I just know there are some great stories. Let's hear them!

Trish

We met through a dating service of all things!

Bill & Nancy

This one is a doozy.

I was living in Chicago, on a business trip to London and staying over for the weekend. My stepdad had died six months earlier after a rough ride with lung cancer, and my spirit was just getting back on an even keel.

The planned bike ride around London dissolved with the rain, so I opted for a matinee play on the West End. I bought a half-price ticket to "Shadowlands". The theater was empty save for a section of not-so-good seats filled with about 100 folks who bought the half price tickets, too. I sized up the situation and moved to a much better location, surrounded by about 300 empty seats. Everyone else stayed in their marginal, assigned seats.

The play was excellent, but I wish I'd read a plot summary. It was all about loss in love from cancer. At intermission, I was debating whether to stay for the remainder of the play as it was bringing back a flood of emotion.

Next thing I know, an American gentleman walks up to me and asks if anyone is sitting on the aisle seat. Mind you, this is a sea of empty seats. I looked at him as if he were daft and said "Good idea. The sight lines are a lot better from over here". The play's emotional pitch picked up and, thankfully, finished on a hopeful note. I took a deep breath & prepared to leave.

As I was leaving, the American gentleman was obviously struggling with the emotion of the play, too. I pulled out of my own reverie to realize this guy very probably had recently lost his wife to cancer. I invited him for a cup of coffee. He invited me to dinner next time I came to London. I looked at him once again as if he were daft and said "I don't get to London every week you know". It didn't register, so I invited him to dinner next time he came to Chicago. He just said to me "But I don't ever get to Chicago." Yep, bud, my point exactly.

When I got home, my dad told me he also had a form of lung cancer. I spent the next four months shuttling back & forth to Minneapolis as my dad's illness progressed. Gary wrote to me a few times during that period but I barely had time to reply. Dad rallied and I decided to go to New York for my birthday. Gary unexpectedly wrote he'd be in New York that weekend, so we arranged for that belated dinner. I talked to my dad right before dinner. He was happy and cheerful. He told me he "liked the sound" of this dinner date and was sorry he'd miss my birthday (the next day). Wouldn't you know my dad died while Gary and I were at dinner that night?

After all that drama, how to keep a relationship going with a six hour time difference, passports required and huge (at the time) international long distance bills? About the time the travel and time zones were weighing on both of us, Gary unexpectedly was offered a transfer back to the US a year and a half ahead of schedule. When it's meant to be, go for it!!

I learned much later that Saturday we met at Shadowlands was his first wedding anniversary after his wife Gayle's death from cancer at age 49. He hadn't read a plot summary, either. Despite how close to home the play hit him, the Pennsylvania Dutch heritage meant if you pay for the play, you stay for the whole thing. That was sixteen years ago and we're coming up on our twelfth anniversary.

Cheers, Anne

My SE and I met in the jungles of Belize on a National Geographic expedition. You can see we both liked the same kind of traveling. We have been together almost eleven years now. Our love is still strong.

Hi Anne,

Your story is so touching. I'm a firm believer of "destiny" and your story proves it! Obviously , you were meant to meet that day!

Well, mine is much more mundane...

DH and I met at work ( he was the boss of my boss). Although technically we had started to go out before he had that job, things became a little weird when he switched jobs. But in the end , everything worked out!

I tell my SE, who is not Christian, that he is God's gift to me!

Me too, McKeever!

Anne, Yours is a very poignant and beautiful story! I've always been a fatalist and believe everything happens for a reason!

Alan and I met when I was 8 years old and he was 13 years old. My first cousin married Alan's sister. I met Alan at the wedding and thought he was as cute as can be. I was 8 and knew cute!

My cousin and his sister were married for three years and had just had a baby, when my cousin (age 27) was diagnosed with melanoma. He died shortly after the diagnosis. Our families were devastated at such a loss. The families remained close. I would visit with Alan's family fairly often. Each time I saw him, I still had a crush.

Years went on and Alan was drafted into the Army, during Vietnam. I was in High School at the time he was drafted. Alan got my address from my aunt (the mother of the man who passed away) and began writing to me while in the Army. I learned that Alan was on riot patrol, squelching the hippie protesters in San Francisco, where he was stationed. Irony was that I was a hippie protester in NY! Talk about opposites.

Alan came home on leave to attend a friend's engagement party and asked me to go as his date, which I accepted. Needless to say, we had both changed substantially (he, even for the better!).

He then was discharged from the Army and we dated. I was in my last year of High School. He kept telling me he loved me and wanted to marry me. I wanted no part of love or marriage at that time. I was not quite 18 years old and wanted to graduate High School and see and experience life. I didn't want to marry until I was at least 25!

Long story short, we dated, broke up, dated and then became engaged two months after I graduated High School. We were married in 1969 and have been lovers/best friends/partners for over 37 years!

Anne, what a story.

Ours is kind of funny, and a little naughty. Both David and I had been married before, both very young, and were divorced. We both were living with new people, but not married. I went to work in the physics department where David taught. We met in the coffee lounge, and there was an immediate attraction, but nothing came of it for about two years, because we were both struggling to make our current relationships work. There came a Friday night when both our "spouses" were out of town, and we went to the Faculty club with some mutual friends for a drink. David and I decided to carry on and have dinner. By then I was coming down with a terrible migraine, so he made me poached eggs with spinach, and drove me home. We agreed to meet the next day, and spent hours together, walking around the very large park in Toronto. A week later, we both moved out of our respective relationships, and moved in together. Everybody was very mad at us, except for our Moms, they were both very happy, it turned out. We were married 6 months later exactly, and our son was born 5 months after that.

We are both still friends with our first "starter" spouses, but have lost touch with our later significant others.

Wow! All our stories are touching. Just so many ways to find the gift of a memorable love. Oh .. and that the adage "opposites attract" holds true! Certainly in our case LOL

Cheers, Anne

I had been dating someone for about 6 months and broke up with Michael on Valentine's Day. He canceled his date with me because his ex-wife had a date and he was going to watch the kids. He did that to me on New Years Eve too. So the following Saturday, I decided that it was time to get the internet on my computer and spent Saturday night perusing the personal ads. The site I chose was a free community service and was brand new - before Jdate and Match.com This was in 1997 - when internet was not really "live" as it is today.

The only ad without a photo was Frank's. I did not respond right away but after a couple weeks, I decided that what he wrote could have been an ad I would have written for me.

We emailed a few times back and forth, he gave me his phone number and I refused to call - the book The Rules was very popular and so I gave him my number. He called, asked me to dinner at my favorite first date restaurant. Because Frank is a CPA and I have a Business Management and Computer Training Company, we joked that if we did not like one another, we could refer each other to our clients. We fell heads over heels that first week, seeing each other daily. We met March 15th and we were engaged on April 23rd. My friends and family thought we were insane. We waited to marry until November. It's a perfect match.

The small world story is that Frank is from NYC and Denver. He only had one relative in California. His mother's first cousin's son was my childhood classmate from kindergarten to senior year and my mother went to school with his cousin too - they were in the same class too.

We tell people we've been married 50 years. He was married 24 years, I was married 17 years and we're married 9 years now.

Larry and I were friendly with all the same people. His best friend was dating my sister. We were fixed up for a blind date by several people. They all said we were meant for each other. I was 18 and he was 23. :)

No one had told him that my parents were snowbirds, and my sister and I moved into an apartment closer into the city during the winter. The night of the date, it had snowed heavily in Maryland. Larry drove out to my parents home in the far suburbs through the snow and knocked at the door. No one was there. No cell phones in those days. He finally got to a phone and called a friend to find out where I was. More than two hours late he came to pick me up. I had already decided I was being stood up. :(

I got dressed and put on a cashmere wrap coat. He looked at me and said, "Couldn't you afford buttons." This date did not start well. He still has the same sense of humor. :( :(

He didn't take my arm, and I slipped on the outside steps and landed in a snowdrift. He found this incredibly funny. :( :( :(

I won't go on. It was the date from hell. We never wanted to see each other again.

Six weeks later we were engaged, and we married that summer in a double wedding with my sister. The four of us celebrate our 45th anniversary this summer! :banana: Judith

Wow, these are all great stories.

Well, here is ours. We met at a Valentines Day party at my church in Santa Ana when we were 16. The church hadn't planned very well. They were having the party at the same time that most of the girls were gone to a high school retreat. As it happens, the youth pastor came up with a brilliant plan. He had just come from a church in Garden Grove, where the girls vastly outnumbered the boys, so he invited the girls to the party, and sternly told them not to pair off. (yeah right).

Well before you knew it, my friends and I were talking with these girls from the other church and made plans to go over to see them.

We went over to see Diana's best friend Diane first. After we left Diane called Diana to tell her that the "goofy boys" were heading that way, and she thought that I had a crush on her (meaning Diane).

A few days later, I picked up the phone and called Diana (not Diane) and told her that I had an orthodontist appointment near her school (which was actually nearer to Diane's school in Westminster), and could I come by to see her at lunch? She said yes, and then called Diane to tell her that I was coming to see her at lunch. She just figured that I had called the wrong girl. Imagine Diana's surprise when I showed up at the right school to have lunch with the right girl.

Thirty seven years later, she is still the right girl. Oh, and Diane was Diana's maid of honor at our wedding.

Here's ours: I was 15 in 1961,that was way back when the music you bought came in the form of a 45 record, the grocery store by my home in Long Beach,Ca. , had a record dept. I spent a lot of time looking at records(well, there was this guy,who worked there).. One big problem, he was a college student, and he was 21 years old. What can I say,everyone said it would never work out, we will celebrate our 44th wedding anniversary next Feb. We are more in Love today than ever. :)

Great stories!!

Hey Trish, Where's your story??????

Wow, these are some amazing stoties. Ours is a bit more mundane. I was a single chap who lived around the corner from a local wattering hole. I'd go in from time-to-time withh my si-fi book (yes, I'm a total geek) to grab a drink and read. I was friends with one of the servers who told me one day "I have the perfect guy for you." I told her fine to set something up for the following night.

So I go in the next night, grab a booth and Carmen walks Paul over. We sit and talk for 4 hours, close the place and agree to meet the following day. 11 years later and we are still together.

Aint love grand?

Anne: I could hear your story a hundred times and never be bored - if you recall, I asked you when you visited "tell my friends how you and Gary met?!"

- Trish where is your story???

Ours is dull compared to all the love affairs - we had both been married before with children - met in a city that will remain unnamed - I hated it and it always turns out to be someone's hometown - lived in same townhouse complex - I stalked him -he is still confused how I "got" him (blind date orchestrated by me) .. he was darn cute still is - 34 yrs later - I was due to move back to CT with my children (same town as my mother, help me Lord) and after a yr of dating he said "I am taking a job in DC want to come?" YES YES and we did get married and blended families - hey that is another story but today they love us and each other- - Joanna PS Robert great story

R, Yes, love is grand regardless of how we all met!

Joanna, Love your story! You little conniver, you!

OH boy Denise - he still thinks I married him to get away from my mother ...ridiculous - wink wink - I loved my mother BUT I would have had hives, needed therapy, Tony came into my life at just the right time - call it what you will...it was my "coping" skill in 1971

Of all the gin joints and all the taverns and all the saloons in the world, she had to walk into mine...

....oops, wrong story.

Ours is similar to others. In 1992, I had my first home computer and belonged to Prodigy, a very early precursor to the internet. There were a lot of singles ads on the site. I placed one that spring. Arlene had just moved back in with her mom so that she could go back to college. Her mom had just got a home computer; they also had prodigy. Arlene replied to my ad. Amazingly, we both lived in Colorado Springs. We emailed back and forth for a few months before agreeing to meet at a bar near her mom's house. I waited and waited and Arlene never showed; she was sitting in her car with cold feet. We made another date for the next Wednesday, were engaged within three months and married a couple of months later.

Our story is a reflection of the times… we met during our freshman year at Northwestern (‘70/71). Brad had first “noticed” me when we both attended a screening of the offbeat movie “the Loved One”. A few months later he and my roommate, Monica, were volunteering at the campus hot line counseling callers with drug problems and worked a shift together.

They were on the phone all night with a guy named Mitch who was either strung out on drugs or stringing them along. Monica invited him back to our dorm for breakfast and to crash.

After breakfast they came up to our room – I was in bed… just in my undies…. :eek: she introduced us. I got out of bed, dressed to go to my first class and he jumped in to “crash”.

I think initially he was interested in Monica, but she had a hometown honey in Milwaukee.

Shortly thereafter he invited me to go to the Kentucky Derby with a group of friends on their “magic bus”. It was quite the adventure.

We were together on and off for a few years, moved in together in ‘75 and were married in ’77. My dad joked in his rehearsal dinner toast about our very long engagement!

In 2 weeks we will be spending 5 days up in Telluride with college friends – one couple was married a year before us, the other a couple years after. Four of us were on the “magic bus” trip.

Gretchen and I met on an airplane. She was in the Navy and I was in the Marine Corps. On a Friday in October '74 she graduated from a Navy school at Bethesda and I graduated from a school at Ft. Bragg, NC. I had connections through DCA and Chicago to Salt Lake City to meet my Dad to go hunting. Gretchen had the same flights from DC thru Chicago and SLC to Riverton, WY. She was going home for a bit of leave before reporting to her first duty station at Great Lakes Naval Hospital. I didn't make the Friday plane because I had been dating the lady that ran the BOQ at Ft. Bragg and she invited me to go the the NC State Fair with her that day. Gretchen started out on the Friday sequence. However, since there was a 3 hour layover in Chicago she got off the plane to see an old boy friend. She missed the connection! Since she stayed over in Chicago she went out to Great Lakes and picked up base newspaper. I started my journey Saturday morning from Ft. Bragg. When I arrived in Chicago for my 3 hour lay over I went down to the USO. When I returned to the plane a good looking blonde was sitting across the aisle from my seat. I don't normally talk to folks on airplanes plus this lady was wearing a wedding ring. However in her tote bag was the top of the Great Lakes newspaper with headlines about the USS Marathon arriving at Great Lakes. A friend of mine from school was the CO of the Marathon so I asked if I could borrow her paper. When I returned it I asked (that seriously sexist question) "Is your husband stationed at Great Lakes?" Gretchen replied (forcefully), "No, I am!" I had visions of one of these service marriages where the couple are stationed at two different locations. So I asked (innocently), "Where is your husband stationed?" Gretchen pointed out that she wasn't married. I stuttered something about seeing the wedding ring and she said:

"I just wear that so men won't bother me when I travel!"

I've been bothering her for 28 years come this August.
Greg

Marc: At first I thought you were Bogie and Bacall???....I think you are - Joanna

Love everyone's stories! Like reading a really good book. Here goes our tale: It would probably never fly in today's environment:

I was a credit analyst working for a large bank in LA. A very good friend of mine, named Greg, worked for the senior credit officer in charge of l/2 of the bank's lending authority. Greg kept insisting that his boss & I would make the "perfect couple". He kept talking to each of us, separately, about how wonderful the other was. I was appalled. I never felt comfortable approaching his boss much less having a "relationship"!!

I found out that Greg had even left notes with clever phases on his car, signing my name! I was in complete fear of running into Greg's boss in the elevator or having to sit in on a meeting with him in attendance.

Suddenly, near Xmas holidays, Greg had a serious motorcycle accident & was in the hospital dying. His brain was seriously damaged. Greg's boss called me to suggest that we go to the hospital "together" hoping to help our mutual friend show some sign of consciousness. Well, I ended up going by myself; The boss, DON, had been called out of town.

6 months passed and Greg was "still" in the hospital. Another colleague in Chicago, who picked up the matchmaking reins from Greg, decided to take it upon himself to leave Don a message while Don was travelling in Canada, telling him to call "Michele ......." I knew he was going to do it and said, "Oh well. He won't call since he will probably realize it's not about a deal!" Well, that night, to my total surprise, Don called me and we set up a date. 2 years later, we were married. After 18 years of marriage & hardly away from each other's side (!@#$!!), we survived our careers in banking, and raised 3 daughters (2 his & 1, mine, from our previous marriages). Our dear friend, Greg, recovered from that awful accident with brain damage, but, thankfully, he's able to function & have a decent life. He's a dear friend & we owe him our happiness.

:) Michele (& Don!)

I hope all LCTers keep posting. These stories are a lot of fun!

Michele, I know what you mean! Mine would never fly in today's environment either! ( I think after Bob and I got together Merck wrote a policy that people in the same area couldn't "fraternize" ;) ). I remember my boss was afraid that if Bob and I ended our relationship maybe I would sue the company for allowing sexual harassment :eek: !


Yes Trish, where is yours??

OK, all together now...COME ON,TRISH! DISH!

Trish must have a good dish no???

What a lovely topic.

After these cute and poignant stories, ours is a bit mundane. Doug and I met in college in a public speaking class--he was a senior and I was a junior. I thought he was a stuck up jerk and he didn't think much of me, either.

There was a dorm party and I was trying to avoid my old boyfriend and Doug was the most convenient guy around, standing in the doorway and I put the moves on him to give my ex a message, saying to Doug: "Where have you been my whole life?" His response? "Hiding"

I then spent the rest of the evening with his very handsome best friend who I had the hots for. His friend (who had graduated) returned to the real world and Doug and I remained, with him thinking I actually liked him. We discovered we liked the same tv show and he had a TV and invited me to watch it with him. I was dating someone else and just went to watch the TV show with him each Friday night and then would leave to go out with someone else. Eventually, I chose not to leave. The rest is history...we gave up our independence on July 4, 1976 and will be celebrating 30 years of bliss this Tuesday, July 4. :hug:

Happy Anniversary, honey!!!

Well, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to both of you!!!!

Greg & Gretchen

Well, like Robert & Paul's story, ours is not too dramatic and not at all as poignant as most of those posted. Pat & I met at a birthday party hosted by a mutual friend (with whom we'd each had interesting times at different periods in the past) just after Pat moved back to DC from NYC. We "clicked" - apparently Pat was a sucker for a young blond (yeah, yeah, I used L'Oreal ginger beige or some such color in those days; but my tan was genuine - all things considered, not a healthy combination in retrospect) in a rugby shirt (I looked kind of like a slim blond bumblebee). In any event, we have been together since that night in 1974 and will celebrate our 32nd anniversary on MUSH (unfortunately no longer blond or slim; but still happy and devoted). Cheers, Fred

It's been wonderful hearing all these stories.

Adding to the chorus:

Trish, trish, thread's a great thought
Tell us how and when you were caught!!

Cheers, Anne

Thanks Freddie for my first laugh of the day - "slim blonde bumblebee" - I'll bet you were darn cute - congrats to you and Pat for 32 yrs!

Congrats to you, Freddie, and Pat!

Trish, Trish, thread's a great thought
Tell us how and when you were caught!!
COME ON,TRISH! DISH!

Please feel free to add to Anne's and my conga line song!

So many great funny stories! Happy 30th Anniversary Andi and Doug!

Trish,
What a fun thread! I've enjoyed reading all the great stories!

Marcie and Betty -

And, your stories??????

LOL Denise (I was planning to escape this thread though I've LOVE reading about everyone else!)

Tom and I met at Santa Anita Race Track on a Monday Martin Luther King birthday holiday. The place was mobbed so they just sat us at a random table for 12 with total strangers. Tom and I were at opposite ends of this long table but we both were cheering for the same horse during one of the races (a longshot that went off at huge odd$$ and we both won!) He asked me what I did for a living and I told him I was a Realtor. (yelling across 4 other people sitting between us). He mentioned that he had a condo he was thinking of selling so I promptly passed my business card down to him and encouraged him to call me if he decided to sell it. The next morning he called me and invited me to lunch that day. I was prepared to go talk real estate....he had other motives. We had a very long wonderful lunch, knocked off a bottle of wine and had so many laughs. He was excited to meet a woman that liked horse racing, going to Las Vegas, owned my own home, loved Italian food & red wine AND Sambuca. Within an hour of getting back to my office that afternoon, I received a dozen long stem red roses. He really put the schmooze on me and I was completely smittened!!

I can't really go into the whole dating thing that happened after this Denise. Let's just say I had good reason to size Tom up as a "Casanova Ladies Man" who had LOTS of irons in the fire! I can't post it all here or it would get sensored and immediately deleted by sweet Karen. It's one of these "I'll tell you over a glass of wine" stories that would make for a great "R rated" HBO sitcom! Bottom line.....we're hopelessly in love and like you and Alan I'm truly married to my best friend!

Ill buy the wine, Marcie, or several glasses depending on how long the story takes - Denise can you bring nibbles and a steno pad???

This story is worthy of lots of time. Where and when? Joanna, you need to fly out here when she dishes the real dirt!

I spent my undergraduate years working in the lab of one particular professor, helping with his research program. As a senior, I was one of several teaching assistants for the class he taught every fall. That September, George was admitted as a graduate student in the same department and was assigned to TA the same class. He seemed very nice and extremely homesick so I often invited him to come over for dinner or to go to a movie with my boyfriend and me.

About a year into this arrangement I realized I was with the wrong guy. It hit me like a ton of bricks one day, and I broke up with the bf (who has been called Moose ever since) and went over to George's and told him how I felt even though I had never had any encouragement from him. It turned out he was as interested as I, and was just honorable about infringing on some other guy's girlfriend. We married about a year later and had our 28th anniversary last week.