Gioa said. “And I really liked what he said, and here we are.”
Both immediately cancelled their subscription, and started talking on the phone.
A few days later, Frank drove to meet her for the fireworks display, then they spent the next few months visiting on the weekends. By August, they were engaged. Frank presented to her his mother’s 1948 engagement ring. “Not trying to scare you or anything, but would you look at this ring?” he asked. “Would you ever be interested in wearing something like this?” She said yes, absolutely.
Frank scheduled a dinner date in New York, dropped to one knee, and proposed. He had asked her sons’ permission beforehand and received their blessing.
Gioia knew Frank was the “real deal” when he agreed to attend church with her at Saint John’s the day after the fireworks. After that, they went together to Mass regularly.
Both Frank and Gioia had been adopted as children, so they connected on that level too. Both had been married previously and had been through the annulment process. Frank has one daughter, and Gioia has three children. “So right off the bat, he was so super sweet, and my grandkids literally just molded to him immediately,” Gioia said of Frank, “like they could sense that grandfather in a spirit, and so all six grandchildren, including the newest one, just love him.”
“I would lay down my life to defend them if anything were to happen,” Frank said.
Frank and Gioia’s wedding is scheduled for October 10, 2026. “Because of our ages, we don't have to do all the pre-Cana stuff, so they're just being very lenient,” Gioia said. There’s a 14-year difference in their ages. Frank is 69 and Gioia is 55. But that age gap has not been an issue for them. “I feel good because Gioia has helped me a lot with things, and I do feel younger,” Frank said.
“We really incorporate family quite heavily into our relationship. We incorporate religion quite heavily into our relationship, and love, we love each other very much,” Frank said. “We're just each other's safe spot, each other's peace, and that's the biggest component.”
They said the biggest challenge about their relationship is all the doctor and legal appointments and surgery that Gioia is going through. “It doesn't stop,” Frank said. “We have a board up on the refrigerator, and you could just see the number of medical and legal meetings and events that we have to go to every week.”
“When you meet somebody, you're worried about having to tell them these type of things, like this is what I'm going through,” Gioia said. “And he took everything in stride and he leads, and he has been just absolutely safe, I don't know how else to say it.”
“Same here,” Frank said. “I feel very safe, my emotions, my feelings with Gioia, feel safe, where in the past they were not. I didn't feel safe. I always felt discounted in some respect, but no longer.”
Regarding CatholicMatch, Gioia said, “Don't sleep on that. Try it, and also take your time, and practice discernment and love will find you. Just have faith.”
