Quote Originally Posted by GLC1968 View Post
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.