How did you meet your significant other?

[Kyoshiro Ogari]

I've had it with love! I can't seem to find anyone. I'm very bashful and have never apporached a girl, but the opportunities seem to be few and far between for me. I can't see where a shy and ugly guy like me can meet a woman. I can't go to a bar because I don't drink and the competition is too loud and fierce. Same with clubs/parties. Every club or party that I went to, there have been scores of good looking guys that make me look worse than I already do, so what woman wants the frog to approach her when she has her choice of so many princes? I've tried online personals, but I'm not tall enough, don't make enough money, not the right ethnitity, not the right career, whatever.

 

So guys and gals, how did you meet your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife. I guess since I have no hope I'll live vicariously through your stories. Thanks.

[DN]

Pure chance.

 

My wife is Canadian and was on a working holiday in England. She went with a friend to a party at a town accross the country from where she was staying. I happened to be there although it was also miles from London where I lived. We met and I asked her for her number. She said there was no point as she was just moving to London. Bingo! Got the number of the hostel she was staying at and we went on a date the next week.

[shes2smart]

I had a pretty much empty profile on a bdsm-themed website. All it had was basic stats (gender, age, general geographic location) and my yahoo messenger ID. He came accross it months after I'd forgotten it was there and IM'ed me on yahoo. We chatted for a month or so, then met in person at the end of September 2001. He proposed a week after that first date, and we got married July 2002. Been stupidly happy since then.

[ayekasong]

I met my boyfriend online, although I didn't go searching for a significant other online. We had both been in this irc channel for a while, finally discovered that we were relatively close to each other geographically. Then, as luck would have it, we were both going to be at this convention in Chicago, so we thought it would be cool to meet up. We did. Three weeks later, he came out to visit and asked me out.

 

Getting pretty close to being three years later now haha.

[DN]

I had a pretty much empty profile on a bdsm-themed website. All it had was basic stats (gender, age, general geographic location) and my yahoo messenger ID. He came accross it months after I'd forgotten it was there and IM'ed me on yahoo. We chatted for a month or so, then met in person at the end of September 2001. He proposed a week after that first date, and we got married July 2002. Been stupidly happy since then.

 

painfully happy?

[shawtbus]

Dude dont worry u will find someone u just gotta not shy down when u r at a club or party. just cuz there is betta lookin guys than u who, cares some gurlz arent after looks u just gotta get some good pick up lines. You cant be scared of rejection. Words are all u need to pick up a girl. If you do get rejected so what move on. i have been rejected plenty times but if i never took the risk i wouldnt have got accepted as many times as i did, u feel me. ight man im out holla back!

[Mr. B]

My girlfriend and both took an intro to journalism class last semester. We eventually got to talking reqularly. We both share a big interest in movies, which is what we first spoke regularly about. I had originally pegged her as someone who would be a good 'just friend,' but that's just not the way things turned out.

[passions1]

Met my guy from online dating service, he approached me. We exchanged a couple of emails. Agreed to meet in person & have been seeing eachother ever since.

[arrowbee]

I see no common threads whatsoever running through the responses.

 

Besides luck, of course.

 

None of it makes any sense.

[PAdreamer]

I met my fiance by chance in an AOL chat room.

 

There is NO way you'll find someone who wants to spend the rest of their life with you if you continue to think of yourself so negatively. Just an observation.

[shes2smart]

I see no common threads whatsoever running through the responses.

 

Besides luck, of course.

 

None of it makes any sense.

 

Life in general doesn't make much sense. However, after keeping a journal since the age of 12, I think that everyone's individual life has a general theme and a few basic lessons that repeat, and a general sort of sense to it. Lessons repeat in two ways: 1) we fail to learn them and are presented with the same thing over & over again or 2) we do learn them, and are then presented with situations that bring us to a deeper level of understanding the same concepts.

 

I don't think we can cover more than one or two concepts in a lifetime. Here's an example: The underlying theme of the vast majority of major life events for me has been not allowing others to treat me badly. That's the thing about the lessons we're here to learn...they tend to sound very simple when spoken aloud (or written out), but in trying to learn them by living them out, they start getting complex very quickly.

 

While you're in the midst of all of it, it's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to see the general theme of your specific life unless you make a conscious, ongoing effort to do so. All the relationships you have -- friendships, co-workers, bf/gf, marriage, etc -- are part of this learning process. My journal has been an indispensible tool in helping me see the broader patterns and commonalities in different situations. Without it, I'd have gotten bogged down in the specific details of each individual situation and not been able to see the basic themes that cropped up in each one.

 

I once heard the concept put this way: "This is Earth School and death is graduation." That's when it started making sense for me. There IS a pattern and sense to it when looked at in some ways....just as there is randomness and chaos when looked at it in other ways. Ultimately, life (and by extension relationships) has whatever meaning and sense each of us assigns to it within the context of our own experiences.

 

painfully happy?

 

Touche.

[arwen]

The first 'other' I met at a party of a mutual friend. Meeting people by friends is great at the one hand, they are already friends with the same kind of people you like. At the other hand, things can get really ugly when you break up.

 

The second other was not significant, we lasted 2 months, one of which we barely saw each other. Anyway, I met him at the promotion celebration of a friend that I knew from my swimclub.

 

The third other was my holiday sweetheart, but be careful, long distance relationships are really difficult (not impossible, just hard, and not for me...)

 

The current other is the 2nd I would call a real significant other. I met him at work, luckily a parttime job we both have next to a fulltime study. At work it was kind of strange first, because you don't want everyone to know the first weeks. Now we are serious and don't care if others talk about us.

 

So: through friends, at work, at holiday. I never met anyone that I would want a relationship with in a bar or dancing. But that might be because I don't go out a lot, and don't like being around really drunk people

 

Ilse.

[arrowbee]

Life in general doesn't make much sense. However, after keeping a journal since the age of 12, I think that everyone's individual life has a general theme and a few basic lessons that repeat, and a general sort of sense to it.

 

Interesting. I guess the lesson of my life is, "you were not meant for love, don't even try, now get back to your studying."

[RayKay]

I met my very significant other - live in boyfriend and man I most definitely want to be the LAST significant other - online.

 

I had dated online before, and had a couple relationships from it. Thought I would try it again when I was single and "healed" again, just for fun once again.

 

I went back onto the site I had always been on (lavalife) prior. Talked to a few people, but no sparks.

 

For fun I decided to also just put a profile up on Match...but did not want to pay so rarely even looked at it. Sent a "wink" to this one guy, who I thought sounded fun, and then thought nothing more of it.

 

He saw me, but also was not a paying member there so we had no way to communicate but he really liked my profile and my pics. He was also on lavalife (I had not seen him there), and hoped he could find me there. He did manage to find me on lavalife, sent me a smile immediately followed up with an email telling me that he thought a smile was just not enough and I was worth the couple bucks to try.

 

It was, as I wrote back, we chatted a few days online, found we had a few things in common and then he asked me out. We met a Saturday evening for pool and beer and neither of us had any expectations of it being anymore than a fun evening, maybe a new friend. And the rest is a very happy history, present, and future. We knew within the first few minutes we wanted to see one another again, and then again, and again. We both knew very early on we wanted to be exclusive, but both of us tried to play cool - that did not work long!

 

He moved in almost 3 months after our first date, and this is definitely something very big for the both of us.

[tanned_production]

I met my "significant other" online.

haha seems to be the cool thing to do...

anyways, i had been on this site for about a year, Brad - my current boyfriend- had messaged me , and we were casual "internet friends"

Eventually I got up the courage to ask him to hang out with me and my friend... he showed up, the next day he asked me out, and we've been amazingly happy ever since.

I'm only 16, but this guy is truly amazing

 

[Cynder]

I wanted to reply to this sooner...

 

I met mine on the net. But it wasn't this classic internet meeting story you always hear. We didn't meet in a chat room, and we already lived in the same town. I came accross his profile and e-mailed him. I wasn't looking to hook up with anyone. I just saw on his profile that he liked Cradle of Filth (one of my fave bands), and at the time I didn't really know anyone else who liked them. The fact that he likes horror movies helped too. So I basically sent him a message that said something like "hey I'm from Wooster and LOVE Cradle of Filth. Just thought I'd say Hi." I didn't even think he'd write back. But he obviously did.

 

We mailed back and forth for a week or so, then talked on AIM, then on the phone. We deiced to meet for coffe, and that turned into dinner. We went back to his apartment and watched movies until 4:00 AM.

 

So that's how we met.l

[streetraycerboy]

I met mine through a friends friend we started joking that we loved each other and our phone relationship got so strong and it was amazing..we had no clue what each other looked like and then we met at a theatre it was amazing...love at first site on my end of the table...not so sure about her tho

[ShySoul]

No significant other in my life so I can't offer my own story. But the fact that everyone has a different, somtimes drastically different, story to tell is worth taking notice. There are no set ways of meeting the right person or some way that is perfect for you. Love happens. Nothing else to it, it just happens. It could be at any time or in any way. That's why you shouldn't worry about. Go about your life and do whatever it is that you enjoy. You'll run accross hundreds of people in your life. Anyone of them could be a potential match. The trick isn't in finding an opportunity, its embracing them when they come to you. You may not run accross many opportunites, neither do I, but I know some have presented themselves. The real issue is whether or not you take a chance and go for it or if you sit back and let it pass.

[frail]

I met my boyfriend here online. I was bored one day and IMed a few people from my area who had nice profiles on yahoo. He messaged me back eventually. We talked online, then on the phone, then we went out. And it's only almost been 2 months, but things have been going wonderfully.

[aphrodite24]

I met my bf in boot camp. He was my best friend while I was there. He was my support, helped me out in so many ways. I didn't know it at first, but I had fallen in love with him. One year later, still going strong. He is the One.

[Jecto]

I met my gf in boot camp. She was my best friend while I was there. She was my support, helped me out in so many ways. I didn't know it at first, but I had fallen in love with her. One year later, still going strong. She is the One.

[arrowbee]

That is the second-sappiest thing I have ever seen. (No offense)

[Jecto]

Sappy or not, it's true.

[ShySoul]

I have to ask, Jecto and aphrodite24, are we talking the same boot camp here? Or do we have two completely separate instances of the same story? Whichever way, its sweet, romantic, and I'm happy for you.

 

Hey, sappy is cool.

[Jecto]

I would have to say the same. Navy boot camp march 2004.