Dog 1 - followed me home while walking late at night with who I thought would be my forever person

Dog 2 - gifted by who I thought would be my forever person after talking about starting a family

Dog 3 - daughter to Dog 2…little rascal started his own family

At the front door of the church we would wind up getting married in.

I was in seminary. It was the start of my second year and in two weeks I would be spending all my Sundays at my assigned parish for “field education.” There was another parish that I enjoyed worshiping and a group of my fellow students were going to be there. So I took the Metro in, wound up walking in the wrong direction, after turning around I see this very pretty girl across the way as I waited for the cross-walk signal. I cross and wind up walking behind her.

I didn’t want to come across as a creep, so I gave her some distance. I assumed she was a grad student at the nearby university heading toward her place. But I saw her go for one of the doors to the church, which didn’t budge (apparently it was broken). Having been to the church before AND assuming that no cute girl my age would be a parishioner AND the general complexities of being a man prone to explaining things, I said “there’s another door over here.”

Stifling her urge to snarkily say “I know” she followed me in. We were both several minutes late. The choir was well into their infamous seven minute rendition of the Gloria. The pew in which my friends were positioned was full. So I was looking around. I happened to catch the girl’s eye again and she gestured that I could sit with her. So I did and we awkwardly communicated various things until the end of the service. After the service we made small talk as we moved toward the clergy at the door and the requisite coffee following. Learned that we were both from the same state originally. She learned that I was in seminary (she had also assumed that I was a university student). She was lovely and smart and I was completely smitten. There was an obvious click for both of us.

And then I left. I said goodbye and that it was lovely to meet her. I did not ask her number. I only knew her first name. I did not want her thinking that I was only at church to troll for women. I figured that I would meet her again.

I called my mom. I said “I met my wife today.” She asked if I had asked her for a date or anything. Nope.

Turned out that the following week a good friend of mine would be preaching at the same church. All of my friends told me I had to go back and see about this girl. Once I started field education I’d probably never see her again. So I did. And we closed out the post-church coffee time. We exchanged numbers. Went on our first date and wound up kissing in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial while “Taps” played softly on the air from Arlington.

Just shy of two years later we were married in that same church. We took photos in the pew where we first sat. It’s been fifteen years and four kids later and I still thank God for turning the wrong direction out of that Metro station.

My friend who was getting married did a friends thanksgiving every year back then. His partner had a friend from school she was dedicated to finding someone for her. We met at the party and me being super shy and awkward back then made things very strange. She was interested though for some reason and we had our first date a week later and have been married for 13 years now.

At that time i was kind of old and very shy since my entire teens and early 20s i was rejected by everyone. You have no idea how much of an impact that has on yourself, but i was definitely depressed for a while until someone finally gave me a chance to breakout.

I was running a production line. There were different start times for the different parts of the line. The person who was supposed to be catching parts wasn’t at his post, and I’d knew him well enough to know he would be hassling some poor random woman who was just trying to do her job. So I went to the department where you would normally find such people, and there he was talking to some cute blonde woman with expressive eyebrows, adorable nose, and striking green and blue eyes. I told him to get lost. I apologized to the woman for him, and she turned out to be very talkative and friendly toward me. I went back to my area and spent all day trying to forget about her. I went back at the end of the day and asked for her email address.

We have been together for 18 years, married for 16. We have a kid and a small farm. She is the most amazing and caring person I’ve ever personally known and she is married to me.

I asked her once what got her attention that first time I met her. She said that I was the first person who ever stood up for her, the first person who ever stood between her and someone else and said “stop”.

She moved in next door. We were both recently divorced. Been 6 years since and I do not know what I’d do without her.

Met my husband at a church we used to go to (I’ve since denounced religion). He asked if I wanted to see A Quiet Place. Agreed. Ended up being a double date with another couple who didn’t want to see A Quiet Place so we saw Rampage instead. Absolutely fucking horrible movie. But he and I never stopped texting after that and did a subsequent date a couple weeks later. 5th wedding anniversary is Sunday 🙂

I met my wife on IRC. She was attracted to the fact that I could spell. That was 25 years ago.

Tinder back before it was shit. Really funny though, she was my number neighbor! Like when you have a phone number digit that is one sequence before the other.

I think that means that we had gotten our phone numbers in the same store or at least at the same time years before. It’s our favorite joke

I met my partner in a queer bar for a kink event. We made eye contact a few times and when I approached them, we started complaining about our chronic pain and fucked up bodies.

OkCupid back when it was good. I’d been on dating apps for years at that point, I was her second match. It’s been 6yrs across two countries

After a big life upheaval, I decided I needed something fun to do, so I hopped on reddit and went to LFG to find an online game of D&D. Had great fun, but scheduling was difficult, so we kept losing players. The DM put out another LFG post and grabbed a few candidates that is remaining players went through.

And so we chose her. And it was great, we were a party again, full of shenanigans and having fun.

COVID hit and everyone and everything went back into upheaval. That DM ended up having to leave so I chose to pick up the reins for my own game. What a game it was. I’ve never had such high highs again as a DM.

Unfortunately through COVID and life itself, we had a lot of heavy things happening. But after a couple of years of knowing these people, we were kinda a found family, despite never having met. So sometimes we’d have calls at 3am when someone needed to talk. Sometimes we’d cancel DnD to do something less intense.

Throughout this, I had been going through my own really heavy things and She was there, treating me more kindly than I knew was possible. She would listen and validate me. She helped talk me down from a ledge or two. She was just endlessly patient and sweet.

So seven years on, we’ve both been through the ringer, been up and down and harder down. But we have grown so much and learned so much together and from one another. She was my best friend and as close as anyone in my life has ever gotten. She’s still my best friend but on Christmas she kissed me, so we’ve been exploring a new angle of our relationship and learning how deeply one can truly love. It’s kinda been a joke between us for a while, but I really think I’m going to marry her and spend the rest of my life trying to make her happy.

Tl;dr: online D&D created a family

I took a bus for 3 hours to visit a friend, they drove 9 hours to visit the same friend. I thought it was unfair for them to drive back on their own so I offered to share the drive.

I still don’t know why they accepted. I also didn’t have a plan to get home from their house. I guess it didn’t matter because we’re married now.

I slacked off in high school and went to community college.

Where I continued slacking off. I sat in the back of one of my history classes because it was near an outlet, so I could plug my laptop in, pretend to be taking notes or whatever, but in actuality was just goofing off for most of the class

Next to me sat another slacker, he was goofing off in much the same sort of way, and we hit it off.

He became, and still is, one of my best friends. Most of my friends I can actually trace back to him in some way or another. He’s one of those people whose ability to meet and befriend people everywhere he goes borders on the magical.

One day we met up to go wander around a local flea market/farmers market. We ran into his best friend who also happened to choose that day to go wandering around the aisles of junk looking for hidden treasure.

And that friend brought his girlfriend with him. Years later she would become my wife.

It wasn’t exactly love at first sight. We all wandered around together for a while chit-chatting, and eventually we ported ways. She didn’t make much of an impression on me at the time, nor I on her, I actually don’t think she even remembers this story.

Since we shared pretty much the same circle of friends, we would bump into each other occasionally at parties and such. For a few years I don’t think either of us really thought much about the other, we were just friends of a friend who seemed cool enough.

Eventually, of course, the two of them broke up, as tends to happen. We all stayed in pretty much the same social circles, but she and I didn’t have a whole lot of direct interaction.

One day, that friend from community college hits me up. He’s heading over to the house that she was renting with a couple roommates, no real plans, just chill, have a few beers, watch movies, maybe get some food. So I tag along.

It was basically the three of us hanging out in her living room, and her roommates occasionally wandered in to grab a beer from us before disappearing back into their rooms.

We refer to that night as “The Accidental Nazi Night” because just picking random movies from Netflix, we ended up choosing Iron Sky (about Nazis on the moon,) Equilibrium (dystopian movie with an authoritarian state surprising free expression and such,) and Fire with Fire (where the main villain is a Neo-Nazi)

So that was my first time really spending any sort of quality time with her, just chilling in her living room, killing a case of beer, and watching movies of varying quality.

We became pretty good friends after that. The house she rented basically became the usual hangout place for everyone, so I spent a lot of time there. Funnily enough, she tended to hang out in her room away from all of the action while we were all making a ruckus downstairs.

And so things went for a few years. I’ll be honest, I never really had her on my radar as someone I was interested in dating and was content to be friends.

Apparently she was very interested in me though, and was laying the flirting on pretty thick, and it all went over my head. Eventually she realized she would need to resort to more drastic measures, and one night as we happened to be leaving a friend’s party at the same time, as we got to our cars she grabbed me and kissed me.

And I’ll be honest, that broke my brain a little. From my perspective it kind of came out of nowhere. I kind of had to rethink everything about us and decided, “yeah, fuck it let’s see where this goes”

And so here I am a decade or so later, married for 7 years, and pretty happy with how things all turned out.

I met my cat in a shelter. She was already an adult cat and very anxious/skiddish around people. When I said I wanted her I literally got looks from the staff that practically screamed “Her!? Really??”

Took well over a year, but eventually she became a silly mush that loves to be near me. Now its been over 10 years with her. She’s all I have as far as a companion goes and probably all I’ll ever have, but she’s the best!

Friend of a friend. I ordered her a scotch. She downed it like it was a shot, then was so adorably embarrassed when I told her it wasn’t a shot- hung out the rest of the night laughing about that among other things…

That was over 18 years ago. ❤️