:smack: works better if I don’t leave out the key point in the above story.
Dan asked this woman: “so, where are you from in Japan?”
And she answers: “I’m not Japanese I’m Chinese. I am from Shanghai.”
Then I cut in and start speaking Chinese to her…
These stories are wonderful!
We went to the same secondary school. He took most of year 11 off for medical reasons and we met when he returned to school. I thought he was a bit of a prick, but my friend had a crush on him.
He and my friend dated for 9 months, then she broke up with him. Then my boyfriend and I split up. We just started with a bit of friendly flirting to cheer ourselves up, then we developed feeling for each other.
We’ll have been going out for 2 years in April.
We met at a dance club. How obnoxious is that? I was coming out of a two year depression, and my friends literally dressed me and dragged me out the door to go have some fun. At dinner, I went into a 20 minute rant about the dearth of good men, and began (jokingly) pleading with whatever diety might be listening to send me someone remotely tolerable. I even listed the elements that I wanted: long hair, stable, has a job, is open to polyamory, vaguely interested in neo-paganism and not freaked out by dating a single mom. (And yes, as it turned out he did meet all of these.)
We got to the club, and I spent the first hour in a funk of galactic porportions. Finally, I just decided to get a drink and get over myself. He was dancing, and I was coming down the stairs that overlooked the dance floor. It was so incredibly cheesy, but I swear that the night-club fog machine turned, the fog parted and a golden spot light landed on him the moment he looked up to meet my eyes. He claims another spot light hit me. It was like an Astaire/Rogers moment. I knew, at that very moment, that this was the man I was going to marry.
And then I tripped down the stairs. :smack:
Sort of defines our entire relationship, really.
Mrs. Lanelee was at my very first NA meeting in 1987. After I got to know her she told me that when I walked in the door she hoped I wouldn’t come back, I was going to be trouble (this is rare in NA or AA). We became friends that summer and she introduced me to the thirteenth step and she didn’t go back home. We were married two years later. Everyone sid that it wouldn’t work out, we broke too many rules. I buried her in June, 17 years after I met her. They were really good years, too.
Hi, My name’s Ethilrist (hi, ethilrist!) and I’m a geek.
My user name is taken from a sword from a D&D campaign.
My son’s named after a Bard NPC from an old campaign my future wife was in.
My daughter’s named after a character from an Anne MacCaffrey novel.
I met my future wife at a D&D game; she was the DM’s Girlfriend.
She says she knew right away I was something special; I, however, knew she was the GM’s Girlfriend, and if I looked at her crosseyed, he’d put the smack down on my character that would make Job’s life look like a vacation paradise. I soon learned, however, that this was a killer DM who was planning on doing that anyway, so when they kinda broke up, I stepped in to fill the gap.
We all kept gaming together for a few months after that and I found out that, indeed, the level of smackdown my characters had been enduring had, in fact, been a vacation paradise…
Our 18th anniversary is… umm… tomorrow…
gotta go shopping tonight…
Brainiac4 and I met at his senior prom. We were both there with other dates. I don’t know what he thought of me. I thought he was “someone I could date.”
For the next ten years we floated in the same circle of friends. During that time we were both not seeing other people for approximately ten minutes.
After eight years of acquaintenceship, we became really close friends.
Two years after that we decided to start dating (me: “how come we never dated?” him: “You’d date me?”). He moved in before we went on our first date.
That was twelve years ago. Married ten. Two kids.
I know almost all his ex girlfriends, he knows almost all my ex boyfriends. We know all the dumb stupid things about each other that happen when you are 21 years old. Getting together anytime much before we did would have been disasterous, I think. We both needed to grow into the people we wanted to be independantly.
I asked because I simply didn’t know the answer but I’m getting the picture!
These are all great stories but I have to admit I have a soft spot for the ones like ShirleyUjest’s!
I forgot to mention – my first meeting with Mr. E was seven years ago. We’ve been married for four years now.
We aren’t one of those couples that don’t argue, but when we do argue it’s never about anything important. We’re both rather passionate people (when you get to know us) and we have to work out those emotions or they fester. So we argue about how to clean the house, or which one of us left (some precious artifact) out in the rain. It’s a healthy relationship, and I tell him every day how wonderful he is.
Last 5 weeks of business school. The two big schools - Northwestern’s Kellogg school on the North Side and the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business on the South side - have a “b-school olympics” (groan). I didn’t go, but knew that everyone was meeting at the Hot club du jour that night.
I go with a bunch of guys - I had been dating a few women at that point, but wasn’t really looking for anything. I walk in and there she is up at the bar - stunningly, distractingly beautiful with Sophia Loren cheekbones and eyes (she gets the comparison a lot). I saw her looking at me (turns out she has bad eyesight and wasn’t looking at me, but I didn’t know at the time), and I…immediately went in the other direction. Too beautiful, outta my league.
So I am hanging out close to the dance floor and get bumped into from behind. It’s her. She is fleeing this slime who is trying to score, decides I have a nice face and asks me to dance. Turns out she knew nothing about the olympics, she was just out for the first time in months with some girlfriends; she was working full time and going to business school and had, like, no life. Within about 5 minutes, we realize we knew a bunch of people in common (the 2 b-schools do a lot of things together) and didn’t quite meet at a bunch of events. I get up the nerve to get her phone number and tell her I will call her in 2 weeks because I am in Kellogg’s spring show and have nightly rehearsals and then the performances. She’s like “sure, right.”
I did call and we set up a date - a Wednesday night because of our class schedules. I borrow a married buddy of mine’s car and went to pick her up. She comes down the stairs and BLAM! I had forgotten how beautiful she was. Hypnotic (did I say she was 6 feel tall? with legs up to here? just beautiful). So we go to an Italian restaurant and we start talking and I realize “hey, this is a nice girl - what a great conversation” and about half way through the meal I realize “I am going to marry her.”
What proceeds after this is a long internal dialogue - “but you don’t even know her” “doesn’t matter - I am going to marry her” “but you don’t even know if she is The One” “what is The One if I know I am going to marry her - doesn’t that kinda make her The One?!” “sure, she’s beautiful, but you don’t even know if you like her” “doesn’t really change the destiny of this situation” “really?” “really.” Seriously bizarre - never came close to happening before that and I can still tap into that weird feeling of that night if I give myself a chance. And you gotta understand - the longest relationship I had been in up to that point was 4 months. Four months - about 120 days. Weird weird weird.
Anyway, we went for a walk through a charming part of Chicago after dinner. Found ourselves on some steps and I asked if I could kiss her. She said yes and I leaned in - the Earth moved, Jesus wept and I got all tingly. She remembers it as being a nice kiss, but that was about it. Same universe, different worlds.
The date continued nicely, we kissed goodbye and made plans to see each other again. I drove home, parked the car and the next morning went to return the keys to my buddy. He and his wife ask how it went and I said “Rob, look I have to ask a favor; I just met the woman I am going to marry and I only have 5 weeks before graduation - could I maybe borrow your car a couple more times?” He and his wife look at each other and he says “wow - you’re serious, aren’t you?” and I replied “I have never been more serious in my life.” To his credit and my eternal gratitude (thanks Rob!!) he said “keep the keys.”
I “Power wooed” the lovely and talented woman for those 5 weeks, we each graduated and went on trips to celebrate graduation. Afterwards, we hooked back up - both in California where we had taken jobs, me in the Bay Area and her in LA. We dated for a year long distance then she moved up and we got married. 12 years, two kids and better than ever. Still amazes me…
The story of two nerds.
It was about 10 years ago, before the internet became what it is today, no seriously. It was in a day that BBS (Bulletin Boards for all you post internet people) were popular. I had a few boards I frequented, one that had a silly game call Major Mudd. It was, for all purposes a texted based adventure game similar to Zork only multi-player based. Somehow I got hooked on this damn thing.
I remember running around in the game with friends, killing monsters and the occasion smart-ass. After all, I had a high level ranger and could track the ears off a field mouse. There was this one guy in particular that annoyed me, because every single time I logged into the board, he would send me a message that really drove my ex up the wall. I had no idea who this punk was, however; every chance I got, I would track him down in the game and cause him pain. After a few years the board ended up shutting down due to lack of funds and the Internet coming of age. I found another board that had… wait for it…Major Mudd, and began to play again. One day while running around in the game with friends I saw a familiar name. You guessed it; it was the “minor annoyance of my gaming life”.
After a year or so, the board decided to have a get together so everyone could meet well, everyone. I wasn’t going to go, after all I was a murdering wench and I didn’t want to blow my game image. My guild talked me into it.
I show up and meet people, of course everyone is shocked. How can someone so pretty and sweet in real life, be such a mean and hateful gamer? It was getting rather late, when in walks this guy in a baseball hat who is adorably cute and pretty young. I asked around and found out that, yes, it was the “minor annoyance of my gaming life”. A week passed when the MAOMGL asked me out to lunch. I figured what the hell, it’s the least I could do considering we have killed each other over the past 4 years.
I rather enjoyed the conversation. He was in his junior year of college, just turned 21 and was working 35 hours a week. Turns out we both liked the same music, same baseball team, same hockey team, and same types of movies. He asked me out a few more times and we always had fun. My hang up was being 15 years older than him. He finally convinced me age really didn’t matter and we have now been together for 8 years.
We got married 5 years ago in June.
Harborwolf and I met when I was a junior in high school, and he was a freshman at the local college. Look!ninjas and I were good friends in high school, and I came to her house one day. Harborwolf was her brother, and didn’t have class that day. He and I ended up talking and talking and talking. We clicked perfectly, and I developed a huge crush on him almost instantly. I didn’t confess my feelings though, hoping that he would make the first move. He didn’t. He was super shy. For the next few weeks, I tried to organize situations where he and I would be alone. Still no luck. He was too polite to make a move. Finally, one night he and I took a long walk that spanned several hours. We went out on the deserted piers in the harbor, walked on the beach, sat on the porch swing at my aunt’s house. . . STILL NOTHING. Finally, when he walked me to my door to say goodnight, I informed him that he wasn’t going anywhere until he kissed me. He looked shocked, but kissed me sweetly. The next day he told me that he had no idea that I was interested. :smack:
By the way, we’ve been together for almost nine years now and have a lovely 7-year old daughter.
I met my lovely wife 15 years and 24 days ago outside the old 9:30 club in DC. A friend and I wanted to see some live music, so we went and saw Jazz Butcher and Mary’s Danish. She was with a friend/roomate, and they were wondering if they had parked legally or not. My friend saw a sticker in the back window of her car and asked? [thick South Carolina accent] Mount Holyoke?? Whur’s Mount Holyoke? [/thick South Carolina accent] and I said (in my somewhat less-thick Arkansas accent) “it’s a women’s college in Massachusetts”. Her friend pipes in (in a smart-alecky Connecticut accent) “So, are you guys from the South?” 
Anyway, we struck up a conversation and then we went in the club and watched the first set (Mary’s Danish ROCKED). I saw her with a group of guys and girls and couldn’t tell whether she was “with” somebody or not. I walked over to another part of the room and spotted her, and she waved. Well, that little wave was all this ol’ hound dog needed. We talked more, she gave me her number, I called, and we’ve been together ever since; married nearly 10 years, 2 boys and a girl on the way.
We met at work. I had moved to LA after graduating from college and moved back to be closer to family after Sept. 11th. I was living at my parents house, depressed and bored.
I moved back into the apartment I had left (the roommate replacement moved in with her girlfriend). I needed money, so I got a temp job at a local college bookstore. He had started a week or two earlier. He was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Long hair, gorgeous face, the whole package.
I hung around him like a puppy dog, looking for attention. I kept inviting him to group functions (my roommate worked at the same job) and he kept declining saying that he didn’t have any money. I figured he was just trying to tell me that he wasn’t interested, but I didn’t stop asking. I decided that if he wasn’t interested in a relationship, I still wanted to be his friend.
Then, we got sent to the “warehouse” to alphabetize books. Just him and me, alone in a basement with a radio and fast food. For two weeks, this is what we did, 8 hours a day, six days a week at work. Paid for shit, but the coworkers sure were nice.
I had been talking with an ex online and we decided to have a booty call the next afternoon. He came over, we watched some movies and fooled around for several hours. Afterwards, another friend came over and we watched Muppets in Space. Just as we started the movie, the phone rang. It was Ardred. I invited him over. My roommates thought strangely of this, as I’d just been in my room with the door closed and the sound turned up for several hours, but, hey, it was just a booty call. 
Our first real date was going to see Fellowship of the Ring the next night. The theater was packed and he said “well, we don’t have to sit together”. I wasn’t sure if this was a date or if we were just going as friends, so that clinched it for me. Not a date, oh well. He’s cool, we’ll hang out. It seems this was a joke I failed to understand.
The next night was a store bowling party. We got really drunk and went. He came back to my place afterwards, I pulled him into my room and time passed nicely.
I moved in with him (practically) the next day.
We’ll have been together three years on Groundhog’s day.’
I’m really glad I moved back from LA.
'Nother geek. My boyfriend and I met when I joined trhe Sci-Fi/Fantasy club at my college, he was an executive of the club. We were friends all year long; he says he was immediately interested in me, while I didn’t think of him romantically at all for the whole year.
We eventually ended up together after a romantic night in a tent at a weekend-long D&D LARP. Together almost 5 years later.
I cannot decide which story is my favorite.
I have to give a big hearty high five to WordMan for his tale, his friend loaning him his car and the phrase PowerWoo.
And WhyNot and her cosmic meeting. And Tripping.
Okay, there are a lot of names in this story, so I’ll use initials. I first became aware of RWs existence in about 1975, in junior high school (middle school in some places); I didn’t know much about him, except that he was one of the geekiest kids in school (in those days, geekiness was not cool). I didn’t have anything against him, but we traveled in completely different stratospheres. I became a little more familiar with him in high school, where I had a large circle of friends, and he dated a girl who was kind of on the fringes of that circle. He also dated my best friend a couple of times, and she pronounced him an animal; at 16, if your best friend says someone is not worth knowing, that’s good enough. RW graduated a year before me, and promptly fell off my radar screen. About five years after I graduated, a friend, M, called me and said “guess who’s back in town?” I said “Who?” she said “RW” I said “I didn’t know he went anywhere”.
Turned out he had gotten married and gone to England. But the marriage ended after less than two years, and now he was back in Maryland. Well, he began dating M (not exclusively), and since she and I were friends, I started running into him at her place. One night, M and I were out drinking, and I said (as we sometimes will after a few drinks) “RW seems like he’d be fun in bed, but I’d never make a move on him because you’re dating him” to which M replied “I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t think he’d go out with you” I asked for clarification, and she said he didn’t like “plus sized women”. Well, that was it, wasn’t it? The gauntlet had been thrown, and I was up to the challenge. I started flirting heavily when I saw him. Not that I particularly liked him, but I did think he’d be good in bed, and besides, I had something to prove. After a couple of weeks of heavy-duty flirting, he called me one night and said “I have a bottle of Southern Comfort that hasn’t been opened yet; mind if I come over?” So we drank Southern Comfort and had sex. My instincts were dead on: he was great in bed.
I was six months out of a relationship that ended very badly, and was just looking for a fuck buddy. He wasn’t even legally divorced, though he was legally separated, and his wife was still in England. Neither of us was looking for anything long-term. In fact, we slept together for about two months before we ever went out on a date. We dated for a couple of years, and kept telling everyone “It’s just a fling”.
Our relationship changed radically when I found out, two years into it, that I was pregnant. He wanted to take care of me, and bond with our baby, so he moved in. By the time our daughter was born, he was in love (and I had been in love with him since early in the pregnancy), but too stubborn to admit it. His talk changed. In the beginning, he always said “I’ll never get married again”. By the time our baby was a few months old, he was saying “I’ll never get married again, but if I did. . .”. All this time, I kept telling him “One of these days, you’re gonna wake up and realize I’m the best thing that ever happened to you, and then you’re gonna marry me” and he’d say “don’t hold your breath”. But I was holding my breath, because actions speak louder than words, and he was already acting like we were married. When the baby was three months old, my mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and congestive heart failure. I quit my job to take care of her full time, and RW did just fine supporting me and the baby. One night in late September of '98, we went out while his mom took care of my mom and the baby, so we could have a break. We were sitting at our favorite table, at our favorite bar, and he said “If you still want me, here I am”. We only had a ten week engagement, because I wanted to get married while my mother was still alive to see it. We ended up getting married the day after my 27th birthday. We have three kids, now; the baby who started it all is 17; we have a 13-year-old and an almost-five-year-old, all girls.
I love him more now than I ever have. Marriage is the best thing in the world if you find the right person to marry.
All of these stories are just so wonderful.
I met my husband 5 years ago through the Straight Dope Message Board.
I’d been reading a lot of the board, when over the course of a few weeks or so I guess I noticed his screen name in particular popping up in the same threads I was interested in. I liked a lot of what he read, and he says the same. Coming to read the board, I noticed myself more and more looking for his screen name, and eventually interacting with him a lot in various threads. At that time in my life, I wasn’t dating, I had no interest in dating, and I certainly didn’t expect to have/start a relationship with someone from a message board. It was just fun, comfortable fliritng. It was invigorating.
I started frequenting the IRC channel #straightdope more, as did he, and we started chatting more often. IMing, emailing, then eventually long, late night phone calls.
In February of 2000 a small Dopefest in Monterey was being planned. He was planning on flying back East to meet me, but suggested he fly me out to California to attend the dinner, and meet him. I agreed.
When I stepped off the plane in SFO, it took me about 2 seconds to find him standing there, literally glowing. It was seriously as if everyone around him suddenly blurred and fell into the background, and he was the only person there. I knew, without a doubt at that moment, that I would marry him. He hugged me, took my hand, and didn’t let go for what seemed like the rest of the day.
I flew back home with little hearts and stars over my head. We continued chatting and talking on the phone. He flew out to NJ to spend a few long weekends with me and my boys, and meet my family. My mother liked him immediately. My mother doesn’t like anyone.
In May of 2000 we met in Cabo San Lucas for a week of fun and sun. While there he surprised me with a small platinum and diamond promise ring, and asked me to move to California to live with him. I accepted, and in June of 2000, he flew out to NJ to help me load up a U-haul truck, and drive it out West.
On Valentine’s Day in 2002, he did the “official” engagement ring proposal, and last June we married in Vegas.
He’s such a doll, and simply my best friend. I look forward to spending the rest of my life with him.
Back in 1996 I was working in a B. Dalton bookstore in a mall in Cary, NC. The manager informed us that a new guy from a B. Dalton in Ohio would be starting as the Assistant Manager.
I met him and I liked him immediately. I thought he was extremely attractive and so funny. I was dating someone else (long distance boyfriend in Chicago) he was dating someone else (long distance girlfriend in Cincinnati) so we did friendly stuff, coffee, movies.
Eventually, I broke up with the guy I had been dating, he broke up with his girlfriend and we slowly evolved into more than friends.
December of 97 I got a job in Texas. He had recently quit graduate school so I asked him if he wanted to go to with me to Texas. We moved to Dallas and moved in together.
7 years and a move to Seattle later, we’re still together. We bought a house together 3 years ago and he’s still my best friend.
I was 16 at the time. I had just gotten AOL. For the most part I didn’t do the chat room thing. Occasionally I’d talk to people through IMs, but never more than once or twice.
One day I got an IMasking me when my birthday was. He was bored and randomly messaging people in the state who had birthdays near his. Turns out we were born the same day, same year. I didn’t really believe him at the time. We ended up becoming online friends, talking for almost two years. Neither one of us was really interested in meeting the other.
One day his girlfriend decided she wanted to meet me. I had nothing better to do so I drove with my best friend to a mall in Nashville to meet her (about 60 miles away from us). The first thing she said to me was “Daniel would like you if he met you. He’d want to have sex with you.” My thoughts on that were, who’s Daniel. In all the time we had talked I never bothered to ask him his real name.
So that night he drove to my hometown with his girlfriend to meet me and some of my friends at a Waffle House. Within a month his girlfriend broke up with him. A week later I broke up with my boyfriend. We ended up getting together within a couple of weeks after.
It’ll be seven years in January since we met in person. We’ve been married since April and we’re expecting a boy in March. I don’t really remember what I thought when I first met him. I just know that I can barely remember him not being a part of my life. I’ve never been as comfortable with anyone as I have with him.