Author Topic: How exactly did you meet your SO  (Read 25812 times)

mozar

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How exactly did you meet your SO
« on: November 10, 2014, 08:09:48 PM »
For example, my mom's friend told me that she met her partner in law school. She saw that this woman had hidden a book about community organizing within her huge law book during class, and decided to approach and chat with this person.
Vague answers like we met at a party aren't helpful. Who approached who, what did you say? Was there eye contact first or did you jump on them? For online dating who wrote who? What did you talk about, why did you want to meet them?

I've started going to parties/ mingling with humans recently, for the first time in years, since my ex left.
I used to avert my eyes in public, but I'm learning that people sometimes smile at me. I tried smiling back these last few times. All very new to me.

MoneyCat

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #1 on: November 10, 2014, 08:19:22 PM »
I met my wife on an online dating website.  At the time, we were living about an hour and half drive away from each other, but I wrote to her anyway because she seemed really cool from her profile and I asked her if she would at least be interested in being pen pals.  We wrote back and forth for a month and then decided to meet for lunch halfway between our two cities.  Lunch turned into a visit to a museum, which turned into coffee, which turned into dinner and we've been together ever since.  We'll have been together for six years in January and we've been married for over three years now.

pachnik

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #2 on: November 10, 2014, 08:28:28 PM »
I met my husband at a social group for people who have a particular health problem.  We both joined the group around the same time and attended several events such as pub nights, brunches and bowling.  We chatted a bit at a few events and then my husband asked me if I would like to go bowling just with him.  I said yes and we've been together for almost 9 years now.   I thought he was very attractive and would have picked him out of any crowd - health problem or not - and he says the same about me. 

Definitely smile back at people - it works.  It shows you are confident and maybe interested.

Gin1984

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #3 on: November 10, 2014, 08:31:49 PM »
Met in class.  This guy with a motorcycle helmet and jacket strolls in late to class, but this was an honors class that you needed permission to attend.  That intrigued me.  We worked together for the rest of the semester and got close.  Did a summer and fall honor project together, got engaged while applying to grad school.

TN_Steve

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #4 on: November 10, 2014, 08:37:20 PM »
Like Serpentstooth, we met in DW's first month/weeks in college.

Somehow I ended up in the pre-med track Chem track class and noticed this cute young lady.  Don't know who made the first move after we flirted for a week or two, but by November of that year, 35 years ago, we were (well, I was!) talking marriage.  We were 19/18 and "held out" until 23/22 to get married; unfortunately, no much help for the OP....

HappierAtHome

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #5 on: November 10, 2014, 08:46:57 PM »
Warning: long story ahead. But you did ask for details!

Was first introduced to him by my sister, at her workplace (they did, and still do, work together). Some months afterwards, she asked if I'd be interested in dating him, as we were both single and "marriage material". I said no, he wasn't my type.

Another few months on, she asked if I could introduce him to some of my single friends. I agreed to host a party where there'd be at least one friend who might be interested. Of course, he and I start chatting and can't stop. We just get along like a house on fire and have done right from that first conversation. So after he and my sister leave together, I text her to say I'm interested, meanwhile he was telling her the same thing.

He's too shy to ask me out directly, so she organises for both of us to have dinner at her house to get to know each other better. It was super awkward and horrible. Seriously. It's a funny story for another time.

Afterwards, she asks if I want her to give him my contact details and tell him that I'm interested. I say yes. She does. I don't hear anything for a few weeks and think he's lost interest after the awful dinner.

Instead he eventually emails me, asks me if I'd like to go out to dinner with him to get to know him better. I of course say yes. We go on quite a few dates before he tells me we need to have "the talk" (by email, in advance, so I had some warning), which we do have, and we agree that we want to be in a relationship. Importantly, we didn't so much as hold hands until we'd agreed that we wanted to be in a relationship. I think that allowed us both to get to know each other and feel comfortable together before muddying the waters. The kind of people we both are, I think we're better off having had a slow start to our relationship rather than diving in too quickly.

mm1970

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #6 on: November 10, 2014, 08:50:49 PM »
Sing it with me: "In the Navy..."

We were both officers working in DC at the same organization. It was his job to organize the org family summer picnic. I  was assigned to help him. I thought he was cute.  I started just "happening by his office" and chatting when he was there.

Took him a few months to get the hint, but I didn't know if he had a girlfriend.

Fonzico

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #7 on: November 10, 2014, 08:50:59 PM »
We met in high school - we had each taken this particular class with a friend, so as to have some company... well lo and behold, our friends abandoned us to flirt with each other! So we hung out in class by default.

We gradually become friends over that semester, and by summer realized that the other made for very stimulating conversation, and started hanging out more and more.

I didn't tell him this until years afterwards, but I told my best friend I was going to date him eventually, about a month before it happened. He was shocked by this, as he didn't think he had a chance with me at that time. Funny boy. At any rate, late one night he (oh so polite!) asked if he could kiss me. And the rest, as they say, is history.

11 years and still going strong! (Finally got around to that whole marriage thing a couple years ago). I really can't overstate how wonderful  it is to be partners with someone you're close (if not best) friends with, so, you know, keep that in mind if you're looking.

Incidentally, nothing ever came of the flirty friends from the beginning of the story :P

Zikoris

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #8 on: November 10, 2014, 09:31:46 PM »
We met via Craigslist. I wanted to go see a fireworks show and posted looking for someone to go with. My ad said something like "Looking for someone to go to the fireworks with tonight" and had my age and gender. I got buried alive in replies and his was the most literate. We met up at a busy coffee shop ahead of time to make sure each other were normal, then headed to the fireworks. Our conversation mostly revolved around his recent backpacking trip to Europe and my job hunting down people running from debts. We hit it off right away.

After the show we walked back to the transit hub together and he invited me to see a parade with him a few days later. We had fun and I invited him to a carnival a few days later. We had fun and he invited me to hang out at the beach with him and his friends a few days later. And so on and so forth.

Since we met online, the biggest thing was literacy. Seriously, if you're going to go that route, it really stands out to proofread your messages. If you want a demonstration of how bad it is, post a Craigslist ad pretending to be a girl looking for someone to hang out with and watch what sorts of messages roll in.

deborah

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #9 on: November 10, 2014, 09:35:03 PM »
We met at Uni. He was doing the same course, and we were part of a large group that played role playing games. It took about a year before we singled each other out.

wtjbatman

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #10 on: November 10, 2014, 10:14:14 PM »
Met on Plenty of Fish two years ago. We'll be married in February.

tofuchampion

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #11 on: November 10, 2014, 11:59:09 PM »
I was in Minneapolis for a weekend with my then-bf.  We stopped in Panera one morning for bagels & coffee, and I remember thinking the guy behind the counter was cute.  Maybe.  He got my attention, anyway, with his bright-red curly hair sticking out all over under the cap.  It was one of the few times in my life I've ever wanted to give a stranger my number, though I obviously didn't because 1) I was in a relationship, and 2) I lived a thousand miles away and would never see this person again.  But I noticed him.

A year and a half later, I was living in Minnesota (Austin, this time, not Mpls) and future-husband was living in Iowa.  We were both near the border, so we ended up being about a 2-hour drive apart.  We actually met on OK Cupid.  We started talking, which led to Skype "dates," phone calls, etc.  He was quite straightforward about being tired of casual dating and looking for a potential life partner.  That was my situation as well, so we pretty quickly started talking about the big stuff, testing for compatibility, I guess.

After doing the online thing for a while, we decided to meet in person.  The night before, we were talking on the phone and he asked me if I was at all familiar with Mpls.  I said I'd been there a couple of times, but only briefly, and mostly stayed downtown around the convention center.  He asked if I remembered ever seeing a Panera on Nicollet Ave.  I said yes, I had breakfast there once...

As fate would have it, he was the curly red-haired barista that morning.  He doesn't remember me, of course, but it couldn't have been anyone else, and at the time, he was working every weekend, always that early shift.

I figured it must be some kind of sign.  We got married 3 months later.  It's been bumpy at times, mostly for financial reasons (we were both very bad with money in our younger years and came into the relationship with substantial amounts of debt; I have changed my money habits since, but he has not, or at least not much), but it's been 3 1/2 years and I think we're doing okay.  :)  First child is coming any day now.

Ynari

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #12 on: November 11, 2014, 12:06:29 AM »
College. In the same club, but he makes bad first impressions and I was already dating somebody, so it took us a few months to get together. We took a class together and would regularly talk over dinner afterwards - that's when I started to get interested in him. Then we started working on a performance together. He tried to stay neutral about his interest in me because I was already dating somebody. That relationship wasn't going to well anyway, so I ended up breaking it off, telling myself it wasn't about now-SO, though we ended up together about a week later.

The actual relationship started at like 3am in a tree. I expressed my interest, and kissed him. He didn't expect things to move so fast, but I'm really forward about my thoughts and feelings. Perfectly happy now a year and a half later, and looking forward to the future.

resy

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #13 on: November 11, 2014, 01:24:52 AM »
We had a class together. All term I disliked him because he seemed too cocky and he worked out a lot (it showed!) and in my mind I thought he wouldn't be too smart (sorry). The class party/loud girls flirted with him non stop...you get the idea.
On the last day of class I show up a few hours early to school for some quiet studying...except due to rushing in the am I had forgotten my book and since I lived across town I was stuck without my notes.
He noticed and tried offering his book for me to study. He had gotten behind me at the coffee line and spoke to me but I just shrugged him off. He persisted and this tine I politely smiled, made very small and limited talk and declined his offer to use his book as I thought it was just an excuse to get my # later.
15 minutes into my studying I realized my notes were shit so there I go to ask for his book. We spent about 1.5 hrs studying together before going into testing. I finished the test before him and I felt a big urge to stick around and keep talking to him but I didn't want to seem easy or be a stalker so I left bummed.
I get home, check my school email and there it was, an email from him thanking me for studying with him. Fast forward almost 5 years and we are now happily married :)
Funny thing? He turned out to be smart (top of his class smart), the least superficial man I've ever met, hard worker, totally loyal, and basically everything opposite of my first impression of him.

hdatontodo

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #14 on: November 11, 2014, 01:30:52 AM »
Match.com hiking date with her chowchow running after a deer in the dark in the woods.

Spondulix

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #15 on: November 11, 2014, 01:42:46 AM »
We met via Craigslist. I wanted to go see a fireworks show and posted looking for someone to go with. My ad said something like "Looking for someone to go to the fireworks with tonight" and had my age and gender.

Since we met online, the biggest thing was literacy. Seriously, if you're going to go that route, it really stands out to proofread your messages. If you want a demonstration of how bad it is, post a Craigslist ad pretending to be a girl looking for someone to hang out with and watch what sorts of messages roll in.
This is hilarious because I met my DH on Craigslist 10 years ago. I got about 80 responses to my ad, and yes, many of them were not very coherent English or were canned responses. Hubbie at least said, "I can't spell my way out of a wet paper bag" to excuse his horrible spelling errors. Turns out we had a mutual friend, so I felt safe meeting pretty early on, and the rest is history. We even read part of the ad and his response in our wedding.

FoundPeace

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #16 on: November 11, 2014, 01:46:19 AM »
We were on tour with our university's wind symphony. For some reason we hadn't met all year despite the fact that we were both in a few of the same classes and bands. She saw me and decided she wanted to be my friend. She introduced herself to me at Appomattox Courthouse and we chatted and hung out as we saw the sights on the east coast  She made it clear that she was interested and I made it clear that I had a gf. I told her that I was leaving to go to Germany for a few years, and she told me she would write me. Needless to say relationship with the gf didn't work while I was out of the country.

We fell for each other through letters and emails. When I got back it took a while for us to get used to being around each other (and she was afraid of the marriage that would likely be the result of our dating). After a few months of awkwardness we started dating and after 6 months we were married. Now we have 2 kids and are in Germany for a few months in Germany.

Astatine

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #17 on: November 11, 2014, 02:07:49 AM »
We met online. I had just come out of a long term bad relationship and was dealing with some full-on family shit. So I went online to try to feel like an adult again; my goal being to go on a couple of dates for fun.

I signed up to an online site, set the search filters for local to me and a smallish age range. The first profile I read, I laughed til I nearly cried. I wrote to him straight away, and pretty much wrote a mini-essay to him. That night I dreamt about him (and it was essentially the same as our second date  <spoilers>).

The tl;dr version is I knew he was the one right from the start, although I tried many times to tell myself I was being ridiculous. We chatted online for several months, became FB friends etc. The chatting was entirely impersonal - just endless jokes and wordplay. I eventually (with the urging of an online friend who lived on the other side of the world to me) asked him to meet me for a drink and he said yes.

I broke all of the online dating rules, and nobody IRL knew I was meeting up for an online date (the only people who knew were online friends in other countries, but at least they were FB friends with me and had some way of interacting with my RL friends if something had gone terribly wrong). We met, had a beer and we were both stupidly nervous, and it was extremely awkward. He offered me a lift home cos it was raining and I said yes (going via my office so I could get my bags). We didn't click then, but I did trust him completely.

A week later, I wasn't sure if I wanted to see him again but realised, yes I did. So I asked him to an art show with me. Second date lasted 9 hours and we've been together nearly 5 years, married a couple of years ago.

Ambition89

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #18 on: November 11, 2014, 02:29:56 AM »
Wow, seems like everyone met either in school or online.

kyanamerinas

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #19 on: November 11, 2014, 03:38:34 AM »
Another uni meeting. Meet at a metal club night within my first month of uni and started going out a few weeks later. Together for 7 years and now married.

cakie

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #20 on: November 11, 2014, 04:55:58 AM »
I was 20 and had been ill for about a year. Was a bit of a recluse as a result. My first social event once I was better was to meet up with some school friends at a roller derby. He was there, along with some other new faces, but I didn't pay much attention to him particularly :P

We had a mutual love for a tv show, so when I had some friends over for a marathon a couple months later, he got an invite too. I was a little smitten after our second meeting...I don't often find people attractive, but told myself I had just gone too long without a date...! Anyway, I figured I never had a chance, he was a very confident guy in his late 20s ;)

Third time we met was at our mutual friend's birthday (the one who had introduced us & my best friend as a teenager). I didn't have any close friends there, so we ended up spending most of the night together. It was the first time we had the chance for a proper conversation. We are both big introverts, but it was a costume party, so I think it gave us both a confidence boost. We got kicked out at 1am. He convinced me to come with his mates to a nightclub in the city. My one experience at a club previously was as a 16yo overseas and was a complete disaster! So I usually avoided such places. (I also did not usually get in cars full of drunk strangers, fwiw)

We hung out until 7am, at which point he drove me home. A couple of days later I texted him, because I was worried I had been to vague about being interested. Turns out he had been stressing about how long to wait before he contacted me....four years later and he is about to follow me intestate to my new job :D

His version of the story is a little different...he noticed me straight away, and that mutual friend of ours was a bit of a matchmaker... :P

BooksAreNerdy

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #21 on: November 11, 2014, 05:56:23 AM »
He was taking a break from being an engineer, came back to school to take a few classes and see if teaching English to HS students was more up his alley.

I was a senior, almost done with my English lit degree.

We met in Modern American Lit. I was curious about this handsome guy in a 4000 level class. The English dept was small and I had never seen him before. We argued one day a out Freud's Civilization and its Discontents and its value to the class and other books we were reading.

He dropped out and started reapplying to engineering jobs.

Went to the OU/TX football game and saw one of our mututal friends there (a girl I sat next to in class- I played Polo with her, he ran cross country with her). He asked her to set us up on a date.

We have been blissfully together ever since! We even celebrate our first date (Oct 11) as a sort of dorky holiday. :)

thecornercat

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #22 on: November 11, 2014, 06:13:36 AM »
We met online a year and a half ago. I was the one who messaged him. We talked for about a month online before we met in person. (This wasn't intentional: we tried meeting up a week after messaging each other. He is the one who proposed we meet, but we both had trips planned, so didn't end up meeting right away.) Our messages--well, especially his--to each other were on the longer side, more like letters/e-mails then quick chats. We learned a lot about each other that first month and knew we could have a good conversation; all we needed to be sure about was the attraction! The first time we met in person was at a bar and we talked for about 4 hours. It was nice--it still is :).

Pooperman

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #23 on: November 11, 2014, 06:55:31 AM »
Met online, chatted for a bit (she turned 17 the night we met). She stopped talking to me for like a month and I figured it wasn't gonna go anywhere. Then out of the blue she contacted me again. 5 months later we started dating. She lived an hour away, but it wasn't too bad. We moved in together last year after graduating college and getting a job. It'll be 8 years next month. Marriage is on our minds (she wants it sooner than I do), but is at least 3 years away.

GuitarStv

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #24 on: November 11, 2014, 07:29:01 AM »
I stalked her in university for a few weeks.  It helped that she was in the same program and had all the same classes.

rocksinmyhead

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #25 on: November 11, 2014, 07:36:03 AM »
I looooooove all of these stories!!! I'm such a nerd for cheesy romantic shit :)

ours is kind of long and very trashy (but also doesn't involve college or the internet). a month after I moved to Pennsylvania I joined a running and drinking club (previously discussed on another thread) which he was also a part of. we were friendly acquaintances for almost a year. I guess he was into me pretty much from the beginning (the second run I attended, some girl got lost in the woods, and he made a point to email me and say DON'T WORRY, THAT SERIOUSLY NEVER HAPPENS, PLEASE COME BACK AND DON'T BE TERRIFIED, haha), but I was obsessed with some other lame dude who was stringing me along, so it took me a while to realize that he was super cute as well as being one of the nicer, more thoughtful people I knew. eventually we had a group camping weekend out in the woods with lots of beer involved, I grew increasingly flirtatious, and we had drunk sex in a tent. the next day he asked me out to lunch, which we had two days later, and we enjoyed lunch so much that we met up again after work for happy hour. we've been together for a little over four years, and two years ago he followed me to Oklahoma... he's a keeper :) it kinda makes me laugh because all the women's magazines are always like, "don't sleep with him too early!!!" and, well, oops.

also, when we started dating, I was 22 and he was 30, which I thought was like THE OLDEST EVER. I'd talk to my friends and say, "I went on another date with the 30-YEAR-OLD!!" LOL. when I told my mom, she said, "is he divorced? no? does he have kids? no? then I wouldn't worry about it too much!" her parents were 11 years apart, so I guess she didn't think it was that weird :)

Ambition89

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #26 on: November 11, 2014, 08:13:10 AM »
Wow, seems like everyone met either in school or online.

College is an amazingly efficient place to find a partner. You're surrounded by hundreds of people your own age who have been filtered to be of similar intelligence. Where else are you going to get that unless you go to graduate school?



As a somewhat recently single postgrad I certainly understand that now haha

daymare

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #27 on: November 11, 2014, 08:59:50 AM »
So my husband and I met when we were sophomores in college.

Basically, there was a ball for the engineering school (which he was part of, I was not).  My friend asked if I would go with him - and I did, because I had just finished complaining about another male friend awkwardly trying to ask me out and my frustration with male friends assuming I want to date them just because I like them as people (hello, attraction is important!), so I knew it was purely a platonic date.  We (me & my friend date) basically spend most of the night hanging out and dancing with some friends of ours ... and there's this guy who tags along with our group.  He came alone to the ball.  I actually thought he might be gay - my first impression is that DAMN is he attractive, but he's smiling all the time and wearing a bright shirt, and also he seems to not have any friends.  But he's also really nice - I used him as a support when I need to fix my heel at some point, and he was really nice about it.

Anyways, at the end of the night my friend offers to walk me home, and I'm like ... nah, I'm ok.  And then the guy (who's been hanging out with us) offers to walk me home ... and I say yes.  So we get to my place and I invite him in for some tea (I'm Russian, it's just ... what we do).  Then I make sure to change out of my beautiful dress into sweatpants and a cardigan because ... I love being fancy AND dressing like a scrub, and I'm not going to hide any part of myself.  Then I offer to give him a tour of the house (because that's what my parents always did with a new guest and seemed nice).  Later he told me that he thought I was showing him my bedroom for ... other ... reasons ;).  So we have tea and when he leaves he asks for my number (which I give).

He texts me the next day about getting lunch ... which end up being dinner b/c I have an obligation to table for a gender/sexuality conference I helped organize.  It's not super great of a date -- I insist on paying for my half (which isn't much, this is a cheap Chinese place near campus) because I don't want to feel in debt/obligated.  I rant a bit about Twilight (great date material, right?) ... after, we go to a poetry reading that I needed to attend for class.  We get there a bit late, enter just as this woman is reading her graphic poem about phone sex while sitting on her operating/vibrating washing machine ... haha.

So my now-husband was a total stranger before we started dating (we ran in entirely different circles), and subsequently it took us a while before we found our groove - it was my first relationship and the first year wasn't the greatest.  But it's been quiet wonderful since then - he is the kindest person ever, very intelligent, and still super hot (although he's going bald which sucks).  I know a lot of people swear by dating people who were originally friends, but I dunno ... I almost felt like there was a window when I met my husband, for things to get romantic, and if we hadn't kissed on our second date that ship would have sailed and I would have been disinterested.  Plus, I have to be honest -- I have a ton of really great male friends.  But the reason we're friends and not something else is because while they're awesome as people, I don't find them attractive, so I have a hard time seeing how I could go from being friends with someone to dating them.  Obviously a lot of people have different experiences, though.  Maybe I'm just a shallow asshole. ;)

Philociraptor

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #28 on: November 11, 2014, 09:22:15 AM »
We met through choir in high school. A long-time friend of mine who hated my previous girlfriends was urging me to ask my wife out, so I asked her to our junior prom. I botched it so badly that she didn't even know I was asking her! Friend cleared it up and we went together, had a good-enough time, but she didn't want to date me because one of the previous girlfriends was her best friend in choir. Summer arrives and we talk more and more on the phone. We hang out a few times and I ask her to be my girlfriend (because that's what you do in high school) that July. The rest of the relationship goes something like this:

July 2006 - Become "official", boyfriend and girlfriend
December 2006 - I decide to accept admission to school 1,800 miles away, she's gonna stay home
August 2007 - We decide to try the long distance thing
May 2008-December 2008 - Rough patch, we break up, see other people, get back together
June 2011 - Graduate, move home, back in with parents
September 2011 - Get job in hometown, cementing my location
May 2012 - Buy house together
June 2012 - Get engaged
May 2014 - Get married

Boring summary for an amazing 8 years.

Hannah

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #29 on: November 11, 2014, 09:56:43 AM »
I love stories of how people met.

I met my DH when a roommate of mine bailed on her ultimate frisbee team, and I took her place. DH was on the team, and I remember thinking he was cute, but didn't know much about him as he was so quiet.

At the end of season bar, we got to talking and I was interested in him, but I failed to give him my number and he didn't ask.

A few months later he emailed to ask if I played broomball and left instructions for a park and a time the next afternoon. The email was written at 4AM, and I normally would not have gotten it, but I had gotten a smart phone the day before.

This is where me and DH have different versions of the story.

After playing, he thinks he asked me for my number, but he did not. He was fumbling around with his phone, and I told him that since we lived close to each other we should carpool the next week, and I put my number in his phone.

Three days later (as I was driving to meet a different fellow who I didn't have the heart to turn down), DH called to ask me on a snowboarding date. A year and a half later we were married.

Frankies Girl

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #30 on: November 11, 2014, 10:18:00 AM »
At work. I noticed him after the third day, he says he noticed me first... I kind of doubt that. :D

I think overall it was a natural "talking to your coworkers" type of thing that ended up with me being friends with several of them - and we all ended up chatting on our breaks and such. We went out in a group for lunches (around 3-4 people) and at a certain point, he asked me to a friend's party. It was not obvious that he was asking me on a date - we went as friends but we both discussed after the fact that we did like each other at that time, so it took us both about a month to work up to dating. It was while hanging out as friends that we got to talking more and lots of flirting going on, and I did actually did tell him at one point that I had "feelings" for him that went beyond friendship, and I guess that pushed him into taking a leap and he kissed me shortly after that... so not sure who really went out on a limb there. ;) Started officially dating, engaged later that year, married the next, been together for going on 14 years total.

ETA: The place we worked at was an odd one - we were all night/graveyard shift artists, so everyone there was weird in their own way. I have never before or since found a place where I loved practically all of my coworkers and many of us are still friends to this day even tho I haven't worked there in over a decade. I do think the fact that were were all Island of Misfit Toys material made a huge difference in finding someone that I got along with so well....
« Last Edit: November 11, 2014, 10:27:17 AM by Frankies Girl »

Señora Savings

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #31 on: November 11, 2014, 10:29:44 AM »
We met at a mutual friends party.  We didn't talk much at that party, but a lot of the people at the party (including myself) do community dancing, and he showed up a couple of weeks later at the dance.  We went out to for drinks with a couple people afterwards and talked about our favorite books.  I was about to travel, so he recommended that I read "The Diamond Age" and I recommended that he read "Northanger Abbey".  I went out to get his book the very next day and we chatted on facebook for the next month, first while I was out of town, then while he was, then while he was sick.  We saw each other a couple of times at dances and when he (and several other people) helped me move into my apartment.

I had a big crush on him, but a friend advised that I ask him on a casual pre-date to a baseball game since we'd mostly been e-mailing and if that went well I could ask him out.  I think she was worried that I would scare him off with a grande romantic gesture.  The day after I sent him that e-mail, I got a physical letter from him written in (a poor imitations of) the style of Jane Austen saying that he liked me.

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #32 on: November 11, 2014, 04:37:42 PM »
I was 8 and had moved to a new state. My family went to a new church and DH and a couple other little boys hid behind the doors and waited until I walked past to jump out and corner me into talking to them because I was so shy. Our families became close so we would hangout a lot growing up. He turned into my best friend and went to high school together. We didn't start dating until after high school because we were both to shy to admit our feelings. After a year of dating we were married.  I think it has helped our relationship that we were good friends before entering the relationship because we got to know each other without doing the typical trying to impress the other dance.

resy

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #33 on: November 11, 2014, 04:44:29 PM »
I looooooove all of these stories!!! I'm such a nerd for cheesy romantic shit :)

ours is kind of long and very trashy (but also doesn't involve college or the internet). a month after I moved to Pennsylvania I joined a running and drinking club (previously discussed on another thread) which he was also a part of. we were friendly acquaintances for almost a year. I guess he was into me pretty much from the beginning (the second run I attended, some girl got lost in the woods, and he made a point to email me and say DON'T WORRY, THAT SERIOUSLY NEVER HAPPENS, PLEASE COME BACK AND DON'T BE TERRIFIED, haha), but I was obsessed with some other lame dude who was stringing me along, so it took me a while to realize that he was super cute as well as being one of the nicer, more thoughtful people I knew. eventually we had a group camping weekend out in the woods with lots of beer involved, I grew increasingly flirtatious, and we had drunk sex in a tent. the next day he asked me out to lunch, which we had two days later, and we enjoyed lunch so much that we met up again after work for happy hour. we've been together for a little over four years, and two years ago he followed me to Oklahoma... he's a keeper :) it kinda makes me laugh because all the women's magazines are always like, "don't sleep with him too early!!!" and, well, oops.

also, when we started dating, I was 22 and he was 30, which I thought was like THE OLDEST EVER. I'd talk to my friends and say, "I went on another date with the 30-YEAR-OLD!!" LOL. when I told my mom, she said, "is he divorced? no? does he have kids? no? then I wouldn't worry about it too much!" her parents were 11 years apart, so I guess she didn't think it was that weird :)
This is hilarious. Running and drinking club? Lol made me think of the movie "yes man".
Also, ditto on the sex. We had drunk sex within the first month of dating! It was in the night he got to meet mt friends for the first time so still on the testing period. Oops as well. Lol.

mozar

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #34 on: November 11, 2014, 06:44:15 PM »
Although I'm ten years out of college, I still enjoy the stories, and all the other ones too. I do wish I had found someone to marry in college but the advice I got was more of the "you need to date as much as possible to find yourself" variety. Maybe I'll try craigslist.

galliver

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #35 on: November 11, 2014, 07:03:02 PM »
Although I'm ten years out of college, I still enjoy the stories, and all the other ones too. I do wish I had found someone to marry in college but the advice I got was more of the "you need to date as much as possible to find yourself" variety. Maybe I'll try craigslist.

I met him when he dropped by my room to talk to my roommate, with a drink in hand. I disapproved of my roommate and of anything resembling "frat culture" so I wrote him off as a loser. Or, as he prefers, a "shady character."
I made friends with him in differential equations class, which was really boring (and surprisingly easy). None of my other friends in the class would whisper/pass notes with me. After a few weeks I realized we were into many of the same things, e.g. outdoorsy activities and he wasn't actually as boozy and shady as I thought. Soon I had a crush.
[Insert 4 years of my unrequited love, ups and downs, etc...except during that time, we both grew up in compatible ways. We don't believe we would have worked out in college.]
Then he came around and realized how awesome I am. 3 years later, he's moved across the country with and for me.

Everyone I know whose relationship started in college and is now married or in a steady relationship, started out as friends, or at least friends of friends (so they encountered each other in group social situations). Unfortunately the kinds of gatherings that lead to such relationships are less common after college... but I guess if I was giving advice to a college student, I'd tell them to hang out and make lots of friends, not date...which is basically what my mom told me.

Jessa

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #36 on: November 11, 2014, 07:09:26 PM »
OKCupid :) He messaged me (a thoughtful, coherent message that was pertinent to something I wrote in my profile). We messaged back and forth for a few weeks, then we met up for a date. I had been up until 2 am the night before with some friends, and had to get up at six for work. We met for supper and we walked around the shopping mall plaza for a bit, but it was quite cold, so he asked if I wanted to see a movie and I told him if I sat in a darkened theatre I'd be asleep in 10 minutes. He thought it was a polite dismissal, but on four hours of sleep, I was exhausted! He asked if I thought I'd want to see him again and I told him definitely :) We had our second date a week later, our third date four days after that, our fourth three days after that....we essentially moved in together after about six weeks, and we celebrated the 2 year anniversary of that first date yesterday. He intended on proposing then, but he's been out of work for the last four months, so it'll have to wait a bit longer.

Spondulix

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #37 on: November 11, 2014, 07:20:15 PM »
Although I'm ten years out of college, I still enjoy the stories, and all the other ones too. I do wish I had found someone to marry in college but the advice I got was more of the "you need to date as much as possible to find yourself" variety. Maybe I'll try craigslist.
Honestly I would try a dating site before Craigslist. I used Craigslist 10 years ago, which was before the dating sites were popular, and the reason I posted was more out of necessity - I had just moved to a new town with no job and I only knew three people. So my ad was actually trying to reach people who worked in my industry, which it did. Meeting my husband was just a side effect (which happened after we were friends for a while).

SwordGuy

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #38 on: November 11, 2014, 07:25:17 PM »
A lady I was dating was ready to dump me but, being civilized and courteous, fixed me up with someone she thought I might like better before she did so.

I think she was surprised at what a good job of fixing us up she did...

expatartist

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #39 on: November 11, 2014, 08:04:51 PM »
Three months after moving to South Korea in my late 20s, I heard a sexy British voice in a cafe and looked up to see who was speaking. He looked my type and sounded it too. He was speaking to a western woman with respect, like she was a full-fledged human being - this attitude can be rare in straight western men in Asia. Couldn't help eavesdropping: he was due to leave town in 3 weeks for a job in Hainan, 'China's Hawai'i'.

Later it turned out we were both thinking: "Why haven't I seen this person before?"

A few days later I was at a bar, chatting with a new friend. She called a colleague and invited him down for an impromptu farewell drink. After asking her a few questions I realized it was the Hainan-bound guy, and ordered another beer - though I'd planned to go home.

When he came over the chemistry was immediate. The new friend did the introducing. We went out for karaoke and vile 'lemonade soju' till 7am, but didn't 'hook up' till Hallowe'en - a mere few days later (hah! against all textbook advice). We have two anniversaries, our Hallowe'en hookup and our elopement 2 years later in Thailand.

Really enjoy reading all of your stories. Agreed there are many filters in them: whether university, or online dating, or our situation - where living outside one's comfort zone (yet socializing within it) means the selection of people you encounter are likely to have the same interests.

mozar

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #40 on: November 11, 2014, 08:53:51 PM »
I'm on OKC and match.com, didn't want to stick around PoF.

civil

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #41 on: November 11, 2014, 09:07:43 PM »
Wow, seems like everyone met either in school or online.

Nope! Met at work. I went to visit a friend's office, and who was sharing her cubicle but this very shy guy with amazing eyes. Co-workers said he was creepy - including my friend, who recommended I avoid him - but my gut said he was alright. When I got him to talk, he was articulate, shared my sense of humor, and put me at ease. And those eyes kept me coming back.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2014, 03:40:54 AM by traffic girl »

CJMcF

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #42 on: November 12, 2014, 03:33:03 AM »
Met my wife on a trip to climb Mont Blanc when we were both in our mid 40s - we were both on the same week long trip. The main problem was that she lived in Egypt and I lived in UK - after a year of visits, skype and facebook chats she came to live with me - after another year we got married - that was 21/2 years ago

MandalayVA

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #43 on: November 12, 2014, 04:51:08 AM »
Considering how much I loathe the place now, I met Mr. Mandalay at ... Walmart.  I was working there at the time and he was going to school in the area; one of the girls I worked with was in some of his classes.  He came by the store with an assignment for her, saw me, and apparently next time they were in a class together he was asking about me.  He eventually worked up his nerve to say hi to me and we'd make small talk.  He then REALLY screwed up his nerve one January afternoon and asked me if I'd seen Titanic yet.  I said no, and he asked if I'd like to see it with him.  I said yes, and he beamed.  After the movie, we went to Denny's--not many places to go in a little Kentucky town on a Saturday night--and didn't leave until six in the morning.   We were engaged seventeen days later, married seven months after that, and celebrated our sixteenth wedding anniversary this past August.

erae

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #44 on: November 12, 2014, 05:28:17 AM »
We worked in the same office, different departments, for about a year.  We were both dating other people that we weren't that excited about but enjoyed enough to keep them around until we had a reason to end things.  Our paths to innocently crossed at work rather frequently, and we were both slyly collecting whatever intel we could from our co-workers. It all came together when he accepted a position faaaaar away from where we were working, to begin in a couple months.  Now that he was working against a deadline, he kicked it into high gear with me: long talks on the phone, inviting me out after work. Within a month, we had both ditched our exes, begun our own torrid affair with each other, and booked a ticket for me to visit him a few weeks after he moved (not necessarily in that order).  After every visit out to see him, we would book a ticket for another visit 4-6 weeks later.  Six months after these visits, my contract was up and I agreed to launch a 3-month job search from his apartment in NYC.  I had some whiplash from how fast we went from 0-60, but ensured I had lots of contingency plans for if it didn't work out (friends in TX who would take me in if it didn't work out in NYC, I only applied for jobs in NYC that paid enough to allow me to get my own place if I needed to, etc.)  We were in love, but also a little intimidated by the pace of our relationship.  I got a job, we found our co-habitation rhythm, and a year and a half after we moved into together, we got hitched and celebrated our brilliant romantic judgment with our family and friends :)

begood

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #45 on: November 12, 2014, 06:34:34 AM »
Another pair who met in college! I was 20; he was 19. We dated for three years, then spent a year engaged while I finished my master's degree and he got a master's degree in England on a Rotary Club scholarship. We got married at 24 and 23, and we celebrated our 25th anniversary last December.

2ndTimer

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #46 on: November 12, 2014, 06:55:23 AM »
It was graduate Thermodynamics.  I noticed him the first day and thought he would be quite attractive if he was cleaned up.  However, I was happily living with someone else at the time.  At some point in the class, I pointed out to him that an ideal gas expanding in a vacuum does no work.  He didn't believe me and I decided he was an idiot.

Fast forward two years, my partner had flunked out and moved for a job.  I was kind of interested in a friend of future SO and did some wiggling and jiggling in that general direction.  The honey caught an unexpected fly, we had drunk sex and got married a couple of months later because I was leaving to do my research at another facility and I realized that if I didn't marry him we would lose track of each other and I would never meet another person like him.  I was absolutely right.  I have never met another person like him.  He's solid gold.

PathtoFIRE

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #47 on: November 12, 2014, 07:13:50 AM »
DW and I met in medical school, over the anatomy table...hah, that's too cliched, we were actually at neighboring anatomy tables, and since you only get one cadaver, male or female, you have to work with your neighbors once you get to certain parts, you understand. Even then, that just brought us into the same group of friends, and the next semester we all decided to join the pool/billiards league at the student center, and everyone else paired off leaving us the two odds ones out, so we paired up, decided to practice together a little, yadda yadda yadda, and it's been nearly 12 years together and just over 10 married.

rocksinmyhead

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #48 on: November 12, 2014, 07:18:16 AM »
I looooooove all of these stories!!! I'm such a nerd for cheesy romantic shit :)

ours is kind of long and very trashy (but also doesn't involve college or the internet). a month after I moved to Pennsylvania I joined a running and drinking club (previously discussed on another thread) which he was also a part of. we were friendly acquaintances for almost a year. I guess he was into me pretty much from the beginning (the second run I attended, some girl got lost in the woods, and he made a point to email me and say DON'T WORRY, THAT SERIOUSLY NEVER HAPPENS, PLEASE COME BACK AND DON'T BE TERRIFIED, haha), but I was obsessed with some other lame dude who was stringing me along, so it took me a while to realize that he was super cute as well as being one of the nicer, more thoughtful people I knew. eventually we had a group camping weekend out in the woods with lots of beer involved, I grew increasingly flirtatious, and we had drunk sex in a tent. the next day he asked me out to lunch, which we had two days later, and we enjoyed lunch so much that we met up again after work for happy hour. we've been together for a little over four years, and two years ago he followed me to Oklahoma... he's a keeper :) it kinda makes me laugh because all the women's magazines are always like, "don't sleep with him too early!!!" and, well, oops.

also, when we started dating, I was 22 and he was 30, which I thought was like THE OLDEST EVER. I'd talk to my friends and say, "I went on another date with the 30-YEAR-OLD!!" LOL. when I told my mom, she said, "is he divorced? no? does he have kids? no? then I wouldn't worry about it too much!" her parents were 11 years apart, so I guess she didn't think it was that weird :)
This is hilarious. Running and drinking club? Lol made me think of the movie "yes man".
Also, ditto on the sex. We had drunk sex within the first month of dating! It was in the night he got to meet mt friends for the first time so still on the testing period. Oops as well. Lol.
Actually it is billed as "A drinking club with a running problem". And very true to it's name :-)! Also a great place to meet people. Although I may now know how Rockisinthehead got her nickname!

haha! it really is great for meeting like-minded people since you automatically know they like running, beer, and irreverent humor, and are comfortable making fools out of themselves and not easily offended. all qualities I like about my boyfriend :)

Terrestrial

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Re: How exactly did you meet your SO
« Reply #49 on: November 12, 2014, 07:25:49 AM »
Met wife at the very end of college.  My roomate's very cute friend came by to use our washing machine one day because hers had broke.   I struck up a convo and then 'accidentally' ran into her a few times at various events until she agreed to go out with me.  Been together 10 years this fall, married for 4, 2 adorable kids. 

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!