Weekend Open Thread: “How We Met” Stories
First of all, you’re going to have to excuse the gratuitous baby photos from here on out. I’m a proud mama and can’t resist sharing them occasionally. This one was taken at the pediatrician’s office as we awaited Jack’s weigh-in. Isn’t he a doll? I just love him to pieces… even if he does keep me and his dad awake all night long and can’t stop pissing through all his onesies. Seriously, who woulda thought a little five-pound guy with about six outfits that currently fit him could possibly create SO MUCH dirty laundry?! It’s mind-boggling.
Now, onto this weekend’s open thread! Last week, I shared the story of how Drew and I met. Someone suggested that “how we met” stories would make a good open thread topic, so here we are. I’d love to read some of your favorite/best “how we met” tales, from your first run-ins with your current significant others, to past meetings with old luvahs. Are they sweet? Funny? Ironic? Romantic? Let’s hear what ya got!
Haven’t read what you wrote but my heart is melting at the sight of cute lil Jack!
I know! That’s all I could think of when I saw this thread! He’s so adorable!
He’s perfect!
Jackson is just gorgeous!!! And tiny!
My husband and I met on my 2nd day at a new job (rehab center, he´s a physiotherapist, I´m an occupational therapist). I was walking down the hallway and he was leaving the staffroom. The moment I saw him I thought wow. When I got to know him more I changed my mind (didn´t seem to be my type).
After a few weeks he went on vacation, while he was away I realized I really missed him. A couple of weeks after he got back he asked me out on our first date, and that was that! 🙂
OMG he is so itty bitty and adorable! And Wendy how do you look so gorgeous right after the stress of giving birth???
Not the most interesting story but… I met my boyfriend online. I’d had 3 bad dates from the net and was getting ready to close my account. There was one guy whose profile I had skimmed over a few times… I liked what he wrote but I wasn’t feeling the pic all that much… He had braids and I’m not into “gangstas”. Well I finally decided what the hell and sent him a message. He wrote me back within a day, and then I was filled with doubt again. I kept thinking that I hate all men and I should give up so I didn’t respond.
About a week later I decided what the hell (again) and wrote him back. I told him I was closing my account but he could email me if he wanted. So, we started emailing back and forth a few times a day for about a week. After that, we met for a drink on a patio and… he wasn’t gangsta at all! He was such a gentleman and I was swept off my feet. We had 5 dates within 10 days and 4 weeks later we were official. After about 4 months, I knew that I loved him, braids and all!
Oh yeah and on our first date, we were so absorbed in comfortable conversation that we didn’t even notice time go by and we didn’t even notice the restaurant close around us. It was 2am when the manager came out and told us the place was closed, and by all means we could continue sitting out there in the dark but she was going home. We had no idea how time went by that fast! So he walked me to my car and then we ended up talking in the parking lot for another hour. I love that part of the story 🙂
I liked this…another good example of don’t judge a book by its cover I guess.
Totally sweet.
What do you mean, not interesting? That’s adorable!
Aww, what a cutie. And I love the 80’s big hair you have in that picture, Wendy! 😀
I think I may have told my ‘how we met’ story before here, but I love it so I will just tell it again. 😛 My fiancé and I met online. On OkCupid to be exact. I had been doing the online dating for over a year and was getting a little fed up with it. Most of the guys I met were decent, but just didn’t click with me, but there were a few creeps too…
Johan’s first message was the first that got me a little excited for a possible date in a LONG time. His message was short and sweet, but it was his profile, more specifically his list of favourite authors and books, that REALLY caught my eye. I was finishing up a Master’s degree in Literature at the time, so you can probably imagine how great it was for me to find a guy with great taste in books.
We continued sending messages back and forth and finally met up in real life after about three weeks. We just went for drinks in a bar, and chatted and chatted and chatted. We didn’t stop until we realized that it was nearly midnight, and this being a weeknight, we should probably head home… In the following weeks, we had two more dates. In the mean time we texted eachother poetry quotations, and at the end of the third date we decided to change our OkCupid statuses from ‘single’ to ‘seeing someone’. 🙂
Ha! I met my guy on OkCupid too! He sent me a nice message about my tattoos. We emailed all day for two days, then texted non stop for a day, and then met up for drinks on the fourth day. We were inseparable after about two weeks and official after 4 :).
p.s. Wendy you look gorgeous and Jack is precious!
Yay! OkCouples unite! 😀
Kids will soak through anything and everything. Wait for the first “projectile vomit” or worse – “projectile poopie”. Especially during a bout with a stomach bug. Never fun.
*laugh* How I met the current SO? I think it should say something (negative), but I met him at a kareoke bar. He had just been discharged from the Coast Guard and was drunk as a skunk. I was the DD for other friends. This girl was trying to get him to come home with her and her gay friend for a threesome, and he was so inebriated that I doubted he knew what she was talking about. So, two guys and I went and sat at his (empty) table. I sat right on his lap (partially to keep him sitting in his chair). My friends and I kept chatting and ignored the would-be pick-up artists. We ended up with another 7-10 friends at the table (we were all regulars there). Turned out that my (now) SO had been a regular there prior to his enlistment and was still known by many (once they recognized his drunk-self!).
I made sure he had a ride home, got his number so I could call him the next day so I could give him an unmerciful teasing. He still gets teased on occasion.
Try a different brand of diapers, Wendy. I used Huggies for one sex and Pampers for the other, but for the life of me, I can’t remember which was which.
Glad Jackson is doing so well!
Diapers here at least have changed a lot in the last few years. With my eldest I tried a lot of brands and ended up using Huggies, with my baby I bought huggies directly, and they were useless!! The top line was only lasting like 3 hours. I switched to Pampers which were pretty good, now I´m using another brand which are great. I´m not in the US; so I don´t think the brand I´m currently using is there.
AH, and I have 2 girls, but their bodies are totally different, which might have something to do with it, I find huggies work better with skinnier babies and Pampers with chubbier.
Totally agree with you on the diaper thing. Wal-Mart used to make a generic brand that worked awesomely. Until about 2 years ago. Then it was so cheap, you couldn’t wear it for more than 30 minutes without having an “accident”. We switched over to Pampers. Of course – their “bigger” sizes aren’t as good for leaks as the smaller sizes are.
If only my youngest would stop resisting the “big boy potty”!
To toilet train my daughter I bought her LOTS of stickers, so when I would sit her on the toilet (with one of those toilet seat reducer thingys) she could decorate the walls with them, and a goodie bag (lots of little things wrapped up), after every time she went to the toilet well she got a prize, in a month she was out of diapers!!
Ohmygosh, Jackson is so cute I think I just spontaneously ovulated. I have got some serious baby envy right now.
I met my fiance in part because I was fleeing my, ahem, slutty past. I started working in a chain restaurant at nineteen after flunking out of my first year of college (well, I didn’t actually flunk out, but I did get a C average and lost my scholarship, didn’t have anyone who would cosign a loan, and knew I didn’t have the discipline to work two jobs and get good grades and decided to cut my losses.) Anyway, I’d come home to my parents in shame and was working full time waiting tables. And kind of getting around. (Servers party. A lot. Like, every night.) After about a year of this I realized that I’d slept with, like, four out of the eight male waitstaff and one of the bussers and was ready for a change. I’d saved up a little and got an apartment in the city with a girlfriend. By apartment I mean an efficiency over a two car garage. No actual rooms, and the only doors in the place were the front door and the bathroom door.
I didn’t have a car at the time and would have to take three buses, a train, and walk a mile to get to my job out in the county, so I transferred locations so I would only need to take one bus. My first day of work, I walked in, ready to not sleep with my coworkers. The first person I saw was the bartender. Blond, blue eyed, tall, Eastern European accent. No, no! Bad! Down, girl.
So the servers at this location still went out every night, to a bar in the same mall. And I was bound and determined to stay just friends with everyone. But the last bus ran only until 11:35. So who should offer to give me rides but my just friend, the hot Bosnian? Yeah, I held out for about a month. (One day he was like, “Can I geev you a ride home? To my home? You might get lucky.”)
And after a few months of living in a 400 square foot shoebox pretending I was asleep with my headphones on while my roommate had sex ten feet away from me (kay, that only happened three and a half times) and then her asking me via text message if I could handle the rent myself because she was getting an apartment with some coworkers in the Central West End, I was thanking my lucky stars that I had a month to month lease. Because we decided he lived too far away from work, and I lived too far away from work, and we lived way too far away from each other, and it would just make more sense if we moved in together.
My mom? Was not happy. She was convinced he wanted to marry me for a green card (Mom, he’s got one already) and that he was too old for me (Mom, it’s almost the same age difference as between you and dad) and that he was going to knock me up and steal the baby back to his home country (Mom, that was a Sally Field movie)… four years later we have big kid jobs, a house, a dog, and she keeps asking if we’re making her a grandmother yet. 🙂
Sorry, I put this in the wrong place and it’s not letting me edit *grumblegrumble*
I’m glad I saw this. I was scrolling super fast past all the diaper talk and I saw your long comment and slowed. This is a cute story.
I like this story a lot!
ha, my boyfriend also has his green card and people ask me that too. Guys, he’s going to be a citizen any day now. That’s NOT why we’re together…
Thanks, guys! I was worried it was going to be a tl;dr thing.
(Seriously, not every immigrant is a green card hound! Although I did have a french student propose to me when his visa was expiring, but I’m pretty sure he was joking… mostly.)
Wendy, If Jackson is circumsized (no need to share either way) that could be a reason for the leaking. When you put vaseline at the site of the “injury” is causes the diapers to lose all absorbancy. I know from experience! hahaha
IIRC newborns are so skinny that the elastic stuff just doesn’t make a seal around their tiny legs. When he gets his baby fat the problem takes care of itself. (If we’re talking leakage and not, you know. Volume.)
Jack is absolutely precious! It’s a great pic of you two 🙂 And have I mentioned that I *LOVE* his name? 🙂
My current boyfriend and I met in 7th grade. I went to a different high school while he continued on. We reconnected on Facebook and started going out for platonic breakfasts and lunches at cheap places we discovered around town. We started going to friends’ parties together, and eventually realized we really liked each other, so we started dating! It was a very laid-back and slow progression into a relationship, and I really like the way it happened.
so adorable, i can’t even handle it! 🙂
How I met my current man-I moved to another city in June to transfer colleges, and got a job at a kiosk at a mall. I became very close to my coworker, and although I was casually dating someone else she kept telling me how she wanted to introduce me to one of her roommates (she has 3) because him and I were exactly alike. She invited me over to a bonfire in the summer where I finally met. We hit it off really well but nothing came of it because I was dating someone else.
Things with other guy ended cordially, and this guy finally got some cojones to ask me out after many nights of walking me home and never asking for my number or what have you. I was a little unsure at first, since he’s going to basic training in Febuary, but decided that I was just going to have fun and see where it goes and he seems ok with that as well.
Nothing epic at all.
Please keep the gratuitous baby pictures coming!
I met my soon to be husband (we are getting married on the 29th of this month) in a forum on craigslist. He lived out of state and came out to meet everyone and for some reason he called me ahead of time to get directions to the place we were all meeting. He has a wonderfully deep voice that I found very appealling.
I was just sitting in the bar waiting for him to arrive and someone brought him in (she had seen his picture) and the moment I saw him I was floored. I had an instant crush on him but played it cool all night. We saw each other the following evening and I took him to the airport on Sunday but it stayed platonic.
The next time he came to town a few months later, the group met up again so I picked him up and headed out to our destination. At one point after having something to drink he was feeling pretty good and gave me a very nice hug. We left the brewery and went to a bar in the Haight and he and I and one other person went to get pizza. He and I were sitting at a table (the other person was ordering) and he said to me “I think you should go back to my hotel with me and make out”. I did.
On the way to the hotel, he said “I have a secret, I have a crush on you”. That was pretty much it for me. We spent the weekend together and shortly after that, he moved to SF and we became a couple. He brought the dog with him which was an extra added bonus because I love our dog to pieces.
I have no idea how I met my husband – and he refuses to tell me. We met when I was 14 but I can’t remember how… one day he was just one of my good friends. We were friends for almost 20 years before becoming involved. Turns out he had a crush on me the whole time but I was the last to know. I tried getting the story included in the wedding vows but it was no go – he figures he has at least another decade or two of teasing left.
And the picture of the two of you is too sweet!
I love that!! He can tell you for your 25th anniversary! (but for your sake, I hope it’s sooner!)
Wendy, you and Jack are too cute. Have you thought of trying cloth diapers? It’s not for everyone but my mom and a dear friend has had great succes with them.
My BF and I met working at an Italian restaurant in college in NC. It was actually extreme distaste as first sight. He thought I was a snobby biotch and I though he thought he was way cooler than he was. We worked together for 5 months, doing everything we could to avoid being around each other, switching shifts, walking down different rows in the restaurant…we seriously did not like each other. Then I went back to PA for the summer and never thought about the curly headed geek again…or so I thought. (A note on the whole story- we both were in 3 year relationships at this time)
When I returned to NC to start my senoir year of college, I needed a job so I returned to the Italian resturant. I walked in and there he stood. The same whiny curly haired guy I had dispised 4 months early, but my feelings towards him were totally different. We started flirting and joking around, it was totaly puppy love. We finally managed to go to the same after work party one Sunday, and I stole his phone and programed my number in it. Four months, almost 3,000 text messages, and two break ups later; we went on our first date 12-18-2007. Almost four years later and we couldn’t be happier! (And we threw in 2 years and 10 months of long distance too!)
Aw, restauant love/hate/love ftw 🙂
My fiance and I met online, but through an avenue that usually raises an eyebrow or two. Two years ago, most of my office (including everyone in my age group) was laid off at work. I got so tired of eating the same lunch with the same remaining, depressing coworkers that I, in desperation put an ad on Craigslist’s ‘Strictly Platonic’ section looking for people that worked my area to grab lunch. I posted something about not wanting to be turned into someone’s skin-snuggie to ensure my safety, and quickly had a full inbox of solicitations and a couple of genuinely nice responses, my now fiance was one of them. 🙂
Oh, and.. holycraptheweddingisinthreeweekspleasepassmetheredwine.
Yay for another CL person!! Good luck with the wedding!
I met my boyfriend at a middle school Halloween dance when we were both twelve-years-old. He was dressed as a nun. I don’t know how I didn’t fall in love with him at first sight! It took us another eight or so years to get together.
I met my husband while we were in high school under odd circumstances. I first noticed him at a mutual friends funeral. We had the same friends and my BFF and his BFF were dating but we never had hung out. Well I mentioned how hot he was and my friend and his got us together on some group dates and we graduated to single dates. We are such dorks, we had a lot of gaming dates – well me watching him play half life. And seeing movies before he shipped out for the marine corps. The rest they say is history! We’ve been married almost 7 years, known each other for 10.
Cute cute picture!!!
My comment below was meant to be a “reply” to your comment – I get “gaming dates” and “half life” now. (I know, I know, I’m very resourceful.)
What’s a gaming date? And what’s half life? I’m going to google it now and probably wish that I had googled it first.
I am single, but I recently went out on a date and have been kinda-sorta seeing this guy but I feel wishy-washy about him and I am enjoying my singledom for now. But, I like the story:
I went out to eat for pizza with my sister, her husband, and my 13-yr-old nephew. Our waiter was so cute. Totally my physical type. I said to my sister, “Dang, I wanna go on a date with that guy!” but of course I didn’t leave my number or anything. Four days later, I was at a bar that I am a regular at, and he remembered me from being my waiter, and we went on a date two days later! Neato.
PS: You look radiant!
I love all these awesome stories — and that is a super cute picture of you and Jackson, Wendy! 🙂
I met my guy working at a summer music camp almost 2 1/2 years ago. I had accepted a job there, not knowing anybody and fully intending to have the best summer ever. The camp is about a 9 hour drive from my house, and is very much in the middle of NOWHERE. It was indeed a summer that I won’t forget in the near future.
My first impression of him was that he was a jerk and super cocky. That impression changed quickly once I got to know him the first week of camp. We are both music nerds (and future music teachers) and both happen to play the same instrument (flute), so we bonded over flute things and found we had a LOT in common. About a week after I met him, I took him by surprise and asked him out. He wasn’t sure what to say, so we kept our options open and spent more time getting to know each other and hanging out. Fast forward to the next week… We get one day off per week at camp. I’m POSITIVE our supervisor knew something was up between us, so he played matchmaker and gave us the same day off. Perfect time for a first date! We drove to a nearby town (1 hour away) to have dinner. By the end of dinner, it was official: I was smitten. He had treated me so well and was courteous, chivalrous, charming, and funny. We then headed back to camp, talking the entire way back. When we got back we took a walk around the campus where the camp is located — which literally sits on the border between two countries. We held hands all through our walk and compared what we would expect out of a potential relationship with each other since we knew it would be long distance after camp (we live 300+ miles from each other). We were walking through the gardens, and he took a minute to just gather me into his arms. (Let me tell you, he gives AMAZING hugs. Seriously, they’re the BEST I’ve ever experienced. The kind of hug that keeps you warm and gives you butterflies and where you feel protected and completely loved and you never ever ever want to let go…I take as many as I can whenever I see him. 🙂 ) We were standing right at the border between the two countries face-to-face for a bit until he told me to close my eyes. I did, and he gave me the most perfect kiss ever…and it was actually my first kiss ever! When I told him that was my first, he didn’t believe me at first but then chuckled and asked if I wanted to try it again. 🙂
Needless to say, we officially became a couple that night. It’s rough being long distance most of the time, but I know hands down that it’s worth it. And we still work at camp every summer.
Great story!
And sorry, I can´t resist… “one time, at band camp” 😀
Yup, I knew that would come up sometime…what happens at band camp STAYS at band camp. 😉
Onnie, my wife of 23 years, meet at a massage community 15 years before we got together. She bought a share in a house with my old housemates where I visited often. We’d both been through long term relationships that were less then great which left us shy about starting a new one. Over a period of months the frequent visits became more and more about seeing each other and liking what we saw. Finally we went on an official date and she wouldn’t kiss me goodnight. I thought it was a message of rejection and considered giving up on the idea. Later she said that when I left that night that she’d thought she’d never see me again as my head was hung very low. Later in the week I decided to give it one-more-shot and asked her to have dinner on my boat, which was my home at the time. To my surprise she accepted the invite. On a Friday night I served trout, red potatoes, and broccoli with cheesecake for desert. We barely got dinner eaten before we rocked the boat. She didn’t go home until Monday morning. I waited until Tuesday evening to call her. Her roommates were out for the evening and I asked if she’d like some company. The answer was yes and we’ve never slept apart since.
My web site has some essays with more about all this.
Wendy, you are just the most photogenic person ever. I think your little boy is turning out the same way, too 🙂
Wendy, you and Jackson look so great! Motherhood definitely suits you 🙂
My husband and I met right before Christmas 3 years ago online at plentyoffish. I had tried paid online sites and wasn’t happy with them. I dated some interesting characters before I met him. I wasn’t even going to talk to him and and had considered deleting my account but one of my friends said he looked like someone I would date, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to say hello. Our first date we spent close to four hours in a book store after eating lunch (at a place he later told me he hated, but he never let on because i kept saying how much I loved it, hah!). He proposed almost a year ago and we’ve been married for 5 months. I actually wrote in to Dear Wendy about moving our wedding date up so that he could get on my insurance when we moved. We live in SC with our two dogs now and life is good 🙂
I remember your letter! Great to hear life is good.
I remember it too! In fact, searching for “elope for health insurance” was what brought me to Dear Wendy/The Frisky in the first place!
thank you both!
did you also elope for health insurance, iseeshiny? it ended up being the right choice for us for many reasons. now that it’s done i don’t think i would have my wedding any other way. it was the perfect day. the only part i would have changed is one of my closest friends was very pregnant and wasn’t allowed to travel anymore, it would have been nice to have her there. but, stuff like that happens even with planned weddings.
Short answer: no. In fact, we’re still not married. For us, health insurance would have been the only reason to get married at that time, and he ended up finding a job that provided it while I was still freaking out about should we/shouldn’t we. Now we’re debating eloping for other reasons. (Super scattered family of different religions, some of whom are drama queens, no spare money since we bought a house last year, etc.) But the pressure to hurry is at least off. And your question and Wendy’s advice helped me to stop stressing about the whole thing.
Only reason aside from we love each other and were planning on marrying eventually anyway, that is.
well i’ll tell you what Wendy and some of my friends told me. Your wedding is about the two of you. If eloping is what you think is best, go that route. We had just our immediate family there and we were able to spend the day with them and make it very special. Good luck figuring things out!
Not the most exciting story, but…
I had always heard stories about him because my best friend was dating one of his housemates. These stories were about all his brushes with authority and general misanthropy, so clearly intriguing! 😀 I actually met him while I was dating someone else, but I was extremely attracted to him at first sight. Apparently he thought I hated him because he waved to me once in the hall and I didn’t see him, but he thought I was ignoring him.
Eventually the other guy and I broke up and our friends revealed that the hooligan had liked me for a long time, so they basically parent-trapped us! For some reason there’s something romantic about having liked each other for a year without the other one knowing it…. Luckily when we started dating he’d toned down his shenanigans, so I get the bad boy without the constant bad behavior! Hot!
Two and a half years this December and the best guy I’ve ever dated 🙂
alright, i dont really want to tell this story, and i hate it when my boyfriend tells it, but pretty much everyone knows (he tells this story whenever he can.. lol), so here it goes.
my boyfriend and I met because of my butt.
so, i have a big butt. i just do. it impossible to find clothes that fit me because i have a tiny waist, and a big butt and big hips. and before everyone says, “thats perfect! thats what ever woman wants!”- its not. clothing is not made for my shape, its just not. i havent bought jeans in 4 years. the ones i have are getting holes in them now, and so soon i will have to make the perhaps week long trip to various malls all over the denver metro area trying on massive amounts of jeans, and if i am lucky, i will find 2 pairs, and they will cost $100 each. it SUCKS, ok. i hate it. im definitely not bragging.
so, first day of college. my friend and I walked into class, and we have theatre style seating, and my friend and I walk all the way down to sit in the front of the class. my future boyfriend was sitting towards the back, and apparently, as i walked down the stairs, he nudged his friend and said, “we HAVE to meet her.” as fate would have it, my dorm was right across the hall from his friend Heather’s dorm. so i was kind of friendly with Heather, and we would eat dinner together every now and then. so one day, she brings Jake (future boyfriend) with her, and he was apparently all nervous because we were eating at the same table… so then, we became friends. and slowly, we became awesome friends. we were, at the time, both dealing with breaking up with our respective high school relationships, and actually got to help each other through those. so, now about 2 and a half years later, we live together, and all is good!
….. and all because of my stupid butt.
Just tell yourself as you’re out on your quixotic mission for jeans, your butt brought your boyfriend into your life 🙂
Also, do you have an upscale resale shop in your area? We have Buffalo Exchange down here, but even if you don’t have one of those there’s probably something similar. I have problems with jeans, too, although slightly different – I’m 5’11” and wear a size 8-10 so everything’s way too short – and I discovered True Religion jeans, which saved my sanity. They retail at around $300 but I found them at Buffalo for $85. A lot of the higher end jeans are designed to fit multiple body types, but who can afford to shell out that kind of money on friggin’ jeans?
the ones that had been fitting me the last time I went were from The Buckle. I havent checked out a buffalo exchange… ill have to see if i have one here! I hate how expensive jeans can be. there used to be a brand that 5-7-9 carried that fit me, but then they stopped carrying them, and i think they are out of business now anyway. and then, some of the jeans at charlotte rousse fit me, but now they have changed too and so they dont work anymore. i just yesterday found a hole forming on my butt, where the pocket and jeans meet in my last pair of jeans from charlotte. i was SO mad!!
I wonder what other kinds of stores are there like the buffalo exchange…
katie, you *must* hit up Goodwill in the Cherry Creek area (Leetsdale & Elm). They have uh-may-zing finds!! I seriously only shop there… like…. tags-on finds, great shoes, leather pants, designer labels… I’m drooling right now. I spent $30 last week & got like 6 skirts, 2 blazers, 2 pairs of shoes, a purse………. I found this one amazing long linen Calvin Klein skirt from like the 90s………………. oh. my. god. this sounds so dumb, but….. you have to go! Sunday mornings – it will literally be empty, like the staff making joke announcements over the intercom about it being empty *ANDDDDDDD* stocking the racks with the things people brought in on Saturday after cleaning their closets!!! It’s the best.
i will definitely check that out!! thanks!
Dont take this badly but try aurora mall. Its more suited for hips and butts
Well, look at it this way… The jeans you buy are $100, but if you only buy them once every 4 years you’re probably saving money over those of us who buy a $40 pair every 9 months!
Maybe you can try http://www.makeyourownjeans.com/? I have a friend who gets all her jeans from them and loooooves every pair. It gives you a lot of flexibility and choices, *to your measurements,* and maybe it’s just what you need!
I am built the same way. Kut from the Kloth jeans fit nicely. You can get them at Nordstrom or Macy’s. (My family lives in Denver and I got my jeans at the Rack near Flat Irons for $30)
I was 19 and had gotten my first job and a grocery store (Wegmans). Shane had started working there in the pizza department about 6 months earlier. I worked in the front end as a cashier. Originally I noticed him cause I would go get a slice of pizza on my breaks. He was always very nice and friendly, but I perceived him as younger than me. Foe some reason whenever he bought groceries after work, he would always check out in my line. I thought nothing of it.
Fast forward 3 years and we learn that our store is closing everyone who worked there was being sent to different stores in the chain. So he went to one store and I went to another store where I was fired in 2009. After that I basically became a hermit, only venturing out when I had to.
One day my friend decided to bring me out to a club I had been to before and knew a few people. Lo and behold, there was Shane. At first I didn’t recognize him. But he recognized me and said “I totally remember you from [store we worked at]”. I was shocked because I thought I hadn’t really made an impact on anybody. We began to talk more and then when my car broke down, I asked him for rides home and he agreed to.
One night on the car ride home, he asked if I wanted to come to his apartment instead of going straight home. I accepted and figured he just wanted to hook up, which I wasn’t opposed to. We headed in and we began to talk and he asked me some general questions about life in general and how I was doing. He offered me a drink, but I declined and asked for water instead. Then he told me all those years ago when we worked together he had a crush on me. He then asked me to be his girlfriend and proceeded to kiss me. It was magical! I had to go home a couple hours later so we made plans for the following Monday for our first date and he took me home. We just celebrated one year of being together last weekend.
Wegmans love!
I’m not dating anyone currently, but I was always sort of amused by the story behind one guy I dated. A friend of mine met him in a yoga class taught by a mutual friend of ours. He was interested in her and added her on Facebook, and then asked her to get a drink. She decided she wasn’t interested, so she decided to bring along me and the yoga teacher friend (probably not the most polite idea). They chatted some, but I could see her eyes glaze over when he talked about some of his hobbies, and I could tell that he wasn’t too impressed with her either. I, however, found all the stuff he was talking about fascinating, and we started sharing things about ourselves, finding we had a lot in common. My friends decided to leave, but he and I stayed for a little while longer. He eventually asked me out a few days later.
Congrats, Wendy! Jackson looks like
a mammala cutie!I have told this story before, but I want to tell it again because next weekend is our anniversary weekend!
I was hired in August 2009 to teach an 8-week Composition class; it was condensed from a regular 16-week one, so it was pretty intensive. When I walked into class, I had a room full of people around my age waiting for me to teach them how to write well. One of the guys sitting in the second row was this bigger guy wearing a black leather jacket, with red hair. I noticed him because he smiled at any of the lame jokes I made.
This guy missed about a week of classes in the middle – two three-hour sessions, pretty substantial in the middle of an 8-week course. I sent him an email asking where he was and what was going on. He was stuck on the paper I had assigned, and so he had opted not to come to class rather than to show up and seem like a failure. I told him to come back and I would work with him on it after class; I did so. He told me about an event he had to go to, for the sport he played. I excused him from the class he would have to miss.
When he came back, he stayed after class to tell me all about the event. The following class session, he again stayed after class to talk to me. I still thought nothing of it; I thought he was just very friendly. The class after, he walked me to my car afterwards. The last night of class, he asked for my email address “so he could forward me a video he thought I would like” and he also asked if he could friend me on Facebook (the only student I have ever had as a FB friend) “to keep in touch.” They took the final, I graded the finals. That Friday night, while I was finishing my grading, he friended me and he began chatting to me on FB. We talked over night, and most of Saturday, too. I finished the grading. I submitted the grades. We talked on the phone for several hours. We talked again. He asked if I wanted to go out to dinner some time. I agreed. Two weeks later, we went out to dinner at Olive Garden. At the end of dinner, he asked if we could change our Facebook statuses to “in a relationship.” I agreed. That was two years ago next weekend. We’ve been happy – more or less – ever since.
Oh gosh, I cracked up so much at that first sentence. Don’t get me wrong, I like babies, and they’re darn cute… but occasionally in a really odd way. If we didn’t all have a genetic predisposition to find things with huge heads, huge eyes, and tiny bodies (and the hands and feet, awwwww) endearing, I’d say they can be downright weird looking. Sometimes when newborns are in that stage where their faces haven’t quite become shaped “normal” during the first few days, I tend to accidentally blurt out things like, “Oh look, you have a baby!” instead of the expected coos of adoration.
And by that babbling, I mean that I’m glad I’m not alone.
But Wendy, he is darn cute. I’m pretty sure that’s not arguable. Not to mention that I have a soft spot in particular for the name Jack.
Love reading these stories! And Wendy, Jack is the cutest, tiniest thing ever. I have to say, it’s my morning routine to check DW on my phone the moment I get to my classroom, and the past couple of weeks I get disappointed when there’s no new pictures of him. So, as far as I’m concerned, post away.
Most people know Painted_dude and I were best friends for 15 years before we ever dated. We actually met sitting next to each other the first day of middle school band. I knew absolutely no one – new kid – and the guy on the other side of me was a total doucheapotamus, so I started chatting with him, and he was really sprit but very funny (he still is both of those things). I ended up being in the same circle of friends with him, another guy, Steven, and two other girls. Going into high school, they both started dating, awkwardly enough, the two other girls in our social circle, which kind of hurt my feelings at the time. PD finally told me not too long ago that they both wanted to date me, but in 14-year-old logic, they decided that meant neither of them could and would go for the next best option.
PD and his girlfriend broke up just before we started junior year of high school, partly because he had a couple of sex dreams about me and was dumb enough (dear god, was he ever awkward) to tell her. He then spent the next two years trying in the most painfully mortifying ways possible to get into my pants and ALSO be my friend at the same time. I finally had to tell him either he needed to lay off or I was going to have to quit hanging out with him, so he quit. We stayed friends after we left for different colleges, calling each other for advice through a spate of really underwhelming relationships, including a very brief emotionally abusive one for me and one very long verbally, physically, and emotionally abusive one for him (seriously, she gave him a black eye, and she broke into my car). We both got a little healthier emotionally, and a little over a year and a half ago, I started feeling really weird things about my best friend. I let it sit for a bit, and then six months later I finally sort of word-vomited it out over the phone one afternoon that I had a massive crush on him and he better not let it get between us if he didn’t reciprocate because I put up with him in high school. His response was, “Oh, thank god!” He’d been feeling the exact same way but never would have said anything because I’d shot him down so completely in high school (he’s slightly less socially awkward now). So we’ve been happy ever since – 14 months long distance, and we’ve got another two months till he moves here with me!
Ugh. Sprit, whatever the hell that is, was supposed to be “geeky.” Long week.
I legitimately LAUGHED OUT LOUD at “sprit” being “geeky” — that is the best, most inexplicable typo I’ve ever come across & I loved it.
I know!!!! I read that (after I posted it, of course) and the best conclusion I can make is that autocorrect is now inventing entirely new words just to be a pain in my ass. WTF is sprit, you automated bastard???
hehe- i can totally picture a girl spilling her guts to a boy on the phone, and her freaking out, and him just smiling and being so happy and relieved!
that is way cute. i think its nice to have a good foundation of friendship before you start dating someone. my boyfriend now is the first time that had ever happened to me with, and I have to say I like it a lot better then just starting to date from the beginning of knowing them.
two months is not a long time! i mean, he will be there about by christmas? ohhh how exciting!!
We know absolutely everything about each other, and yet somehow we never run out of stuff to talk about. Every once in awhile, I tease him with stuff like, “Hey, remember that time you asked me out and I told you no, no way, no way in hell? So then you thought it would be a good idea to shove your tongue down my throat? That was AWESOME.”
And yeah, he’s probably going to be here the week after Christmas, which is amazing – we’ve been planning this for so long, I can’t believe it’s happening in two months!!!
Hurray! Congrats! I’m really happy to hear you’ll be together again so soon!
This is so cute! The next 2 months will fly by!!
What a great story! I think this one is my favorite.
My most recent ex…
My roommates and I went a party strictly to pre-game before heading to a fraternity party (old time’s sake, feeling too old for that stuff). We were all dressed in camo, except my roommates had the exact same outfits on and mine was a little different, and I wore face paint… like the paint under your eyes.
We walk into this party, and I see this absolutely gorgeous guy. I never like meeting guys at parties/bars/etc., so I figured I’d be playing wingwoman for one of the roomies. Well I tried to play wingwoman, but he wasn’t having any of it. He wanted to talk to me, get to know me, the whole deal. Sooo my friends and I ended up staying for a lot longer than we had planned because of him, but it was nice.
I later found out that he used to play baseball and so when he saw me with the paint on my face, I looked so cute and it reminded him of when he used to play. I was pretty much over the moon for the guy, and it ended last month.
This meeting happened exactly a year ago. Funny how things change.
Just for the record, I am down for baby photos. That kid is adorable.
I love how-we-met stories! Except mine is pretty boring. I met my boyfriend at my friends house-party (future boyf had just moved in with friend A), where I had expressly been warned off him by another friend, because she liked him lots. I was very good, and reassured her, and met another guy that night, who went on to treat me like crap. I then spent much time at the house where my whining to Friend A and his flatmate, future boyfriend, about douchbag, which somehow made future boyfriend fall in love with me.
I am no longer friends with the girl who originally had a crush on him, and was sleeping with him when he fell for me, which makes me feel a little dirty, but eh, we’ve together five years now, so it was worth it.
Wonderful story, adorable baby!
When I was 17, I met my husband through a mutual friend who wanted to date my sister. I told the friend that he could only date my sister if he introduced me to a friend of his. I was only kidding. But anyway, he introduced me to my future husband the next weekend. . Now my friend and sister only lasted 2 weeks. My husband and I married then next month and have been together for the last 22 years.
Awwww Wendy, he’s so adorable!
I’m single now, but I love how I met my last boyfriend. I was a DJ on my college radio station and my cohost was in charge of promotions, so I usually ended up helping out. We were doing a valentine’s day promo where people could write on a piece of paper a song to dedicate to someone and a message. On the first day of promo I was working the table with a DJ I had never met. No one was really coming up to the table we were at and instead of engaging other people to dedicate songs, we just talked and talked. I had gone on a date with another guy at the radio station and it was kind of known, so this guy didn’t really try anything, but we became facebook friends and exchanged numbers and talked all the time. It was adorable because he would get so nervous that he would get flustered and start stuttering a little bit and lose his train of thought, which we joked meant that he was allergic to me. About a month later, at a radio station party people kept teasing me about the other guy from the radio station, that I was his girlfriend and stuff until I finally exploded and was yelled HE’S NOT MY BOYFRIEND! The next day the guy I liked asked if I wanted to go to the zoo, it was the first nice day in March and I hadn’t been to the zoo yet so I said yes. Afterwards we walked to the lake and just cuddled watching the water and when he walked me to my dorm, he kissed my cheek and when I walked upstairs to my room my roommates teased me mercilessly because I was basically floating I was so happy. The next night he texted me asking me what I was up to and he ended up coming over to watch a movie. We cuddled the entire time and during the movie he kissed me and afterwards asked me to be his girlfriend. My friends all teased me about this because I met him doing a valentine’s day promo thing and I’m not a valentine’s day, meet in an adorable romcom kind of situation girl.
Well … the bf and mine. Ours is pretty ridiculous. We originally met while I was dating my ex. The ex was abusive on rare occasions and our relationship was fraught with anxiety (for me. The ex didn’t really seem to care one way or the other about the whole thing.)
The ex and I attended a wedding together, and my ex was a groomsmen, as was my current boyfriend. We weren’t formally introduced, because my ex would never be so gentlemanly as to introduce me to people to try and make me more comfortable. But I noticed he was cute and pudgy, and he had red hair – which I love (it turns out his hair is brown, but turns bright red if he’s in the sun for long enough.)
Some time later, we as a couple were invited to a wing night with my now boyfriend and the groom at that wedding. We were sitting around a table, and after vague introductions and hellos, he pointed to my ex’s phone and said, “Why do you have a picture of a taint on your phone.”
…It was a picture of me, but he was looking at it to the side and upside down. I laughed and said, “No dude, that’s me.” He flipped the phone rightside up, looked at it, and then put it back down where it was and said:
“No offense, but you look like a taint from this angle.”
…Great first impression right?
Less than a year later, things ended with the ex and we got together, coming up on two years now.
Any man who uses the word “taint” on the first meeting gets points in my book!
Wendy- He is SO cute, and you look great!!!
I met my husband on craigslist. I get a lot of odd looks when people find that out! I’d gotten jobs, roommates and sold stuff through CL, so I figured, why not? I was trying to convince my friend to try online dating, but she made me do it first to see what it was like. I posed an ad and also replied to ads- He caught my eye initially because he had a cat– So we emailed a few times, and talked on the phone and then met for drinks. I was supposed to have dinner with my friend before meeting him, but my friend fell asleep and was late. So he showed up while my friend and I were still eating, and he joined right in! We eventually finished dinner and went to a jazz bar where the gay couple next to us told us what a cute couple we made- little did they know it was our first date. At some point I got up to go to the bathroom and realized that I had to leave NOW if I was going to catch my train home to the ‘burbs. I decided that I was having a great time and missed my train on purpose. I spent the night at his place, but all we did was kiss. We went on our 2nd date the next day, and almost 5 years later, we’re married!
Keep those baby pictures coming!
I met Mr. Pinky 17 years ago at a party. We were friends for nine years, the last five of those nine years we were best friends. We’ve been a couple for eight years and married for four.
When we first met, Mr. Pinky asked me out. I said, “No.” He didn’t have any references. Nevertheless, we became very good friends. A few years later, I asked him out and he said, “No.” It would screw up the friendship. We have an awesome friendship. We were basically living out of each others’ back pockets by this time. We were always at each others’ houses and cooking for each other. We have the same hobbies, same morals and same taste in cheesy pop culture. I dated a couple of other men during this time, but always referred to Mr. Pinky as my “Platonic Husband.” He says that he asked me out some time in between there but I think he was being subtle. I’m not good at subtle.
I have loved this man for a very long time. I would do anything for him. I think I realized that I loved him romantically when my cat had a very bad reaction to anesthesia when she got her teeth cleaned and I had to take her to the emergency clinic. I fell apart and sobbed. It was totally okay to not have to be strong in front of him. He was completely there for both of us. She wound up peeing in her carrier on the way to the clinic and his car smelled like cat pee. He never mentioned it. This was someone I could trust completely and it was okay to be vulnerable.
I found out later that he had more than just friendship love for me for years. Sneaky dude.
Well, after nine years of being buddies, he asked me again. I said I needed to think about it. He wanted to know exactly how long. I asked for a couple of days. He brought chili. He makes awesome chili.
Reader, I married him.
Awww, I love your story AND the Jane Eyre reference!
I’m crying… haha…. Jane Eyre is my absolute favorite…
& I’m in love with my best friend… kind of…. He made a move, I said no. I made a move, he said no. He’s far away right now, but we’re back in touch. I wonder things sometimes & your story makes me wonder them more vividly.
I was scared to death to lose my best friend if the romance didn’t work out. What keeps the romance going, is the friendship. I wish you strength, courage and all that other good stuff.
Back in the Platonic Era, I used to dread the day that Mr. Pinky would find a girlfriend, because it meant that I would have to walk away from the friendship. NO WOMAN would understand a relationship like ours. As it turns out, all of our friends had us figured out. We were just big old scaredycats.
Go for it.
Hey, I never, EVER would have thought, even two years ago, that I’d have fallen for my best friend. I was always the hard-line type, telling friends who were harboring secret crushes on other friends that if the attraction had never been there before, it probably wasn’t going to be there, so give up and move on. Actually, Painted_dude made one more (very awkward) attempt to make a move on me a few years after high school, and I’m pretty sure I gave him that line.
Funny how life has a way of making you eat your words…good luck!!!
I can’t think of anything better than being married to your best friend. It’s a very fortunate thing when you have passion and friendship in one relationship.
LOVE this!!! And love the Jane Eyre reference. I am all about spending your life with your best friend – I’m planning on doing the same 🙂
I met my partner at a really divey bar. Seriously divey–it was carpeted and had big wooden posts in the middle of the room. It looked like someone’s kind of dirty basement rec room. Mostly it is just filled with middle-aged men drinking alone at the bar–not really a place to pick someone up. But it was around the corner from my coworker’s apt and she had just had a bad breakup, so a few other girls from work and I decided to take her out and it was nearby and had cheap beer. My now-partner was there with a bunch of his friends because he also lived nearby. He and his friends got up to leave and my friend (who had had a few) followed them out to the sidewalk and told them that that couldn’t leave and that they should come back in and buy us drinks. They did and my now-partner just happened to sit down next to me (he claims that it was because I was the cutest, and that’s so sweet of him to say, but I figure it was just random). While everyone else was making small talk, we got into a very intense conversation about sociology and This American Life and politics and all sorts of topics that aren’t things I would usually talk about when flirting. Thing was, I was just really enjoying the conversation and wasn’t really trying to flirt at all, because I was pretty happily single at the time. Soon, I realized that I was about to miss my last bus, but didn’t want to leave. So I watched that last bus drive by the bar.
At the end of the night, he offered to walk me home and we ended up making out in front of my house. I was really nervous and worried that he wouldn’t ask for my number, so I pretty much just gave it to him, which he still teases me about since I did it really abruptly and awkwardly (and right before he was going to ask anyway).
At the time, we were both convinced that we only wanted a casual fling, and we talked about it and agreed to that plan. 4 months later we talked again and were still on the same page–about being in love and allowing things to get more serious. 3 and a half years later (2 years long distance) we live together on the other side of the country and are making life-long plans together!
Last week I told about my husband and I meeting without taking any notice of each other. We had known each other for about eight months when we first connected. I was an officer in our chemistry fraternity, AXE, and was part of a group going out to put up flyers on campus to advertise our fraternity. As we came out of our building we stopped to chat with a few other members of AXE who were standing in front of the building. They were encouraged to join us and my husband quickly decided he’d rather wander around campus with the girl than any of the guys and volunteered to help me. We talked and laughed the entire time we were going around campus. We seem to have the same sense of humor and had fun putting up posters. I was intrigued. He was so different than any guy I had ever met and I was suddenly quite attracted to him so I started dropping by his lab to talk to him every time I was in his building, which was at least once every day. A post doc in his lab kept telling him he needed to ask me out because she could tell I liked him by the way I looked at him but he wasn’t sure. I also had turned down all the offers for dates in the department because the guys in the department were my friends and I didn’t feel any spark for any of them so it would have been awkward to date them. So the guys told him I wouldn’t go out with him and the post doc kept telling him to ask out me I because I liked him. After a month of this he asked me out and we went to a movie for our first date. Afterward he walked me back to my dorm and we stood outside talking. He is alot taller than me and so we ended up face to face with him standing on the parking lot and me on the curb which made me closer to his height. He pulled me toward him for our first kiss and I ended up falling off the curb. The kiss was delayed briefly and he was mortified. It was funny! We’ve been together a little over 26 years now and married for 24. Our life together is still fun and we love to spend time together talking and hanging out.
My story is pretty typical, with a small twist. We met on OkCupid. Like so many others, I was about a day away from closing my account. I had seen his profile but didn’t think much of him. He (let’s call him Matt) messaged me and actually asked questions and seemed intelligent. I enjoyed messaging with him and quickly gave him my email address. One night I was supposed to go on a second date with someone else, but he wasn’t able to make it. I was already out and about, so I sent an email over my phone to Matt and gave him my cell #-said if you’re available tonight for coffee, text me and let me know. He texted me about 10 minutes later, and we ended up going out for coffee. It was the best first date ever. We had a few more wonderful dates, but I never felt a spark. After about 2 weeks I told him I couldn’t date him anymore. That was a Monday.
That whole week I realized I actually really missed him. I texted him on Friday asking if he wanted to go for a run on Saturday. He agreed. Friday night some girlfriends and I went out to dinner and drinks. We ended our evening pretty early (around 9) and for some weird reason–I’ve never been able to figure out why–I felt compelled to call Matt and confirm our plans for Saturday. I mentioned that I was walking out of the restaurant we had just been in, and he told me he was there eating dinner as well, and that I should go back inside and see him. I did, and had a great time hanging out with him and his friend. We talked for a while, danced, made out in the parking lot (!) and talked until about 5am. Everything changed that night for me.
We dated for close to a year, and oftentimes I would think to myself how many near misses we had of just never connecting. I’m grateful we did.
I met my SO on e-harmony. I had just passed my qualifying exams and almost simultaneously had by far my most serious relationship collapse around me and was having to move out of our shared apartment, deal with our breaking our lease, etc. plus still trying to work 60 hrs/week. I don’t think I ever would’ve done the online dating thing but I was in such a bad place, wanted desperately to try something different and meet new people not associated with my grad program (I knew no one else as I had moved from about 4800 Km away and had started dating a guy from my program immediately). I didn’t really think I would meet anyone that I would fall in love with, I was just trying to expand my social circle. After about a week and a half of just going on fun dates with guys that were nice but nothing super exciting this guy (also a canadian ex-pat/scientist) messaged me. It took about 3 dates before I realized that even if I was not in a good place in my life I would always regret not giving this a chance. We took things slow for quite a while and I was able to heal emotionally and financially by myself (I only saw him 1-2 per week as he lived across the bridge). It’s been almost two years and I never thought I could be so happy or have met someone that I clicked with so well.
As a side note we realized that we had lived ~1 block from each other in a Canadian city a few years ago and never known each other! He’d also gone to high school with my best friend from college. So random!
I love the last part, it reminds me of one of the couples on When Harry Met Sally 🙂
Such a cutie!
I think fate was working to get my husband and I together. We went to the same high school but due to me transferring and him being slightly older we never were there at the same time. However, our parents had become good friends but somehow we were never in the same place at the same time (although I have childhood memories of his mother scaring me). Then I started at university and had arranged for my roommate to be someone who also went to our school who I had mutual friends with. One night this roommate invited me to go with her to the student union to meet up with her old boyfriend who had decided to take a year off from school in Chicago and was back in town. And that ex became a good friend and ended up becoming my wonderful husband!
As an added twist to how small and incestuous our high school group was, his childhood best friend and my childhood best friend are now dating despite living 600 miles from our home town and not getting together until they lived in the same city.
Congrats Wendy!! Such a cute picture!
I may have written this somewhere on Dear Wendy before, but my husband’s and I “how we met” story wasn’t the most classy or romantic day, but I love it anyway. My roommates and were celebrating the end of my junior year of college with some boxed wine and vodka shots. This classy combination ended up with us racing down to our apartment complex hottub to continue drinking in more Jersey Shore-esque surroundings. A few guys were by the pool and hot tub, and as a newly single girl, I had no interest in meeting them, so my friends talked to them while I hung back a bit. Fast forward a few hours, and one guy and I ended up tucking both of my roommates in bed at 10pm because they had a little too much fun with the boxed wine. I wasn’t really attracted to him at first, but he was easy to talk to, so we sat up for five hours talking on my balcony.
He asked me for my number and I gave it to him reluctantly convinced he wouldn’t call and kind of okay with tha, since I didn’t feel any major sparks.. A few days later, after I returned home from school, he called me and offered to drive 2+ hours to my hometown to take me out on a real date. The date was going great until I realized I ate a green pepper (majorly allergic), I ran off to the bathroom and threw up. He took care of the check and rushed me out of the restaurant, stopping three times when I got sick on the way home. Each time he got out and held my hair, and stopped for crackers and water. I was so embarrassed, but he was such a great sport about it, it melted my heart. He stayed over my house to make sure I was okay, and in the morning I woke up and was so happy to see him there, and ever since then I was a goner.
My boyfriend and I celebrated our three-year anniversary a week ago today. We met during our first weekend at college. He had just moved into the country (he’s a citizen but grew up elsewhere), and I had just moved to the city (New York) so we were both lost and overwhelmed. We lived in the same dorm, and we were in the elevator together, along with a few (obnoxious) boys from my floor. I was headed to an event at the college (a mixer with a jazz band playing) and because I knew one of the guys from my floor was a jazz guitarist, I followed him, hoping he was going to the same event. S. (my boyfriend) hurried to catch up to me and said, “Just so you know, I’m following you.” It would have been really creepy, but I’d seen him around the dorm, and plus we were pre-college Facebook friends and we had talked a little bit online because we were saw that we were going to have two classes together. We met on the corner of 12th Street and 4th Avenue in Manhattan, and then we walked to the event together (he was going because he loves jazz, and I was going because there were going to be free cookies and tea), and on the way there we talked about where we were from and what classes we were going to take. It took about a month and a half before we worked up enough courage to simultaneously make the first move, but I already knew I liked him after talking to him for about ten minutes. (And he says he thought I was “cute” and “nice.”)
Jackson is a cutie! My boyfriend and I met my first week in Richmond, at a Jaycee chapter meeting (I was shopping around for a new chapter due to the move.) A few weeks later, Jaycees were selling beer at the NASCAR race. I met up with the group, but was leaving early. The man who would be my boyfriend rode with me to give me directions. After we got on the highway, I was in the left hand lane when he said, “Crap, you need to get off of at that exit. I didn’t tell you in time.” Me (looks over shoulder): I can make it.
After getting off the exit, he looked at me and said, “You’re not from here.” I said, no, I was from New Jersey. “Where in New Jersey?” “The Shore?” “Where on the Shore?” “Ocean County.” “What town?”
Turns out we grew up in the towns next to each other. We were friends for over a year. Two Christmases ago he gave me an amazing present- one that showed he really got me. And now, here we are.
High five for the Shore! I was born in Ocean Gate! (Literally, in it – I was the first homebirth there in eighteen years.) I did not, however, learn to drive there 🙂
My husband and I met on e-harmony. He was actually deployed to Iraq for the year but his team was in the process of coming home, so he had regular internet access. He messaged me with a really funny note about how because he’s been deployed for so long, he’s “out of touch with pop culture, but still dances pretty well for a white guy”. I never thought I’d fall for a military guy and I had reservations (see, I am a liberal hippie pacifist type) but I messaged him anyway.
Well, we ended up writing each other twice each per day, long messages about ourselves and our lives. He started to feel like a friend, and when things went well or went poorly for me, he was the first one I wanted to tell. He and I both decided that even if we didn’t have a sexual attraction when we met, that the friendship meant a lot to us and we would keep each other in our lives.
He finally came home, and when I saw him, I felt… neutral. Black leather jacket and huge muscles is SO not my type. Plus, he was jumpy from just being back from deployment and he put me on edge. I honestly wasn’t sure if I was attracted to him. But the conversation on our date was excellent, and at one point he leaned in and kissed me. Total fireworks kiss! I was so surprised!
And really ambivalent. He didn’t come in the package that I thought my dream guy would come in. I can’t kill a fly and he’s an infantry soldier, I like tall and dark and he’s short and blonde. But there was no denying how comfortable I felt with him. He liked me for me, for exactly who I am. And for all you single girls out there… he had no trouble committing. He wanted to see me all the time, and he offered to make me food and bring it to me when I was too busy to meet up. He was no-bones-about-it interested. He’s the one that taught me that “a guy who wants to be your boyfriend will act like your boyfriend right away”. I almost canceled our 4th date because I had a low-grade migraine, but instead I suggested that we do something low-key. He came over in sweatpants with Thai takeout and the movie Love Actually. That was the night that I learned that an orgasm cures my period-just-ended migraines…. bwahahaha.
my husband and i met on myspace! lol yes myspace!. we talked for 3 to 4 months before we met up. at the time we lived in FL. we lived about 2 hours away from each other and that was if traffic was smooth. i come from a very traditional mexican family. my parents where always awkward when it came to me dating. they wanted to meet anyone i would talk to. i didnt like that because i dont want to bring home every guy i showed intrest to so that my parents could interrogate him. lol well we wanted to meet up so we met up at my house. which was nerve wrecking because not only did we meet for the first time he had to meet my family to. i wanted to start of right cause i was getting tired of having to do thing behind my parents back or lieing about where i was going and with whom.
poor thing he was literaly shaking in his shoes when it was time to meet my parents. i was so nervous as to how my parents where going to act since it was the first time i every introduced a male to them.
so that is how we met. we have been together for four years now and with a 2 year old daughter. we got married in august of 2011.
Oh Wendy, I hope I look as great as you during my first few weeks of being a mom!! Jack is adorable.
I thought my Gil was a real dork when we first met. I was a sophomore in college working at the campus bookstore, and while stocking shelves one day, I looked up to see this gangly kid wearing three-sizes-too-big sweats standing over me. When I asked if I could help him, all he said was ,”Hi, I’m Gilbert.” I introduced myself and pointed to my name tag to try and make it less awkward, but he responded with, “I know who you are,” which was just plain creepy because I was pretty sure I had never seen him before in my life. He asked for help choosing a birthday gift for a friend, and after choosing something, he thanked me and walked away without even asking for my phone number…which was fine with me since he seemed like a Class A creeper. Since this was right when Facebook was first becoming popular, I looked him up and found that I was already friends with him (if you started college around ’04/’05, you know that everyone friended everyone before getting to school so that you’d have people to talk to when you got there), which explained how he knew who I was. After that, he’d wave at me profusely whenever we ran into each other on campus, but we didn’t really run in the same circles so we never really hung out. He eventually graduated and kind of fell off of my radar.
Two years later, I was at an alumni event on campus when I heard my name being called an a vaguely familiar face waving profusely in my direction. I went over to say hi and wow–he was like a different person! He’d gained about 20 pounds of muscle, cleared up his acne and given up on the whole “nice guy who tries way too hard” M.O. A few days later, he wrote on my Facebook wall (of course!) that it had been great to see me and that we should meet up and chat, since our hometowns were close and I was returning for summer break. We planned to meet at Grand Central Station and have dinner in Times Square, but I’m not the best at navigating by myself, so he told me to wait by the clock at the center of the Grand Concourse. It was extremely crowded when I got there and I remember being extremely nervous that he wouldn’t see me and I’d be stranded and have no idea how to get home. I was so absorbed in scanning the crowd to make sure he didn’t miss me that I was startled when someone grabbed my arm from behind and yanked me out of the way of a dolly loaded with UPS packages coming straight at me. I spun around and–as you can probably predict–it was him. As cheesy as it sounds, I knew right in that second that he was the guy I was going to be with forever. We had a wonderful night and a very romantic first kiss on the train platform as I rushed to catch the last train back home.
Since then, I’ve found that he kind of still IS the nerdy kid I met in college–but he’s MY nerd who helps me with the housework, loves my family and never forgets birthdays or anniversaries. Four years, three apartments and two graduate degrees later, we are planning our careers, a move to a more permanent home…and our November 2012 wedding!
We met as roommates in a townhouse almost five years ago. I knew when I moved in there was something special about him, but nothing happened because he had a girlfriend for about a year and a half. We started what could very well have been a Dear Wendy letter scenario friends with benefits type situation a couple months after they broke up. We were both trying to deny feelings, we ended the romantic part,, but tried to make the roommate part work for a couple months and just couldn’t. We went our separate ways for a couple months. We met for lunch one day, and then he just continued to pursue me for a few weeks. And the rest is history. We’ve been officially together over two years, living together again for 5 months.
PS, meant to start out with this: Wendy you look amazing and Jack is adorable!
My mom works in management, and is constantly hiring and firing people. She’s always told me, “never miss an interview you have already scheduled… even if you’ve found another job. You have nothing to lose by going, and nothing to gain by missing it. At the very least, you’ll make an interesting connection with someone in your industry, and you’ll avoid burning bridges!” Listening to this advice is the reason I met my current adorable boyfriend. Thanks mom!
It was Spring of 2010, I had just finished my last Final exam of my second year of law school, and I uncharacteristically decided to accept an invitation to party hard following what was one of the hardest exams I’ve ever taken. I’m a few years older than most law students and I have tended to shy away from socializing with the others. But that night, I was feeling the need to party. I had a job interview for a Summer job scheduled for 9am the next morning, but I wasn’t too worried about it. I had already secured a decent job for the Summer, and I didn’t care too much about being my usual over-prepared self. So I went out. And partied. Boy did I party.
Cut to the next morning. I’m at a fellow student’s house, on their couch, with a hazy memory of how I even got there. Just as I’m becoming conscious enough to realize where I am, said friend saunters into the room and pokes me, and reminds me about the job interview. Oh yeah, shit. It’s about 8am already, I am not at home, I’m sweating booze, but my mom’s words haunt me. Must. Go. To. Interview. Must not fail at life because of boozing and foolishness!
I zip up my boots and proceed to walk about a mile to my car. I drive home and arrive right around 8:30. The interview is about 20 minutes away. I have no time for showering, or studying up on the company. I probably shouldn’t go to this interview. I go anyway.
I walk into the office building early and quickly duck into a bathroom to assess myself. My face is an odd shade of pasty white, my hair is greasy, and I’m pretty sure I reek of vodka. “Don’t burn bridges!” I hear my mother yell. I splash some water on my face, pull my hair into a pony tail, and swear I will never party with law students again if I can just make it through this interview without vomiting.
I enter the firm I’m interviewing with and see a really hot guy talking to the receptionist. I turn my attention to the receptionist, and I ask if Mr. X is available (he’s who I’ve been corresponding with and who I’m supposed to ask for). Mr. X looks suddenly timid, turns a deep shade of pink, and says that’s him. I think to myself, “fuck my life. He’s hot, and I’m a train wreck.”
Mr. X leads me into the conference room, and appears very nervous and awkward. I’m usually a consummate professional on interviews, super formal. But the guy seems so nervous, and I feel instinctively that acting too formal will just make him more nervous. He asks me weird interview-y questions (something about what would you do if you were trapped in a room with a big violent dog) and I proceed to sarcastically tease his questions and speak to him as if he’s a friend I’ve known for years. I’m overwhelmed with the feeling that I’m glad I didn’t miss this interview, no matter how shitty I look. I leave the interview feeling like I know I’ll see him again. I wasn’t even worried about it.
Two weeks later, I get an email on my phone that I got the job. (I find out many months later that he was personally allowed to select one intern from the 30+ prospects, and he chose me because he thought I seemed smart and like someone that everyone in the office would get along with. His bosses chose the other 3 interns.) I mention to my mom that I’m taking this new job, since it’s basically the same as the old one but slightly higher paid. I throw in a joke about my new boss being cute, and she rolls her eyes.
The first day on the job, Mr. X touches my shoulder to let me know about a meeting and I feel my whole body reacts. He assigns me my desk, and it’s right near his. (I found out later that he assigned me that desk since he thought we’d get along well as co-workers.) The other Summer interns aren’t even near the two of us. After a couple days of talking and joking back and forth, the chemistry is palpable. I’m not worried about where this is going. I’m not talking to friends or family about it. I’ve been single for three years and I’m finally ok with it. I’m tired of putting expectations into things and having them fall flat. I don’t even let my mind go there. I have fun with Mr. X, and continue dating another guy very casually.
About a month into the two month internship, I leave work for the long Fourth of July weekend, and I feel oddly sad. It’s a long weekend and I’m getting paid for not working, what’s the problem? It hits me as I’m driving away for my long weekend- I’m going to miss Mr. X for the 4 days we’ll be apart. SHIT. I’m done for. I finally admit to myself that this is going to go somewhere, and that somewhere might be an eventual break up. Am I ready to go down this road? Yes, I think I am.
I get back to work on Monday, and things progress organically as expected. It’s a low pressure situation, with the added bonus that there’s a defined end date. So we both wait it out until the end of the internship, as an unspoken agreement. With one week left, he asks me to coffee under the guise of helping him with a random project. It’s our first time hanging out outside the office, and we talk for five hours and don’t do any work. On the last day of the internship, we go for a walk after work and he kisses me for the first time. A few days later, we’re officially in a relationship, and in love.
It’s been about a year and a half, and we’re happy and more in love every day. All because I listened to my mother.
Aww, what a great story! That really brought a smile to my face. 😀
P and I met in high school. I was a freshman who chose to sit alone in the back corner of the cafeteria at lunch, writing and listening to the Ramones on my walkman instead of socializing. My boyfriend (a senior) was friends with my best friend’s brother, and they ate lunch together in a group of some other seniors. He was apparently really intrigued by me because of my behavior, so he asked my bff who I was, and she said that I was who she would take on a deserted island with her. He came over to me and said “What’s your bio?” The entire table was staring, including the girl he had just broken up with, so I thought he was making fun of me for sitting alone. I had no interest in talking to him because I thought he was mean.
Well, he was persistent, and we ended up going to the movies together in a small group on what was supposed to be his prom night. He added me on msn, and we talked once or twice. Then the bff and I decided to play a prank on him, pretending I was part of a cult in the woods near where he lived. He had been trying to find that cult and was always out in the woods following their tracks of mutilated farm animals. I probably crossed the line, but we kept talking after that until he left for the Naval Academy that summer. He quit the Naval Academy and came back to regular college several states away, and we began talking again one night when he was bored. Started a long distance relationship about three months later. We dated for a few years, broke up for a few years, and now we’ve been back together for about a year and a half.
My husband and I met at a sci-fi convention in NY, where he was invited as a guest for his webcomic. At the time, I was with a role-playing renaissance group, and his table was right next to mine. We got to talking and I convinced him that he should attend the con dance. We spent the whole night together, with a friend of mine acting as a chaperone. At the end of the night, I wrote my contact info on his hand and he kissed my hand and thanked me for the evening.
I ended up reading his webcomic and joining his forums. We started a correspondence, which lead to phone conversations. The next thing I knew, I was in a long distance relationship with him. He visited my state, I visited his. This went on for two years. Then I decided to bite the bullet and asked if I could move in with him – he immediately said yes. Less than a year after that, we got married.
Awesome! I LOVE sci-fi conventions!
I have been friends with my boyfriend for about 10 years. He lived down the street from my best friend. She always used to see his car and call him “Weezer kid” because he had a Weezer bumper sticker and she was a big fan. We actually met him through someone else we were friends with. I didn’t really see him in “that way” until earlier this year. I have no idea why it took me so long. He’s definitely “the one” for me. Occasionally, he jokingly asks me “Where have you been all my life?” and I’ll tell him “Well, I’ve been RIGHT HERE for some years now”. I think we had to both go through some terrible relationships before we realized how great we’d be for each other. I know it is early and that I have all those early on endorphins floating through my body, but he is also the rational choice- he’s a genuinely NICE guy (no more bad boys for me). It is a pretty awesome feeling : )
That’s one tiny baby.
Not the most interesting story. My fiance and I met in our 7th grade class (it was a small school, so we had every class together). He was chubbier, looked like a turtle with his backpack, and wore exclusively shirts you might find in a geek-oriented online store. He was funny, nice to me (unlike a lot of other classmates), and mysterious, because he lived a town away, and liked smoking pot. After he left that school, we kept in touch, and grew a lot closer. I was in love with him by sophomore year. Buuuuut, nothing happened until the end of my senior year, so, there ya go.
Again, not interesting, but kinda fun to remember. He really was pudgy back then, hehe. Now he’s all tall and lanky… with sideburns(!) and bass skills.
Awww! He’s so precious!
My guy and I met in 1998 at a Valentine’s Day middle school dance. According to him, he asked me to dance and I said “No”. I disagree that this happened, or he must have pestered me enough to finally agree because we have pictures of us there. We dated our senior year, then again as undergrads and started again 2 years ago, him as a working, responsible adult and me the new PhD student at the same school.
Wendy, I know you didn’t ask for advice, but I can’t help myself. I agree with the comments about trying other diapers (I have a boy, pampers Swaddlers work AWESOMELY for him). Someone else may have mentioned thisd already, but you need to make sure his boy parts are pointing DOWN when you close the diaper. That will eliminate about 99% of diaper leaks, provided you change him regularly. 😀
Good luck, and he is gorgeous!
Glad to see this thread made it into existence! I was actually the one who suggested it, but been too busy for the last few days to check DW. I was in St. Louis on vacation until last Saturday night then spent all day Sunday with the boyfriend, which didn’t quite go like I had planned. Loving the baby pics though! He is beautiful.
Anyway, I met my current boyfriend T 8 years ago. I had just started a new job as a delivery driver for Domino’s and he was the driver who took me on a couple training runs before I went on my own. I immediately thought he was really cute, but I wasn’t single at the time. I had been seeing a spoiled little rich boy I met at college, who treated me like crap and was embarrassed to bring me around his friends because I’m from a poor family. I don’t know what 19-year old me was thinking, but he wasn’t a good match for anyone unless they are just as shallow as him and a millionaire. After we broke up, I stayed single for about a month or so just thinking things over. I just couldn’t get T out of my head, especially since we worked together every day. He was funny, smart, and very down-to-earth. He was also kinda shy, so I wasn’t intimidated by the thought of making the first move. I asked him out one day and he said yes. We ended up not finding the place we were planning to go, but we talked nonstop as we drove around. Finally, we ended up parking behind Domino’s and just talking until the sun came up. We had our first kiss right there, and have been a couple ever since. We moved in together in 2004. Right now, we still live together and are trying to figure out if we are going to move forward with our relationship from here…he says he’s not feeling ready to get married but he loves me and doesn’t want to lose me. So, as romantic as our beginning story is, it’s being overshadowed currently by our looming end story.
OMG your little boy is beyond precious.
I don’t know why I get a bit embarassed by this story but here goes…..When I first moved out and got my new job in NYC I saw an add for a Match Making service called Selective Search. I thought it would be an interesting way to be set up with some great guys. So I go through the interview process and immediately back out. I get to scared that it might be like “Millionare MatchMaker”. I eventually decide to go through with it. Long story short I get set up with 2 different men but neither worked out. So I forgot out it. Fast forward a year later and the service reaches out to me asking if I was still available for a match. I get all his info and I agree. We’ve been together ever since. He’s amazing and though I’m embarassed by the whole matchmaking thing I would ahve never met him otherwise. OUr paths would have never crossed. He get’s a kick out of saying ‘I paid $20,000 to find you!”…..but I like to keep that a secret. 😉
My main squeeze and I first met nearly 8 years ago when we were both teenagers deep in the throes of adolescent angst. We had grown up in the same town and even went to the same elementary school (different grades) but never knew much about each other, save for some unfavorable rumors spread by “friends.” One Saturday morning I walked into a mutual friend’s house and there he was, hanging out. Cheesy as it sounds, we were drawn to each other right away and a month later we started “going out” (yep, that’s right) despite not being each other’s “types” and all that. Eight years, two states, and some long-distance years in college later and we’re still together, recently shacked-up, and still smitten. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop because it seems ridiculous and unlikely that I would end up with the person I met when I was so young but it just keeps getting better.
Oh and Wendy, you and baby Jack are both beautiful!
I met my guy on a biker online website. I got on just for the hell of it. I had been on many other dating sites and hadn’t found anyone remotely interesting so I thought, why not? He was not the typical biker (he’s a Veteran, has a degree in Psychololgy too) and neither am I. We began emailing each other and then talking on the phone for a month. He was out of the country on an assignment, and it was really a great way to get to know each other without sex getting in the picture to fog it up. After his month was up, I told him to come over when he got off the plane. He came straight over, and hasn’t left my bed since. We are now going on 4 months and it has been the best ever. Many of my friends can’t believe we came together and moved in just like that, but when you get the chance, why not take it? I’m 39 and have been married before, and am enjoying life to it’s fullest. No regrets.