I’m engaged, will be getting married in July. We met in World of Warcraft and dated long-distance via Skype. Several months later, he drove out to visit me (12 hours! :eek: he’s scared of planes). After a few more, I landed a job in the area (the first one I’d applied to) and moved cross-country.
I was pretty sure that I wanted to marry him during the long-distance months, before we even met. I was perfectly sure after we spent our first week together. But I’ve felt the same way in the past, and I was wrong. Like, more than once. It is my opinion that the “Mr. Right” feeling is purely hormonal. And, at least in my case, it doesn’t mean much. There are probably lots of Mr. Rights out there who could’ve worked for me. But I’m still very happy that I found **this **one.
1st marriage, about 10 years. Turned out I was wrong even after long and careful thought.
2nd marriage, about 10 minutes. I’d been “interested” in her pretty much when I first saw her, but was too preoccupied for a couple years to even think about her as anything but a coworker. But once the relationship kicked off, about 10 minutes into the conversation I was trying very hard to find a reason not to keep her around for the next half century. Been married for almost 6 years now, and every day it’s just a little more right.
So, in my limited experience, you just know when it’s right. Other folks you’re with might feel right, or at least there is no good reason not to commit. It’s like the difference between a functional car you’ve built yourself out of lawnmower and bicycle parts–it works well enough, and maybe you’re even happy with it, but it takes a lot of maintenance and compromise–and a new Volvo.
Well unlike most of you I really have no idea. We got together in an unconventional way, you could say. We became friends September of 2009, and our relationship progressed to more than friendship in the early part of 2010. We have been together since then, but things were complicated, at first. In the last year or so we’ve talked about marriage in terms of - “at some point.” Am I engaged? Yes. No. Maybe. I really don’t know.
Our early relationship was long distance, and it’s hard to say for sure when it turned from casual to romantic. However, I have a pretty set policy on this: the period of infatuation lasts about two years. This period impairs your judgment - you’re head over heels in love, and isn’t it cute how she gets drunk and crashes the car? I thought that I might ask her much earlier than that (maybe six months into the romantic phase of the relationship), but I wanted to wait to be sure until that period of time had passed.
I knew on our first date that he was something different. By three month in, I was telling my mom I may have found a keeper. Got married a year and a half in.
It was only a couple of weeks, the first time I thought that. She might have been sooner. But then we both changed our minds several times along the way. We did end up married a year and half later. That was 36 years ago last week.
With my ex-wife it was just before 3 months after we started dating; just a little before my first proposal. 4 months in was when we got engaged. Of course we’d been friends and been spending more time with each other than the people we were dating in the lead up. I’d been very attracted and infatuated when we first met so there was an at first sight element but that ship had sailed well before we ever became an item. I knew starting to date was stepping off a cliff that would get serious fast though.
I haven’t been remotely close to getting engaged to anyone I’ve dated in the 20 years since. So I’m sort of a mix between very fast and glacially slow.
Took a few months to start thinking “I may want to marry this person,” six months or so to think “I am probably going to marry this person,” almost a year to ask her. I’d been married before, so I was careful.
I certainly knew very, very early on she was different. But when you both have a child, marriage is an even bigger deal than the first go around.
It started with blind date in late Aug. 1963. We hit if off right away and were an item by Nov. Then came Nov. 22 and we spent the ensuing weekend just hugging each other. We were married the following March, which means we celebrated our 50th seven months ago.
Hard to say when “The Moment” occurred.
I met the future Mrs. Cretin when she got a job at my workplace. Didn’t pay much attention to her one way or another until a couple of months later, when my friend told me to ask her out- he claimed to have seen her “noticing” me. Okay fine. I did ask her out, and the next Friday evening we had a date to see a WC Fields double feature (Tilly and Gus, and It’s A Gift.) at the “hip” movie theater.
Within ten minutes of my arrival at her front door we learned that we had many things in common. We clicked, and both knew it. We saw each other exclusively from then on. About six months in it finally dawned on me to say “We should get married.” She said “Yeah.” (She often says that when I’m right.) So we arbitrarily set a date for 4 months later (for no particular reason), and got married.
That first date was 45 years, 9 weeks ago. I have just now looked over at her and smiled.
Friends for two years, dating for almost four before I proposed, but I would happily have proposed after the first three months of dating if I had had the confidence.
My closest friends all started out as someone I wasn’t fond of, and Mizpullin was no exception.
We met in college, and knew each other via social/school interaction. We were part of Greek row and our houses faced each other across the street. I felt she was too bookish, stuck-up and unapproachable. She felt I was far too irresponsible, partying, etc. We were civil to each other for years, but each disliked the other and we kept our distance. Then one night we were the only two left working after a big party, cleaning up in the wee hours after everyone had gone home. It seemed like one minute we were avoiding one another, and the next minute we were entwined on the nearest bed. Neither of us is really sure what happened in those few seconds, but we moved in together within a few weeks, and were married a year later. We will soon celebrate our 34th anniversary.
I don’t know whether it took years, or just a few seconds alone.
