One of the things I often ask people is how they met the person who they fell in love with. And what were their first impressions of these people. I don't really have any interesting answers to these questions, but a lot of the stories I've heard have been great.

Pamie? Anyone? Care to share? (Sorry if this has already been written about. I'm new here.)

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

Answers

Met mine in the 8th grade - algebra class. He was this cute nerd, and at the time I was really into "bad boys", so even though we hit it off personality-wise, it wasn't as if we just started dating right away and the rest was history. He let me know that he "liked me", but I was too wrapped up in losers to pay any attention. We became good friends, and he made me laugh all the time, the kind of laughing where if I was drinking milk, it would have come out of my nose. The next summer he 'blossomed', started dating girls on the Drill Team, and was suddenly Mr. It. I thought I had blown my chance, but by Sophomore Year we had our first date, Junior Year we had our second (yes, a year apart. He was VERY shy), and Senior Year we were finally an exclusive couple. We dated from then on, but did have a few REALLY hard times and break-up periods. I guess we had to learn all the things that everyone learns about relationships through experience, only we learned it all with each other. We married in 1997, 10 years after we graduated from high school, and are insanely happy today. As we sadly watch our friends and family members go through one divorce after another, we realize that by getting all the big problems out of the way early on, we paved the way for a very happy future. He is the most wonderful man I've ever known, and I still have to be careful when I drink milk around him.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

Geekily enough, I first met my husband online on (blush) a MUD (through my current boyfriend) in 1992. And I hated him. He had a real asshole attitude online. We met in person about a year later, and he turned out to be this really nice quiet guy. In '93, I broke up with the current bf and moved half a country away. In '96, I went back to Tx to visit friends, and Dale and I just clicked. He moved half way across the country to be with me 3 months later. In '98 we were married.

Ah.... geek love!

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

Over the gaming table at her and her boyfriend's house. Playing AD&D. When they broke up, she kicked him out; I moved in a week later. Steve & I kept gaming together, but things got kinda rough for my characters...

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

I met my husband online, on IRC, in March of 1996. At the time, he was in Alabama, and I was in Rhode Island. We chatted online every night for 2 weeks before I'd let him call me. After that, we talked online for a few hours, and then on the phone for a few hours every night. Our phone bills were incredible; I'd never seen phone bills like that before. We finally met in person on Memorial Day weekend, 1996, in Pennsylvania, and I was in loooooove. Two weeks later, we met in Virginia for 2 days, and after that he flew to Rhode Island for a long 4th of July weekend. After a combined total of 10 days together, he asked me to move to Alabama to be with him.

I said yes. I moved myself and my daughter to Alabama in August of '96, and on Halloween 1998 we got married.

http://www.bitchypoo.com/bitchypoo.html

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

This is my dad's story:

He met and dated a girl in high school for 2 years, and they even became engaged, set to marry on Feb 8th, 1959. As the day neared, they decided they were too young, and needed to try out life seprately for a while, hoping their paths would cross again later. Instead, he met my mom, married her, had me, and moved across the country.

My parents were married for 25 years, divorced in 1991. Neither of them remarried, but there was no chance of reconciliation. It just seemed that they were both content to be alone. By November 1999, dad decided that no, he wasn't content, and looked up his high school sweetheart on the internet. He found and address, sent her a Hi, Remember Me? card, and waited. A couple of weeks later, he heard back from her, they started talking on the phone, and decided that they should get together and see if the old spark was still there.

In December she came to stay with him for a week. On her 3rd day there, they decided to get engaged. They are set to marry on Feb. 8th, 2000. One day after his 60th birthday, one day before hers. 41 years later, apparently the spark is still there.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

Oh, cool, we can tell how our parents got together.

Summer stock production of Dracula; my mother played Mina and was supposed to die off-stage, giving a convincing scream and choking sound. She wasn't convincing enough, so my father choked her.

That's how they met.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

Ok, I love answering this question.

I married my husband on our first date.

We are the schmoopiest in love couple I know.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

Ooohhhh... :)

I met M on line. No, not "online" -- waiting on line outside Irving Plaza, a club in NYC, to see the band Lush.

I didn't even have tickets -- and the show was sold out. Pure luck that I got in.

And if he or I had been even five minutes earlier or later -- different spots on line, right? -- we'd never have met at all.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

Kristin: You seriously married your husband on your first date? Is there more to this story? I'm all curious and stuff.

As for me, I too met my SO on the Internet. After four years, during which he did, and then did not, and then did again wait for me to graduate (long story), I moved out here to Seattle to be with him, and it's been a big ol' love fest ever since.

I'm gonna put a link to my site here, why? Because I can. My life in 12-Point Font

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

She found me---in a Superman comics letter column. No lie. We wrote for six months, met in real life, and then got married six months after we met face-to-face.

Al of Nova Notes.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

We met at work, at a copy/printing chain. He did deliveries on foot, and I worked in one of the stores, makin' copies. Apparently he noticed me long before I ever saw him -- I always seemed to have my head inside a copy machine, swearing and trying to unam it. Very impressive. I noticed his accent first (he's British). When we finally spoke, he walked up to me and introduced himself, shook my hand, turned red, and walked out. I noticed he came into the store an awful lot, and never really seemed to have a reason -- he'd walk eight blocks in the rain to... use the phone? Borrow a pen? Bum a cigarette? We eventually went out, spent the whole night talking (no, really! Just talking!) and went out for breakfast in the morning. On our second date he proposed -- much to our families' relief, we were engaged for a couple of years. We just got married

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

How 'bout unfinished love stories?

At a youth hostel in France a geeky guy with an absolutely undeciferable English accent (Birmingham, it turns out) wants to buy me a Coke. At first I refuse, but he persists, and we began to talk. I literally couldn't understand a thing he said, had to ask him to repeat almost every sentence. We exchange addresses, the usual.

One year later, a letter arrives in the mail. 8 pages, both sides, plus newspaper clippings. Erudite! Interesting! Boy, did that get my attention, except that I didn't have the faintest idea who it was . . I figured it out, and wrote a long letter back.

This continued for five years. We discussed Thatcherism, the rise of Bill Clinton, the effects of architectre planning in various cities we'd seen. He sent me books, and even I sent him my architecture thesis when I graduated college. A real meeting of the minds.

Then I moved to Hong Kong, and later Taiwan. He wrote about how miserable it was to find a good job in England on a Literature/Politics major, so I jokingly invited him over to asia, as I'd heard English teaching opportunities were good here.

To my surprise, he took me up on it! Mind you, in my head he was just an interesting pen friend. Later I found out he'd been in love with me since the first day . . .

After he arrived here things took off. Eight months of bliss. He even flew back to the US with to meet my family! (how'd you like to have 9 highly-strung, argumentative, opinionated people vet you for compatability with their daughter/sister?)

Sounds like a happy ever after, don't it?

Not quite, as he lost his job here and had to return to England. At the moment he is struggling somewhere in an English teaching job in Slovakia, trying to decide what to do with his life.

Now we email instead of write letters. I hope it doesn't take another five years . . . .

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Wow, Angela. That's an amazing story. Hope it turns out all right. Good luck.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

I am another one of "those people" who met their spouse online. Yep good ol' AOL. I have since formed the opinion that meeting someone online is no different or weird than meeting someone in a bar. That's probably rationalizing on my part but c'est la vie. He IM'd me and my first reaction was "Ugh...another loser!" But we chatted for a couple hours that night. The next evening he surprised me by asking first how open-minded I was and then telling me he was a transsexual. It was a new one for me I admit. We got along famously though and I asked him out!

Now just about 3 years later we are married and trying to save money for a house, surgeries he still needs and the chance to have kids! He is my best friend and I am glad we had the chance to get to know each other before the physical aspect had the chance to freak me out.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

He was living in a flat I moved into, and I thought he was gorgeous. However, he had a girlfriend, so it was all strictly platonic. A month or so later we started hanging out a lot at the flat, watching TV, me in my pyjamas, that kind of thing (because he had a girlfriend it was all very relaxed and without pressure). Eventually things took a carnal turn, and he broke up with the girlfriend. We were engaged five months later and married a year after that - it will be a year on the 13th of March.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

A frat party. Yeah. My friends took me over to the college near where we live during our senior year in high school for my 18th birthday. We went over to this fraternity (Delta Kappa Epsilon, in case you're curious) because we knew a guy that lived there. On our way inside, we ran into these two guys. One of them, Troy... he was so cute, and he talked so much. It's the beginning of October, and it's freezing outside, but he and I stood out there on the back porch and talked for like 3 hours.

Long story short, we lost touch over the next few months, and then I decided to get ahold of him while I was over there again. We talked some more, wrote e-mails, and I asked him out. We went to Olive Garden, and we officially became a couple on February 14, 1999.

I love you, Choder.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

My boyfriend joined the improv troupe I'm in last year and we became friends. I think our first actual conversation took place while waiting around at a tech run-through for a show we were involved with. We talked to each other in the characters of two old hoity-toity British men. What an ice-breaker:) I was with someone else at the time, but as Matt and I became better friends and started spending a lot of time doing stuff, I realized that he was doing a much better job of playing "the boyfriend" than the actual boyfriend was. When I was home for spring break, I realized that I missed Matt and not the actual boyfriend. So in a harsh move on my part, I broke up with actual boyfriend and Matt and I became a couple. And I'm still friends with the ex!

The best thing about our relationship is that we were forced to be very honest with each other right from the beginning and it's remained that way ever since. I'm excited because we'll be moving in with each other (along with two other friends, but that's just details) this summer!

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

We were in the same classes at school.

I auditioned for the play he was in. I didn't want the part, so I did the worst audition I've ever done. I yelled my lines like I was Corky. Somehow, I got the part anyway. It was Twelfth Night. I was Maria to his Sir Toby Belch.

It took a couple of weeks before I told Eric that story, and he seemed to look a bit relieved, as if I was gonna whip the Corky style out again on opening night.

We discussed being Polish, Pennsylvania, and had the same breaks during rehearsals. He liked crossword puzzles. I liked crossword puzzles. One day I scooted over to him on the steps and helped him out on 29 across.

When he started saving the crossword for rehearsals, I knew he was interested. When I started coming to rehearsal half an hour early to do the crossword with him, he knew I was interested.

When our director made Eric smack me on the butt and I had to kiss him-- we knew he wanted us to get together.

I think that Stee was the one who told me that many couples get together doing Twelfth Night. Some kind of love potion in the play, I guess. I know I got all hot every time Eric shouted, "What a plague means my niece to take the death of her brother thus. I'm sure care's an enemy to life."

Hot and bothered.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

I'd seen him at work. He'd seen me. We'd never spoken a word to each other. One night, he arrived at a party I was at. I'd been there some time (read: very drunk). I asked him to come home with me. He did. Two and a half years later, we're engaged. (Ha - Mum, you said that tack never worked!)

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Pamie, I'm glad you posted how you and Eric got together. You mentioned somewhere in Squishy before that you had met through acting, but the details are fun to hear. I am stumped as to who Corky is though. All I can come up with is the guy from Life Goes On, and I doubt that's not who you meant when you delivered your lines Corky Style. Oh, wait a minute. Wasn't there a Corky on that show...with Candace Bergen in it...can't remember the name...for some reason my brain keeps shouting out "Austin Powers!!", and I have no idea why unless Candace's name on the show started with an A. Augh! I HATE when I get stumped on a piece of tv trivia, it bugs me constantly until I think of it. Anyway, Corky was a ditzy blond on there I think, I'll bet that's who you meant.

If I really have the need to babble on incessently, I should probably do it somewhere besides the forum. I never talk this much, only type. Weird.

Oh, and so I can proudly say that I stayed on-topic, a friend of mine met her husband because he dialed the wrong number. She said to him, "There's no one here named Stacy, but my name's Tracy", and they just started having a conversation. After that, he started calling her on purpose, and they spoke for 6 months before finally meeting. They got married 2 years later.

MURPHY BROWN! That was it!! I feel so much better now.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

I met my true love at Home Depot. I was in the garden section, and he was browsing around in the flower bulbs. He was holding a cup of Pete's coffee, wearing a really nice wool sweater, and generally looking like he stepped out of a J. Crew ad and into my Home Depot. He asked me if I'd seen any paperwhites, and from that moment on, I was his.

Of course, I've still got to figure out what I'm going to do with the boyfriend I've already got, but anyway, that's how I met my true love.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Picture this.......Northern California, Redneck Town, Redneck Bar.

I'm there with my best friend dancing my ass off. I see a really, really cute boy with good shoes(rare for that neck of the woods). So I decide I am going to ask him to dance. He turns me down. flat. he doesn't dance. But he asks me my name. I take rejection well so I just keep dancing.

Five months later my friend runs in to his friend. Turns out he had been kicking himself in the rear for not dancing with me or at least trying to talk to me. And for five months he had been thinking about me and working up the nerve to contact me. He didn't think I would remember him. Of course I did. Turns out he didn't mean to reject me, he's really shy.

I think it was fate that we met. I was in town staying with my mom, he was going to college there, all the way from his home of North Carolina. I had officially decided that I was never going to get married, he had basically just decided the same. But then we met and everything just fell into place, the missing puzzle piece, you know?

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Oh, Yeah. We were married July 10, 1999.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Senior year of high school I asked Bill to go to the Girl's Choice dance with me. He agreed and we went with a bunch of other couples. He didn't dance so we spent the night sitting in on a table against a wall talking. He told me about his dreams and I told him mine. When we parted that night, I hoped for a kiss, Instead, he punched me in the arm and said, "I had a great night!"

I felt terrible. I thought he liked me and well, to say the least I was disappointed. We remained casual friends for a little bit after that and eventually lost touch. That date was my "bad date" story for years.

Three years later I see him at the community college I was attending. We ended up hanging out with a mutual friend of ours. We spent a lot of time together over the course of about six months. I was dating someone else, though, and didn't think anything of it.

Soon though, I being thinking of Bill in the middle of the day "just because." Then one day Bill made an excuse to call me and we spent hours on the phone together. Soon we're cutting out on our other friends early to hang out together.

Finally it came down to us driving up to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin to watch a meteor shower. We had intended on inviting all of our friends to come up, but some how, we were alone. It was 2 in the morning on April 21 and might I add very, very cold. We sat together on a bench covered with blankets watching the sky. He was shivering and I was sitting there thinking, "Well, he's never going to make a move and he's freezing so we should just go back home." Suddenly a star literally fell over the moon. It was so very beautiful that we both let out an audible gasp. I knew it was now or never so I coyly said, "Can I ask you a question?" He said yes, and I proceeded to ask him to kiss me. He did and that was that.

I went home broke it off with the boyfriend and Bill and I became a couple. After dating for awhile, I asked him why he did not kiss me good night after the dance in high school. He admitted that he had been overwhelmed with shyness and had never kissed a girl. He truly liked me back then, but just didn't really know how to let me know. Of course, in the end, it worked out. We got married August 29, 1997. Life is wonderful.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Almost 7 years ago, I met him when I first got to college. He and I were part of a very close circle of friends that I found freshman year, and they've always been my center since. Four boys, and me. One of the boys was in love with me, I was in love with a different boy (but dating someone else), and he was (he says) in love with me (but also dating someone else). Frankly, I thought he just wanted to get in my pants. He was awfully obnoxious to me and I was just as obnoxious back, and we had an antagonistic, teasing sort of relationship. That didn't stop us from hooking up twice in college though. He told me he loved me four years into our friendship. I told him he was just drunk.

He graduated before me, and we lost touch. Two years later, I was supposed to crash at someone's place when I was interviewing in the city, and they crapped out on me. So I racked my brains for someone I knew who lived in the area, and came up with him. Found his number, made it to his house, sat and laughed, crashed on his couch. I'd forgotten how funny he was, but that was it. Didn't think anything more of it.

2 months later, I'm looking for someone to go to the Bob Mould concert with. I remembered he was as obsessed with Bob as I was, and I e-mail him.

We go to the concert. I stay the weekend. He tells me he's loved me since he met me. In 3 months, I move in.

Almost two years later, we're engaged. I've never been so sure of anything in my whole life.

-- Anonymous, January 20, 2000

I'm the stage manager from hell, brought in when they need someone who can ride roughshod over a large heard of cattle (re: actors). She is the prema-donna, pain in the ass, "where's my pink light special", actor. Our first pseudo conversation we ever had was at a "after opening" party. She and her best girl friends were having a creme puff food fight and I yelled down from the light booth "Stay the FU_ _ of my stage". They looked at each other and ran straight for the freshly mopped stage. I spent another 20 minuets trying to get whip- cream off the paint. "Never again" I grumbled to my self.

Next show, same dammed gorgeous read headed pain in the ass. Next conversation, No smoking in the theater.she still smoked. Made large sign NO SMOKING. 3'x 4' 10-inch letters in red. Put it up right next to her makeup table. Came in later and noticed little tiny words written at the bottom of sign, "Except Cynthia"(re: actor, pain in the ass etc). Told her if I caught her smoking one more time I would spank that exceptional derriere. Reply "You wouldn't dare", but she never smoked in the theater so we never found out.

Bumped into her at parties and shows, grudgingly found out she was bright, talented, witty, beautiful, and fun. Also found out she was engaged. Oh hell. Even so we stayed friends and went out some times. Fiancie was off on a cross country writing sortie and left this beautiful woman home, well that's HIS look out. Came to her rescue a couple of times and proved myself a nice guy by driving her to the airport the morning after a new-years eve party we had attended together". What else could I do? She returned a week later and informed me that we could no longer see each other as the fiancie had finally set a date. I was bummed, but happy for her.

Two weeks later received a call that the idiot had taken off with no explanation and just said he couldnt go threw with it and left. Once again white night to the rescue. Listened, petted, consoled her generally tried to be Johnny on the spot. Won more points. Started dating earnestly for about a year. Took me that long to get use to her three teenagers. Asked her to marry me about once a month, she politely declined, I sighed in relief.

Then DUM DE DUM DUM, she's pregnant. OH FU_ _!!!!! But we used contraceptives, lesson for you kiddies. Stopped asking her to marry me for about two months. Needed to get a clue about how she felt. Ascertain what I felt. Strangely calm.. happy  excited  HOLY SH_ _ a baby. Wow. Me a dad. WOW!

I planed out the whole evening, a show, a good dinner, and then I took her for a ride. A long ride. She actually said "Where the hell are we going". I didn't answer. Just kept driving. Finally stopped and lead her to a somewhat pretty spot at the bottom of a drought parched lake, sat her down on a rock and dropped to one knee. The look on her face must have been what a rabbit or deer looks like when confronted by a hungry wolf. Eyes got very big. She actually tried to run, stopped tried to run the other direction, stopped and started to cry.

We have been mostly happily married for nearly 10 years. Some rough times some grate times and she's still a pain-in-the-ass-prema-doma- actor, but I love her.

-- Anonymous, January 24, 2000

here's our little story...

i moved to texas in 1989, and todd and i had church youth group together, then ninth grade. we were TOTAL dorks, and i was only friends with other kids' parents. but, we both took german and had fun talking together- we even, on a mission trip to mexico, told everyone we were german twins. it totally worked.

we were good dorky friends until he got his first psycho girlfriend, JENNIFER, who forbade him to hang out with me. damn her.

i moved up north after high school, and then after i graduated college and was a few weeks from a diasterous au pair adventure, i had a few really intense sex dreams about todd. not having spoken to him in years, i located him in austin. we began correspondence, and then i was off to oslo.

oslo didn't work out, and i was going to leave in the middle of the night, three weeks into the trip. i knew that if i went back to my parents, i would live at home forever. i called todd and told him i would sleep with him and his roommates (two other guys from high school) if i could crash there until i got my feet on the ground- i was CLEARLY desperate. he said fine, and less than 48 hours i arrived. we did sleep together that first night, and aside from me going crazy for about a month last summer, have been together ever since. i've known him for over 1/2 my life! ack! we got married on december 4th, 1999, and are the happy newlyweds.

-- Anonymous, January 24, 2000