Mine was alone in an open room at high school mooning over a girl he’d asked to a dance but she wasn’t interested. (Later she came out as a lesbian, explaining how she could possibly be immune to DH’s considerable charms.) I had a conversation with him and wished him best of luck. I thought he was kind of goofy then (and I was dating someone else). I didn’t see him again until months later when his friend was throwing me a 16th birthday party.
Then his friend kept inviting us to regular group activities. Then the other members of the group would have something else to do and it was just me and DH. He talked about role playing games as if they’d been actual conquests and I thought he was entertaining but a huge nerd. Somewhere along the way I dumped my then-boyfriend after having a great weekend when then-boyfriend was gone for pre-frosh weekend at Caltech. Then DH kissed my hand one day and I realized he was a guy and attractive and fun to be around and I fell in love right then and there. It took some time for DH to feel the same way, though I’d had no idea he didn’t right away. He says now that he was an idiot who didn’t think any girl would ever like him, but I dunno.
We got in trouble a lot for making out. They even contacted our parents once.
We decided to take a break for college, because we’d seen so many couples torn apart by the stress of trying to stay together. We went to different schools. I dated a series of losers. He didn’t date anyone (despite lots of attractive women passing by saying, “Hiiiiiiii DeeeeAiiiich” whenever I visited… he’d say, “Oh, I helped her with a computer program… not sure what her name is.”). We decided we were meant for each other junior year and got engaged senior year. Got married right out of college and never looked back. Best thing that has ever happened to me.
How did you meet yours?
Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 
December 22, 2010 at 3:00 am
Hubby and I met almost 5 years ago this week…online! We met on PlentyofFish.com. I messaged him, and he didnt respond to me (he said he thought I was crazy…little did he know, I was (and still am!).) So I messaged him again a few days later. He eventually responded, and he fell in love pretty quickly. I had just gotten out of my second long-term relationship of 3 1/2 years just weeks before meeting hubby online.
We met face-to-face 3 weeks later, and have been together ever since. We got engaged within 7 months, married another 8 months after that.
The past 5 years have had many ups and downs. We decided in January after being completely fed up with the way we were together that we wanted a divorce. We didnt want to throw everything away, so we agreed to see if counseling could help. It did wonders! And this past year has been the best year for the two of us. It only took 5 years to realize what we have together. I’m so glad we didnt give up. The fight to stay together is so much more rewarding. I really do love him, and he adores me. Who could ask for anything more?
December 22, 2010 at 5:46 am
Glad counseling worked out!
December 22, 2010 at 6:59 am
I had no romantic interest in my future A-Rob when we first met (which was through a mutual friend at a Jazz show in college), but I liked him a lot because he was easy to talk to (I don’t find many people easy to talk to). Little did I know, he knew he wanted to marry me the night we met.
Luckily, I didn’t find that out until later or it would have freaked me out and I probably never would have let him be my friend. We were in and out of the same towns for the next few years, he dated other people (further evidence he wasn’t interested in me = me more able to calm down and be myself).
Then one day, we found ourselves in the same town. He asked me to take a road trip to California with him (nine years ago today actually) to pick up a Fender Rhodes piano he had bought. I went, ditching my friends who had invited me to split a suite with them in Telluride, which was kind of sucky of me, but A-Rob and I came back from California as a couple, and we were married 2 years later, so it all worked out okay.
December 22, 2010 at 7:34 am
Awww. It’s amazing how important communication is for making a match. Especially when you start out as friends and fall in love gradually.
DH was definitely easy to talk to. It was weird because early on in our marriage I’d forget how shy he was in public because he was so chatty with me. (He has since socialized and represents the family unit well, even in completely new situations.)
December 22, 2010 at 7:05 am
We met almost 23 years ago. One of my best friends worked with my now-husband and kept saying “I know the perfect guy for you”. I said “if he is so great, then why aren’t you dating him?” (I was bitter due to a breakup… :) ) We were supposed to all meet at a lake one day, but something came up for me. I ran into him at college with my friend one day but it didn’t really give us a chance to talk.
Then a month later, my husband had a party in his dorm room and suddenly the only seat available was next to my husband. We talked that night and have been together eve since. Really not a very exciting story at all, probably a common college experience.
But we are still together all these years later, so I guess that is uncommon these days.
Glad you shared this story!
December 22, 2010 at 7:37 am
I’m glad you finally met each other!
December 22, 2010 at 7:39 am
I’m just commenting for the normal dating tips from other people. :-)
The ex and I met at University back in ’91 where he pursued me relentlessly, I was too busy trying to get A’s to bother with all that BF stuff. Our relationship was faithfully depicted by the recent Eminem + Rihanna video “Love the Way You Lie”. :-)
December 22, 2010 at 8:42 am
Oh man, when I heard that song on the radio the first time, it made me sad how messed up it was. Glad you’re out of that!
December 22, 2010 at 11:35 am
Ryan and I met in college, in pep band. We hung out with the same group of friends (you spend all your weekend nights together anyway, so why not hang out other times?), and he was the guy friend that I went to for advice when I was having boyfriend problems. Eventually I realized that I really liked him a lot, and we started dating…the rest is history, as they say. Now we’ve been together about 5 years (wow…that seems like such a long time since I feel like I should still be in college most days).
December 22, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Ah, band geeks in love.
December 22, 2010 at 11:36 am
How I met my significant other?
OMIGOD!!!
I forgot to get me one a’those!
December 22, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Nah, but you’ve managed to live a pretty wonderful and filling life so far.
December 22, 2010 at 11:46 am
I met mine salsa dancing in undergrad. We shared a bunch of mutual friends, some of whom went out salsa dancing a few times a month. I was in a city far away from home, and I remember my first impression was that he was like the guys I was good friends with in high school. We spent the whole evening together dancing and laughing. We took a break to catch our breath and he put his arm around me – it was like fireworks! I would have let him kiss me right then and there (despite only two other boyfriends ever).
At the end of the night he told me to facebook him. I found him the next morning and friended him, he accepted within 20 minutes (this was before it sent you an email when you got a friend request, so he had to be checking it!). I waited for him to make the next move… until that evening when I gave up and IM’ed him. We met for coffee, lunch, and dinner the following day in between our classes. We spent hours and hours discussing religion, politics, abortion, racism, sexuality, marriage, life goals, family history… we were trying to find something to argue about. After midnight, it was Valentines Day and we decided to call ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend (having met only 50 hours previously). We both knew that night that we would spend our lives together. We were shocked at the situation we found ourselves in… we both have strong career goals and didn’t expect to meet someone for a decade. We pride ourselves on rationality in decision making and still can’t make sense of our strong commitment and love at first sight.
We realized that night we had seen each other once before. I had a class with two mutual friends and studied with them for exams. They were in the same dorm and once when I passed by with them, he yelled out from the second story window. We both asked these friends about each other, but they didn’t follow through.
Our 5 year anniversary is next Valentine’s Day. We haven’t managed to get married yet, but we have lived together for four years and 2.5 years of grad school. Our families have all met and done a few holidays together.
December 22, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Just like a movie! Only without the boy loses girl boy gets girl back part.
Oh man, I remember in graduate school when facebook was this new thing that only kids at ivy league schools were on… I got someone with an account to scan potential undergraduate RAs for me.
December 22, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Sir John’s father contacted mine about the size of my dowry . . . no, sorry, that was the original Eleanor Hull. We met during an activity where I had also met my previous paramour (and in which yet another of my former lovers had participated, though that’s not where I met that one). Sir John was actively looking for someone. I wasn’t. We hung around with the group of activity-people for awhile, as I checked him out slowly. Various group members kept trying to set us up, which just irritated me. Eventually, though, I understood how right they were about our compatibility, and fortunately, Sir John hadn’t started paying court to anyone else in the meantime.
December 22, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Hee, nothing like good friends with your best interests at heart.
December 22, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I got a tenure track job halfway across the country and moved to my brand new town in early summer. I wanted to buy a house and already knew the neighborhood near the university I wanted to live in. I arrived in town on a Saturday. On Sunday, I took a walk in that neighborhood and saw a little mom and pop realty office right there. On Monday morning, less than 48 hours after having moved into town, I walked into the realty office, and there he was.
Tuesday we looked at houses and I found the perfect one. I made an offer that day and it was accepted that night. A few days later he asked me out, and a year later we were married. My husband jokes that he asked me out because he liked the house I picked. I bought it as a single woman and now it houses us, our twins, and our two cats, and I still adore it, and him.
December 22, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Nice!
December 22, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Hubby and I started out as friends initially our first semester of college but it progressed quickly – we were engaged by the end of the next semester, lol.
December 22, 2010 at 4:56 pm
December 22, 2010 at 5:42 pm
We met in grad school, in the first micro theory course. Thirty-one years later we are still together!
December 22, 2010 at 6:19 pm
Awwww. My sig. other took micro theory because I made him… does that count?
December 23, 2010 at 10:26 am
We had a class together in college, and just hit it off.
I actually invited her for a study session (I think we were in tax class), and we just hit it off. It wasn’t really planned on my part…
December 23, 2010 at 10:28 am
How romantic! Nothing like taxes to bring folks together…
I loved it earlier this year when one of my former students emailed me to let me know he’d gotten engaged to someone he’d met in my class. :)
December 24, 2010 at 1:44 pm
We met at our union’s beginning-of-school party my first year of grad school (his manyth year of grad school.) I was just there to meet people, he was very into politics. We went out for 4 years and lived together for 2. Now we’re sort of taking a break to see if we both think the relationship could become permanent.
December 25, 2010 at 6:06 am
Good luck!
December 25, 2010 at 10:25 pm
[…] Grumpy Rumblings of the Untenured share how they met their significant other. (This ties back to comments left by Nicole and Maggie in a previous post.) […]