How did you meet your significant other?

[shiny5437]

A topic of conversation that comes up a lot with my single friends is how tricky it is to actually meet new people, let alone new partners.

A huge chunk of our time is spent at work but hooking up with workmates can be pretty risky business. Bars and clubs can be difficult (noise, etc) and don't seem to be conducive to striking up conversation. Clubs and hobbies seem to be common advice but I'm a little sceptical.

So my question is how have other people met their significant others? Does this tally with the advice that's normally given to us single-folk?



Apologies if this thread has been up before

 

[Kat73]

My husband and I worked together. The funny part is, we were hanging out and I gave him a ride home. My ex saw it and told a few we worked with that we were dating. It became a joke for about 2 months until we actually started dating! We worked together for 3 years and then both got other jobs and then went back to the same place and worked together for a year while married.

 

[muskokan]

As far as my partners have gone (taking into account the 4 somewhat serious relationships I have had) 3 of them I 'met online' 2 of those three (both 8 month relationships) were people I had known in school (either elementary or high school) and we just reconnected online, the third was my ex husband whom I was with for 4 years before separating. The first relationship (which was 5 years long) I met him on the street, he approached me one afternoon and made small talk about our vending machines.

The two places I have most commonly connected with people are 1. Friends 2. Work or 3. Online or a combination of these three. No, work isn't the greatest place to start getting involved with someone unless it won't affect the workplace. It would be great to be able to meet people through common interests or events but I'm not that good at approaching "strangers" at those type of events (or the kinds that I enjoy attending) so that doesn't work well for me, not that my other options have worked well since I am currently single.

 

[fgarvb1]

Sigh.

I met mine at an aftercare meeting in a mental hospital.

No, even i could not make that shit up.

What the fuck was I thinking.

 

[Emerald_Lilly]

hubby and i went to college together and were friends several years before we began dating; i met Mistress on-line

 

[janeyl]

He came to fuck my ex...

 

[Mazuri]

We were both military and stationed at the Presidio of Monterey going to school there. He brought my drunk roommate home from a party and poured her into her bed. We chatted a bit, dated a bit, and married way too quickly. Somehow it's worked so far; we will have been married 20 years in Feb.

 

[glynndah]

We worked together.

 

[jimburr35]

Met at Work

We met at work. She was a student and I was an instructor. I've never wanted someone out of my part of the training rotation as much as her. As soon as she was out and the grades in for her, we began to date. Sure worked out - been married 38 years.

 

[warrior queen]

first husband - met when i saved his uncle's luxury yacht from sinking (turns out the uncle wanted the boat to sink so he could claim insurance!)

2nd serious one - met thro a friend and ended up together for 13 yrs.

3rd serious one - met in a carpark for 10 mins and exchanged phone no's (and then i proceeded to totally ignore his calls for the next two months... untill he flew all the way across the country to take me to dinner - which i ended up cooking!)

 

[NippleMuncher]

Current SO has been a family friend for over 20 years. A few years back circumstances changed for both of us that drew us together. Not a match made in heaven by any means, but by far the best relationship I've had to date.

 

[goodgurlgetsbad]

Met my hubby in a neighborhood supermarket, he accidentally "bumped" me, met him again several weeks after in the neighborhood health center- exchanged phone numbers, started dating in 3 months and got married a year and a half later

 

[Lizzie_Borden]

Online dating here.

 

[Scotsman69]

Met her through Lit.

 

[thefishfryer]

Workplace

 

[favoritesgoddess]

I worked with his younger brother.

 

[akatrex]

GYM!

She was attracted to my Tarzan Screams and Grunts!

 

[cromsgirl]

College

We were both in the SCA, so we talked a little bit. Then one semester I became roommates with a girl that was a friend of his from high school and he came up to help her move a fridge. A little while later I had a traumatic experience and she told him I was acting weird and so we started hanging out. I got into the crowd he was hanging with (mostly at the local coffee shop) and then when they closed we would go sit out by the lake. One night he kissed me and we started dating. After a year and a half we moved in together and after 4 more years we got married. Total now is 9 years married, almost 15 together. I definitely encourage the idea of working (or playing) at hobbies you like. I think one of the things that has kept our marriage strong is that we have some similar hobbies.

 

[shiny5437]

Thanks to everyone who's contributed to this thread, it's really interesting to hear how these things have happened in real life. It seems that hooking up through work is actually pretty common despite people often suggesting against it. Also, I'm surprised at the number of people who have just seemed to met up randomly with no prior connection.

Just seems to be that we need to keep our eyes open at all times as opportunity could knock at any time.


janeyl: I'm surprised that sort of thing happens in Lincolnshire!

 

[Cattypuss]

adultfriendfinder, of all places.

 

[TypicalDeviant]

The cafeteria. What? I like food.

 

[Lil_wild_thag]

On the net craigslist he had a car listed for sale

 

[LadyDusk]

He's the older brother of one of my best friends. I was 15 and he was 20 when we met. Got together 8 years later.

 

[banes27]

I was at an archaeological dig a few years back and my now wife had come up one day to visit a few friends of hers (she'd worked on the same site the year before). Anywho, that night was the night before our day off, which would be a nice warm wednesday IIRC. That night was a night of mass drinking and relaxation and as a result neither of us actually remember the first time we first met, at least not with any real clarity.

The story vaguely goes that she needed to borrow a torch off someone so she could get back to the tent of her friend, where she would be staying for the night, an item I just so happened to have on me at the time. Well, she was so drunk she couldn't undo the zip on said tent so we headed over to mine and ended up drunkenly sleeping together.

Now, I remember nothing of this bar a very blurry ten seconds of sex so when I woke up with her next to me in my tent I was a tad confused to say the least Generally speaking it was just a one-night-stand but we exchanged mobile numbers anyway. As it turned out, she was actually coming up to study the same course as me at the same university and was living literally three minutes down the road so we hooked up again the day I got back from the dig.

And from what was a simple one-night-stand with a randomer became a marriage Oddly enough, though, one of her old uni friends swore blind for about three months that our getting together was simply a one-night-stand despite the fact that by that point I'd spent around 80-90% of my time awake round at her house... LONGEST ONE-NIGHT-STAND EVER!!!

NOTE: Before I met her I'd tried to meet people on my course or through friends and even by/during that time I'd never even had my first kiss. About a month after I gave up and thought "fuck it, it'll happen when it happens" I had my first kiss and soon after that I'd lost my virginity (both to my best friends gf (open relationship and he approved even before it all happened) and five days after that I met my now wife. So for me, giving up was the best thing I ever did lol.

 

[mardin]

I was looking for people of similar interest on one of the virtual worlds and and a simple hello lead to a year of getting know each other.

One day we both kinda decided that we were both looking for "just the right person" and by the end of that conversation it was decided the what we were looking for was each other.

It's been more than a year and every day is quite and adventure, so it might not be the norm, but it works for us.