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!

My cats walked up on my front porch and decided they were mine.

Pretty much the same for my SO lmao

At a sex positive meeting 11 years ago. She was there with her fiance and I was there with my fiance. We both thought each other were cute at the time, but we were busy with other partners. A few years later, she randomly messaged me on fetlife asking me out on a date. We've been together ever since. We just got married a few months ago.

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

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.

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

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. ❤️

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.

I met my wife at a video game arcade in a dirt mall. I worked there and her friends were regulars

I remember the moment I first saw her, in 1995

we started dating in 1998 and have been together ever since

We met online some 25+ years ago. We met by accident, while we were discussing with other people about some topic. We then started chatting just the two of us, through email and phone and after a (short) while we decided to meet (just to have a drink and diner). We met and that went quite well. So, we met a few more times and one day, rather quickly to be honest, we decided it would be a lot simpler for both of us if we just started living together not planning on anything special or anything long-term, no commitment... 25+ years later, we still live together ;)

They were in my highschool english class. They sat next to me during a socratic seminar and was reading a very thick book about medieval torture methods. It was also halloween and they were wearing scary clown makeup. I had already been crushing on them since the school year had started but this was the cherry on top. We've been together 6 years now.

Our beloved cat was found as a kitten with a broken leg in a grocery store parking lot. My partner's sister found her but couldn't keep her because she already had quite a few cats. She knew we were already considering getting a cat so she brought her over to meet us. Genuinely love at first sight. Her name is Bean and she is the most precious little baby.

A Sailor Moon fan forum in the very late 90s. We were long distance for five years while we both finished school, then moved in together for uni. Very simple, really :)

(He recently surprise bought me the most gorgeous Eternal Sailor Moon figurine ❤️)

One summer my buddy and I were at his place and he was frequently looking at his phone and typing texts looking annoyed. He said "look, take this number. Get this chick off my back". In a nutshell... I took my new mission to heart

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".

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

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 sent her a dick pic

!There's a lot more to the story, but that's the essence of it. I do not recommend it to anyone unless you were in the same circumstances as we were!<

At a laid back con which was known for klingons and furries. Her friend kinda dragged her along and im a big nerd.

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 🙂

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

Everquest

She served me a pizza. Quattro Formagge.

April will be 30 years together.

I was trying to bum a square at a concert.

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 

Fucking Facebook. We went to different high schools on opposite sides of town so we were completely unaware of each others' existence despite attended the same church and having overlapping friend groups. A few years after high school we were both fresh out of bad relationships and living back home with our respective parents, we happened to start talking in the comments on a mutual acquaintance's post, compared notes and found that we were very similar people in very similar places in our lives and decided to meet up to get baked and commiserate. The first night we met in person I was planning to hang out for an hour or two then go to work, third shift loading trailers for Fedex. I ended up calling out of work, we sat up all night together just talking, parted at sunrise with the observation that both of us had a good feeling about this. Within 3 months we had moved in together and were also coworkers. That was 12 years ago, other than a 6 month break a few years in we've been up each others' asses nonstop ever since.

A mutual acquaintance had a board game night at his house. My partner knew him a long time through his former girlfriend and I knew his wife better through close friends. We hit it off right away.

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.

Tinder. We've been happily married for a few years!

She lived in an entirely different city across the country (Europe, so like two hours of train ride).

She saw me on Facebook, based on photos from a goth festival in our city, so I got a message on Messanger from a profile without a profile picture and no mutual friends. We talked for a bit, I was single at the time, and we eventually decided to meet. I had no idea how she looks like, and I kind of found this idea of a blind date funny - either it works, or I'll get a good story out of it.

We decided to meet and go to a local goth scene hangout, and not only she was really pretty, she also brought two bottles of mead. We managed to drink both of them before even getting to the hangout, where it turned out that she was actually not only a classmate of my best friend (a long time ago), but also used to be part of the scene around 5 years ago (before I joined it), before she went no-contact and changed her nickname due to a relationship (that eventually turned out really terrible). So, she knew most of my friends.

That was 7 years ago. At the time she was living in a small flat, after just getting out of a 7 y.o terrible relationship that she couldn't leave due to having a mortgage, but she managed to save enough on a minimal wage to leave when she found out he was cheating. Her grandma was living with her in her small flat, and she was really a terrible person, even had her aunt with the most entitled child move in, and they were even worse. Always arguing, screaming, being rude, and just acting like dicks. She let them live with her, just because they had nowhere to go, even though she was earning a minimal wage. Them saying that "If we don't like it, we should move out", or that "I shouldn't argue, because I don't live here", while I was actually helping her with rent they weren't doing anything for was insane.

I kept visiting her almost daily, spending time in the one small 5x5m room she had for herself, even though it was two hour train ride. During covid, I was mostly staying at her place, and since she loved animals (her mother worked at a zoo, before cancer got her), we discussed what we want to get, and pet racoon was high on the list. And when she said that we will get a racoon once we live together, I immediately found a flat in my city, and we moved in together around 5 years ago. We stole the ashes of her mother and went no-contact with the people living at her old flat. They can burn in hell.

Unfortunately, racoons are not easily legal to own, but we got a lot of different animals instead. She also helped me with starting to make our own goth events, DJ, and help local promoters, and now we're responsible for more than half of goth events that happen in our city. She's now earning more that I do (and I work in IT), and I'm really happy how did everything turned out. We have no idea how did the rest of her familly end up, but we don't really care.

We are kind of planning a wedding, with only witnesses, but so far what's stopping is that I can't find my birth certificate, and that it looks like it's not possible for both of us to have both surnames (the options are one of us keeps theirs, and the other get's both, or we choose one only, and we both want to have both), so we kind of didn't want to bother with it for a while.

Cats: went to the cat shelter and chose them.

Though to be fair, only one of my cats chose me. The other I just fell in love with and had to take him even though he was hissing and scared and shit. He’s since turned into a cuddle bug

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.

grindr

1. Didn't. Stopped looking. If they exist they're going to have to walk in to me physically and be very obvious because I'm not even looking for signs any more.

We were at 6th form college together (UK 16-18). We began seeing each other when we were 18. That was 26 years ago.

Married 20 years almost

My cat: Shelter. He came right up on my lap purring, never did it again. Con artist.

My wife: art gallery

On a dating app, shockingly enough. I'd been single for a year and not really social so I decided to check out an app just to see how it'd go. He pretty much did the same thing. Zero expectations. Zero hope, really.

We were in the same city. Liked a lot of the same games and movies. Talked for three months prior to meeting (in case one of us was a psycho killer-- safety first!).

We are on our sixteenth year and he's still the most interesting person on the planet.

My partner and I technically met through tinder. We went on a walk through a park the first time we met, but just didn't stay in touch. Several months later in December, they randomly added me on Snapchat and we started talking as casual friends. We started dating at the beginning of the month

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.

Although we are not formally engaged, we've been in love for a long time. We met each other in middle school on the telegram group of a YouTuber. It's been 10 years now 

Semi-blind date. We were setup by a friend of mine that worked with her.

At the time, I was not in a good place and really was not interested in dating. My plan was to meet her, go to dinner, go to a movie then disappear. Why didn't I just say "No" to the date? My friend is a former Navy SEAL and is not one to give up.... Ever. It was just easier for me to say "yes" to the date, go, then go back to my life.

Life had other plans. We met at Newport on the Levee, which is an entertainment/ Shopping complex located right on the Ohio river in Newport, KY. This was in 2004 and the complex was brand new and very popular. So when we exited the restaurant we discovered the line for the movie theater was literally out the door and that was on top of a back and forth line near the box office. So we decided to go to the Barnes and Nobles and get hot chocolate. Neither of us like coffee. We sat down and talked... For THREE hours. It was the best conversation I've ever had with another human being.

We've been together ever since and that was in 2004. We have two boys and live 400 miles away from the Cincinnati area now.

Met my wife at a dungeon. Shot my shot at two women at the same time and the fool who thought it was charming even managed to get tricked into marriage.

Met my best friends by answering an ad looking for other lesbians to play d&d during the pandemic. Those of us who showed up and stayed wound up forming extremely strong friendships.

By dating her best friend, having argument with said best friend, SO was the intermediary. Realized SO was the better of the of the 2 anyway so took her on a date along with 4 other of her friends. By end of evening, SO and I were in love.

On Mondays my daughter visits and she noticed how many cats there are in my street so she started bringing cat treats. Now I have a rotation of about eight cats that regularly greet me as I leave or arrive. They know my car and the sound of the front door. It's added a surprising amount of joy to my life.

Met at a place called Freak Manor.

They sat on me nude while people drew on them with permanent markers.

Met my now-wife on Omegle, and my dogs at the shelter. Which is just Omegle for dogs.

In the local pub. I was in my mid-30s. Now married with kids, mortgage and a dog. All I ever wanted tbh.

Say what you want about pubs and alcohol, but I'll take that encounter over a swipe on an app any day.

"Insane asylum", you know what i mean.

She hired me.

OK Cupid 10 years ago next week.

Installed a package from an opensource repo

Joined my guild. Most expressive person I ever met, 10/10 over the top, so I dealt with that myself. Turns out I like very cheesy, took me years to get used though.

My college girlfriend claimed to have played a part in getting an IRC server set up on campus network, back when campus networks were brand new. Through that IRC server, I met the person who would later become my wife.