Woman who rented a dozen “MarryLisa.com” billboards on Highway 101 has a Valentine!

Lisa Catalano — yes, that Lisa from the MarryLisa.com billboards lining Highway 101 — has a Valentine.

“This is breaking news over here,” she said.

It’s been nearly six months since she launched her campaign to find love in the Bay Area — and became international news for her audacious approach. The story of this 42-year-old woman advertising for a husband on the side of the tech industry’s major commuter corridor tapped into the frustrations and heartbreak of many Silicon Valley singles yearning for love but coming up empty on the dating apps.

It also brought out plenty of haters. She has filled two three-inch binders with printouts of their messages, featuring comments like, “you’re washed up, you have nothing to offer.”

Undaunted, she spent last fall sifting through 4,000 applications from would-be suitors pouring into her inbox from around the world. She discarded most of them, including many who lived outside California, men who were too young or too old — ranging in age from 19 to 78 — and those that used photos of “the perfect man,” clearly generated by AI.

So far, she has gone on dates with nearly 10 men. On Saturday night, a man she has seen “a handful of times” over the past month is taking her on a Valentine’s Day date for dinner and a movie. She has baked a homemade sweet and wrapped in a heart-shaped tin just for him.

“He really is a great guy, just really an incredibly nice, kind man, intelligent,” she said, “everything that you could hope for, really.”

But is he the one? Is her quest to find a husband and start a family nearly over?

Not so fast.

Her digital billboards remain up along Highway 101 from Santa Clara to South San Francisco — and she’s running a special edition for Valentine’s Day, complete with a photo of her smiling face and cascading dark curls. They won’t come down, she said, until she’s confident she’s in a committed relationship with Mr. Right.

“I want to take my time with dating, and I’m not rushing into exclusivity with anybody,” she said, “I think that that’s a smart thing to do, to be cautious early on and really get to know the person.”

Her mother, however, remains an optimist.

“She’s going out for Valentine’s Day. Maybe this means something,” said Carol Catalano, who’s been married for 51 years to Lisa’s father, Phil, after they met in college. “Maybe I’m looking for clues. But it looks promising. Hopefully this is going to be it.”

Although maybe, she said, “that’s just me as a mom, wishful thinking.”

Lisa’s bold billboards earned her legions of fans inspired by her unabashed confidence that, despite bitter stereotypes, a woman over 40 could not only find true love, but also start a family.

“I’m rooting for you!” wrote one commenter on her TikTok page.

“I love your commitment to looking for love!” wrote another in a message Lisa printed for a binder collecting supportive messages. “I hope you meet the most fabulous dude who honors you and loves you for the amazing person you are!!!”

But the hate mail, she said, has been particularly cruel.

“It’s a lot of getting called every name in the book — ‘bitch,’ ‘whore,’ ‘slut,’ ‘bimbo,’ ” she said. “I was getting called an ’empty egg carton’ because I’m 42 years old and expressing my desire to start a family.”

She’s received rape threats and death threats, she said.

“I was prepared for negative comments, but I wasn’t prepared for that volume, just how bad some of them were,” she said.

Her binders of supportive comments are about equal to the horrible ones, she said, and she flips through the good ones when she needs a boost.

Lisa, who lives on the Peninsula and runs a vintage clothing business, began her quest in September, nearly two years after her fiancé died after an extended illness, and after a subsequent relationship fizzled. Online dating after that went nowhere.

She started with her MarryLisa.com website, a remarkably candid profile that includes her height, weight and measurements, her political leanings (Democrat, liberal), her religion (non-practicing Catholic) and what she’s looking for: a college educated man between 35 and 45 years old who doesn’t use drugs and has no criminal history nor violent personality. She added videos of herself discussing her thoughts on everything from who should pay on a first date to sex and intimacy, as well as her own assessment of her flaws.

When she rented digital ad space that generally runs for 8 seconds every hour on a dozen billboards to draw attention to her website, her story went viral. In the first month, she received 3,800 applications. After the initial media attention, the flood of applications dropped off dramatically. Nonetheless, she has personally read every one, she said. She culled the list to 50 — weeding out men who said they used drugs or didn’t want to get married, for instance — then reached out to 20.

“People have said, oh, I’m being too picky,” she said. “But I’ve had men apply who are the total polar opposite of everything that I’m looking for on the non-negotiables. It’s not like I’m just rejecting them. I’m saying, ‘Are you sure that I’m what you’re looking for here?’ ”

Some men backed out, she said, when she required they sign nondisclosure agreements to maintain privacy and to keep the actual dates “as normal as possible.” She’s also maintained her profile on the dating apps to keep her options open.

Because of the NDAs they both signed, she was reluctant to share much information about her Valentine’s Day date. She contacted him for permission to mention how long they had been dating, that he lives on the Peninsula and they were planning a date for dinner and a movie. Even his first name and occupation, she said, were off-limits.

“It’s not normal to have a media component of things,” she said. “I wanted to clear things, just out of respect for him and his privacy and everything.”

She’s been chronicling her dating journey on TikTok and in a docuseries on San Francisco-based KRON4. Although she often reveals what she’s wearing on the date and her feelings of excitement, she keeps to herself any details of the dates themselves.

“With everything that’s happened, it’s been simultaneously the most chaotic, stressful event of my life, and at the same time, the most magical thing that’s ever happened to me,” she said.

Whether her Valentine’s date will lead to marriage is too soon to tell, she said. But she is confident she will find her husband and create the family she is dreaming of.

“I know it’s gonna happen,” she said. “I’ve always been optimistic.”