I met my H at work. I had just finished college and he was in grad school. The company we worked at was very small and our boss hired H as a part time engineer on a project. We started dating about 6 months later, but kept it quiet at work. We married 6 years after we met (lived together 4 years) and will celebrate 26 years in August.
Met my husband at my post-college job. I had a long term relationship in college that I thought would end up in marriage, but didn’t work out. Interesting fact - my in-laws had both worked at the same company as H and I and that is where they met also, and married 40 years before us!
My D and her husband attended different colleges in the same city, but they met in a bar in a completely different city when both attended a model UN conference.
Both sets of my grandparents had really interesting stories about how they met. My mother’s parents met because my grandfather’s older brother (by almost 10 years) was dating and then married a woman who had a younger sister-my grandmother. Because of the marriage, the families spent a lot of time together. My grandparents sneaked off from NY to Maryland to get married while on a “date” when they were 18. Then they went back and lived at their parents’ homes. I can guess why they got married, being good Catholics and all. 
Eventually, my grandfather forgot that the marriage license was in his suit, and when his mother sent it to the cleaners, they called and asked her if she wanted to pick it up. A Big Catholic Church Wedding was hastily arranged. They’d been married almost 70 years when my grandfather died.
My father’s parents met when my grandmother took a job as a nanny to a wealthy New England couple and moved from rural Ohio with them right out of HS. My grandfather was almost 30 and working as a pharmacist back in the day when the delivered their own prescriptions. He met my grandmother making deliveries to her employers, and she would walk down to his store on occasion. When they got married, neither of their families attended because his family didn’t approve because he’d broken an engagement to date her, she wasn’t Catholic, she wasn’t Polish, and was too young. Her family didn’t approve because he WAS Catholic, he was from an immigrant family, he lived in “the city” and had broken an engagement to date her (I guess that was as good as married back then). In time, everyone came around and they remained close to their families.My grandfather died really young, but his extended family included my grandmother in everything for the rest of their lives. She even learned to speak Polish like a native.
We met at the large corporation for which we worked in Dallas. We were both on the national corporate running team and would probably not have otherwise met in our jobs. We were both top competitive distance runners. We did have to extract ourselves from other relationships. We married in 1984.
In the bleachers at Fenway Park.
I was a chemist in my first job after college. He was a summer lab assistant during the summer between his first and second years of med school. He worked for a different chemist, but we shared a lab. He was my first real BF and we got married 3 years later on the only free weekend between the end of med school and the start of his OB/GYN residency. Just celebrated 31 year anniversary a couple of weeks ago.
Sam co-ed fraternity. We were friends during pledging but he dated my roommate and then another female brother; I dated his roommate.
We started going out fall of his senior year/my junior year. We got engaged on spring break 6 months later; we were engaged long distance longer than we dated. We got married 2 months after I graduated, and it will be 25 years next month!
Met DH at a National Model UN conference in NYC in April 1982. We were both juniors in college; he was at Penn, I was at UGA. I was engaged to my best bud from HS but was having serious doubts about that relationship. Broke up shortly thereafter. My gut was right; ex-fiance has been married three times and #3 is on her way out the door, too (met her last year and she is a lovely person; she spilled enough to know I dodged serious bullets and that he hadn’t changed in 30+ years).
DH and I were on the same Model UN committee – I had a cold and he felt sorry for me. Took me out for a good NY corned beef sandwich for lunch. Was supposed to go to dinner with someone else that night, but got dumped. I asked DH, “why are some guys such jerks?” and he sat down and explained why DH also said he didn’t want me to sit in a hotel room alone that night, so invited me to tag along and go Dutch (because he had no $$) in Chinatown with a bunch of delegates from Georgetown. Sat up and talked til 4 am. Next night we went to the WTC at midnight to see the lights, walked all over the city (he’s from the Bronx), and Sunday am we went to a big rock near Central Park where he told me he was going to marry me. The conference ended, he said goodbye in the hotel lobby and caught a cab with the rest of his delegation. He never turned around to look back at me – I assumed That Was That.
We started talking on the phone and running up $400/mo bills (before deregulation, much less cell phones and the interwebs). Visited back and forth a couple of times over the summer, and by that fall we were talking about the long term. He proposed at a Chinese restaurant near Harvard Square (I was considering transferring to Boston and we had gone up to look around). The school was not what I wanted, and DH said, “you know, we could get married”…and then gave me 17 reasons why it made financial sense to get married. Got married in December 1983. I transferred to Temple in Philly, which was a better option anyway. He went back to school four years after graduation and I supported us. It was a wonderful time in our lives.
We always joke that Burroughs Corporation (now Unisys) was responsible for our marriage, because otherwise, there was no way we could have afforded the phone bills.
Mine is an appropriate CC story. We meet at freshman registration at college standing in line waiting to register for classes. I was chatting with my cousin who I hadn’t seen in years about what math class we should register for. This guy jumped into the conversation to give us both advice. It was a slow moving line and by the time we got up to the front my cousin had long since dropped out of the conversation.
At our wedding reception we thanked my cousin for introducing us which was a big surprise to him as he didn’t remember the incident at all.
I like to joke that we met because he interrupted a conversation to offer advice and he hasn’t stopped interrupting yet. Good thing his advice is usually good.
We just celebrated 28 years.
@luder16 said: “He was my first real BF” - how many of you married your first real BF/GF? I ask because my H was also my first real BF, and I was his first real GF. We’ve been together 38 years (married 33).
Nope. She was #4. She had better judgment than the first 3.
It was a combination of Organic Chemistry and Entomology. We were in the same Organic Chem class. This was back in about 1971 and women were still relatively rare in the “hard” science courses. So there were exactly three girls and about 100 boys in that class. One girl sat in the middle of the class surrounded by a bunch of guys who were her buddies. And the other two sat huddled together over on one side.
After the mid-term the two side-of-class girls were arguing before class over the correct answer to one of the questions. So they looked around and She came over and asked me what I had put for the answer - as sort of a tie-breaker in their argument. Fortunately my answer agreed with hers and, more importantly, turned out to be the correct answer. This sort of broke the ice and made it possible for me to sit with them for the rest of the semester.
But that still didn’t turn her interest to romance. That didn’t happen until the following semester when I was taking Entomology. The course had a lab that largely consisted of building your own insect collection. To get an A on your collection you had to have at least 15 orders and 80 families represented, which turns out to be quite a lot. So I asked her if she wanted to help me out by going insect collecting that Saturday. Being interested in science she naturally jumped at the chance. It’s hard to beat dragon flies, cerambicid beetles, and bird lice when it comes to turning a girl’s mind to romance. Things just progressed from there
I did eventually earn an A on that collection. We were married a few years later and have been married 40 years now.
@Scipio, my insect loving D would love to meet a significant other who wanted to go bug collecting!
He was a young college professor. I was, after working for many years,a graduate student. We met at a graduate student/ faculty get together at a local well known bar/cafe. We were both Yankees in a southern state (North Louisiana) and connected. He from PA,me from NY, but I attended college in PA for undergrad.
The rest is history, as they say. Including all that history has to offer. War and peace, tough times and glorious times. Sad and happy times as well. And a loud snoring H next to me at the moment!
At a party my friend from HS was throwing in her dorm room at Case in early December of our senior year of college. (I was visiting her from Ohio U during our winter break. OU, on a quarter system, finished classes just before Thanksgiving and Case, on a semester system, was still in school).
Apparently my future husband’s girlfriend had failed to invite him to the soccer banquet that same evening and he was really annoyed about it and determined to “show her”. He followed me around the rather small room all night and kept asking me if I wanted to go to his dorm room and have a cup of coffee. (I don’t drink coffee and I kept saying no) or tea. He was worried about me driving back to my home, about an hour away from Case, so late at night. I kept thinking Yeah right Dude…I don’t know you, I am for sure not going to “have a cup of coffee” with you in your dorm room, especially when you have a girlfriend. He graciously walked me to my car when I left around 1am.
He got my number from my friend and called me the next day to invite me to a demonstration of a Japanese Tea Ceremony at the Cleveland Art Museum later that evening. (His Segway for the invite was that we had been talking about tea and in fact, Japanese tea ceremony the night before). Of course the invite meant driving an hour back to Cleveland so I told him I’d call him back and I called my friend to ask if he was safe. She told me he was “harmless”. Soccer playing girlfriend got dumped.The rest is history, we have been married 24 years.
@Scipio I think that you get the award for the most unusual meeting.
@kelsmom asked how many married their first real boyfriend. I did. I was nearly 30 when we met; he was several years older and divorced. I’d dated several men, but most never progressed beyond the 2nd date because there was no “spark.”
I did date a guy for a few weeks my first year at a college (several hundred miles from home), but in retrospect I think it was a kneejerk reaction in response to an international grad student asking me to marry him so he could stay in this country. (He and several of his friends targeted several first year students – we all said no). Anyway, the guy I dated was a senior and a serial cheater. If I had a clearer head I wouldn’t have dated him at all. When our friends made him tell me he was seeing someone else, I shrugged and walked away because I didn’t care. So I don’t count him because I wasn’t emotionally invested.
I left that college after one semester because they reduced my grant aid and I wasn’t willing to take out the amount of federal loans they thought I should. I started working and paying for classes as I could afford them, then found an employer in the healthcare industry who would pay for classes. After I took the language classes I needed for my broadcast degree the office manager (an older woman who didn’t seem to care too much for most of the younger female staff) got the owner to change the policy so only work related courses would be covered. So I took a couple of business courses to fill electives. When she convinced him to stop paying for classes altogether, I gave my notice so I could go back to school full-time for my last year.
My friends took me out to a sports bar to play pool and celebrate. I can’t drink because of an allergy and I didn’t know how to play pool but I figured, why not? My future hubby lived in another town but was meeting a friend there that night to practice for their pool league. I heard him before I saw him. He has the best laugh I ever heard. When he asked me to be his pool partner, I said sure. We spent the night talking, and he and his friend kept winning the table so my friends and I could continue playing. He called me 2 days later. I wasn’t home, so he left a message. I still have the tape he left a message on, and he still has the napkin I wrote my number on the night we met. We’ve been together nearly 25 years and still go on a special date on the anniversary of the day we met.
I met my husband when I worked for a local newspaper selling advertising. He was on my " list " since her was an existing customer. When I met him, he has a nasty rash on his face and hadn’t shaved because of this rash , which he got by being bitten by a reptile …long story there 
We became friends , and I told my close friends that he was good looking in a not my type kind of way.
We both were in the process of divorce and had young children. I had dated here and there , but never let anyone meet my children before him.
21 years later , we are still going strong
H and I were both involved in young adult groups at two different churches. The leaders of the two groups were friends and had made the observation that his group was heavily male and my group was heavily female. So they decided to organize a softball game and BBQ to see what sparks might fly (unbeknownst to us).
We just celebrated our 25th anniversary and look forward to many, many more…
On a trip to Italy with my parents and grandmother after college graduation. We were staying at a cousin’s hotel and noticed our waiter drive to work on a Vespa. I had been wanting a ride on a Vespa the whole trip. My mother made me a bet that I would be too shy to ask the waiter for a ride. I asked for the ride… And yes - he was my first boyfriend. Two vacations later, I left my dream job in NYC and moved there for three years. Then he moved here for our wedding. That was over 28 years ago. Unfortunately, we are now in the process of divorcing, but that is a story for another thread, I suppose…