How did you meet your SO?

[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.

[Catrin]

Knotted and Trek420, your story is just beautiful!

Such wonderful stories! I've been single for about 16 years or so by choice for a multitude of reasons, but have recently decided to at least make myself open to the idea. I've considered an online dating site, but that is a little too scary

[Crankin]

My DH didn't fit my "picture" of a potential spouse, either (at the time). We met, as I said, at a singles event, and when we went on our first date, I discovered that he was 3 years younger than me, owned his own lunch truck business, and had dropped out of Penn State. I had not imagined dating anyone who wasn't a professional person, but it was clear my DH was smart, and met all of the other "qualifications" I had, such as not being a sexist pig . We basically had very similar values, and as he got to know my parents, they became substitutes for the crazy parents he had. We moved in together after a month, got engaged after 3 months, and married in 6 months. About a month after we got married, he went back to school (with no prompting from me, it was just his parents had told him he was stupid all of his life, as well as "being embarrassed to say my wife has a master's degree and i am a HS grad").
I think these stories are very interesting.

[blue_angel]

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

*snip*

DH and I met on AOL in October 1995.
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

I love this story!

[indysteel]

I love this story!

Me, too! That's an amazing story, Roxy!

[limewave]

Fun stories on here!

Roxy--that's cute! "what big feet she has . . ." lol.

I remember the feeling I got the exact moment I spotted DH across the bar. He was so cute, wearing his lucky hat and he had the deepest, dark brown eyes. It felt such a strong response, I didn't know how to handle it so I actually excused myself and left. I only lived a block from the bar we were at. After an hour or so, I went back to the bar b/c my friends called and said they were leaving soon to go see a movie and I wanted to meet up with them.

I sat down with my friends and while they waited for their bill, DH and his friends came over to talk to us. When he first walked over, he tried setting me up with his friend. I was SO DISAPPOINTED. Eventually DH and I started talking. And we never stopped!

[Aggie_Ama]

Add me to the "HOW YOUNG?" crowd. I met my husband when we were both competitive bowlers, I don't even remember getting to know him. I thought he was very handsome and intriguing because he was so quiet. He thought I was cute but had attitude. At the coaxing of some mutual friends after we both had a crappy summer in the teenage dating department, he took a chance and took me to a movie. Ironically his brother (DH is 10 months older than me, his brother a little over a year younger) liked me too and DH almost didn't ask me out because of it. I was 16, he was 17. Married at 22 and 23. Celebrated 8 years of marriage in May, will be together 14 years September 15.

[Tokie]

I went riding with a new girlfriend who lived in another town - 18 miles away (met her on a Lung Association Bike Trek). We started in her town & rode to breakfast on a popular local ride. In the middle of the ride, she saw an old biking friend and his buddy. They chatted and decided to have breakfast with us. Over breakfast, (now) DH memorized my friend's phone # when her old friend asked for it. (now) DH then called her and dated her a few times, but no chemistry. Months later, I was finishing the same ride when (now) DH rode by the opposite direction and said "Hi tokie!" - I had on sunglasses,helmet and a bandanna over my mouth and nose to keep blowing sand from Santa Ana winds out. At that point, I was about to call ex-BF for ride home, it was really nasty! I said to (now) DH "do I know you?" and turned to his direction. He gave me a lift home in his pickup truck, but never asked for my phone #.In the following weekends, while his friends ate b'fast on their ride, he would ride 12 miles further and leave notes on my front door(I was out).Finally, I called my GF to ask what to do. She gave me his phone # & told me to bring him cookies to thank him for the drive home. I did- and the rest is history! We married approx.6 months after our first date!

[Susan Otcenas]

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

:-)

I have not the words to express how honored and humbled and pleased and tickled I am to know how many friendships and partnerships have been formed as a result of people meeting via these forums. Don't laugh, but I actually get a little choked up thinking about it!