Some fun in honor of Friday ~ When you met...

[*Anne*]

Think of a long term relationship, either past or present. A romantic relationship may come to mind first, but it doesn't have to be one. It can be a friendship or any kind of partnership.

Now think of that moment when you first met. Did you have any clue you'd end up together, either as lovers or friends? Was there a connection right away? Did you zero in on each other? Or was it an unexpected, gradual thing? Or even a surprise?! Better yet, did you start out disliking one another?

I'll go to my most obvious one ~ my husband. I met him at a Halloween party my friend was having. He said one word to me. "Hi." That was it for the rest of the evening. Okay, fair enough.

My friend called the next day and told me he wanted my number. :areyoucra I remember saying, "You're kidding. He barely acknowledged me. Are you sure?" I mean...if that was his idea of showing interest, I'd hate to see his official cold shoulder routine.

Our first date was the polar opposite. He was sweet, funny, and incredibly smart. Very chatty. He totally reeled me in.

 

[Wandered Off]

I met my wife when she was taking over my duties as I was leaving for another job. I had some weeks left to get her trained for the position (I'm talking about the job. ). She was a single Mom, and I had always told myself I didn't want the "baggage" that came from marrying into an instant family. She was divorced and didn't want to get in a relationship with someone never married (like me) because he probably didn't know how to be married. She wanted someone who was more familiar with the difficulties that can arise. So we had a "safe" environment where we were just ourselves, honest day-to-day people with no pretense of attraction. Neither of us was trying to impress the other. It turns out that this worked incredibly well for us.

Because we worked together, I was with her hours each day and gradually got to observe how she thought. As you might have guessed from my posts, I tend to be argumentative. When I first met her, we got into several arguments - nothing major, just kind of sparring for fun and a way to get to know each other. Several times I noticed that, not only did I end up agreeing with her, I wondered why I had ever thought differently in the first place. This was a new experience...

It revealed insight into how her mind works, and it's rather different from most. If you spoke to her briefly, you probably wouldn't pick up on anything that special. She doesn't come across as unusually brilliant in her speech. In fact, she often comes to me for wording and grammar advice. What is less obvious is this uncanny ability to make connections from observation. I don't know how to describe it better, but she has an intuition that amazes me even after more than a decade together. It's as if her thought processes simply run several levels everybody else's (well, way above mine anyway).

She was really excited that she liked the new job. I went on a vacation for a few days and left her as my backup. During those days, she realized that the job actually sucked and that wasn't really what she was liking. We both figured out that we didn't like being apart, which scared us to no end, since we each violated the other's "rules" about a suitable partner. We had to overcome our preconceived notions about what we wanted in a relationship, but it was either that or face potential huge regret of never trying.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

The first time I met my wife was 15 years ago this week. I was 20, she was 17. She was at GWU for a week for freshman orientation, and came to a fraternity party with a few girls she met during orientation, where my friend dragged me to. I really wasn't in the mood to be out at all, let alone at a fraternity party, but my friend wanted to hit on the incoming freshman and guilted me into going out. Anyway, we were there awhile and I was sitting next to her - we didn't interact at all. However, my friend started hitting on one of the girls she came with, who was this ridiculous, flirty airhead. At one point, I turned and noticed she was watching this ridiculous mating ritual display, and I kind of smirked and rolled my eyes. She smirked back, and the rest is history.

 

[Smoke]

I clicked with my husband instantly, and I knew right off that we were going to get to know each other much better. I didn't think at the time that we'd end up getting married, especially since we were introduced by his boyfriend of more than six years. I don't regret trading the friendship for the marriage, though.

I was also instantly attracted to my first husband. I don't know how mutual it was, though -- I had to pursue him for a while. Made a point of being where I knew he was going to be, things like that.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

10 years ago, my husband and I met at a karaoke party. I had recently split from my first husband, and was incredibly bitter about love and marriage. My girlfriend from college dragged me out of the house to remind me to enjoy life.

So we arrive at the party. Steve approaches us with two glasses of wine and asks, "Would you ladies like some wine?"

The first thing I say to my future husband was, "WHAT? I don't know YOU!!! You could have put anything in that drink. You could have put that DATE RAPE drug in that drink!!"

Clearly I had trust issues.

He stared at me not knowing what to say. My friend nudged me and told me he was cool
So I turned to him and said sweetly, "Why yes, thank you. I'd love some wine."

We didn't date for six months. I thought it was because I turned him off. He later admitted that he was absolutely smitten with me but thought he never had a chance. So he settled for being a friend until I found myself head over heels in love with him.

We're still the best of friends, and he also sees me as one of the most powerful, intimidating, vivacious, gush-love-out-of-my-pores kind of woman. And he's still the most grounded, laid back, sweet, tolerant, and gorgeous man on the planet.

 

[Revoltingest]

I met Mrs Revoltingest about 35 years ago in a library.
I was wearing my best red & green socks with my sandals.
We hit it off anyway.

 

[Tarheeler]

Met my wife in 8th grade art class. I though she was pushy, arrogant, and hostile (she calls it being "determined").

I was right.

And by the time we were 16, I knew I was going to marry her.

 

[Autodidact]

Not a clue. She was here for at least a month before I noticed her pretty hair. Second thing she happened to turn and walk away, if you catch my drift. Then I gave the matter some thought and realized that she was nice and interesting. Finally I asked her out. She was straight at the time, so it took some careful planning after that.

 

[Kathryn]

I am loving reading these stories. Keep 'em comin'!

I met my husband about 5 years ago. We had both been married to horrible people who abused our trust, cheated on us, and wiped out our bank accounts. We had also both been married most of our adult lives, so we were a bit behind on the dating scene.

I registered on match.com because I didn't know anyone in my town that I would consider dating. He did the same thing because he worked overseas most of the time. We didn't know it at the time, but we had lived 25 miles apart for the past 20 years - and had mutual friends!

He contacted me via match.com and we talked on the phone a few times. I thought he was a nice guy, but he was VERY polite and reserved on the phone, and his photo on match.com was not very clear, so I really couldn't tell much about him. I really liked his information on his profile though, and since he was so nice and so NOT pushy or weird, I thought, "Well, we may as well meet in person - even though I haven't felt any warm fuzzies about him. He sounds like a nice guy - maybe he really is one."

We were both so lackadaisical about meeting that it took us about a month to even get around to getting together. We only talked casually on the phone a couple of times during that month in fact.

I had no idea what was about to happen to me.

We arranged to meet at a local restaurant - a very swanky place that we both really liked a lot. I remember that I didn't even particularly care what I was wearing that evening - I just felt so casual and relaxed about everything.

We had described what we were wearing to each other, because you know how those online photos are - UNRELIABLE. He walked around the corner and said, "Kathryn?" I looked up and my jaw nearly hit the floor.

He was absolutely gorgeous, and had the most appealing smile and sparkling blue eyes in that rugged, tanned face framed by that beautiful blonde hair - He looked like a potent mixture of the Marlboro Man and Robert Redford in his prime. And - this is the part that makes me tear up - he had a look of sheer delight on his face when I looked up and smiled at him.

Within five minutes we were sitting with our faces inches apart, and this stranger was feeding me escargot with that little fork.

We laughed so much that night that the next day my face and stomach muscles hurt! And he pulled one of the slickest moves ever on me when we finally parted in the parking lot at 2 am.

We had been sitting in my convertible, under a beautiful September night sky full of stars, laughing and talking for hours. He had to leave for Angola the next morning at 8 am, so he had just decided to stay up and sleep on the flight. Finally though, he said, "I haven't even packed! I've got to go home. But hold on a minute."

He jumped out of my car and ran over to his truck, got something, and ran back. He handed me a CD and said, "Don't look at it. Just put it in and hit number 8." I did - and guess what came on:

Marvin Gaye singing, "Let's Get It On." And that gorgeous, adorable man with the extremely kissable mouth crooked his finger at me and murmured, "Get over here."

After about an hour of kissing, we parted and he left for Africa for 2 weeks. Needless to say, we left a blazing trail along the internet between Texas and Africa.

When he got back, we were inseparable - and still are to this day. We got married a year later and have been married four years now.

He's the best thing that ever happened to me. I absolutely adore him.

 

[*Anne*]

I love reading these. I think it's so neat how you just never, ever know what part a person will play in your life. I think of the phrase from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: "You never know what's comin' for you."

Tarheeler, since 8th grade? Wow!

Revoltingest, you have to give up more info than that!

 

[Tarheeler]

I love reading these. I think it's so neat how you just never, ever know what part a person will play in your life. I think of the phrase from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: "You never know what's comin' for you."

Tarheeler, since 8th grade? Wow!

Revoltingest, you have to give up more info than that!

Yep, started dating at 14, married before we hit 19. We've been together for a while now lol.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

When I met my fiance, first alittle background information. I was pretty much staying at a friend's house, and this house was his dad, step dad, step sister, and this other guy. Now my friend's step sister I do not like. She also (attempts to) dresses usually in a "slutty" manner, except her clothes are way too small and she looks very disgusting. Now my fiance and one of her friends were standing on the porch of this house when I walked in, and they were both dressed kind of provocatively. I thought "Great, some of Amanda's friends!" And I did not like either one of them until I found that they too could not stand this Amanda girl. So no, I did not think we ever would get together then, I was actually hoping that they would leave very soon so I wouldn't have to put up with people who actually be friends with that vile woman.

 

[Nanda]

When I was 13, I was in a production of "Little Shop of Horrors." Before each show, I went around telling stories to audience members as they came in. One of those people was a 12 year-old boy who happened to be the younger brother of the guy playing Seymore. I showed him a magic trick, and he liked it so much that he went home and learned how to do it himself. Two years later, we met again in drama class. Now, I don't remember showing him the magic trick, but he remembered me (I'm even in some of his family's photos/videos of the production). Life is funny; we were good friends for about a year before we started dating, and while I knew he had a huge crush on me, I never thought about him in any sort of romantic way. That is, until he started asking me about a friend of mine. It suddenly occurred to me that if he started dating her, he wouldn't be able to spend all his time with me anymore, and the thought of that upset me a lot more than I would have thought possible. It forced me to re-examine how I felt about him, and it dawned on me that I actually really loved the guy. I guess it surprised me because he was the total opposite of every guy I'd dated before - he wasn't charismatic, he was just plain nice. So, much to his shock, instead of setting him up with my friend, I asked him out. We've been together ever since - 15 years in September.