By Brooke Bates, Rocktown Weekly
Mandy Khochareun didn’t go to the gym 13 years ago to find the man of her dreams. He just happened to be there.
Mandy, then a student at JMU, enrolled in a boot camp fitness class at Nautilus Fitness Center (now Gold’s Gym). So did Cy Khochareun.
When they met, the couple already knew they had one thing in common: an interest in fitness. That Sunday when Cy showed up at Mandy’s church, Valley Church of Christ, they realized they shared the same beliefs, too.
EMU students and engaged couple Jen Edwards of Richmond and Joe Horst of Daltan, Ohio, share a couch at EMU’s Common Grounds coffee shop. Photo by Thomas J. Turney
Their dates consisted of mountain biking, hiking and exercising together. Four months later, they were engaged.
But finding the one isn’t always that easy, and the process definitely isn’t what it was 50 years ago. Although the idea of traditional dating seems to be fading, Harrisonburg singles are still finding places around the city to mingle.
"Obviously if you go to places like the gym or church, you’ll meet like-minded people there," said Mandy, 32. "You don’t have to meet them at the bar."
Mandy, now the group fitness director at Gold’s Gym, and Cy, 39, who now runs Taste of Thai and Oriental Market with his family, were married in 1996. "Neither of us were looking [for someone]," Mandy said. "It was just one of those random Tuesday night things … I just knew he was it." Mandy and Cy have two children – Jada, 3, and Ty, 4.
A Different Kind of Club
Josh Scandlen worked at a bar while he was a student at George Mason. He met plenty of girls there, but "not one person I look back and say,