S/O How did you meet your husband/wife/partner?

[jewellsmommy]

We were children. Our mothers were friends. They joked that we would grow up and get married. :D We spent a good amt of time together. He was 10 and I was 5 the last time I saw him. He moved to CA and then back to VA later on.

 

Then when I was 15 and volunteering at a museum in their animal room (this is also where I had my first encounter with a homeschooled person...that's a whole other story), my then current boyfriend introduced me to his friend that worked at this museum. I found this friend to be very intriguing. Later on boyfriend was telling his friend more about me and the friend figured out that he knew my family. I was cleaning out the bobcats' pond when the friend appeared on the boardwalk above me and began asking all sorts of questions that freakishly matched my history and family. Then it clicked! This was the boy who had spent the night at my house when we were children! My then current boyfriend did not last long (as was status quo for my fellas :lol: . I was fickle).

 

My mom had wanted to see the boy, now man, that she had known and babysat etc. He was 20 and struggling to live on his own. My family kind of took him in. He drove me places, ate dinner, hung out, shopped for my mom...all sorts of stuff. Somewhere along the way we fell in love. My mom knew it was serious when he made it past the 3 month mark. :lol: We just knew it was meant to be. He proposed when I was 17 and we married the summer after I graduated at 17.5 (he had just turned 23).

 

We have now been married over 16 yrs!

 

[lynn]

A mutual friend invited dh to our church and we somehow ended up sitting together.  My friend called me at work the next day to ask it it would be okay for her to give dh my phone number.  DH and I went outon our first date November 19, 1988, married year and a half later.

[Mom in High Heels]

James Bond and I met our sophomore year in college.  We lived in the same dorm building.  I was going up the outside stairs and he was sitting outside reading a book (he said he wasn't, he was watching me!).  I thought he was super cute.  He lived with his friend who was quadriplegic on the floor below me.  We met at a building meeting a few days later.  Later that same night, I was sitting in the window of my room and JB and his roommate called out to me and his roommate read me Shakespearean poetry while JB made googly eyes at me.  We dated for several months, and then he dumped me (I KNOW!), but we became friends after a while, and then 2 and half years later we got back together (meaning he came back to me!) and we've been married now for 18 years.

[happypamama]

I joined a club that he was in when I started ninth grade; he was a junior and was very polite to all of the new freshmen. His family had also started attending our church recently, and my mom knew his mom vaguely from some school committees. I had actually met him when we were in sixth and eighth grade but didn't really know him. (Actually, it turns out that we are in a school picture from sixth and eighth grade; I happen to be standing right in front of him. He was a foot taller than me then and still is.) A friend set us up for the Homecoming Dance. It was only meant to be one dance, just as friends. My parents were okay with that. No big deal, not really a date. I was fourteen! Nobody expects their fourteen-year-old daughter to get very serious with a boy very quickly, especially when that boy is going to go off to college five hours away in two years, back before the days of cell phones and Facebook.

 

Hahahahahahahaha! Yes, well, anyway. Twenty-two years, three houses, four states, and five beautiful children later. . . DH and I still specialize in defying odds, in both good and bad ways (mostly good, except for vehicles -- our saga of vehicle issues is rather unbelievable, starting with being in a major car accident fifteen minutes after he officially proposed to me).

 

ETA: We have been together twenty-two years but only married for fifteen of those; we kind of had to wait until at least one of us finished college and had a job! He went to college, we racked up huge phone bills on the weekends, and only presenting him with positive pregnancy tests has been more exciting than the day I called to tell him I had gotten my acceptance letter to the same college. I took some extra classes and graduated from college a year early, and he changed majors a couple of times and took a fifth year, so we graduated on the same day and got married a couple of months later.

[Ripley]

He came home on leave for surgery. The night before his surgery he called up his (childhood) friends, who happened to be my (college) friends. We hung out all night, as a group.  Two days later was a holiday and I had the day off of work and classes, but none of my friends did.  I was complaining to one of them that I was bored, and he suggested I call (ex-DH).  Ex-DH was still in the hospital, but when he heard I wanted to hang out with him (*eyeroll* he flatters himself LOL) he checked out AMA and against his MOM'S advice. I didn't know he was home on medical leave, or that he had just had surgery - nor did his friends, it never came up. We did the town Veteran's Day parade, and while walking back to the car he passed out.  Some date! That's when he copped to having just had surgery.

 

We spent the rest of his leave together. Three months later we eloped when I visited him overseas during my spring break.  We were married 15 years, and remain good friends - with each other AND the friends we met through.

 

 

[Tap]

We briefly saw each other one day when mutual friends driving separate cars stopped to talk to each other through their car windows.  We were the passengers and didn't talk.  The other driver, started calling me and asking me out.  I kept turning him down and he decided I was a B*tch.  (He wasn't used to girls turning him down.)  The person I was with, had a family who was Very rich so he figured I was just a stuck up rich person.

 

About a week or two later, ds and I saw each other at a party and he said  since he knew who I was, he figured he  had better at least say 'hi'.  We talked all night, went rafting the next day, and it was 3 months before we spent 24 hours apart. 

 

After many years, we finally confessed that we both thought of the other as just a summer fling.  LOL  We met in 1990....that is one lonnnnng summer.  :-)  We were night and day.  He moved out on his own at 16, dropped out of school in 10th grade, and worked at a little kiosk style gas station.  I was preppy, not rich, but definitely not looking for a guy who pumped gas for a living and cared so little about education.  My previous boyfriends were all scholars and had huge careers ahead of them.  But that silly boy made me laugh..........

[Melissa in Australia]

Dh and I met at church. He was not a member and was just sort of checking out the church. As soon as I saw him I knew he was it. :001_wub:  I invited him to my parents house for coffee. I invited him the following week, and the following week and the following week....... After a while I didn't have to invite him anymore, he had got into the habit of coming. We got married just over a year  later.

[DawnM]

Dh was in between jobs and selling cars for a Saturn dealer in the Valley (LA area).  My friend needed a car.  We met him.  

 

It was not "love at first sight."  I had a boyfriend, and he was actually interested in my friend!!!!!!!!  He started to hang out with our group of friends and we became friends.  It wasn't until 2 years later that we actually took an interest in each other.  

 

My Dh is the "good friend" guy.  He went to 8 different proms in high school because he was the guy the girls would fall back on to take if they didn't have someone ask them.  It was easy to be his friend.  We hung out for a long time before we thought of dating and we didn't want to mess up our friendship so it was either going to be serious or not at all.  We went from friends to engaged really.

 

We were 29 when we married.

 

Dawn

[Chris in VA]

We met at a church diocesan youth conference. (Actually, he saw me before at his church while I was visiting, but I don't really remember that.)

 

My youth group buddies warned me about him--he had dated quite a few young ladies from the diocese. 

 

I tamed him. 

 

Married 28 years. 

[Carrie12345]

I ordered mine online.

 

Well, not intentionally. I was just looking for some casual dating to get me out of the house. I married him 8 months after we met in person.

 

My parents' story is better. It started out working together as teenagers. Then they found out they had the same kindergarten class photo. My mother's family had moved all the way across the country when she was little, then decided to come back a few years later. They never went to school together again, but even after a cross-country move, she married her kindy classmate.

 

THey're divorced now, but I still think it's cute!

[Dmmetler]

At Carnegie Mellon University in their summer APEA program. I was a music student and was trying to juggle three instrument cases (because I didn't know what the director would want me to play) and a campus map to figure out which of two apparently identically named buildings my next class was in. He offered to help me carry the stuff and find my class. That evening, we found each other again at an activity for the program students, and we were together for the rest of the session. We married 6 years after that (with a few bad relationships and college degrees intervening-we had a lot of years where we were both the other's person to vent to on the phone after a bad date). We will have been married 20 years this summer.

 

 

[MrsJewelsRae]

My best friend introduced us at a bible conference when I was 17 and he was 21. He was her brother's good friend. I was saving a seat for my best friend and he asked me "is this seat saved for Mr. Right?" ;) My best friend came along and introduced us. We lived 4 hours apart and didn't have Internet so we only saw each other a couple times a year at special church conventions. When he came to Toronto for my church conference I fell hard for him, I was almost 19. A few months later our moms got talking at another church conference and realized they grew up in the same town and his mom was my grandpa's secretary 25 years earlier!

To my shock his mom invited our family to spend the weekend at their house a couple months later (she is totally against match making, still don't know what possessed her!?). Dh took my sister and I out for dinner with the youth group from his church and when we got in the car after it was sooo cold I was shivering and holding my hands in front of the heater when he reached over and took my hand in his and held it all the way home!! I'm pretty sure I didn't breathe or blink the whole way! ;) A few months later he proposed and a few months after that we were married! :) We've been married for 14 years!

[bobbeym]

We met at a church single's group.  I had gone because I was  bored and thought it was worth a try.  There was a guy that liked me, but I really didn't care anything about him.  Anyway, he invited his friend (dh) saying there were a lot of single girls there except this one girl (me) that he was interested in was off limits.  Anyway he brought dh, introduced us, and the rest is history.  Dh and I started dating and shortly afterwards, we left the singles group.  His friend always regretted bringing dh to the group, but I've always been very thankful he did.  I can hardly believe that was over 31 years ago.

 

 

This is similiar to how DS19 met DIL. 

 

They were 12 and in 7th grade.  DIL was invited by a mutual friend (we'll call her N) to our church's youth group and decided to stick around. Both girls liked DS and after a few months N decided they should both ask him out, betting that he'd go out with N.  He politely declined N and chatted up DIL instead.  They "dated" for 2 years before she moved away to California.  They were out of touch for 1 year (and dated other people), then reconnected and made a long distance relationship work for the next 3 years.  DIL moved back home in 2012 after she turned 18 and they were married this past May.

 

They both say that they knew way back when that they were meant for each other.

[G5052]

In a small church "single career" group.  We were the oldest two in the group, and actually the only two that met and married from that crowd.  Several of our friends told us later that they were convinced that we were right for each other long before we got interested, but they held back and waited!

[mommaduck]

Highschool. It was a set up by our friends and they included the entire school...including cafeteria staff...

[HRAAB]

This is similiar to how DS19 met DIL. 

 

They were 12 and in 7th grade.  DIL was invited by a mutual friend (we'll call her N) to our church's youth group and decided to stick around. Both girls liked DS and after a few months N decided they should both ask him out, betting that he'd go out with N.  He politely declined N and chatted up DIL instead.  They "dated" for 2 years before she moved away to California.  They were out of touch for 1 year (and dated other people), then reconnected and made a long distance relationship work for the next 3 years.  DIL moved back home in 2012 after she turned 18 and they were married this past May.

 

They both say that they knew way back when that they were meant for each other.

 

That's such a sweet story.  I love hearing about how people met.  It's a little like my oldest dd.  She was dating S, who was friends with J.  Anyway, J decided dd was the girl for him and that he would wait until dd wised up and broke up with S.  Well, dd did break up with S and J was there in the background, patiently waiting (he waited almost 3 years).  They got together, got married and now I have a granddaughter.  :001_smile: 

[Amira]

We were in the Middle East studying Arabic. Exploring new places is still one of our favorite things to do together and we've learned lots of new languages on the way. I still feel lucky after 16 years.

[bobbeym]

I attended the vocational college my mom worked at.  I was digging through her desk during a break looking for change for the vending machines. These two guys come in asking for my mom and I told them where she was.  They tried to chat for a few minutes, but they were kind of scuzzy looking and (at that point in my life) was not going to be seen with guys like that.  As they went around the corner, I heard the taller guy say "I'm going to marry her some day."  I scoffed at the mere idea.

 

The next day the tall guy stopped to say hi in the breakroom. He'd cleaned up so well I didn't even recognize him. :laugh:   We became great friends, talking almost every day, and he was the one I went to whenever I had boyfriend problems.  A little over a year later, I'd called off all relationships and only wanted to go out with my friends to have fun.  I left a note for him with my mom, inviting him to a movie we'd been talking about and both wanted to see. I didn't hear from him that day and was embarrassed, figuring he'd assumed I was asking him on a date when that wasn't my intent.  He showed in my mom's office the next morning to find me, with a white rose and a "yes" to the movie.

 

The movie led to a bottle of wine and long hours talking in front of a fire, and I went home knowing he was The One.  Two weeks later at my college graduation we announced our engagement and were married 7 months after that.   That was 21 years ago next month and we still joke about how we met.

[NicksMama-Zack's Mama Too]

Dh was in between jobs and selling cars for a Saturn dealer in the Valley (LA area).  My friend needed a car.  We met him.  

 

It was not "love at first sight."  I had a boyfriend, and he was actually interested in my friend!!!!!!!!  He started to hang out with our group of friends and we became friends.  It wasn't until 2 years later that we actually took an interest in each other.  

 

My Dh is the "good friend" guy.  He went to 8 different proms in high school because he was the guy the girls would fall back on to take if they didn't have someone ask them.  It was easy to be his friend.  We hung out for a long time before we thought of dating and we didn't want to mess up our friendship so it was either going to be serious or not at all.  We went from friends to engaged really.

 

We were 29 when we married.

 

Dawn

 

Very similar story here.  Hubby and I met in a college english class.  He was friends with a high-school friend of mine that attended the same english class.  He and my friend had a mutual hatred of the teacher.  I was her PET and she frequently praised my work in front of the class.  ;-P

 

I though dh was a sweet guy and I encouraged by best friend to date him (she was on the rebound from a bad breakup).  I was engaged at the time.  My then-financee and I double dated with my dh and by best friend.  I can't remember the movie....

 

My best friend broke up with him and reunited with her ex.  I broke up with my ex when I realized I had feelings for my dh.

 

However, I had to convince my dh to date me.  I didn't want to mess up our friendship.  Finally, he gave us a chance and we dated 5 years and ended up marrying at 23.  Been married 23 years.

[bobbeym]

My parents have a great story.

 

My dad and my bio-father were best friends/roommates in the Army. When they got out and returned stateside, my bio-father invited my dad home to meet his family.  My dad was shocked because he'd had NO IDEA his friend was married or had a kid; he certainly didn't act like it.  He said his first reaction to seeing my mom was "she doesn't look like a monster" as we went past them into another room.  I was 3yo at the time.

 

My mom and bio-father filed for divorce, my dad moved in with me and mom, and they were married within a year or so from the day they met. My bio-father eventually signed away his parental rights and my dad formally adopted me when I was 6yo.  They've been married for 35 years now.

[Blessed Mommy]

We met through mutual friends in high school.  My husband was 16, and I was 17.  We've been together ever since!  :)

[elfgivas]

at a wedding.  i was the pastor, he was the brother of the bride.  i walked in to do the wedding rehearsal, and the most amazing man was standing at the front of the church.

i walked thru the sanctuary and to my office, all the time saying to myself, "we are all God's children.  i will treat every single person exactly the same way.  we are all God's children."

 

wedding was lovely.  i sat with the family at the reception, which i usually did.  now-dh talked to me through out the reception, went out to his car and got pictures to show me.  at the end of the reception he turned to me and said "don't be surprised if i show up on your front porch one day".  i drove away to run a youth retreat thinking, "those American men and their lines".....

 

two weeks later, bride and groom took me to dinner to say thank you and show me pictures of the wedding.  bride thanked me for "putting up with" her brother, and said, "now you've met him i guess you can see why he'll never get married."  and without thinking i replied, "no, i idont' understand that at all.  he's one of the most fascinating men i've ever met."

 

both heads swivelled in disbelieve, and they spent the rest of the evening trying to convnce me that it would be disastrous, listing all his foibles.  i watched it slowly dawn on them that most of them were shared things....

 

then there was a long distance "getting to know you" during which we both thought that we were just becoming good friends.

 

fastforward two years and the morning of our wedding he showed up on my front porch :).  

 

still smiling, all those years later,

ann

[saraha]

I dated my husband's roommate my freshman year at a REALLY small college. He was a real jerk.  Anyway, husband was a senior so we ran around with different crowds.  A year later I had dropped out of college and moved in with a friend from college in a nearby big city.  Husband was living in said big city.  People from our small college tended to stick together in the big city, so we ran into each other again hanging out with the old ALC crowd.  I was long distance dating another jerk then.  He talked me through all of this guys jerkiness, and one day I just looked up and thought Wow!  He's been right in front of me the whole time!  But he is a slow to fire kind of guy so I had to convince him that we were meant to be together

[Hunter's Moon]

My sister met him in middle school. When I was in 7th grade, she was IM'ing him and a mutual friend. I joined in. The next day, I decided to IM him by myself. We texted and IM'd for about 6 months before I told him I had a crush on him. We "dated" even though we didn't see each other much (I first met him about a month before confessing my crush to him, and it was brief). Oh, and I joined Field Hockey for him when I went into 9th grade (he was in 11th).

 

On our 5th anniversary as a couple, we got married at just turned 19 6 days before (me) and 20. We just celebrated our first wedding anniversary and hope for many more.

[mytwomonkeys]

We met 14 years ago on match.com. True & weird story! lol

[SweetMissMagnolia]

dh was the best friend of my sister's husband-they were on a volunteer fire dept together and he would spend ALOT of time at their house....don't get me wrong LOL they enjoyed the company and loved him as family,but they got the idea that he needed a girlfriend soooo they got it into their heads that they would fix us up on a blind date---that was in 2000....we were married in 2001....

[Wabi Sabi]

I was sitting alone in a brewery. Dh was there with a friend and noticed my red boots and my rather, um, curvy bottom. Right when dh had managed to gather up enough courage to come talk to me I got up and left. He started to follow me out to the parking lot but lost his nerve, so he came back inside and asked the bartender if he knew my name. The bartender didn't know it offhand, but got my name off of the credit card slip and told it to dh.

 

This was in a college town, so dh thought there was a good chance that I was a student at the university. He called their info line the following day and asked if he could get an email address or phone number for me. The operator replied, "The Wabi Sabi who lives at 555 Main Street? I'm sorry, I can't give you her email or phone number. That's confidential information."

 

So, armed with only but my name or address, dh drew a little cartoon and wrote a note on a piece of paper and taped it to my front door a few days later. At first I thought he might be a crazy stalker, but then I decided that crazy stalkers don't draw cute cartoons. Just to play it safe, I waited until I was at work and called him from that number a few days later. We spoke on the phone several times, and the first time we met was in a public place (the same brewery, LOL!) with a friend along just to play it safe. We went on a date shortly after that and here we are 12 years later.

[mytwomonkeys]

Oh. Not my story. But my cousin met his wife because he dialed the wrong number accidentally. They started talking and then met. That is the strangest thing I've ever heard!! lol

[MicheleinMN]

My roommate was dating his house-mate.  They set us up on what I thought was a blind date.  Turns out dh had seen a photo of me and said it was okay to set us up.  Oh, and our former roommates also married each other. ;)

 

 

[LucyStoner]

When I was a senior in high school I met him through a friend of mine who was a freshman in college. After a year and a 1/2 of being friends, he moved across the state and started attending a different college. He had my number at my first apartment but we didn't stay in contact. At this point I was in college and lived in my first apartment. Well the day came that I was moving. Of note is that this was before you could port your phone numbers across prefixes and the first 3 numbers of your phone number showed what neighborhood you lived in. I was moving from one prefix to the next, so my number was changing. I had everything packed up and moved except for the final cartons and my phone. I returned to old apartment to get those few things and unplug my phone. I had no answering machine. The phone rings and it's J. I took down his number and called him back from my new apartment. If he had called a few moments earlier I wouldn't have been there for the call or a few moments later and the phone would be disconnected. My number was unlisted and there was no call forwarding order. He called at literally the right moment. We struck up a phone and mail correspondence which I refused to admit was anything more than friendly/platonic and then he came to visit for New Years 1999. When he got off the airplane the illusion of it being strictly platonic was all over. We spent his visit going to museums during the day and music shows at night. when he went home, we took turns flying across the state whenever we could. We've been together ever since and he transferred colleges again a few months later to be with me. We got married 2.5 years after that most serendipitous phone call.

[Catherine]

We were interns together. Not exactly a time one thinks of romance. After we noticed each other, he asked for my number and then went on vacation. I didn't know this so called and left a message. After more than a week of no response, I wasn't feeling inclined to be friendly! But he did call me when he returned.

 

We confessed that we knew we had found "the one" after that first date. But we pledged not to talk seriously until we had finished internship, so we kept that pledge-until the day after it ended! LOL. However, we did keep our relationship very quiet just because residency programs are like small, sometimes dysfunctional, families. He moved to a different hospital after that-he was only there for one year.

 

Together 21 years and counting...

[Twilight Woods]

Online in a chat room in 1996 :)

[Hunter's Moon]

Oh. Not my story. But my cousin met his wife because he dialed the wrong number accidentally. They started talking and then met. That is the strangest thing I've ever heard!! lol

He must be a smooth talker. :)

[bobbeym]

We met 14 years ago on match.com. True & weird story! lol

 

A good friend of mine met her current fiance on match.com.  He came as a single dad with young twin girls. She was unable to have kids and loved the instant family she got.  They've been together for 4 years now.

 

Two other dear friends met their respective DH's online playing video games.

[MollyAnn]

I was bored one night so I randomly choose a screen name on AOL to IM.

It wasn't the cleanest of conversations, but when he IMed me the next day I was at work and told him to be nice.

We quickly moved from IMing and emails to phone calls. 1 month after the first IM I flew to where he was stationed to meet him and three weeks after that we eloped.

We have been together for 15 years.

During that first month of talking, DH printed out every email I sent him and still has them in a file he keeps in his closet.

[Lisa in SC]

Thanks for sharing your stories, everyone! It's been fun to see all of the ways people meet. :)

[mytwomonkeys]

A good friend of mine met her current fiance on match.com.  He came as a single dad with young twin girls. She was unable to have kids and loved the instant family she got.  They've been together for 4 years now.

 

Two other dear friends met their respective DH's online playing video games.

 

 

It is so funny because I've never met anyone online & match.com was really out of character for me.  I shocked a lot of people to say the least  :D   I was living in Atlanta at the time & a close friend happened to mention it (it was very new at the time & I had never even heard of online match making). Anyway. I went home & looked it up, and there was a free 7 day trial thing. I signed up & filled out the form in the most transparent and blunt way I could.  I did not even attach my picture. My husband emailed me through the website. He had a picture of him & his mom together, and he really seemed like a perfect guy for me! I emailed him back and a conversation started that day that is still going strong.  I never even spoke to another person through match & actually deleted my account the day after I opened it!  

 

When I told my parents about my husband at first, they would only refer to him as "Internet Joe", lol (his name is not even Joe btw).  My parents adore him now of course.  He's such a great guy!  So anyway, we talked for a few months...started off with emails...then led to phone conversations. He came to Atlanta from Nashville and met my family. Then I had him meet my boss on the next visit (who was also a pastor & I really respected his input).  Eventually we met each other's friends & about a year later we got married. I was 28 then. I had my daughter when I was 30 and my son at 32.  Now fourteen years later I still completely adore my husband.  We really should be on a commercial or something for match.com, lol. I even have every email exchange from those days printed out in a folder :)  Our story is really weird I know, but I'm so glad it worked out the way it did.  

[kewb]

At a dance club.  It was not a random pick up exactly.  I had won free passes and one of my friends could not go because she had a date with her now husband but she told me to look for her friend.  I was thinking "Yeah, right.  Giant club, 3 dance floors, not gonna happen."  He was thinking the same thing when she told him to look for me. 

 

At the club I am dancing with my friends when across the room I see a friend of mine I had not seen since college.  She and I do the girl scream thing and run across the room to each other.  She was there with her boyfriend who is friends with my husband.  She dragged me over to meet my dh to find out if he was the guy I was supposed to be looking for.  Turns out he was the same guy.

 

I thought he was a total dud.  In fairness, he was just getting over bronchitis.  But, seriously, dudsville.  He and another friend were taking my friend out for brunch the next day for her birthday and he invited me along. I said sure with absolutely no intention of going-did I mention what a dud I thought he was.  The next morning I was telling my mom about it and she made me go to brunch by pointing out that I had nothing better to do that day.

 

He was still a bit of a dud.  They all started making plans to go to a hockey game.  I bow out.  He is a dud.  Hockey game rolls around and one person backed out and they had an extra ticket.  Again, my mother makes me go.  Now dh is healthy and funny and witty.  He called 2 weeks later to ask me out. We will be married 21 years come December.

[PrairieSong]

It all started with a guitar pick. Dh and I met on a church retreat. I brought my guitar and played with two guy guitarists, one of whom was a huge flirt. (Not dh) On the last day, we were sitting in a circle on the floor singing praise songs. There were maybe 25 of us, and I didn't know dh and don't remember talking to him that weekend.

 

A couple weeks later a documentary was being shown at my college. A friend in the dorm invited me to go, so I did. Dh was there with a group of people from his town about an hour away. We bumped into each other in the hallway at the drinking fountain. He said hello and called me by name. I struggled to remember his. "I have your guitar pick," he told me. "You do?"

 

He said I'd been sitting next to him at the end of the retreat and after I'd gotten up he found my guitar pick on the floor. He looked for me but I'd already left. "Maybe I'll send it back to you." I said, do that. And write me a letter. I NEVER get any mail. This was in the dinosaur days before email. The 80's.

 

I forgot all about it when a few days later I pulled an envelope from my mailbox containing the guitar pick and a sweet letter. I showed it to my friend next door in the dorm, and she said he sounded nice, and that I should invite him to our college's winter dance. She knew I wanted to go, but our college was 90% female. Chances of getting a date were slim. I protested that I barely knew him, but in the end for some unknown reason I called him. He had plans and couldn't come. He was going to a surprise birthday party for a mutual friend from the retreat. "You can come with me if you want."

 

So I said ok. It was better than sitting alone in the dorm NOT going to the dance. I knew the birthday girl and some of the other guests. That was our first date. After the party he invited me in for hot cocoa, but he was out of milk and cocoa. He offered me hot tea, but he didn't have tea bags either, just instant. Yes. Hot Nestea! Oh my. He was no culinary genius...but we were married less than two years later. Thirty years and seven kids later...we now have tea bags, and I'm still playing guitar.

[tshirtyogapantmama]

Knew him as a regular on a chatroom (90's) before Social Media/Yahoo Mess. type programs. He Private Messaged me and the rest is history. We were married within a year. Never dated in person, just over web/phone. He proposed over the web 3 days after talking to me. We were engaged the week I meet him in person.

[Rosie_0801]

My grandfather had been an intellectual in his previous life, but the war changed that. My grandmother met him in a garden in London where he was sitting on a pipe swinging his legs because he was supposed to be planting tomatoes but didn't know how. She felt sorry for the cute fella. Lucky for me he'd learned some English from the Americans in Italy, or the chatting up might not have been so successful.

My other grandparents' story relies on my grandmother's more extroverted friend, because my Nan was a nice young lady who didn't give her name to drunken sailors who talked to her on trains. My grandfather went home that night and told his mother he'd met the girl he was going to marry (Nan being girlfriend 43, I think) so his mother hated her until the day she died.

[Ottakee]

Ottakee, I just wanted to clarify that when I "liked" your post, I was liking the rest of the story. I wasn't liking the part where your dh lost a friend. I'm very sorry about that.

No problem.

[PrairieSong]

My dad was dating my mom's roommate. My mom was dating a friend of dad's. Dad called to ask the roommate to a New Year's Eve dance. The roommate had gone home and in the course of the conversation he discovered that Mom wasn't dating his friend anymore. So he asked her to the New Year's Eve dance. Dad told me that back then (the 50's) people dated casually. He dated many different girls. If you wanted to date exclusively then you asked to "go steady". He wasn't going steady with Mom's roommate.

 

Mom was still recovering from polio so she was too weak to dance. They sat and listened to big band music. Dad was captivated. He was hooked. He was quite the dancer, so this was the first dance he'd ever been to where he didn't "dance a lick", but according to him, it was the best dance ever. They dated for four months and then Dad went away to Air Force basic training. They wrote each other letters almost every day. (I have seen some of them!) In those days, people did not call long distance unless it was an emergency, according to Dad. It was very expensive. So...he proposed to my mother by LETTER. She accepted by letter! They arranged to both fly to a city halfway between them. Dad arrived first, and he said when she got off her plane she came running! He gave her an engagement ring and they were married only two months later.

[BearWallowSchool]

At church when I was 15. He was there to meet my friend.  :blushing:

[J-rap]

I transferred to a new college in my junior year, and my husband -- having transferred the year previously -- qualified to be a transfer student adviser.  So, I met him during the week of transfer student orientation.

 

However, before I actually met him and before he knew I was one of the new transfer students, he saw me walk across the student cafeteria my first day there.  He turned to his friend and said, "That's the woman I'm going to marry." 

[Slartibartfast]

We met at a comic book store. 

[Wheres Toto]

Bowling.  After my divorce I returned to full time work as an Executive Admin.  The company I worked for had a bowling league.  I had bowled years before and since I was trying to get out more, I decided to join.  Dh worked for a different part of the company that I never would have contact with but he was the star of the bowling league (always got the trophy for highest average, highest game, etc.) :lol: .  

 

There was a group that used to go out for dinner after bowling and dh invited me to come along.  For about a year he would ask me out periodically and I would always say no (usually for a specific reason - I had my daughter, had commitments).  After about a year, I finally said yes.  We started dating in June, we're engaged in September, and married in October.  Our 9th anniversary is tomorrow. :hurray:

[jelbe5]

My husband was the pledge son of my first husband.

 

We were very good friends. He was like the brother I always wanted but did not have. I was married and he was engaged. About the same time my two year marriage ended his fiancé dumped him. We wound up commiserating and then realized we never needed to "date" . . . we knew each other very well, had similar values and interests, etc. Yes, the relationship may have started out as a "rebound" but it worked. We just celebrated our 23rd anniversary.

[ThatHomeschoolDad]

My grandparents met when they both worked at AT&T in Manhattan.  She was four years older, smoked, and drove a convertible with red wire wheels!  The future MIL was apparently aghast.   They got married on a weekend at a JP in the city, and lasted something over 70 years until he died just a few years ago.   She's now 100.

 

Unrelated, but as the first born grandchild, it fell to me to name her.  Now, Almira is not the easiest on toddler ears, and I guess grandma was duly suggested.  Apparently my best attempt came out "za-za."   Wire wheels or not, my grandmother would not pass for Zsa Zsa Gabor, but liked the pronouncement enough that she became, and is still Zaz to everyone.
 

[SeaConquest]

4am, bar at the Wynn in Vegas, NYE weekend in 06/07. He barely spoke English (he's from Quebec). Pure chemistry. Certainly not the way I ever expected it to happen. Two kids and nearly 7 years later, we're still head over heels.