Boy next door 
so met as kids, resurfaced at 28 and the rest is history.
@doschicos After you’ve had Mr Wrong, when Mr Right shows up, you snag him quickly. 
Back story:
I had lived in Nashville for ten years. My company had an office in Lone Tree, CO, and my sister and her fam were in Arvada, CO… and her neighboring family had a daughter who, while somewhat younger than I, was a personality match.
So I moved to Golden in August of 2011, saying goodbye to a dear friend/ex in Nashville and our dog Mollie. We were never going to take the leap, and while I loved my Mollie (terrier mix) dearly, and miss her bitterly now that she’s gone, and F and I shared many experiences over that decade, I knew that I had to make life count and had two great reasons to move: my sister and the younger gal in Denver. Soon after the move I started posting on this site – I just knew the younger gal and I were going to marry and have kids, so I wanted to plan for college waaaaay ahead of time. So I started reading up on things and posting here.
Very long story short, the younger gal and I did get along famously for about a year and a half, at which point it dawned on her that she wanted to sow her oats. (what a moron I was… as Richard Marx said, I shoulda known better…) And soon after that, my sister and her fam moved to Alaska – her husband had landed a project manager job for an oil company. So the two main reasons for moving to Denver, within about 18 months of my arrival, were gone. Anyone who’s ever suffered a broken heart knows which pain source dominated, but anyway, I was now alone.
So I went online, found a redheaded gal from Iowa (I’m from Wisc) with paint all over her in her photos (some color run…), wrote to her, and the rest is history. I went to the wrong apartment on our first date – accidentally offered ice cream and flowers to a middle-aged Middle Eastern man – but once I found her, it was over.
We both lost our jobs (annual RIF for me; budget cuts for her) within a couple months of one another, and we knew it was the forever sort of venture, and we wanted our kids to grow up among family… so we moved to Iowa. Here we are.
I miss Denver for obvious reasons – the view on a high altitude hike can be breathtaking, and the hiking itself is fun – but we are in a place where most of our family doesn’t have to fly to see us. Recently, the drop in oil brought sis and her fam back to the lower 48, and they had the same idea as my wife and I; they now live near Madison, just a couple hours from us.
Anyway, I thought I had lost everything when that young gal – for whom I was mad, and whom I thought was my last hope of making my parents proud of me in the family way – left to pursue those wild oats. After spending nights after work literally on the floor bawling, I realized that I could still be happy. So I got back up, went online, and poof, it happened, and I am. boo yah.
So if you are hurting, just keep fighting for your life. Things will come around, even if you think you’ve lost your last chance.
I worked for a city councilman who was a good friend of H’s. He occasionally would stop by the office and one day he asked me out. We weren’t serious for awhile and didn’t get married until 4 years later. In between I left for grad school in Chicago and he went back to get a Masters at Syracuse so we weren’t in any position to get married.
@doschicos : Sometimes all in is the way to go. [-O<
@carolinamom2boys and @AboutTheSame I guess you know a good thing when you see it!
Husband I met when I was 18 so, although we’ve been married 30 years now, we took a 4 year path to tying the knot.
It was his first day of college ( I was a sophomore) 1980…we were both 18. In Calculus class I sat in front row and he saw me. After class he came over and asked me out.
^Well, there’s a young man who doesn’t waste time!
The old fashioned way: we met in a bar.
We have been married for just under 36 years. Several other couples we know with long marriages met the same way.
@doschicos I do think that the older you are when you meet considerably decreases the time to take the leap. I was 26 when I met my husband and 27 when I married him.
One of us answered the other’s personal ad in the newspaper. We talked on the phone and realized we had both gone to the same university and we both liked to write. I had just taken two final exams that day, so my mind was racing and I finally asked her out. She said no to me, and I was confused and almost put the phone down and hung up on her. For some unknown reason I asked her again and she said yes this time, and thought I had asked her something else earlier.
We lived together for a few years and she helped me get through grad school. We got married 34 years ago, and she passed away in January from pneumonia after fighting cancer for three years.
I am working on self-publishing her book of poetry and want to get it just right. Both of us never became serious writers, but I love reading her poems, and thinking about the fun we used to have when we were young and when she wrote them.
My sorority sister and her boyfriend introduced us.
My answer is especially appropriate for this site! My spouse and I met in 1993 through an organization called the Right Stuff, which was limited to graduates of top-ranked colleges! It shared personal ads, and when you responded to an ad, it shared your profile you had written. I had done a lot of personal ad dating, for about a year, but my spouse was only the second date I had had through the Right Stuff.
@TonyK I hope preparing her book brings you many happy memories.
@doschicos & @carolinamom2boys : Two solid prior, multi-year relationships that I thought would end in marriage didn’t make it to that point [both “exes” are still good friends, and both have said more than once that they should have made a different choice way back then ]. I was 34 and wife was 35, and we were both definitely ready to take risks. Whirlwind cross-country romance [seriously] – and, somehow, it’s lasted.
@fendrock Your post gives me hope that there is someone out there for my nerdy son.
We went to a co-op college, and we worked prior to starting school. I met H on my very first day of work, at a get-together with all the other students. He was a junior. It was a 5-year program, and I planned our wedding during my fifth year. I finished my thesis a couple days before our wedding.
Fall quarter of my freshman year / his senior year. (We are almost exactly 4 years apart age-wise, but only 3 years apart grade-wise, as he was “old” for his grade and I was “young” for mine.)
I lived in a small dorm without a dining hall, and was assigned to take my meals in the dining hall of a larger dorm that consists of only singles. (Those familiar with Northwestern will know exactly what I mean here.) I had joined a sorority and in my pledge class was a girl who lived in that dorm so we ate meals together frequently.
I was hanging out in her room when her RA (Future-H) walked by; she called out to him to come meet her friend, so he came in and we chatted a bit. After that, if she wasn’t around, I would eat with him at dinner - though always part of a larger group, as he was making sure “his” students weren’t eating dinner alone. I don’t know that I thought much about him, though, other than he was good-looking in a geeky Jewish guy way (which was fine with me) and he was easy to chat with.
During this time, Future-H got into medical school, and my girlfriend told me this - oh, be sure to congratulate him next time you see him. I ran into him outside my dorm, congratulated him, threw my arms around him and gave him a friendly kiss. Ok, I guess I was flirting a bit. (Is there an emoji for batting eyelashes?)
I had a boyfriend at the time whom I was serious about - he was a year older and I had spent my senior year of high school pining away for him. I invited Old Boyfriend to my pledge formal, which was a Very Big Deal, and he decided to be a jerk and say no. I started crying, and then I thought - well, this is stupid, there are lots of guys here, screw him, I’m going to ask someone. I made a list. Future-H was #3 on the list
Future-H showed up for the formal in a tux, with flowers (smooth move, what guy doesn’t look awesome in a tux) and was a perfect gentleman all evening. We kissed on the sofa at the Westin where the formal was being held. The next day, all my girlfriends gathered round me to say - wow, what was the deal there? - and I said, very uncharacteristically of me, “I’m going to have his children one day.” I subsequently broke up with Old Boyfriend and the rest was history. We will celebrate our 30th anniv this August.
I’ve only read the first page but some really cool stories.
I was in my late 20’s. I had moved to Coral Gables just for the heck of it and it was my first time away from home when I wasn’t in school, studying, saving every penny and all that stuff. My dad was pretty much retired so he gave me a white Ford Mustang that he didn’t use much anymore to get back and forth to school and I was still driving that thing around well after college. I wasn’t too bright. Little things like changing the oil now and then were well out of league so, one day, the car just died at a stop light.
I had it towed to a mechanic who told me it couldn’t be fixed. Looking back in it, he was probably lying but I just walked away. As mentioned, I wasn’t too bright.
I had money in the bank but I decided I didn’t need a car. Coral Gables/Miami has excellent public transportation. I’d walk a few blocks to the bus, catch the bus to the metrorail, ride MR to a few blocks from work and I’d walk the rest of the way. It worked fine unless it rained which was a lot. I got around pretty much the same way on my free time and there was a little grocery store within a block from my apartment building.
One day, I was standing at the bus stop waiting for the morning bus. I saw my future spouse from about 60 yards off as she crossed the street and headed towards the bus stop. She was short, pretty, about my age. She was dressed for work as a domestic helper/house cleaner/nanny whatever you want to call it. She wasn’t wearing any make up, flip flops, a t-shirt, etc. But that didn’t matter to me. I could see that she was pretty and hispanic and I started up a conversation. She claims she remembers most of it but I doubt that. This was repeated each day for the next few weeks and I ended asking for her phone number.
I was a foreign student in China and he was a security guard at the foreigner-only hotel. I was swearing quite fluently at my bicycle tire which kept losing air at the gate of the hotel, and he asked if he could help. I didn’t know his name until a few months later when I happened to take a job teaching english and moved to that university’s housing. He was friends with the other english teacher there - a single dad with two daughters - one a little older than me and one in elementary school. He was tutoring the younger one in Chinese and learning guitar in exchange from the older girl. When we officially met - it was like “hey I know you!”. Definately felt like fate and love at first sight.