I had so many ideas for Valentine's Day, that I nearly forgot this one!
I asked my Facebook friends how they met their mate, and the answers are funny, sweet, surprising, and above all they restore faith in the notion that love can truly last and grow stronger. Here, in no particular order, are the responses to my question. My questions and comments are in italics.
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Elizabeth: Michael and I met at a science fiction convention in Florida. :)
D
etails? Sounds interesting!
I had been closing the estates of both my mother and grandfather for almost a year. I promised myself a treat if I got to a certain point by May. In May there was a convention in Orlando. I flew down Friday and went to the absolute lamest pre-con party. I went to get a second glass of wine and there he was standing against the wall with a shirt that said "Tromeo or Juliet" I said, "I'll bite what it that supposed to mean." We talked until the party ended. The next day he asked be to go to the big science fiction store, but I was stuck volunteering on door patrol for the dealer room. Later that afternoon I saw him at a panel discussion the end of a row. I literally carried a chair over, so I could sit next to him. Later he wooed me by bringing me margaritas while I stood in the world's longest autograph line. That night he kissed me by the pool. Other con people dressed as aliens were playing laser tag and kept yelling "Don't shoot the lovebirds." All the other girls were jealous. That was all it took. We've been together ever since.
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Melissa: Jay and I met on AOL messenger.
How did that happen??
He sent me a message because he was curious about my screen name "landshark". First and last guy I met in person that began with a chat on AOL about a nickname. It was love at first sight
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Babuine: The first time I met Amanda she tried to pick me up in the cafeteria in the student union.
Interesting! What was her pick-up line?
She just sat down and talked to me. That has always been her way. Amanda has never met a stranger :)
I can believe that :)
Amanda: And I was MORTIFIED to find out he was already spoken for. I excused myself and hid in the restroom until he left. Took us a while to get it right. Met in 1992. Married in 2015. ❤️
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Audra: My husband and I met at adult singles Sunday School. I had just turned 25, so the first time I went I went to the under-30 class and felt impossibly old. So the next Sunday I went to the over-30 class, and he was there. He says he immediately liked my glasses and thought I must be an interesting person if I wore such cool glasses. (I still have them!) ;)
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Mary: Met my partner at a bar in San Francisco - The Buena Vista. We were together 16 years before he passed away.
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Lynn: I met my current Sweetheart when he made a comment on a Facebook Friend's post. I wised off to him... and as I hoped... he friended me. This summer we're traveling in our RPod from CA to IL via Rt 66. We're starting our 70's feeling like kids again.
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Janet: We sat next to each other at the Royal Albert Hall proms in London, one august many years ago! We went for a drink afterwards.
Proms? What is that, Janet?
Proms a is a huge classical music cultural event held over 6 weeks in London
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Barbara: Greg was Master Alchemist (president) in a professional chemistry fraternity I was pledging in grad school. Someone who knew us both brought us together since we both liked classical music.
Love that Master Alchemist!
Theresa: I think he made a love potion, Barb!
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Jeanette: Curt and I were fixed up by his sister-in-law, Sue. She was my boss at the state house. We met on a blind date, a Kenny Rogers concert on May 1, got engaged in the parking lot of the state house on my lunch break (I worked evenings). We got married on Aug. 22, 35 years ago.
Well, Kenny Rogers...you know that was a good sign :)
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Sara: Keith and I met at the Nazarene Church district ski retreat at Blackwater Falls. I could not stay upright on the ski slope, and he kept picking me up - literally! We got married 6 months later.
How long have you two been married, Sara?
Like · Reply · February 3 at 6:30pm
Sara: 35 years in August - our motto has always been, "Divorce - nah, murder - maybe!"
Like · Reply · February 3 at 7:08pm
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Terry: Working as a sanitarian at the KCHD. She was also a health inspector and we found we both love science fiction. But she wouldn't date a co-worker.
I found another job to solve that problem. :)
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Karen: I went to college in Wisconsin. We had a big snowstorm and after dinner students had a snowball fight outside the cafeteria. The guy I was dating got hit in the eye and ended up in the hospital. My roommate and I went to visit him that evening-he was in a room with another student that got hurt. Several students were visiting that guy. A nurse told all of us that it was time to leave. One guy asked if we wanted a ride back to campus. It was freezing cold so we said yes. That guy walked me back to my dorm and the rest is history.
How funny, Karen!
Karen : The funny part is the guy I was dating heard the other guy ask us if we wanted a ride back to campus and he told me that no way are you going to do that. So I said no we would walk back--but as my roommate and I were walking down the hall we asked them if we could have a ride. It was freezing outside!
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Greta: My husband and I were set up on our first date by our children...conspired during RECESS...(2) 9-yrs olds & (2) 11-yr olds. <we each had a 9 & an 11-yr old>. They went to a Catholic school & not too many of the kids had divorced parents..so it made total sense to them! Our first date was totally planned by the kids as a family night (vs a date)...a VHS movie, Dominos pizza & a board game. 17 yrs later (15 of those married)...we are still in love & the best family who was ever planned out on a playground...lol.
What a great story, Greta! I love this 💖
Greta: When the kids used to argue with each other... we told them they only had themselves to blame. lol...
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Lainie: I was a freshman at college, and I got an invite to a new student party. There was a number to call for a ride. Don't think they supposed anyone would ask because when I called, they didn't know what to do. They figured they could pawn me off. "Ummm...maybe you should call steve."
So I called. And he grudgingly picked me up. On a motorcycle. Which I had never ridden on, due to my absolute fear of motorcycles. I got on anyway. He wound up going home with a different gal, but he came back asking for me the following year. 22 years married in May.
Judi: I lived in the dorm at WVU next door to a girl from Weirton. She and her roommates had been fixing me up with dates. Unbeknownst to me, she had been telling a classmate from Weirton that she knew a girl she wanted him to meet. She finally made the meet happen. We went on our first blind date on Jan. 31, 1969, and he asked me out for the next night. We went to see "The Graduate." We were married June 20, 1970 (West Virginia Day!) and will celebrate our 47th anniversary this year. Don't fear the blind date!
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Nancy: San Francisco Lesbian Chorus. I I had driven in from Berkeley and was looking for a ride share and saw a name on the roster with an address two doors down from mine. Someone pointed her out. "Ooh!" I said. 35 years in April.
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Elaine : I was 17, a Junior in High School... and attending a Pajama Party with my classmates, back in NJ. This was a very popular pastiime back in the 1950s. Not one of us were even dating..just having fun with our friends on a Saturday night. We were running around OUTSIDE in our skimpy little "Baby Doll" shorty PJs. when I decided to climb a medium sized Magnolia tree in the yard... and went to the top. A Car pulled up with 2 guys in it...white T-shirts with the sleeves rolled up holding the cigarette packs...you know the look. "Duck-Tail " (DA's) haircuts, one red head, one dark haired. They were from a neighboring town's Catholic HS and tre Driver knew one of our friends. The girls below giggled but I stayed up on my 'perch'. They left, we went inside and resumed our silliness, the "Boy" incident forgotten. 2 weeks later the girl who had known the driver told us that the red-headed passenger had looked up in the tree as they pulled away and said "Tony, I'm going to marry that Girl some day!". We Girls just laughed...but to make a LONG story short, 18 mos later we WERE engaged and 18 mos after that we were MARRIED! <3
What a story, Elaine!
Judith: Fabulous story! I could just picture it and can hear you telling it at The Moth!
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Kirk : Janet came to a reading of Wild Sweet Notes poets. She asked me to sign her copy. The rest is history...
What could be better than falling in love with a poet's words?
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Lacey: Adam and I have been together for almost three years. We met playing Team Trivia in Huntington; we were on rival teams, but a handful of us from each team got to be good friends and I managed to convince him to give dating another chance -- even though he'd spent one whole meal with friends talking about how he wasn't interested in dating anyone! #challengeaccepted
I wondered how you two got together :)
Lacey: 😍
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Sarah : Eddy & I spoke for several weeks online after I moved here to South Florida. He wanted to take me to dinner at the Le Val de Loire - French Restaurant and meet one another. I didn't see how I could pass that up. When I got there - there he was waiting outside for me with a dozen red roses in hand. He's been spoiling me like that ever since and we're going on 5 years now!
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Melanie: I met Mike at the College Inn in Morgantown when I blew off studying for a test to go out with a girlfriend who'd come down for a visit. He was with another guy and that's the one I fell for. When that relationship imploded a year later he offered me a place to stay. I stayed for 41 years till he died two years ago this March 26. I knew he was a good one when he introduced me to his German Shepherd, Taurus.
Your story is such a sweet one. Melanie. A good steady, caring man.
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Yvonne: Love hit like a skedge hammer. We were totally unsuited to each other. My girllfriend's VW beetle pulled up in front of my Brooklyn apartment house. HE scrambled out to deliver trash from last night's party. His mouth literally fell open. I traipsed into the house. Moments later my doorbell rang. 35 years later he still thinks I'm that hot. And I still think he's so perceptive.
Isn't it interesting how that spark is almost immediate for most people? Maybe not love at first sight, but definitely something.
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Terry: Larry and I met at the Roaring 20s nightclub on Hale Street. It was an instant attraction and I told my mother the next day we were going to marry. Now 38 years later, we still love each other and enjoy our friendship. Looking forward to another couple of decades together.
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Julianne: We met at a fire house, of course. And for me it was love at first sight and by the end of our first date, I knew. I knew he would be my husband, I knew we would grow old together...I just knew. Now, we have spent well over half our lives together and through, trial and error, awesome and what the heck...we are an amazing couple. We have fallen in love again and again. Life with him is only getting better!
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Judith: I stayed up in Ann Arbor after my freshman year and was working at a restaurant called the Sugar Bowl that summer. I was an inept waitress and still quite shy and self conscious. This Columbian teaching fellow, named Pablo, started hanging around the counter and sometime later I bumped into him on campus. I introduced him to my roommate, a full breasted athletic gal who was a guy magnet. By midsummer my roommate and I were thoroughly sick of each other. One day she came into the restaurant with her sister, Pablo, and a friend of Pablo's, this German guy. My roommate began to order me around, asking for more whipped cream on her sundae and stuff like that. I loathed her and the whole bunch, most especially that German guy who kept smiling like an idiot the whole time, totally unaware of the dynamics. In the following days the German guy started hanging around the counter. He was there the evening I burned my hand with hot water while making coffee and offered to drive me to my parent's cottage about 45 minutes away. That was the inauspicious beginning of a relationship that has lasted 58 years. He has provided me with lots of story material over the years!
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Jamie : Rus and I met in an AOL chat room in 1996. I was 16 and he was 28. We hit it off (he was attracted to my proper grammar and ability to spell) so we started talking in IMs and he eventually called me. We talked for months before he really asked how old I was (haha). After he freaked out he broke it off with me, but we kept in touch as friends (he broke my heart in two, but we both moved on). We hadn't spoken in yeaaaaaars when in 2004 I randomly logged into my old AOL account to just look through emails. His screen name popped up and he IMed me. Turned out his laptop had been stolen and he was using an old computer that had AOL installed. So we got to chatting, very casually, until he said, "so I guess you're married by now, huh?" When I said no his whole attitude changed (haha) and he started asking for my phone number. It took him two more hours of chatting before he got it. In about 2 weeks I flew out to meet him in person (he was in WA and I was in WV). We were married in 2005. He now says if he knew then what he knows now he would just have waited for me
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Tim : We were six months old. Our parents laid us in a playpen together. We've been friends, summer camp buddies, work colleagues, lovers, spouses, and always friends, until death do us part friends, ever since.
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MaryGrace: I met Gary when he was interviewed and hired as Director of Rocky Mount State Historic Site.We fell in love, married and the rest is history!
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Marilyn: In vitro....Larry's parents and mine double dated early on. Whenever I visited the Kinsella Farm with my mom for her TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) meetings, Larry ran off to the barn to hide 'til I left. He hated me. When I turned 15 and had developed rather nicely, he forgot all about running away! We will celebrate 50 years this April.
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So there you have it! Love from before birth to the playpen to the computer and everything in between. I am smiling again as I read these, and I hope you are too. Love. It surely is what makes this old top we live on keep spinning.
Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.
