How Did You Meet Your Mate?

[Connie]

Let's share our meeting stories of how we met our significant others! Props to you if it is also ABCOTD worthy!

I'll go first:

In 2005 I met this guy on a dating site, and we had 2 dates. On our first date he took me to a coffee shop that had computers and internet service. At one point during the date he says 'Oh my God, look behind you!" I turn and look and they guy behind me is on one of the computers looking at gay porn. We had a good laugh about that. For our second date we met at a restaurant that has a secluded parking lot around back. After the meal we left and took his car, went to the movies and hung out and chatted. After the movie he dropped me back off at my car in the parking lot where there were no street lights or any other sources of light, and I noticed my windows were frosted over. It was almost 1am. I got out of his car and got my scraper and started scraping the windows. He drove off with me standing out there scraping my car windows! I stood there staring, thinking 'no he's not going to drive off and leave me here...' then he did. I had to make a quick choice if I was going to stay outside of my car in the secluded darkness of a bad neighbourhood, or drive without being able to see. I chose to drive without being able to see, got home, sent him an angry message and blocked him. He sent me an apology letter and after a few months I got another email from him asking if I still wanted to see him. I didn't.

In September 2008 I was playing around on my computer with MSN, and I found a feature where you can see who has you added to their list. I was shocked to see that he still had me added 3 years later. I readded him, as I was still single and had seen his profile on other dating sites that I was also a member. We started talking, and then started dating, and the rest is history.

[Mabel]

enjoyed your story!

[Easysqueezy]

So Connie, did he get some class during your 3 year break?

[Nikki C]

I've always wanted to post my "how we met and dated and got together" story for the blog, since I was TOTALLY a bad date and remained shocked to this day that Scientist Novio and I are still together, but I could never figure out a way to tell the story well in 600 words or less. Perhaps some day...

[Nikki]

If you do it Nikki C I'll give your name back to you!! Do it!

[Nikki C]

FINE! I will work hard to submit the catalog of awful and awkward things I did on my first three dates with the future husband-to-be.

Also, I'm HIGHLY cranky that no one on the blog wished my congratulations on my recent engagement.

[Howie Feltersnatch]

Now why would anybody congratulate somebody else on an engagement?
Life is over as you know it!

[Nikki C]

I'm sorry, too, Howie, that we can't be together, but since you're already cheating on me with someone IRL, I've decided to move on. IN NO WAY is this a vindictive ploy to make you jealous so you'll come crawling back to me. FYI.

[Connie]

He did learn a little something. He was completely paranoid that he was going to screw up again so he would stand there and stare at me as I drove away before getting in his car. He was also nervous about me scraping my own windows. Alls well that ends well.

And Nikki it's okay if you can't write your story in less than 600 words, I told mine in 347!

[Bluejae]

Do it Nikki, do it!  Maybe it's a 3 parter?  Doesn't matter how long it is - you know we'll gladly read every word.  

And congratulations. :)

[theMediator]

Yes! I have been waiting, biding my time until someone asked this question...

The following is completely true, and though I may have forgotten some of the details since, I have not embellished or added anything to this story.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Before my wife-to-be Alycia and I really met, we were friends of friends. We would hang out with the same kids at high school, but never really talked to each other, and certainly had never met outside the school grounds. I was a senior and she a year younger. On the second-to-last day before Christmas break, we decided to walk over to Safeway during our lunch break (why, I don't remember) which was only a couple blocks away from our school.

The four of us, Stephen, Angela, Alycia, and I were walking down an icy road when Stephen (who must have only weighed max 120 lbs) decided to jump on Alycia's back without warning her - she carried him for a few steps then put him down. Afterwards, I somehow got the bright idea that it would be funny to do the same thing...

(Now you have to understand the kind of person I was back then - quiet, introverted, a little unusual. For me to decide to do something like this was completely unlike me and I still don't know why I did it. It's also important to note that I was closer to 210 lbs.)

...which did not go over so well. She immediately toppled over and landed on her face in the snow with me on top of her. I immediately got off of her, but not before uttering one of the stupidest things anyone could have said in that situation: "Another few seconds and you might have been pregnant." Again, I have no idea why I said it, but needless to say I didn't speak again for the rest of the trip.

As luck would have it, the very next day (I hadn't seen Alycia since the day before) I was struck with appendicitis and had to be taken to the hospital to have my appendix removed 3 days before Christmas.

Fast-forward 2 weeks and I'm back at school - without having seen/talked to Alycia since I jumped on her. It is at this time that I decide that I better start talking to her since she would hang out with the same people I did and I didn't want it to be awkward all the time. I didn't bring up what had happened and neither did she, which was fine by me, and eventually we became best friends. However, little did I know, and this is important, she had completely forgotten that I was the guy that had jumped on her!

She didn't find out until 6 months after we started dating that it was me.

To be continued... Our First Date

[theMediator]

I'll keep this one a little shorter.

Alycia and I made plans to go and see a movie even though she was volunteering at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People (MTYP) that night, something she had been doing for years by this point. So instead of me picking her up after she asked and I agreed to come along and volunteer as well (ushering). Once we had seated everyone we went up and sat in the back row so we could watch the play, the nature of which neither of us was aware. As it turns out it was entitled "Bang Boy, Bang" and was entirely about date rape... we were both so petrified that we spent the entire play leaning away from each other as much as our seats would allow.

Thankfully, the movie (The Benchwarmers) was much more enjoyable, though she had to grab my arm and place it around her shoulders part way through because I was still feeling the aftereffects of the play and sitting with both hands visible in my lap.

4 years to the day of that first date we were married there, at MTYP. In fact, the local news did a story about us.

It's Opening Night for a Life Together

If you read the article, the complete quote mentioned is "No means no, maybe means no, I don't want any of your beer means no."

[Bluejae]

Mediator - that is very sweet.  Well done. :)

[Nikki C]

I am even more in love with you now, Mediator, than I already was. You've inspired me to write my own story of how awkward and bad a date I was with Scientist Fiance.

Also, you and your wife are THE CUTEST DAMN COUPLE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!! OMG! (I also like that I get to see what you look like.) :)

[theMediator]

Thanks Nikki & Bluejae

Truth be told I was wondering about linking to the article, but I figured I wasn't awful enough to warrant hiding behind Internet anonymity.

[JMG]

Thanks for writing that up.  It's a ray of sunshine in an otherwise murky swamp of sordid tales and dark trysts.

It's really amazing how little things you do, even if it's a single change in a habit, can have stratospheric changes on your life, even years later.  

[Nikki C]

Here's how I met and dated Scientist Fiance:

Some mutual friends invited me to swing dancing down in Baltimore City. I was up in the County at the time and really didn't want to drive all the way down to a neighborhood notorious for shitty parking for an event that I'd be terrible at. (Unfortunately, I was cursed with a complete lack of rhythm.) But, having been single for quite some time (and having cried recently to "Somebody to Love" b/c I was convinced I was going to die alone), I decided "what the hell" and drove down.

My friends had brought along another friend of theirs, Steve, who was equally terrible at dancing. Our stories differ at this point: I remember grabbing his ass and introducing myself; HE says that I grabbed his ass after the introductions and while we were dancing. Regardless, I have no concept of personal space.

I fancied him the moment we met. He was partially against my type; while I LOVE skinny guys who are younger than I am (he's a year and a half younger), he also had a beard and long hair and a hairy chest. Still, there was chemistry. We went to a diner after the event, and I flirted through most of the night. When it came time to leave, we exchanged numbers with promises to hang out soon. He noticed that I had one of the plush microbes of the flu (http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/plush/6708/images/771/) and remarked that he loved those and the Think Geek website in general. I gave him the flu (heh) and told him that he could give it back to me the next time we hung out.

I called him the next day (because fuck that whole "waiting period" game, and fuck waiting for him to call) and asked if he wanted to hang out the day after that. He said sure, so on Wednesday (we met on Monday) I called out sick from work and went to go on our first date...

...to be continued...

[theMediator]

Yay! Nikki story time!

...I've bought my wife at least a dozen of those giant plush microbes over the years.

[Nikki C]

I only have the flu, but I've purchased the following for friends:

1. Mono for my guy friend who I made out with who INSISTED that I gave him mono despite the fact that a) I hadn't had mono in four years; and b) he had made out with a girl who we had nicknamed "Sketch."

2. HIV for my friend who was in an a capella group that gave its proceeds to HIV-related causes.

3. Brewer's yeast for my friend who home-brewed in his dorm room.

I'd LOVE to add more to my collection, but in these tough economic times, it's hard to rationalize purchasing stuffed diseases. ;) Novio and I ARE considering having our friend make little cake-and-fondant versions of the flu (one with a veil and one with a bowtie) to put on top of our wedding cake as an injoke.)

[theMediator]

Though you would spend a lot of time explaining the joke to everyone...