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Relationships

How did you meet your partner?

23 replies

jacknamara · 14/05/2014 01:21

So spill the beans how did you meet your partner, was it love at first sight or did it take a while for you to warm to them?

I'll go first. I'm 40 now and met my wife when I was 23 and she was 19. She was at art college with the girlfriend of an old mate from school so I started seeing her around at the odd night out, truth be told I fancied her massively right away but she was a proper oddball (think winona ryder in bettlejuice) and I considered myself a trendy guy, I had a cool job and plenty of money. I also had a girlfriend she was exactly what any guy my age was supposed to want real glamour model material, unfortunately she was also thick as mince and totally self obsessed. She was alright I suppose, I shouldn't slag her but she wasn't what I wanted.

Speaking to this girl, she was funny and smart and knew everything it seemed. I thought I was a bit of a music buff but she blew me out the water. After that I began to try and manufacture reasons to see her, getting everyone together to go out and such. I was facinated by her, I did split up with my girlfriend and unfortunately got a bit drunk and made a fool of myself confessing my feelings to "winona" she gave me short shrift but after I called her when I was sober she agreed to see me and that was that. I got some flack for it though from my mates but I couldn't have been happier and I still feel the same, she broadened my horizons and opened my mind to so much I am eternally grateful to have her at the centre of my life.

How about you?

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jacknamara · 14/05/2014 01:26

I should say that it took about a year from meeting her to me confessing my love and in that time I worshiped her from afar and in total secret. Trying to be nonchalant about her.

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Lanabelle · 14/05/2014 01:34

Highschool, he was 15 and I was 13. I was the new kid in school and had recently moved from the county in the central belt where he was also originally from. We had the same funny accent, same dialect and knew some of the same people 'back home' like some of my friends had older siblings who knew him etc. We both took the train back to the central belt regularly to visit friends and family and had a lot of time to kill on the train just the two of us laughing and joking about people we knew or about what our plans for the visit would entail or what we got up to during weekend. We got pretty close and the lines between friendship and relationship were blurred a few times before making it 'official' but I love it, feel like I married my best friend. 14 years later and still together just not so much spare time to kill and not just the two of us anymore.

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jacknamara · 14/05/2014 01:39

Very cool Lanabelle, how great for you that you met him so young, as I see it with the right person, one life time isn't enough.

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drivenfromdistraction · 14/05/2014 01:40

At university. We were good friends and had a 'near miss' but were both involved with other people at the time and didn't go through with it. We stayed very good friends, though life took us in different directions. Eighteen years later, the stars aligned, and bang! Been married 7 years now and have 3 DC.

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Lanabelle · 14/05/2014 01:45

In some ways - not in others. DS1 was born when I was 17 two weeks after I passed my driving test and DH was at uni. That could have waited till we weren't so young but we pulled together and made it through. My 10 year high school reunion is this June and lots of people who I haven't spoke to since I left cant believe we are still together.

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ladyl0rd · 14/05/2014 01:56

Met my husband at a part time job I had when I was a student he was 24 and I was 21. I didn't like him much at all when I met him he was quite rough and a bit of a rogue and skirt chaser. He made a play for me on a works night out which I rebuffed (whe then went off with another girl) and so it went on for about 2 years and over that time I did soften towards him, and we became friends and it was a bit of a running joke that he would say he loved me in the staff canteen or he would leave a bar of chocolate for me in my locker just little things. I didn't notice at the time really but he stopped chasing other girls and got his life sorted out, moved out of his mums, learned to drive. He was growing up.

When I finished my degree I left that job and on my last day he dragged me into a stock room and demanded that I give him a chance (he did it in a very charming way) I did and it was lovely. I must admit I had my doubts but he never let me down. Still togther and very happy 15 years later.

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Writerwannabe83 · 14/05/2014 03:28

I met my DH via an online dating website. It certainly wasn't love at first sight and I wasn't even sure I fancied him. After our 2nd date I wasn't going to pursue it further as I couldn't see it going anywhere but my friend convinced me to give him one more chance - so I did. I don't know what happened on our 3rd date but something just clicked and we became inseparable. I moved in with him 4 months later, we got married 2 years after that and we just had our first baby Smile

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Salazar · 14/05/2014 03:55

At university. Shagged all the way through as friends, got serious in out mid twenties.

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GinUtero · 14/05/2014 09:23

We met through Match.com. I was 32 and he was 31. I'd become utterly cynical about internet dating by that point and almost didn't agree to meet him, but at the time I was doing an MA in Creative Writing and he'd written a novel, so prior to us meeting he send me the first three chapters to read, so I told myself we were meeting ostensibly to talk about creative writing, and maybe I'd make a friend out of it.

Within 5 seconds of meeting each other, it was very clear to both of us that we were going to be a lot more than friends! It's the closest thing to love at first sight I've ever experienced and that feeling just bloomed. We were pretty much inseparable from that day on and tied the knot 3 years later.

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Helpeachother4ever · 14/05/2014 11:24

Pub then properly met through facebook two years later.
I thought he was stuck-up.
He thought I was too flirtatious with people.
We've always rubbed each other up the wrong way but somehow seemed to connect on a level I can't explain. We now have an amazing 14m old DD. Our relationship as parents is rocky but I'm proud we always talk it through and help each other in the end. He will always have a special place in my heart and I'm so glad I met him.

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bigTillyMint · 14/05/2014 11:28

On a (very drunken) night out to celebrate a mutual friends birthday in a restaurant/club. I was 31 and he was 27.

I had split from my ex a few months before and had decided that I needed to change the "type" I went for. It worked! We are still together 18 years onShock

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Celestria · 14/05/2014 11:49

I was a bartender and he used to come in on a Sunday. There was something different about him from the other customers. We started chatting and I started looking forward to seeing him. Then he disappeared for three weeks and I really missed him. He came in one evening which was unusual for him and I had finished my shift but was staying for a drink. We had a kiss when I left and he had my boss text me his number. I didn't text him for a week. I was scared as I knew he didn't do one night stands so would want a relationship and I wasn't sure if I was ready to get involved with anyone. That weekend he came back in and by the end of the night we were together.

A year later we are engaged now and I can honestly say he is my idea of perfect. I love the bones off him Smile

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HemlockStarglimmer · 14/05/2014 11:54

At a barbecue in his garden. We have friends in common who took me along. He was smitten. I wasn't. He grew on me.

I was almost 40, single after ending an 18 year relationship and having been dumped by Mr Rebound and definitely, definitely not looking for another relationship. He was just 29 Shock

Married 12 years and have a 9 year old child.

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drivenfromdistraction · 14/05/2014 12:01

Loving the variety of these stories.

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susiedaisy · 14/05/2014 12:01

Meet my exh in a local pub. Didn't realise he'd want to spend most of his time thereHmm.

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Bonsoir · 14/05/2014 12:06

We met at an alumni cocktail of the firm we had both worked for but at different times. Love at first sight for both of us!

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PixieofCatan · 14/05/2014 12:17

High school. In year 10 science. He was fucking odd and friends with odd people. I didn't like him and (to shame) believed some fucking nasty rumours that were going around about him. We became friends in sixth form (attached to the school) with a group of others and were really close. I dated somebody who was abusive and cut me off from everybody but him. I started to like him then. When I left the twat I asked DP out and he turned me down for our friend. Things went tits up, we stopped talking due to me falling out with the rest of the group (and they 'banned' him from speaking to me Hmm), I was doing work all over the country and wasn't around so he gave into that demand. He left that group of friends a few months after the girl and he broke up and we started talking again after I apologised to the group (to which they replied "Yeah whatever, we still don't like you" to shorten it somewhat), I was with somebody else at that point.

He came to visit me at one of my jobs that summer and he says that's when he realised that he liked me, but obviously, I was with somebody else.

Stayed with ex until 4 weeks before my 22nd birthday, ended up going to my parents as I left my job/accommodation and was supposed to be on a break with ex-partner, and then DP and I started seeing each other two weeks later whilst I was on my 'break'. Partner was supposed to be coming to my parents for my birthday and we were supposed to be finding our next job/accommodation. It wasn't fun explaining that I didn't think he should come down any more because the best friend I'd harboured feelings for since I was 17 finally kissed me Blush Things weren't going great with ex any way just because we were quite different and the wish to go travelling wasn't enough to keep us together.

So. It's now a week before my 25th birthday, Best Friend and I are engaged and ex-DP is travelling the world on the 5 year trip that I planned and organised for over a year with very very little input from him, which is a bit strange actually.

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WestEast · 14/05/2014 12:21

We met online. I'd walked away from my marriage about 5 months previously, upped sticks to a new city, started a new job and didn't know anyone. Was going through huge changes in myself and my life. So I thought it would be a good way of meeting some new people, getting a bit of a social life going.
Anyway, he was the only one I talked to OL that I met up with in RL, went for a 'quick' pint in a local pub, date was going well so he asked if I fancied a walk round a local (beautiful) park, then for another drink, date lasted about 7 hours all in :)
Wouldn't say it was love at first sight, but I could feel myself falling for him on our third date. It's only been 8 months, but we're moving in together in a few weeks and I can't wait.

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mustardtomango · 14/05/2014 12:55

We met through work... We were both working the same event, it wasn't quite love at first sight but I think he quite liked the look of me - I wasn't looking for love, more a smoking buddy! We bonded over cigarette breaks, got together the day after we met, he stayed with me the following week, and I knew then he was the one. Six months later we were engaged, eight months after that married, and just over a year later we had a beautiful baby boy. Life is completely different now, and I can't imagine it without him.

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FullySwindonian · 14/05/2014 14:50

He snogged my sister 20 years ago, allegedly.

She became friends with him again and brought him to my child's birthday party. I was a year out of a DV relationship with their father, and he was two years out of a very LTR.

The minute I clocked him, I knew I was going to marry him, before we'd even been introduced.

We talked on Facebook most nights for a year or so after that, meeting up occassionally at family events as he knew my family.

Then 2.5 years after I first met him, we had our first official date.

Reader, I haven't married him yet, but here's hoping Blush

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Emmablue · 14/05/2014 15:23

At work, well for me it was a university placement to learn and he just happened to be there

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alikat724 · 14/05/2014 15:31

Great thread! Am in a VERY tumultuous marriage (was all over 3 weeks ago, this week we're madly in love again) so some nice normal up and down relationship tales are very heartening.

After many years of online dating with varying degrees of success, I chatted briefly with DH online on Dating Direct, we exchanged numbers and met for lunch a few days later. (I'd long given up on the extended chat/email thing, it proves nothing unless you click in real life, too many people post fake/distant/antique photos!) On our first date we went from lunch to drinks to dinner to more drinks, and ended with a very shy/chaste peck on the cheek as I got off the tube on the way home! We circled around each other for about 9 hours that day, but we were both players to a certain extent and in retrospect we recognise we had just met our match! By about an hour into our second date, he was hooked and I wasn't far behind - the first time he kissed me I was sold. We got married about 18 months later, had our beautiful DD a little over a year after that and have just passed our 5 year anniversary. It has been hectic/heavenly/hellish in equal measures. We are very different in our personas but essentially identical at our core, which makes for some interesting clashes but also insanely electric chemistry. Who knows how it will end up!

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CrayolaCocaColaRocknRolla · 15/05/2014 14:33

we went to different schools and I met him through a friend who went to his school. I was 15 and he was 16, and the first time I saw him I just found him so attractive. We'd talk until the wee hours of the night and meet up all the time. Then he left school and started college and we stopped talking. Then in my first year of college and his last, I saw this guy walking through a shopping centre and I said to me friend "oh my GOD look at him!" and realised it was the guy I fell for two years before. I started talking to him again, we met up again and we started going out.
And I've never been happier :)

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