How did you meet your SO?

[Trek420]

I met mine on TE.

That's funny, I met mine on te too.

[wannaduacentury]

I met mine at college 20 years ago. We'll be married 16 years in August and have a daughter in high school. Jenn

[OakLeaf]

Online, before "the internet as we know it."

We'd known each other online for two years before we ever met face to face, and it was a year after that, when I was going through a divorce, that he confessed he'd had a crush on me since that first meeting.

It was weird, because we knew each other's personalities very well from the online forum, but people would ask me things like, "How old is he?" "Does he have siblings?" "What do his parents do?" - the normal things that people usually find out about each other right away when they meet the old-fashioned way - and I'd have no idea.

I was very hesitant about getting involved with someone else right after breaking up with my first husband. But I liked and respected my now-DH, and took a leap of faith. 17 years later, we're still together.

[Possegal]

I have a cartoon on my fridge that shows a tombstone and says on it "Never did meet 'the one' when she least expected it". It makes me laugh. And cry. But mostly laugh these days as I've long given up hope that there was someone out there for me. Not sure yet how I feel about the 'better to have loved and lost' concept. I have a couple friends that are still single too and never had any real loves in their lives. I had a few. But I've been very alone for a long time now and clearly that is how the rest of this life plays out.

Though reading here perhaps I should (1) go to limewave's bar (2) go back to HS or college or grad school or (3) start riding with actual people rather than all by myself all the time. hmmmmmm

[Jen12]

This is turning out to be quite the thread.

On the subject of fix-ups, whenever my family is together, my mom will ask my brother if he doesn't know anyone he'd like to introduce me to. The topic makes me want to either laugh hysterically or go searching for our birth certificates to ensure that we actually have the same parents. The friends of my brother who I've met over the years are either so bizarre and out there or just plain creepy that I have to give him some props for not ever trying to set me up. Sadly, if my brother wasn't my brother, I don't think I'd know him in life. We're that different. In contrast, I know someone who met her husband because he used to be her brother's roommate.

[Jen12]

I have a cartoon on my fridge that shows a tombstone and says on it "Never did meet 'the one' when she least expected it". It makes me laugh. And cry. But mostly laugh these days as I've long given up hope that there was someone out there for me. (...)


Though reading here perhaps I should (1) go to limewave's bar (2) go back to HS or college or grad school or (3) start riding with actual people rather than all by myself all the time. hmmmmmm

Isn't that the truth? They always say that you'll meet "the one" when you least expect it. I've never expected it and there always seemed to be so much time, yet I still haven't met even "the one for now."

Agree with your three solutions...if only it was possible to reverse time and reexamine possibilities we discounted over the years and choose other courses...that's another thread!

[indysteel]

I have a cartoon on my fridge that shows a tombstone and says on it "Never did meet 'the one' when she least expected it". It makes me laugh. And cry. But mostly laugh these days as I've long given up hope that there was someone out there for me. Not sure yet how I feel about the 'better to have loved and lost' concept. I have a couple friends that are still single too and never had any real loves in their lives. I had a few. But I've been very alone for a long time now and clearly that is how the rest of this life plays out.

Though reading here perhaps I should (1) go to limewave's bar (2) go back to HS or college or grad school or (3) start riding with actual people rather than all by myself all the time. hmmmmmm

Or start hanging out on co-ed internet forums. It seems like there are a number of us who met online on something other than a dating site. I find that rather interesting, especially since I thought I was a bit of an oddity in that regard.

[Irulan]

We met at a wedding. We both knew folks that ran in the same circle, we had just never met each other.

[TxDoc]

I met mine on TE.

Are you kidding? I mean, this TE??? Wow! Congrats to both!
I need to drop the bike forums and start hanging out here more often!!!

To the OP, I have no good advice to offer - haven't found Mr. Perfect yet.

Maybe I need to go sit in the park and wait...

[KnottedYet]

Are you kidding? I mean, this TE??? Wow! Congrats to both!
I need to drop the bike forums and start hanging out here more often!!!

Yup. This TE. When I least expected it. (no kidding!)

After 2 years, we got all married and legal and stuff... crazy!

(Proposed and got married in clothes from TE and on bikes, too. Was very appropriate. Thanks, Susan!)

Kitsune06 and XRayted also met here on TE a few years ago.

[Atlas]

I met my significant other at a vegan potluck I hosted. I'm active on a vegan forum and invited some locals to come over. I'd only met one of them in person before and he came with her. They rode their bikes 25 miles to my house and I couldn't believe it. That route is now a regular one I take. Anyway, we 'friended' each other on facebook and several months later he invited over some vegan friends for a meal and I was the only one who came. We went hiking together two days later and I never really left. We've been together almost three years now.

[channlluv]

Add me to the online-but-not-a-dating-site club.

DH and I met on AOL in October 1995. I had recently left a four-year abusive relationship, finished my MA, moved to a new city, got a new job, and got my first-ever Internet-ready computer. I was logged on to AOL for the first time and within a couple of hours, I was in a lobby when that was where you still had to go before you could go into a topic-specific chat room. I asked a technical question about some online screen thing, and "namechangedtoprotecthewhowishestoremainanonymous" responded.

Now, at the time, I had not been exposed to a whole lot of culture outside North Florida. I thought I was talking to a Japanese woman. I just assumed. His screenname sounded Japanese to me. So we started chatting and my new "girlfriend" gave me a great instructional session on how to use my new computer. She taught me how to use Word. How to resize windows. How to make new files. How to navigate around AOL. All sorts of stuff. I really enjoyed talking to her.

The next evening, home from work, I found her online again and we talked for a couple of hours in an IM window. You know how you can get a little gushy when you meet a new girlfriend? That was me. Gush, gush, gush. We talked about our family backgrounds, education, work -- she was a field tech for a software provider at Boeing in Seattle, religion, philosophy, stuff we liked to do, all kinds of things. And we did it again the next day, and the next, all the while she's teaching me how to use my computer. It was delightful be able to really talk to someone after having been so closed off for so long.

So day four or five into this week of getting to know my new girlfriend...she sends me and three other friends from the Newsroom chat group (where she had been headed that first day we met...you had to wait in a lobby for a spot in the chatroom to open up) with a photo attachment and a note: "Sorry for the glasses. KO"

So, I'm picturing in my head a short, pudgy Japanese woman with really thick glasses because she works on her computer so much (and I just pictured her shaped like me from a sense of familiarity, I guess). I, however, didn't have picture software, so I found her online, explained, and she sent me some software and then talked me through downloading it.

Really, I got a great computer education that first week. So it's starting to download and she has to go. I say thank you and wait for the image to come up line by line by line...28.8 modem, people! A minute or so later, from the bottom of the picture, all I can see are very large, black hightop sneakers.

My first thought: "Wow, she's got big feet for a Japanese woman."

I leave the room to go make some dinner and come back about ten minutes later and nearly drop my spaghetti. On my screen is a photo of a tall, gorgeous guy with long black hair playing an electric guitar and wearing black Raybans.

My second thought: "Wow, this must be a photo of her brother."

I go back online and email her saying that there must be a mistake, that the picture is of a guy. A really cute guy. Is this her brother or something?

Him: "Uh, no, that's me."

Turns out his name is Hawaiian, and yes, I've been gushing to this gorgeous, guitar-playing demigod for the last several days. Geez, what did I say? I must have sounded totally ignorant, but we laughed about the mixup. And then our relationship took on a whole new turn.

That was October. I came to his family Thanksgiving with the help of his mothers and sisters -- total surprise to him and the first time we'd met in person -- and then he flew me out to Seattle for Christmas where he proposed to me in a beautiful little cabin on Puget Sound. What I didn't know at the time was that he'd already bought my engagement ring at Thanksgiving and it was on the table in the room where they'd put me to wait for him to surprise him when he came in.

We were actually featured in an ABC news story about online romance that was aired at Valentine's Day.

He moved across the country to be with me in February and we were married in April, just six months after meeting online. We just celebrated our 16th anniversary.

Roxy

[shootingstar]

Wow, channelluv what a cool love story meeting! And featured on ABC. And now both of you have additional discovery for love of cycling together. Just great.

Someone else commented on this thread:

Isn't that the truth? They always say that you'll meet "the one" when you least expect it. I've never expected it and there always seemed to be so much time, yet I still haven't met even "the one for now."

Well, things do happen when least expected. Dearie really was an unexpected surprise to me because...I had never dated a divorced guy before, he has 2 children (young teens at that difficult time), is 16 yrs. older, etc. Just did not fit my preconceived profile of possibilities at all. Initially all of it for the first few months, made me hesitate alot ..

But despite these overt differences, there are real similarities or parallels of some previous life experiences which just makes it 10x easier for us to click and share. I have mentioned some of this stuff about him and I, the parallels over the years in TE forums.

[channlluv]

You know, it's not finding the one you can live with, it's finding the one you can't live without.

Roxy

[Trek-chick]

We met on an online dating site.