OT - How Did You Meet Your Spouse/Current SO?
Bit of a slow day, but just kind of wondering if anyone has any fun stories about how they met their spouse or significant other.
I ask this as a relatively jaded 30-year-old who's only really dated off of dating apps and who finds them...disheartening and looking for a little encouragement that the world is bigger than Tinder lol
I’m not the first guy who fell in love with a woman that he met at a restaurant who turned out to be the daughter of a kidnapped scientist only to lose her to her childhood lover whom she last saw on a deserted island who then turned out fifteen years later to be the leader of the French Underground.
I know. It all sounds like some bad movie.
I was working at an ad agency in Chicago as a copywriter. My creative partner was a gay guy who told me that there was a cute guy at his L stop in the morning, but he was straight so my partner said, "Maybe you should check him out." So I figured out who he was (a creative in another group), and then I triangulated, so to speak, to figure out how I could meet him. Someone that I worked with was dating his creative partner, so I inquired through her whether he was available. She would feed me info about where he would be on the weekend, and if I could, I would show up there. Turns out, her boyfriend lived down the street from me so I went to one of his parties. That was unsuccessful, so I just ended up going to my future husband's cubicle and asking him out to lunch. The rest is history. We've been married for 24 years, together for almost 29. Next, someone has to do a "How did you propose to your spouse?" post because my story is pretty good and there are celebrities involved.
Women who know who they want and then "go for it" are wonderful. 👍 Now, about that proposal. Do tell, please!
Mine was completely private and low key and happened over dinner at Windows On The World in the old Twin Towers (north tower, IIRC). I asked, she said "yes".
So my future husband and I went ring shopping. We knew we were going to get married, we were living together, we were older (32 and 34) and so I didn't want the surprise proposal. He didn't want to buy me a ring I didn't like (I don't wear a lot of jewelry but I wanted to wear the ring), so we picked the ring together and then months passed. At about the four month mark, when he still hadn't proposed, I told myself maybe this guy can't pull the trigger so isn't for me. In my mind, I gave him 30 more days, and then thought I better reconsider at that point. This was May 1. On May 26th, he still hadn't proposed. I didn't know if he had even bought the ring. We were heading up to the wedding of one of his best friends in Milwaukee. He was marrying an actress in the show "Caroline in the City, "a popular sitcom at the time (not Lea Thompson, the other actress). The whole cast was there, along with James Burrows, the creator of "Cheers" and "Taxi." So we're all at a bar for the rehearsal dinner. Another one of my husband's best friends from childhood yells out, "Hey, everyone, Steve (my husband) is going to propose to Wendy tonight!" The place got quiet. I looked over at my husband, who wasn't even sitting next to me, and said, "Really?" And he nodded and said, "Yes." And at that point everyone cheered (all the celebs included) and he walked over to me and gave me the ring. I can't even remember if he officially proposed. He got it in right under the wire, though, which, as I would learn, is his way. More drama: The next day at the wedding, a paparazzo snuck in. I noticed the guy in the church pew with a big camera and I leaned over and told another friend, who promptly chased him out of the church. All in all, a memorable proposal that maybe never even happened!
Great story! Thanks! He sounds like a goooood match for you.
I don't suppose you have mid to late 20s daughter who might be interested in meeting a wonderful Ross School graduate working in finance in midtown Manhattan? Decent genetics, great kid, good heart, good looking, great partner material?
;-)
beta, we may have a candidate here, but i'm going to need some biologics on your dear son-beta. please send hgt, wgt, 40 time, vertical, marksmanship quals, theological disposition and training, wrestling/boxing/kickboxing/MMA background, U of M transcripts to.....
i bet your son is a champ and will have exactly zero problems finding a gal.
My niece just graduated and moved to NYC. She has a boyfriend but if it doesn't work out......from a good family, smart (graduated magna cum laude from Tulane, she's studying to be a physician's assistant), very cute and good sense of humor.....could be a match made in MGoBlog heaven.
My daughter is 26 and living on the Upper East Side. Very bright, very pretty, very talented, gainfully employed (while pursuing her acting dream). Currently dating "Mr. Right This Minute", who is definitely not "Mr. Right". Needs to be shown that there are far better fish in the sea!
great idea re: how did you propose
and i had another: what is you/your S.O.'s 'song', because almost every couple has at least one. i think.
Met my wife in Michigan Union during orientation. We walked and talked on our way to get our pictures made for student IDs. She was from Hawaii and I from Metro Detroit. We started dating a couple months later and got married in 2000. I lost the argument on where to live. So for the last 21 years, we have lived in her hometown in Hawaii and have three wonderful kids. We still have our season tickets and take the kids back to Ann Arbor for games and make them endure stories of our Umich Romance. Michigan means the world to us.
Poor guy. Forced to be in Hawaii, and not just as a tourist for a while, but to live there. Gotta be tough.
I was a 2nd year graduate student (music) at Michigan. I was having some rough financial issues and couldn’t come up with the $$ for my last semester. My professors worked with me to shift around my credits so I’d have my degree in 3 semesters (The degree can be done in 1 year if you want.)
I still wanted to study with my bassoon teacher - he was hard up for players in the concert band. I agreed to play in exchange for weekly lessons.
I ended up sitting next to my future wife. We’ve been together for 19 years and have 3 beautiful future Wolverines (classes of ‘35, ‘37 and ‘40.)
I met my bride at the library at college. We are still going strong.
After a couple marriages, I learned that I tend to prefer happiness over arbitrary commitment every time. Too many women think dating is just the part where they have to hide their toxic behaviors and possessiveness before sinking the marriage hooks in and letting it all hang out. Never again. :-)
In the words of Zombie Juice of FBZ,
"Everyday, me and Mary Jane
You might say I'm addicted but me, I'm truly lifted
Stoned so loud, you can hear me in the crowd
Smoking girl scout, sour by the ounce
Mary never cheat me
Mary not a backstabbing bitch that'll lie and deceive me"
Hi. Old friend once had to remind me that the best cure for the wrong woman is the right one. Perhaps you can adjust your thinking and evaluating mechanisms and find that right one? Hang in there.
Met my wife at a training event for work. She was dating someone at the time and I was living in Phoenix, she in LA. We kept in touch until her boyfriend found out and called me. I will always remember telling him “settle down, I live in Phoenix what do you think, we’re going to date long distance?” Well that’s exactly what we did…for 2 1/2 years. Will be celebrating 10 years of marriage this spring and have 2 beautiful daughters together.
Site called Koreancupid.com. I had been in S. Korea for a month and was bored. A co-worker suggested the site and said to just put that I wanted someone to hangout with in Korea. That is what I did. My, now wife (Filipina), contacted me and we started talking. She had been in S. Korea for 13 years and knew the country much better than I. We ended up dating and got married a few years later. Now we are back in the U.S.
German 231 on the second floor of the MLB in the fall of 1994. Took a year or so to convince her I wasn't a complete waste of time but persistence paid off. I tell my kids all the time they have no choice in their lives not to be Michigan fans. Without U of M they wouldn't exist.
Proposed to her in 98 on the steps of Mosher-Jordan where we had our first kiss 3 years before.
These are great. Thank you
They ARE great, aren’t they? I’ve keep coming back to the thread for the pleasure of stories as they’re added.
It’s not clear if I like the stories because I’m divorced & miss the feeling or because I had a great marriage and know the feeling.
Lotsa feelz. MGoCouple
Manhunt,
But my boyfriend and I instead tell everyone that we met at the Royal Oak Farmer's Market for a food truck rally (which really is where we fist MET) exactly 3 years ago to the day.... July 10th, and it's not quite as seady as saying Manhunt. LOL. He's actually in Dallas right now celebrating Eid with family.
Happy Anniversary Moe!
Really interesting stories here. Knew who my future spouse was in high school but didn't get to know her until we met at group parties back home after I started at UM. Our first just-the-two-of-us date was a Michigan home game. It all worked out: we've been happily married for 42 years.
Met at a Project SERVE meeting in one of the student lounges in South Quad, back in 1996. She was a Freshman; I was a Junior. Became friends through our undergraduate and my law school years at Michigan. DIdn't start dating until she was in California and I was in Mississippi for a clerkship. Guess it would have been too easy to start things while we were both in Ann Arbor.
Just celebrated 19 years together. We live in Ann Arbor, and I tell the kids while we drive through campus "that's where I met your Mother". The reply: "Yes...yes Dad...we know."
I had just moved back to my hometown after a four year stint of traveling all over the Midwest for work. I was planning on catching up with some friends for drinks after they wrapped up a wedding downtown at a local dive bar we all frequented during college. I was also hoping to hang out with a girl I had been trying to date since highschool, but she ended up catching the flu that evening and ultimately the universe never saw it fit for us to be together. My group of friends knew I was a year removed from a pretty lengthy and toxic relationship, so they saw it fit to play match maker and introduce me to a stunning blonde that had been at the wedding and decided to join them at the bar. She had just moved back home as well after living in California for four years. Turns out she was the cousin of one of my close friends since middle school and she too had been in a lengthy, but unhealthy relationship out of state. We talked for awhile at the bar and later found ourselves dancing for a few hours at the place next door. I guess the man upstairs had better plans for us after all, we married a year later and just recently welcomed our first son. Love and life have a way of working themselves out. Sometimes you go out with the intent of dating/falling in love with someone else and then your future wife walks in the door.
Bandcamp at Interlochen, summer of 2000. She just kinda walked up to me and said hi.
I literally couldn't talk about it for like 10 years without someone saying "this one time at Bandcamp" and then cackling like Kamala Harris as if they're the first one to make that reference.
In the dentist office. She was the hygienist and must have hit a nerve :). We were in the same high school graduating class but didn’t know each other. I’ve been telling her for years it’s because I only hung around the cool kids. Married 46 years this October.
On a Tori Amos message board in 2000. That pesky Y2K couldn’t stop our hormones
Met my wife (of six weeks, as of today) at work but didn't go on a date until the literal day she left that job to become a nurse. First gift to me was tickets to Norm MacDonald (his last local appearance, it turned out)
OP sounds a lot like me 4-5 years ago, so there is hope! Maybe we need an MGoSingles board
Early adopter of Match.com. I was kinda looking for a fling but instead met my wifey-poo of 17 years.
Met in the fall of ‘88 while working in the advertising sales department at the Michigan Daily.
I had been working there since the fall of ‘87. Decided to work there because my girlfriend at the time applied for a job and I just followed her lead on that one.
Girlfriend breaks up with me and then my now-wife and her friend show up in the fall of ‘88.
My friend at the Daily liked my now-wife so I sort of decided to like the friend.
Nothing happened until we were all at Charley’s on 12-3-88.
A bunch of us were hanging out but all of a sudden it was just my wife and I hanging out and talking. Everyone else had dispersed around the bar.
A different friend comes by to ask us if we want to leave and get high st his house.
We both said yes.
But, in my first and last ever smooth move, I asked my wife if we could stop at her apartment so I could use the bathroom.
I went first and then she went second.
By the time she got out of the bathroom, I was sitting on her couch watching TV and we never made it to my friend’s house.
She had apparently been interested in me so that’s why she didn’t react negatively to my very transparent “smooth” move.
Married in 1995.
Son is 2023 UM Grad.
Daughter is 2026 UM Grad.
Many days still spent in Ann Arbor for football, hoops, etc.
On a somewhat amusing note, the ex-girlfriend got married before we did and since we had remained friendly, we were invited to the wedding. The ex-girlfriend was wearing the exact same dress my wife had recently purchased for our wedding! I found out about this on our wedding day when my wife said to me “does this dress look familiar to you?” Fortunately things like that don’t bother my wife so it made for a good laugh.
My wife of 14 years was in the same “sphere of influence”. I knew the guy she was dating. At a bar night, I told him there was no way he could handle that. Nice guy overall. Didn’t really mean much by that at the time, but 6 months later he had failed and I started dating her. 6 months after that we were engaged. Been handling that ever since and it’s the best thing in my life. I have no remorse towards her brief flame. I am sure his life is fine.
Fall of 2004, I'm setting up my dorm room in South Quad, she and her roommate were walking around meeting the floor. My friend from high school was there helping me and she had gone to 5th grade camp with my now-wife’s roommate. The next thing you know we had a combined get-together with friends from two high schools and we all pretty much paired up and got married.
Met my wife on a blind date. The couple that set us up had taken me on a blind date a few years before this one and it was a disaster. The second time was not a disaster. She was hot, we hit it off right away, and 15 years and 4 kids later we are still going strong.
Very thankful I decided to try the blind date thing a second time.
It was spring 1976. I was in my second year in Michigan's architecture program. Like everybody else in the program, I had to get blueprints made of my project drawings, and the copy center in the Art & Architecture building was the place to get that done. There was a very cute art student working in the copy center who I would hand over my drawings to, and I was immediately smitten.
Being a chicken shit, I was too shy to ask her out.
That gave an opening to my good friend who was a year ahead of me in the program (and light years ahead in gumption and self-confidence, often to the point of being obnoxious), and he asked her out. The story would have ended there, except for the fact that he suggested a double date if I could scare up someone on my own.
I had just met a newly-arrived exchange student from Japan named Keiko, so I screwed up my courage and asked her out. To my surprise, she said yes, so we were set.
The day before our date I got a phone call (landline, this was before cell phones) from Keiko. She wanted to know if she could invite another newly-arrived exchange student from Japan name Reiko to accompany us on the date. Being a nice guy, I said sure, why not. I wasn't planning on spending the night with Keiko on the first date, so what the hell, right?
So it's date night, and my friend is getting everybody in his Dodge crewcab pickup. We had to first get his date at Bursley on North Campus, and then pick up Keiko and Reiko at Baits housing nearby. So we stop at Baits and there waiting for us are two Japanese girls. Oh wait, there are three Japanese girls. Keiko is first to get into the back with me, and she apologetically says that in addition to Reiko, another exchange student from Japan had just arrived, and she asked her along too. Her name was Kuneiko. What was I gonna do—say no? So I'm wedged in the back with Keiko, Reiko, and Kuneiko, and the girl I was really interested in is sitting in the front seat thinking WTF is going on with this guy in the back seat with three Japanese girls.
Our date event was to go see a mime show at Mendelssohn Theatre. I fucking hate mimes, but my buddy had arranged the date so I was locked in. It was awkward, since the Japanese girls had a limited command of English, and even though we went out for a drink afterwards there was no chance of anything happening on my end with Keiko, Reiko, and Kuneiko.
Much more importantly, I could also tell there was nothing happening that evening between my friend and his date.
Fast forward a few months, and it had become clear nothing was ever going to happen between her and my friend, so I finally got the spine to ask her out. Within a month we were engaged.
Fast forward a bit more and we'll be celebrating our 43rd anniversary next month. We still laugh about Keiko, Reiko, and Kuneiko. I wonder if any of them remember that evening.
Great story, thanks for telling it. 👍
Met my wife in the early 2000s when we were both living in Markley. First conversation was an argument--thought for sure she hated me after that. Lo and behold, that turned into a relationship shortly thereafter, then a happy marriage (now going on 14 years), and now a wonderful small family.
Fun thread - very encouraging to read about so many of you being people of faith.
I spent spring breaks working to help pay for school. 1986 driving home in Chicago in a torrential rain storm. Driving this nasty Chevy Vega (mustard yellow had a port-hole window) when suddenly the car nose dives, water is pouring through the cracked windows I am now scrambling to close and almost completely submerged underwater I thought I was facing a watery death.
Turns out the street had caved into the storm drain and sewer so once the car settled I was able to open the window and climb onto the roof. Imagine the scene in Forrest Gump where Lt. Dan is tied to the mast facing God in the hurricane but I am on the roof of a Vega. I hold up my hitch-hiker thumb just looking for a ride out of there.
I hear a double honk calling to me from another car. Hop down off the Vega up to almost my waist (I am 6'4" so its deep) in water. Make it over to the untouched other side of the road and open the back door to get in. I see the profile on the passengers side front seat of the most stunning and heart stopping woman of my life. Half-Persian and half Colombian she took my breath away. She barely noticed me but the driver was the spitting image of Ricardo Montiban greeting me.
For what seemed eternity this man asked question after question as I sat behind this Princess. I could smell her perfume, the golden brown nape of her neck and her long curly (80's) hair. His voice was like the teacher in Peanuts almost incoherent to me. Finally he introduces this woman as his Daughter. She very quickly turned her face over her left shoulder and even more beautiful then the profile I am rocked! She says 'Hi" and is gone back to facing the window before I could even mutter a word in response.
Her Father just keeps asking question after question and all I can think of is my need to get this woman to take notice or even acknowledge my existence. When he asked me what I am doing and I share that I am away at school he shares that he had been trying to get his Daughter to go away to school as she had been going to school locally. I then asked that if she was free for dinner tonight I could tell her all about it. He responds "Absolutely!" She looked at him mouth open, turns back around to look at me with a smile, looks back at him and says..."Ok."
I would learn later it was her idea to offer to give me a ride. We spent every day of the 2 weeks over spring break 1986 together. When time to return to school I asked to keep seeing each other long distance and I was CRUSHED when she did not think that was a good idea. I went back to Carbondale (8 hours from Chicago) figuring I read things wrong.
She sent me an anonymous Christmas Card with just OOXX in the signature (postmarked her city) and I called - she denied ever sending that card for 2 years. Married 1989 and (3) Daughters later.
My buddy was dating a co-worker of my future wife's. They set us up. My wife had just broken an engagement, and reluctantly agreed to go on the first blind date of her life. She was ready to cancel at the last minute, but her mom talked her into going.
The first date was fun, but not mind-blowing...and my future wife was so far out of my league that I hesitated before asking her out on Date #2. We had been dating for about 6 weeks when my buddy and her co-worker had a nasty break-up. (Of course, we ultimately had to invite both to our wedding. There was considerable angst over the seating chart!)
Married for almost 28 years, with one incredible daughter.
At some point, we might need to get your "one incredible daughter" and my younger, very fine son (who thankfully just broke up with Ms. Wrong) to at least meet for a cup of coffee in NYC.
I walked by her at a party and she said “I like your shoes.” They were the white on blue Nike Cortez. Same ones George Costanza wore. We chatted it up and I got her number. We hung out a few times, but a few of my close gal pals hated her because their exes had a crush on her. I ended up ghosting her.
10 years later I found her on Facebook and I started looking through her pics. She has this pic of her in a bikini and it just drove me wild. I messaged her and we started talking. I almost fucked it up again a few more times in the beginning, but she was persistent. I’m glad she was because she’s the best thing that ever happened to me