It's that time of year..getting all lovey dovey..maybe it's the time spent indoors with people

Anyway, I've read so many wonderful posts here where chicks talk about their partners, girlfriends, boyfriends, boys, husbands, significant others.....

So here's my question: How did *you* meet your special someone(s)? here's a plus - maybe if there are chicks out there looking - our posts will give them ideas

I'll start first:

When I was in my early to mid thirties, I gave up on dating altogether and just hung out with different people...... every once in a while I thought it would be nice to meet someone special - but it just wasn't happening.

One year, right after the New Year, one of my friends suggested that I try the personals in the local newspaper (this was 1995 - my pre-net days!)

I got about 100 responses - amazing - only about 5 really seemed like a possible match - of course, looking back now - I know I was way too picky.

So I went out with bachelors 1,2,3,4 and 5 - often hilarious, but awful experiences ( I could write a book on that whole month!)

After that, I gave up again. I then noticed one day in February that my account ID (to collect voicemail messages) was about to expire. For the heck of it, I decided to check for any remaining stragglers before the account died. There was one message from a pleasant sounding guy. I called him up and we talked and talked and talked.

I got his phone # and I called him at home that night. We talked until the AM during a rare Virginia blizzard. We were both snowed in, so we talked the entire weekend - only stopping for meals and sleep. Finally the roads were cleared on Sunday afternoon. I agreed to have dinner with him. We had dinner that night together and nearly every night since.

The moral of the story - it can happen

Terri

Hey barefootgrrl,

Great topic!

I met my fiance' while I was still in a bad marriage. I was definitely NOT looking to hook up with another man, but it just happened.

We met online in Fall 1996, in Summer 1998 he moved out here to Oregon from the Midwest. We've been together ever since and will be married sometime next summer.

Great relationships can and do happen because of the Internet!

S.

No big story with my hubby! We were high school sweethearts!
Dated off and on for many years and finally decided to make the final commitment on May 19, 1990.
Virginia

Virginia...... It's wonderful that you and your husband have all those memories together.... I might have liked that had things been different.....but it's nice to think about!


Sabrina - I've heard of so many people meeting online. Outside of personals, does it happen in chat rooms? ( I guess I ask because I've only been in one chat room and that was enough for me! lol)


Terri

What lovely stories... great idea, Terrigrrrl.

I met my DH on the last day of college. I'd recently lost the love of my life to suicide. I'd decided I would never meet another man so dear to me, and was NOT looking for a replacement.

DH was a charming and handsome little guy... he used to wink at me (and god knows WHO else! ) in the hall, and he didn't even know me! Nervy. Very nervy.

Anyhow, he had an appointment that day with a teacher in the computer room... getting help with an end of term assignment. My girlfriend and I happened to be in there, and as we were much more attractive to the teacher than DH was, he helped US instead. And I ended up helping DH.

When he asked me to see a movie with him using the EXACT same words my first love had used, I decided... what the ****... it must be fate. And it was. That was over 16 years ago, and I love him more than ever. And if he chooses to leaves me tomorrow I'll be okay, because he's helped me so much with my personal growth. And I will NEVER marry again, because it's too much damned work.

I met my husband on a blind date. My girlfriend set us up. We had gone to the same high school, his sister was in my class. The date lasted 13 hours. We thought going to breakfast was a safe easy thing. Easy to bail if we hated one another. I moved in with him 2 weeks later. I was there 24/7 anyways... I was 19. We married on our 1 year anniversary of that first date. We stayed together til he died 6.5 years later.

My bf and I met at my appt about 9 months after my husband died. I was throwing an impromptu get together for my neighbor. She lived with her parents and it is kinda hard to socialize with old people around. He had come by, being a friend of the guy she was dating. I really didn't think much of him except that he made me laugh. I had a crush on another one of their friends. A week after valentines day, we were trying to avoid a scene from a couple who was drunk, so we sat outside and talked and talked. That night I ended up giving him a back scratch, the next night we had a one night stand. Or so I though... It had been a long time for me Sure, what could come out of a fling with a guy 10 years younger. WE have been together ever since. It will be 6 years on Feb 22.

Wow Terri! That is an awesome story! I am one of those girls who has given up on finding someone and I too am in my early to mid 30's. Your lovely story has given me hope. Thanks for the great thread, and story!

ok Ellis..... are you going to let us know those exact magic words or are they a personal secret? ( If so, that's ok - it just sounds romantic, like a movie or something!)

You are so right. It is more work than I ever realized and some days I look at him like he's an alien, but overall I think it's a good thing - if you're willing to do the work - it must be work worth doing .

flower - it's wonderful that you found love again - you have to love 6 year flings

oh Velvet! thanks! I am so glad - that was one of the things that made me think of it.

It sounds like a cliche I know, but often love finds us when we least expect it.

Terri

Hi Terri,

You asked:

"Sabrina - I've heard of so many people meeting online. Outside of personals, does it happen in chat rooms? ( I guess I ask because I've only been in one chat room and that was enough for me! lol)"

I've been in a few chat rooms myself (not romance related) and haven't been back to any in years. Most of them were rife with weirdos.

I actually met my fiance' on a political Web site's message board! We're both left-leaning, and have almost identical views on things, and that's what got us talking. We started out being in love with each other's minds first, and then after six months of emailing and telephoning, met in person and just clicked.

We've been together here in Portland for almost 4-1/2 years now, and I can't imagine ever being happier with anyone else.
We suit each other to a "T" right down to our fondness for bathroom humor (Beavis and Butthead, anyone???).

Just proof that sometimes the best things happen to you when you least expect it ...

S.

Hi Sabrina! Welcome to alternachicks! I should have done this in the intro thread but I'm a bit of an airhead today. Nice to meet you!

Velvet,

Thanks for the welcome. I look forward to getting to know all of you.

I guess we're all "oddballs" in our own little ways, and so perhaps that is why this forum is so tolerant/accepting.

S., who never really felt all that different until her friends started having babies and she knew didn't want any part of that!

I think it's great that you aren't having kids if you don't want them. It's much more selfish and thoughtless to have kids because everyone thinks you are supposed to, then to be brave and stand up and say I don't want to be a mother. People who have kids because they are "supposed to" are often abusive, and it's not the kids fault they weren't wanted, so I say right on sister! Not everyone is meant to be a mother, just like not everyone is meant to be a nurse, or a writer.

First - welcome to Sabrina.

Second - I love everyone's stories

Third - he may not be my husband, boyfriend, significant other, or even a fling any more, but I do love the story of how my best friend and I met.

I had just gone back to college after being out for a year. I had left to go to work so I could afford to finish. I had been in for 3 years, so when I went back most of the people I knew had left. I had signed up through a campus office to be placed in an apartment. I was suppose to live with a girl & 2 guys I think. One of them had dropped out before it was time to move in. Both of the 2 remaining people went and found another roommate. So they called and asked me if I minded being placed some where else. I said no problem. I hadn't know any of them so it wasn't like I had any attachments to it. So I ended up in Apt 32 with 3 girls who I now love dearly. One of which knows everyone and thier brother. (I know you are thinking where is she going with this)
Well Miss Chick, as I always like to called her, had been a RA (residance advisor) on a freshman floor the year before. One day, about a week after I moved in, this guy comes home with her. It was one of the guys who had lived on her floor the year before. They had run into each other on campus and he came back to the apt. to catch up on her summer. I said hello, when they came in, but I was watching something on TV and was making dinner so I didn't pay too much attention right away. Well, my dinner finished and I was sitting at the island that seperated our kitchen from the living room. My roommate got a phone call. The boy was also sitting at the counter while she was on the phone. I said hello again and asked how he was and such since he was just kind of sitting there. I figured I would be polite. I don't remember exactly what got us started on real conversation, but my roommate's phoen call ended she said a few more things to the boy and got ready to go out. It was a Thursday night, the phone call was from some of her friends that were going to a club. They were leaving in a few minutes. The boy was only 19 so he could not go too. he and I had been talking for 20 minutes or so now. It was around 10:30pm when she left, and told him to stay as long as he wanted and she would call him tomorrow.
Well we really hit it off. We stayed at the counter until 2:30am when my roommate came home. During the night we woudl keep saying "Its getting late, I have class in the morning", but niether was willing to really end it. When Miss Chick walked in the door and saw us still there, the look on her face was priceless. You could see the wheels in her head turning trying to figure out what was going on. She later told me we had both had looks like we had gotten caught doing something we weren't suppose to. She asked him what he was still doing there. The 3 of us ended up playing Trivial Pursuit until 4am when he left.
He wasn't out the door for more then 20 seconds when she started grilling me about the whole thing. He first question - "So do you like him?" I told her yes. I also told her I knew I didn't care what happened between me and him but I did not want that to be the only night he and I talked. I told her that "I knoew I want him in my life some how". I left that morning for home. I spent the weekend at home, went back to school Sunday, and worked Sunday night. I came home and found out my roommate had given him my screen name on a chat program. He had left me a little message. Just a hello. On Monday night he and I started talking on-line and ended up talking until 4am again. But during that time he had asked me on a date. That whole process was so silly. He had been talking to both me and my roommate. She would show me what he was saying about me. So I knew he had a thing for me. She kept trying to get me to ask him out. I wouldn't. I was a big Then all of a sudden she came running into my room to watch my reaction. She knew he was going to ask me for a date. I of course said yes.

We were only together for 3 months. It was in the middle of a really rough time for me. And ironiclly, I wouldn't talk to him about it. I just pushed him away with no explaination. He was really hurt. We didn't really talk or see each other for about 6 months after. Then he had gone through some stuff and apologized to me for how HE acted! I did the same. Told him a little about what had been going on. We have since become very close. We have known each other for a little over 3 years now.

Ok that was very very long. Sorry!

squeak

I met my hubby (second installment) online in a....chat room

This was oh...seven years ago...when there were actually chat rooms out there with much the same atmosphere as this board....meeting friends, hanging out, chatting, laughing, crying, etc., together. We were having a pyjama party in a private room (probably 30 of us there) and I invited him in from the lobby, as we'd chatted a few times prior. It went from there...chatting more and more and late into the wee hours of the night, then phone calls, and exchanging pictures, and snail mail, and little surprise gifts. I was on the east coast of Canada and he was on the west coast of the States.....on complete opposite sides of the continent, nevermind different countries!

I was offered a job in Ontario and he was finishing out his contract with the US Navy (did 7 years on the Nimitz) and didn't want to renew. He has family in PA, and made the trip to Toronto a few times until I got my own place (initially I stayed with an uncle when I first arrived here), and then he was here more than there. We went through 2 hellish years of waiting for his Permanent Residency to be approved. Government red tape Really...what would Canada want with an educated ex-Navy man when there are so many less enticing people sneaking into our country every day??? Grrrrr. Anyhooo......We were married on Hallowe'en 1998, and I can't imagine ever being with anyone else. I trust him completely, and that's no small thing.

WELL!! I met my hubby through some college housemates. He had gone to highschool with two of them, came up to visit them and VOILA!! Okay, the FIRST time I met him I tolerated him (I was coming out of a men are scum phase), and the next time I described him as "This guy with big brown eyes" to a friend. The NEXT time he came to visit I lured him up to my room by playing music he like LOUD. When he came up I rubbed Tiger Balm on his temples and the next morning we had our first date!! (He slept on the couch over my objections!!) At the young age of 21 I had already decided I would never meet anyone I wanted to spend my life with, and he proved me completely wrong!! We decided within 3 months that we wanted to get married, but kept it "secret" and actually got married about 2 years later. By the time we told everyone we were engaged the USUAL response we got was "DUH!" OH! With the exception of one friend who said, "You two deserve each other." And we still do 21 years (married) later!!!