and he didn’t live with his mother!
We’d been getting to know each other as friends, edging towards romance, for a couple of months. But after the night I first kissed her, I knew.
That was over 14 years, and 11 wedding anniversaries, ago. 
Not my story, but my parents’. . .
My mother’s father owned a motel near Toledo. My mother, along with her siblings (who were mostly ‘grown up’ at that point,) and her parents all had apartments there and ran the motel.
My mother was working the front desk the first time she saw my father who had stopped in because his truck was broke down. (He’s a truck driver.) She says he looked rediculous (but cute) and in general she though he was a moron. He says he was trying to ‘impress’ her. 
Over the next couple of months, my father became good friends with her older brothers. . . and my then-not-yet parents went on a date to the drive in, and had to take her two youngest brothers with them.
Three months later, he proposed to her by saying something about growing old together and sitting on their back porch in rocking chairs and watching their grandkids play in the yard. (I still don’t know about that.)
Anyway, my mother’s family was pretty much opposed to the idea of her getting married to my father. My Grampa suggested they go back to his apartment to talk about it, and when the three of them got there, he locked my mother in his bedroom and pulled a gun on my father. (Grampa was retired Army, and pretty hardcore in general about everything.) Told my dad to get his stuff and leave and to not come back.
So. . .
That evening after my Grampa let my mother go back to her apartment, she called my dad and told him to meet her out back and they eloped.
After about a year, my parents made ammends with my grandparents, and everybody got along pretty well.
This October marked their 26th anniversary. Their marriage has outlasted all three of her sisters’ marriages (which were all ‘blessed’ by her parents). They reaffirmed their wedding vows for their 25th anniversary, because they never had a ‘real’ wedding. As I stood there and watched them both cry while (re) taking their vows, all I could think was “Wow.”
So, I asked them how they just knew and my mom says: “I just knew I loved him, I dunno.” My father says: “I felt like I’d hit my head on concrete.” :eek:
Weird story. . . still makes me smile, tho’.
I have a very close group of guys that I have been friends with since I was in grade school. Women have come and gone but we have remained “together” through all of it. When I first met Mrs. Gaffer, I could have cared less whether or not I ever saw any of them again.
But, my favorite story comes from about a year after we were married. We were in a small town over on the (west) coast for a wedding and I found an old set of Lord of the Rings at an antique shop. I am a huge fan and collector but this set was $100. We didn’t have (and still don’t) two pennies to rub together but this was a fine/near fine set of the 1st printing of the 2nd revised edition, with dust wrappers in the case. As I was examining it, she just looked at me and said “Great men have great collections.” I love that woman.
He recognized the Oscar Wilde line I quoted. He didn’t respond with the next line, but he made a joke about tea-cake which figures heavily in that scene. It was close enough for me. Five years together, married three weeks.
Well, she had this tattoo that said: Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul. I just got more and more attracted from there.
Actually, I don’t have one yet. I’m still looking.
It was a 3-step process for me. The first clue was when, on our first or second date, she answered all of my deep philosophical questions exactly the way I would have answered had she asked them of me.
The second was the evening she came over to my place earlier than expected and spent the time she was waiting for me to get home cleaning up a bit. She not only found the sink-load of dirty dishes I had hidden in the oven rather than wash (I knew she was coming over and had “tidied” the place up a bit), but she also correctly identified the 6-month-old dish of leftovers lurking in the back of the fridge as banana pudding (have you ever seen 6-months old leftover banana pudding? :eek: ) - and she still went out with me after all that!
And finally, when I compared her to the mental checklist I had made of the qualities I would look for in the perfect wife, she was a perfect match in all categories. So I proposed, she accepted, and the rest, as they say, is history.
BTW & FWIW, our first date was the week after Christmas, 1983; I proposed six weeks later; we got married that summer; and have now enjoyed 18 years of wedded bliss. Well, mostly bliss. 
I was walking with my date, a friend of the future Mr. shirley Ujest, up a hill to go watch a church league softball game. (Ugh) I saw two chubby guys standing at the bench.
In an instant,I knew he was the one for me.
It’s been 14 years of opposites attract.
I went to college at a regional unversity, but one several hours from my parents’ home. As such, I was often the only one in the dorm over the weekend since everyone else went home. One friday, as I was eating breakfast in the cafeteria, one of my fraternity’s little sisters mentioned that she had the weekend off at her job back home and there wouldn’t be anyone around. I responded, “What am I, chopped liver?”
That night she came to my room and we rented “One Crazy Summer.” She didn’t get a lot of the absurdity of the humor (not that it’s a good movie or anything, just absurd), and I kept answering, “It’s just a silly movie.” By February, I’d bought her a promise ring, and by summer we were engaged. We moved in together and after 15 years of trials and tribulations that would cause Sisyphus to clock out and go home, we’re still working at it.
I don’t know the exact moment when I knew she was the one, but I’ve not had a date since that first night, sitting on my dorm room bed watching a crappy movie.
She asked me out. Then some other stuff happened, and we got married.
Well, I’m not yet engaged or married, but I have a feeling this could be the one. We met in a chat room, and from the first second I saw his screenname, I could do nothing but think, “That’s him…that’s the one”. From then on all I wanted to do was impress him, until we started going out a few weeks later. Also notable are the 3 1/2 hour-long car trips I would make to his Maryland dorm my senior year in HS in the dead of night just to cuddle with him for an hour or two, no one but me and the highway. Looking back, it probably was kind of foolish, but I never thought I would do anything like that for a guy. Little did I know…
According to my wife, she knew I was the one when she walked in the door and saw me for the first time, sitting at her dining room table playing D&D with her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend.
Her grandparents have a great story… He was drafted by the German army as it came through Poland in WWI. The army was sacking farms as it went, and at one farm he saw this beautiful woman hiding out on top of a barn. That night, he went over the wire and ran back to that farm, met the woman and convinced her to go with him to the coast, where they would stow away on board a ship bound for America, where he had relatives. All this when they didn’t speak the same dialect of Polish, mind you…
I knew Mrs. Prefect was the one after we broke up. As I watched her leaving, and knowing she was crying, all I could think was who was going to take care of her. I drove to her house the next day and we worked it all out.
Dating other women, when I’d meet the dad inevitably the conversation would come to something like “when I met xx’s mom, ‘I just knew.’” Well, I usually was pretty crazy about their daughter, but I couldn’t really say ‘I know.’
One night I was on a date with someone who was, uhm, boring. I hooked up with a friend of mine and circled the bar. As we came around a corner, I looked across the room and BAM!, I knew. Fortunately, my buddy knew her. Unfortunately, it was because he was dating her.
We didn’t let that stop us. Eleven months later we were married. That was 13 years ago as of next week.
This is a great story! I can only imagine the comedy that ensued with language and pantomine.
My old boss was a nice, beautiful german girl that ended up working as a secretary for the US Army when they were in …ah…um…Bremen or Hamburg. Polly was stunningly beautiful in her youth. I asked her before she worked with any americans, what was her preconceived notion about Yanks.
“Zhat zhey were all gum chewing wise cracks with zhere feet up on the desk. Ach!”
And then I asked, " What was your husband ( US service man) doing the day you met him?"
“Sitting at his desk, feet up, chewing gum.”
Never fails to crack me up.
Long story, but I know he’s the one because…
I had a Very Special blue sapphire ring, which I always gave to my current S.O. It had been through several failed relationships. I lost it weeks upon moving to Philly. So I bought as a replacement a silver Celtic knotwork ring instead. I tried to love it nearly as much. I tried to love men of Philly, but had not met anyone who deserved my new ring.
On a whim, I took a bellydance class my last semester of college. That gave me the bug, so I looked up a dance studio upon arriving to Philadelphia. There I met my good friend Michele. Unbeknownst to me, she and her husband (my future hubby) were in the middle of a divorce (a fairly friendly divorce as these things go).
Upon meeting her husband for the first time, his first words to me were not, “Hello, how are you?” or “Nice to meet you” or even “Wow, you’re cute.” He looked me over, saw my ring, and his words were, “Michele! THAT’s the ring I want! I’ve been looking for a ring like that!”
Three years later, I was maid of honor (and bellydancer) at her second wedding, and her first husband walked her down the aisle and gave her away. Then she played our wedding music six months ago, and her second hubby was a groomsman.
I don’t believe in Fate…which is probably why Fate hit us over the head so hard, waving to get our attention so we wouldn’t miss each other.
Oh crud, that didn’t post right. Only the bit about the tattoo and the very last line were supposed to be in the quote!! The rest was MY rambling.
Almost immediately.
Warning: Shameful story to follow!
Shameful story concludes.
Roommate is now known as Lady Chance hereabouts. We’ve been an item for 17 years now. Married for 10 of those years come next July.
I knew almost right away that she was the one for me. Like a flash of light behind my eyes. I’d have done anything to land her.
My wife and I worked at the same publishing company in NYC, where I managed the PC department (this was back in the early 80’s, and the IBM PC was brand new). I regularly gave computer classes to groups, but didn’t have time for private lessons. But when Mrs. Bear, who I already knew in a friendly, co-worker way, asked me for some, I thought to myself “Victoria? Sure, I could give private lessons to Victoria!” and agreed (she was, and is, quite attractive).
When the time came for the lesson, we had such a good time (though I really, really was trying to teach her) that her boss poked his head out of her office to see what the heck was going on! We just clicked - we’re very different people, and actually clash in some regards, but we’re so complimentary and alike in other ways that it’s weird. I pursued her relentlessly after that day, 18 years ago and counting…
To sum it up: she completes me, and I complete her.