<p>Met when I was a senior and he was a junior. First date (I asked) was catastrophic and nothing happened after that until the following fall (I was working on campus) when I was recruited to be a coxswain for the Head of the Charles. I ended up coxing the boat for which he was the stroke, so we were face-to-face six days a week for a month and I gave him advice about his dates. Went out to dinner post-race with his parents and visited New York (where he lived) just before Christmas. First kiss was Dec. 22, 1974, and we got married two years later on Dec. 23, 1976. Interestingly, S thinks that now, while he’s in college, is the best time for him to meet a prospective mate. I guess our marriage has been inspirational. ;-)</p>
<p>Yes. </p>
<p>We lived on the same coed floor at Columbia. I was a Barnard senior and he was a Columbia Engineering sophomore. I remember feeling quite a bit of angst before deciding to date because 1) he was a younger man and 2) we lived across the hall from each other. I’m glad I got over the angst! We’ve been married 22 years now. My sister and her husband met at Tufts and just celebrated 25 years of marriage.</p>
<p>No, not college. </p>
<p>I met my H on a blind date. </p>
<p>I was 27, hearing the biological clock ticking. I worked from home and thus didn’t meet very many people. So I alerted all my friends that I wanted some <em>volume</em> dating NOW, and promised I’d go out with <em>anyone</em>… Several of them swung into action and I started going out like mad but all dates were complete misfires. </p>
<p>Then one friend called to pitch an older, divorced man with a young child. I said No way!! She said, what about your policy that you’d date <em>anyone</em> once? How can you rule out a nice guy based on these factors? So I relented. </p>
<p>He turned out to be a great man, father & friend. I am very lucky my friend held me to my promise!</p>
<p>I’m impressed at all these stories. I met my husband in graduate school. We have now been together for a little over six years and married for the last almost three years.</p>
<p>When this thread popped up last year, there was a similar pattern of lots of 20+ years of marriages. Self-selected group, though, so it may not mean as much as if all the lurkers suddenly reported in. </p>
<p>By anecdotal observation, kids of recently divorced (past 5 years) parents seem to get the shaft in the whole college thing: not as much attention to detail for search, finances a mess or extra-mural game-playing by spouses, etc.</p>
<p>My husband noticed me in his very first class as a college freshman – Calc I – but it was a big lecture class of 100 students and I didn’t know who he was. (I was one of only two girls in the class so I was easier to spot!) I got to know him second semester when he became my boyfriend’s lab partner in Physics II. He eventually became my best friend – always lending me a shoulder to cry on when I had a fight with my boyfriend. By senior year, I had finally figured out what he knew all along – my boyfriend was a jerk! So I broke up with my boyfriend. </p>
<p>Hubby and I have now been married for 30 years – 31 in April!</p>
<p>Yes! In a disco in Florida over spring break - and we had been at the same college for 3 years (not in Florida) and vaguely knew who each other were. 25th anniversary coming up!
“Burn baby burn - Disco Inferno”</p>
<p>Yes, during my JuniorYear Abroad in Scotland–we met at Scottish Country Dancing. (He wasn’t wearing a kilt, though!)</p>
<p>No…DH went to college on the 12 year plan. He graduated from college four years after we got married. By that time, I had been out of college for 12 years.</p>
<p>Yay Sluggbugg, another high school meeting. </p>
<p>We met in our junior year english class and bonded after discovering that we were both huge fans of Jean Shepherd (one of his stories was the basis for the movie, A Christmas Story). We became close friends in high school and started dating soon after graduation. We married after the first year of grad school. He continues to be the best companion I could have imagined. We are pushing 32 years together (yikes!), 27 of them married.</p>
<p>Yep. Met in a bar. There was a date with one of his friends involved. There was a little bit of alcohol involved. I was 21, he was 22. I can’t imagine my kids married so young, but we’ll celebrate 30 years this summer.</p>
<p>This is very entertaining reading. And yes, TheDad, I agree, we are a self-selected group. It is when you’ve been married 20+ years that you find your source of entertainment at the computer 
I, unlike the rest of you, did not meet my hubby in college. Nor did I meet him in grad school. I have a healthy respect for those of you who could go to school and juggle the demands of a marriage simultaneously. I was already out of grad school and very much the self sufficient independent career woman. I had been in two long term relationships (dated one guy for 3 yrs that I met when he was in law school and I in grad school, and then had a 2 yr long distance relationship). Met my h. on a ski trip. I was a bleeding heart liberal, and he was active duty military! If we hadn’t married, he was headed to Korea, and then on the NASA track. I wasn’t particularly interested in joining the military nor giving up my established career. We married 2 weeks after my 31st birthday (he, on the other hand, was only 26-- he graduated HS the year I graduated college -AAGGHHH!!). We just passed the 21st anniversary of the day we met. So, I am an old broad with young kids. Some of my college friends are grandparents!! But then again, some have children younger than mine. I guess these kids keep us young (I was referring to my offspring, not my husband )</p>
<p>jym, look back at how many of us have been married close to 30 (or more) years. A LOT of us are old with young kids. I’m old enough to be my highschooler’s grandma! Though we married young, we waited 10 years to begin procreating. Join the club.</p>
<p>H and I went to different LA colleges and met the second summer after we had both graduated. Had our mutual friends introduced us during college, there was NO WAY I would have gone out with him. He was a Trojan and I was a Bruin. I did have my standards! So the later introduction took advantage of a slight waning of my school loyalty - 27 years this summer. And we only fight once a year on a Saturday in November.</p>
<p>Over30-
I saw that you acknowledged your recent birthday! Congrats! Yes, we all arrived at the “aging parents with young kids” place by many different routes. I told my kids that I planned it this way, so that when they hit college and needed $$, I’d be sitting in a rocker on a porch drooling into a cup :)</p>
<p>Another high school start here – cross-town high schools – we were both 16. My friend was dating her friend. They needed others for double-dates, so they talked to each of us, separately, about the dreaded “fix-up.” Being a very diligent dude even in those formative years, I managed to attend a city-wide youth social event for the sole purpose of checking out my supposed “blind-date” in advance of our “blind date.” I did my recon … was properly smitten … went on the blind-date … and thus started a whirlwind 3 month high school courtship, broken off, by her, for typical high schooly reasons. Flash forward a couple of years. We’re both freshmen at Big State U. As social groups develop, we find ourselves part of the same group. We’re dating others, I was in the middle of a 3-yr. “serious” relationship with a girl from California, we become great friends and confidants, that is, when I could see her at all – she’s doing the science major thing (classes all day, problem sets and lab reports at night, and zonked out pretty early during the week), while I’m central casting’s answer to prototype English major dude (late starting seminar classes; as few classes as possible; 100’s of pages to read every night; and round-the-clock night sessions to keep those Smith Carona typed papers churning out). Decided junior year that we liked each other better than the BF’s/GF’s. Started dating and got married right after graduation, honeymooned, and moved out East to attend law school.</p>
<p>This year marks 25 really great years. Son in his freshman year at college, daughter (high school junior) doing the collegepalooza viewing tour this spring. Travel plans for 25th anniversary will undoubtedly blend into one college visit or another. Say, isn’t the “college window decal” the appropriate 25th wedding anniversary gift anyway?</p>
<p>Maize&Blue–that’s like me and my husband, only the Northern California version. Goodness, have I hated the smirking on Big Game Day the last few years. </p>
<p>Cheers, hope that you reach 500. As to us, nope, not in college, or grad school–right after we were finished. I confess to envying all of you who found your loves so early in life. I just had a succession of wildly mismatched involvements for years before settling down. I was book-smart, but probably not people-smart.</p>
<p>Married late (32); had our child late (42). My wife and I turned out to be conservative in everything except our politics.</p>
<p>I am also married to my high school sweetheart. We went to colleges a thousand miles apart, dated others and got back together and married shortly after graduating. While we missed the excitement of sharing that initial independence, we did share the adventure of moving to another part of the country to start new jobs and grad school. I think all that history can help build a strong foundation for marriage. It also impels you to scrutinize your kids’ prom dates pretty closely.</p>
<p>Am I the only college marriage/divorce story? Met husband freshmen year and married right after we graduated. Many good years and wonderful kids before the entertainment industry took over our lives. Then last year, I had an unfortunate skiing accident. Unfortunate until I met the orthapedic surgeon. We marry in June.</p>