How did you meet your SO?

[Owlie]

College. We had the same large group of friends--I hung out with people who hung out with people he hung out with. We'd managed to put together enough people to get our own floor in a dorm. Apparently he developed a crush on me but could never figure out how to approach me. For my part, one of my friends had to tell me that he had a crush on me. I then spent a few weeks trying to get his attention...which he didn't notice. Apparently neither of us are good at picking up subtle hints! We finally talked while on a road trip to New Orleans with our friends. That was...three years ago in March. We're looking at two years of long-distance in the future. We're fairly sure it'll work out.

I know a not-insubstantial number of my friends from high school and college are currently engaged or married. It's kind of odd.

[Roadtrip]

I met my SO in college. I was actually hired in another department to replace him and we spent lots of time together over three months working on a big project. I knew him from around campus and he had a GF and he wasnt exactly my type. He went through a bad breakup with his GF and when it was time for the project to be end I realized I did have feelings for him, but didn't want to be 'rebound' girl and was really hesitant. I ended up calling him up and asked if he wanted to do lunch sometime... He suggested dinner and I said yes

That was nearly thirteen years ago.

Shannon

[zoom-zoom]

I was 11, he was 12, local swimming hole. He loved my white terry cloth bikini - it was 1978.

We didn't start dating until I was a sophomore and he was a junior in high school. Married after my freshman year of college, celebrated our 25th anniversary this June.

Veronica

I thought for sure that I was going to be the one who was youngest when meeting her SO, but you got me beat!

I met my DH when I was 17, the Summer before my last year of HS. He was 18 and had just finished and was preparing to go off to college.

I went with a friend to a bonfire party. After a couple of wine coolers I was giggly and thought he was cute (he was...and still is). He totally didn't notice me.

My best friend and his best friend decided to set us up on a date. It was supposed to just be a brief Summer fling, as he was leaving in 2.5 weeks.

We went on our first date to the drive-in. I couldn't concentrate on either movie (Always and Back to the Future III). We sat in my yard talking until 3am. Well, I think I probably did most of the talking...but it didn't scare him off. I knew he was something special after that first date. After that we were practically inseparable until the day he left for college. That last night we said goodbye was one of the most painful things I've ever experienced. We both cried and held each other for hours.

Our parents said it would never last.

We dated long-distance for 3 years, including 5 months on different continents when he studied abroad in Aberdeen, Scotland. After those years I decided to move to MI to be closer to him (I wanted to transfer schools, anyhow, so the timing was right). Our parents threw fits about it. But we were adults and there wasn't anything they could do.

We lived together for a few years and were married 6.5 years after we started dating. Aug. 2 marks 21 years since our first date. This Dec. we will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.

A few years ago my folks apologized for ever meddling and trying to discourage our relationship. And I know better than to ever discourage a young couple from being together if they have a healthy relationship. Some people do meet their soulmates young. My ILs met as teenagers, too.

[marni]

my SAG guy of 37 years and I are high school sweethearts. He bought me a cheer/pep tag for the football game and later asked me out to a movie. IIR it was a Jmes Bond movie. Now I had never heard of James Bond and thought this was supposed to be a real drama not a spoof and I remember being deeply offended that he would take me to such a stupid movie. I obviously got over it.

Three kids, 7 countries and 32 moves later we are still hanging out and riding together on charity rides.

marni

[margo49]

In a hiking hut in a National Park...he just walked in. Talked a bit that night, set off together in the morning (to the next hut up the valley) , talked a lot that night and the next day back down the valley as the snow fell and a Very Nice Night in another hut. Next night in the little dot-on-the-map town then went our separate ways for a fortnight after which he phoned and came to stay at the friend's place I was at. The end of that week decided to "give it a try"...26 years, 3 countries, 3 children, 2 cats and 3 dogs later ...still going strong despite initial racism and bigotry not to mention worry from both sides.
The funniest thing is we are now held up as an example of a "model family"...societal tidal changes have washed us in from the reef of radicaliam onto the (almost deserted) beach of "normality" (one man one woman "good" kids and pets).
Sometimes I am so embarrassed! And so sad for all those who swallowed the heterosexist Hollywood US Cutural Imperialist myth hook line and sinker and had it explode on them. And I am the one getting to live something I don't want to support really.
Not married yet though!!!!

[limewave]

At a bar.

Which is strange on all sorts of levels.
1) Neither one of us drinks. Or we didn't at the time. We were dragged there by friends.
2) My brother met his wife at the same bar 1 year earlier.
3) DH's parents met at the SAME bar 38 years earlier!
(We do have more than 1 bar around here)

We hadn't met before that, but I had seen him around. He was a roadie and his route went past my parents house. I would see him with one of his friends out riding all the time. I took notice every time I saw them. I kept thinking that looked like a lot of fun!

[indysteel]

At a bar.

Which is strange on all sorts of levels.
1) Neither one of us drinks. Or we didn't at the time. We were dragged there by friends.
2) My brother met his wife at the same bar 1 year earlier.
3) DH's parents met at the SAME bar 38 years earlier!
(We do have more than 1 bar around here)

We hadn't met before that, but I had seen him around. He was a roadie and his route went past my parents house. I would see him with one of his friends out riding all the time. I took notice every time I saw them. I kept thinking that looked like a lot of fun!

What crazy coincidences! Maybe our OP should go to that bar!

[blue_angel]

At a bar.

Which is strange on all sorts of levels.
1) Neither one of us drinks. Or we didn't at the time. We were dragged there by friends.
2) My brother met his wife at the same bar 1 year earlier.
3) DH's parents met at the SAME bar 38 years earlier!
(We do have more than 1 bar around here)

We hadn't met before that, but I had seen him around. He was a roadie and his route went past my parents house. I would see him with one of his friends out riding all the time. I took notice every time I saw them. I kept thinking that looked like a lot of fun!

What bar?

[roadie gal]

I wrote a Xena fan fiction story and posted it to one of the fanfic sites. I got a lot of replies saying they liked the story, and I ended up corresponding regularly with a few people. One of them ending up becoming my SO. We're going on 12 years now.

BTW, we met when I was 40 and she was 29. This is the first time that I've been the older person in a relationship.

[ehirsch83]

We had mutual friends and had been attending the same races, but never spoke. We ended up being friends on facebook( how all local racers do somehow, even though we had never said more then hi to each other). We both had a mutual friend and she was trying to move to Colorado and he was from there and I had lived there for 3 years- I actually think she told him to friend me b/c she wanted us all to move together(lol, which didn't happen!)

Anyways, he and I talked a few times and then he would post photos of his yummy food- one day it was buckwheat pancakes with dark chocolate chips and goji berries, among other things and I said I wanted to try them!

He said come over and I'll make them(granted he lived a little over 3 hours away). A few weeks later, I took a leap and made the drive( on the premise that I was going to sleep in the other room and go with him to a race 1.5 hours north of him- I as recovering from my fractured hip and elbow and wanted to watch friends race).

After that weekend we discovered we had a ton in common and we started dating- he spent 2 weeks racing in the Dominican and then a month later he went to france for 3 months to race.. now a year and a 3/4s later we live together and have 2 dogs. (I got a job in Orlando and made the move after a little over a year of long distance dating). He took me to go look at rings the other weekend now we are just saving up some $$.

(he isn't the longest relationship I have had to date, but he is definitely the one I see myself with for a long time)

[GLC1968]

Match.com, back in 2003 when it was uncommon enough to make us both be people who were willing to jump in and try something different. We got married in 2005.

Ditto except that we met on Match in 2001 and were married 18 months later in 2003. My brother met his wife on Match in 2003 and was married in 2006.

I whole-heartedly agree with everything Indy posted about being an individual in a relationship. I had formed many of the same thoughts after arriving at 33 and still being permanently unattached.

And in defense of the 'friend fix-up' I did fix up two of my friends once. They'd already met numerous times previously, but something one of them said to me at dinner once just made the idea of them as a couple 'click' for me. I convinced the guy I was dating back then of this and the two of us then proceeded to work VERY hard to get them to acknowledge each other in dating terms. It was not easy but we did it. That was 18 years ago and they are still married and have a wonderful relationship (and family). Sometimes you just gotta trust your friends!

[jlnc]

Ok all of you happily married folks...who has a single brother/friend/cousin/in law etc, that you want to set up with some of us single gals? What a cute story that would be!

[Jolt]

Interesting to read how people have met their partners. As for me, I haven't met him yet so I am just doing the things I like to do and being open to whatever might happen in the course of doing that. I enjoy being single (it does have its advantages!) but it would be great to find a guy to share my life with and have a family. However, I am not about to settle--there are certain things we would have to have in common and it has to be someone I can happily see spending the rest of my life with . And if it doesn't happen, I will make the most of the opportunities I have as a single person to help others and enjoy life. No sense in sitting around and waiting, as someone said earlier, or in feeling bummed out about one's situation.

[indysteel]

Ditto except that we met on Match in 2001 and were married 18 months later in 2003. My brother met his wife on Match in 2003 and was married in 2006.

I whole-heartedly agree with everything Indy posted about being an individual in a relationship. I had formed many of the same thoughts after arriving at 33 and still being permanently unattached.

And in defense of the 'friend fix-up' I did fix up two of my friends once. They'd already met numerous times previously, but something one of them said to me at dinner once just made the idea of them as a couple 'click' for me. I convinced the guy I was dating back then of this and the two of us then proceeded to work VERY hard to get them to acknowledge each other in dating terms. It was not easy but we did it. That was 18 years ago and they are still married and have a wonderful relationship (and family). Sometimes you just gotta trust your friends!

Oddly enough, I have to say that the course of life was arguably forever altered by a fix-up. A lawyer I knew from work set me up with a good friend of hers in 2006. He was a lawyer, too, about a year older than me, attractive, blah, blah, blah. At the time, I'd been in a historically long dating slump, so I jumped at the chance to meet him.

We ended up dating for six months. It wasn't a particularly good relationship. In fact, it was arguably pretty bad. He was still fixated on a woman who had broken his heart a couple year's earlier. He dated me, I think, with the hope that it might help him heal. It didn't. We were really hardly more than friends, but I had a hard time with the fact that it wasn't working out since, on paper, it should have. I was also of an age at the time--35 going on 36--that my window for having kids (that I wasn't even sure I wanted) was closing. So, long story short, I got too attached to someone who wasn't really available and was heartbroken in the process.

But, and there is a big but....

He was an avid cyclist, and because of him, I started to ride. He made it look fun, and I wanted to experience that for myself. He also inspired me to try yoga--one of the biggest blessings I've had in my life. By the time we broke up, I was very into both, and for whatever reason, I think they held me together while I nursed my sad, lonely heart. I also think they were instrumental in helping me reconfigure my life--and more importantly, my thinking about my life--into something that made me truly happy and grateful. I also met a lot of great people--fellow cyclists--through this boyfriend, and those people became sort of like family to me. He, in fact, remains a good friend. Well before I met my husband (through cycling), I felt like something really magical had taken place in my life.

So, you never know what will come from a fix-up.

[spokewench]

At a bar.

Which is strange on all sorts of levels.
1) Neither one of us drinks. Or we didn't at the time. We were dragged there by friends.
2) My brother met his wife at the same bar 1 year earlier.
3) DH's parents met at the SAME bar 38 years earlier!
(We do have more than 1 bar around here)

We hadn't met before that, but I had seen him around. He was a roadie and his route went past my parents house. I would see him with one of his friends out riding all the time. I took notice every time I saw them. I kept thinking that looked like a lot of fun!

I met my hubby at a bar - but we were both drinkers. Actually, he was working in a band (moonlighting froms his regular day job) playing drums and I was moonlighting from my regular day job as a cocktail waitress to make extra money since I had just bought a new truck. The bar was kind of a neighborhood type bar - down the street from where I kept my horse.

The place does not exist anymore. It was on leased park property and they finally tore it down. It was the Redwood Inn in the Oakland Hills, California.