My story is kinda cool. TLDR: she stole my cat.

We lived in the same street, but other than the occasional nod when passing by each other, never really talked. I always thought she was cute, though. Oh, and she was married to a typical abusive guy.

One day my cat escaped, and after a week of searching, I almost gave up. Then one day she knocked on my door and asked if that cat was mine, because she thought she was a stray, and took her in. She gave her back, apologized, and that was it. But that cat would always find a way to go back to her place, and we kind of agreed to let her have 2 homes. Still didn’t talk too much or anything.

Years passed, and she finally had enough of her husband, got a divorce, and moved out. Came to ask if she could take the cat with her, and I said that’s ok, she barely came to my place anymore anyway.

More time passed, we kept a little in touch, but still didn’t really talk to each other. And then I decided to have a barbecue at home for my birthday… I invited mostly people from work, but then thought: “it would be cool to invite her”. And so I did. We talked, and talked, and when we realized, it was already 10 pm (barbecue was supposed to be from noon to sunset). She went home, the next day I invited her out, and long story short, we’ve been together for almost 5 years, living together for 3 and a half years, have 6 cats, and our first son is about to be born.

OKCupid. And given what I hear about the state of dating apps today, it feels like we caught the last chopper out of 'Nam.

Met on irc a hundred years ago. Moved to a different state to be together. Got married, had kids, still together livin’ the dream. No regerts. Ragerts. Whatever.

On a dating app. Bumble or Plenty of Fish or Coffee Meets Bagel. I no longer remember.

I had just finished college and had proof and confidence that I had shed my desperation and insecurities. I was excited to date. Had intentions of dating a lot, sleeping around, finding a cool, low commitment consistent FWB or something.

I was set to be a menace and enjoy my heaux phase.

Tinder was full of bots, so I tried a few different apps, meta few girls, but hadn’t really hit it off with anyone. I knew I liked weird/off kilter/nerdy girls. That much was certain.

So when I saw her tagline, which specifically asked for facts about a certain, semi obscure animal, I (excuse the pun) pounced And that was the greatest mistake I ever made.

She was a weirdo, to be sure. But like, a cool one. Self-confident. Curvy. With similar cultural experiences as me and a lot of similar interests and tastes. And I like the way she thought about things. She felt the same way.

After our second date I didn’t wanna talk to other women. I didn’t wanna play the field or sleep around or build a ho-tation. I just wanted her I wanted her to like me, to think about me, to want me too.

We’ve been married for 6 years now. She’s still a lil goofy. Still very charming, very curious, and chubby curvy, and the person I most wanna hangout with on any given day.

After working overseas, I went travelling. I tried to book in at a popular hostel but it was booked up, and the second best one only had co-ed dorms. Booked into one of those and the dude in the room greeted me with “THIS ROOM IS FULL, MY FRIENDS ARE IN THOSE BUNKS, SORRY”. I went back to the desk to check and they told me two people left that morning. I went back and told him “your friends left you, I’m your friend now”. Later I bought beers and offered him one. We played cards. We eventually kissed a bit. I went home to the UK.

6 months later I saw a ridiculously cheap flight and booked it. Told him, and wasn’t sure he’d come meet me at the airport, but he was waiting at the bottom of the escalator. We spent two weeks together and it was magical. I flew home again and decided to return in the summer. For the next two years I flew back and forth until eventually we moved in. Six years later we married in the park where we took our first walk together. We posed for photos in the dorm where we met. This year we got tattoos, both with a little symbol to represent the room number.

I’d travel the world 600 times over to find him if I had to. At our wedding I talked about how saying yes to opportunities led me to him, and I still believe strongly in the power of yes. I love him so much.

Man…

Ok, so I was 12 years old and had only just moved from England to Australia. First few days of high school I noticed this girl. Normal looking girl - beautiful eyes, but one of those beautiful people that tends to be quiet and go by unnoticed… But I noticed her.

I was always very outgoing and loud, and she was more quiet and reserved. I loved to do card tricks. I also became incredibly shy when I wanted to talk to her, so I devised a plan

I laid some playing cards on the corner of my desk and waited for her to walk past. When she did, I knocked them off and we started a conversation…

Eventually I did a card trick and knew she’d picked the 3 of Diamonds. That card has held significance for us this whole time…

Through high school we both had feelings for eachother - me, being confident, silly and outgoing declaring my love for her to everyone and asking her out on a few occasions, never looking at the other girls who wanted to spend more time with the English boy who now lives in Australia. I only had eyes for her. I just knew she was the one.

But for 4 and a half years of high school it never happened. She was too shy to say yes, and I was too shy to ask properly. Sure, I’d slipped her notes and I’d asked on a few occasions, but it never happened. She did say yes once and we “dated” for 2 weeks but nothing happened, not a kiss, nothing. We were both young and inexperienced in relationships and after 2 weeks she said “you’re dumped”… It hurt.

But for that whole high school time everyone in school knew we wanted eachother.

Then came secondary school (High school in Aus is year 7-10 when you’re like, 12-16ish in age, secondary is Year 11 and 12 when you’re about 16-18ish)

In secondary school I met my then best friend… He was a great bloke and we got along like a house on fire. A couple of months into Year 11 he asked if he could ask the girl I loved out… I told him “Why not, she doesn’t want me anyway” so he did.

They got together and we stayed friends. I was heartbroken but I wanted the best for her and he seemed like a good bloke, and I didn’t want to ruin what they had by being upset or jealous, and I didn’t want to lose my friendship with either of them, so I kept my feelings hidden and eventually went on to date other girls. By this time she and I were about 16…

The following few years we all hung out with our friends group and they stayed together… I was the best man at their wedding and one of the first to meet their newborn son when he arrived…

But then slowly we drifted… Id message him and get no replies, or short and careless ones. I’d long since stopped messaging her as usually messaging him was realistically intended for the both of them anyway…

And so 4 years went by without any contact from either of them…

Then I had a son. I wasn’t in a good place or a good relationship at the time. Don’t get me wrong, my then partner was fine. She is a good person but we just didn’t fit and I feel I was with her out of lonliness more than love.

Anyhow, I got a message from the girl I loved through high school congratulating me on my son. I replied and asked how she was, told her I missed them and proposed a catch up with us all. I got no reply.

Another year passed and I left my then partner. 4 months-ish later, my high school crush had her then husband removed from the house for domestic violence. I found out through a chance encounter with her sister.

We made arrangements for me to go visit, and so I did.

I stepped into her house where her family was helping tidy the place and saw her down the long hall at a distance and so many of those feelings came flooding back.

I walked up and gave her the biggest hug. It felt like I held her forever… Then I got to work on helping tidy the house… Then I met her daughter for the first time. At this point she’d had 2 kids with her then husband. One was 3, the other, 5.

Through the next couple of weeks I spent a lot of time catching up with her and trying to offer my help where I could. I learned a lot more about my old “friend” and just how controlling, coercive, manipulative and abusive he was for the 17 years they were together. 17 long years that feel as if they were robbed from “us”… But we were so young…

At one point we kissed. And that was it. Finally, after knowing her for 21-22 years and loving her for so long, we finally kissed.

It just was right. There was so much going on, court dates to maintain an intervention order against her ex husband, him lying about anything and everything. His manipulation of the court system and even his own children continues to this day… But finally we had eachother and we weren’t about to let go.

I’d had a vasectomy after my son was born… But after a year of being with her I got it reversed. We now have a beautiful daughter together. We got married, too. Life together is what we should have always had. We both feel it.

Its tremendously difficult being the stepdad of 2 kids that are being conditioned and coerced into hating you 5 nights a fortnight, but they’re good kids. I’m trying my best for them

I feel I have a lot to unpack and work through but with 4 kids and working in disability support its next to impossible to afford any kind of therapy, let alone the free time to attend…

But I love her. So much. And she loves me. I have a tattoo on my side - a silhouette of the 2 of us on our wedding day, surrounded by the clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades suits to symbolise how we met. There are 3 diamonds.

Through the abuse she endured theres a lot for us both to work through but again, we’re so lucky to finally have eachother. We’re 35 now and spent half our lives apart, despite at one point wanting to be with eachother for 1/3 of our lives to that point… We’re not letting eachother go now. I couldn’t imagine life without her. She is everything to me. I just feel so sorry for our past selves. They deserved so much better.

I have to keep reminding myself that had we gotten together back then it might not have worked out how it has. We may have grown apart, or not had anything to compare to in order to see how good we really have it…

I love her. Always.

I’ve never written that all down before. There’s plenty more to it, but I felt compelled to really delve into it that time. Thank you so much for asking the question.

I’ve been happily married for six years, and we met on a dating app. (OKCupid.)

It was my first time using such a thing, I was in my late 30s and mildly curious about those apps the Kids These Days seem to like. I installed one and was basically daring the silly thing to work. I figured if I was going to try that sort of thing, I was going to do it in a very practical way. I made sure everything about me I thought might be a red flag for someone out there was featured prominently in my profile:

• Here’s exactly where I am politically, religiously, etc., my real age, and my firm disinterest in parenthood.
• Here’s my bisexuality but also my monogamousness, yes those two things can go together.
• Here’s the neighborhood I live in (not the nearest fashionable one.)
• Here are a bunch of weird hobbies and pursuits of mine.
• Here are social and political things about which I’m a vocal activist.
• Here’s some of the art, comedy, and other creative stuff I do, and a bit of the weirder end of my sense of humor.
• Here’s the fact that my username there was also the one I’ve used everywhere online for decades (here included) and I’ve had a pretty active online presence since there’s been such a thing, so I’m fairly searchable before you even say hello.
• Here are photos of me I quite like but also some I think I look particularly fat/old/unflattered in, and ones that clearly show off certain things I like to do with my personal style (for example, I’m a cis masculine-presenting guy who wears nail polish.)

In addition to filling the hell out of my profile with all this, I had a lot of fun with the app’s survey questions and generally gave really involved answers.

My attitude on the app was one of blatant honesty. I’d heard so many horror stories about people meeting on dating apps and the person turning out to be nothing like their profile, look nothing like their photo, etc. to the point of false advertising, and I really failed to understand the logic behind that; why lie to someone from the start, as if they won’t actually realize you lied to them when they meet you?

Another important factor for me was that when I got on the app I was just getting back into dating, having recently taken a long time to work on myself and recover from a toxic and abusive relationship. Among other crappy things, my former abuser had spent the duration of our time together disapproving of and trying to force me to change fundamental things about myself in ways that caused me a lot of long-term harm and I was not interested in going through that sort of thing again. I’d rather someone who doesn’t like thing X about me would see that thing on my profile right up front and so choose not engage with me to begin with, rather than have them get interested but find out that deal-breaker thing about me later and be disappointed. I came at it from the angle of saying “hey, I’m here, this is what I’m like, and here’s a bunch of stuff about me you might not like.” I wasn’t necessarily trying to warn people off, but I wanted to see if anyone out there would see all those things about me and still potentially like me.

Long story long, it worked. I got messaged by someone who saw my profile and liked it, I liked hers, and we really clicked from the start. (Our first date was meant to be a quick cup of tea at a cafe, and ended up being many hours of walking and talking around town.) We totally fell for one another, dated, moved in together, got married, and six years later are still ridiculously happy. She is literally my favorite person in the entire world. Her weird and my weird mesh together so perfectly, and our relationship has always been based on complete honesty and open communication and sharing. We’ve seen and supported each other through the highest highs, lowest lows, and everything in between. It’s the healthiest, happiest, and closest romance, friendship, and personal relationship of any kind I’ve ever had, and every day we spend together is better than the last. Among a lot of people who know us we’re that obnoxiously-cute couple. We even have podcasts and other creative projects together nowadays, it’s so goddamn gross. 🥰

She was dating my ex girlfriend. They split. My ex recommended she ask me out because she thought we might be a good fit. It’s been 14 years.

Having a previous significant partner that I split with on good terms has always been a great strategy for getting a new partner.

When local gaming stores were a thing here, I met him while playing some rpgs.

We then went to see Beowulf in theaters where it was me, him, and one guy waaaaay in the back we joked was just there for the tit scenes.

We talked the entire movie (making fun of it), sorry single other guy there!

We met in college. We are in the same class, and just sat together.

Funnily, I wanted to organize a D&D round, so I texted in the common class group if anyone was interested. No one publicly replied, and she felt sad for me - so she texted me privately and told me that she hopes someone answered me. That’s how we began texting and talking.

I think that’s a cute story :)

Gary bar. We’re not gay.

Edit: Well fuck me in the ass. I’m leaving it as is.

Met last year through online dating, met once when we were able to and sparks flew when I saw he eyes light up at me mentioning that the intersection outside my front door really should be a roundabout.

Never knew how sexy a politically active dryad could be until I was seeing one whenever we had the chance to meet up. She’s legit like a forest spirit that shows up from congress with the fey courts and immediately wants to jump me and it’s fucking amazing. 10/10, date the witchy ones if you know how to appreciate them, they will have you under a spell you’ll never want to be freed from.

Maybe it’s second honeymoon phase since we’re getting to see each other for the first time in a few months after I caught a nasty bug, but the needed time apart has just reinforced to me that my life’s better with her in it than it is when she’s not, and if that’s not a healthy foundation for something bigger to be built on, I haven’t found what is yet.

a then coworker that usually threw small get togethers for work friends, invited me to an event in his house. i thought it was the usual kind of reunion with a few people from work, so i show up with some snacks and a 12 pack. turns out it was a massive party with a couple hundred people from the small town he lives in. within the first 5 minutes i arrive, once i realize what’s going on and adjust to the unexpectedness of it all, i see someone dancing in a group of people that i find very attractive. after staring for a few seconds, they turn to see me and we exchange a few flirty looks. after a couple hours of talking with friends and mingling, we end up in the same table. although we haven’t talked to each other, we keep exchanging looks. no one has the courage get up and go talk to the other one. since i drove with friends, when they decide to leave i just follow them back to our car to go back home. but right at the door i’m like “fuck it, i’m going for it”, and i tell them i forgot something and have to go back. on my way back, i meet the other person halfway from the far back table we were sitting at to the entrance. we just stare at each other for a moment and they say: “hey, can i get your number?” to which i replied “that’s what i came back for.” we moved in together 5 months after that and we’ve been together for 7 years now.

She sat in front of me in college English

Guy sitting next to her was trying so hard to understand FFXIV to get in her pants and I just slid in with a “X is actually the best don’t you even” when she said VII was the best FF

The teacher got involved with our arguments a few weeks later and added in that VI is actually the best, which was fun

She got me to start playing FFXIV, 5 years later COVID happened 1 week before our wedding so we broke up for a year, then got back together and got married in Vegas cuz it was at least open

Still play FFXIV together (DT is terrible though so I might not anymore), still cannot agree on which FF is the best. Though my argument has shifted to a tie between VI & X

At risk of repeating an answer to a similar question some weeks or months ago:

My wife and I met on a porn site. We caught feelings and met IRL and it was actually pretty great.

Well, it was not exactly porn but more a popular “adult fanfiction” (almost the same thing) site where we went from cooperative creative writing to something much more intimate. I flew out to meet her and now we’ve been married for about a decade.

I still say we met because of porn. My first message to her contained a detailed, descriptive, as unceremonious as it was unambiguous list of preferences but it seems to be working out so far.