"How We Met" or "A Series of Fortunate Events"

[thartley]

We have a pretty healthy age differential on the Feel Good Forum, with some of us looking ahead saying "Will I EVER meet that one special person?" and others of us can turn back slightly and say "Ahhh, remember when..."

So, I thought it would be kind of a fun thing to share how you met someone significant in your life.  Maybe not a "love" interest...could just be a best friend who has stuck by you thru thick and thin.  I'll start it off, and if this post is followed by the silence of crickets chirping, ya'll will at least know something more about me.   


My Baby Daddy
I was seeing a boy named Danny in my sophomore year in highschool, and after a football game, a big group of us were going to Putt-Putt miniature golf/Game Arcade.  We were all of about 16 years old. Danny brought his best-friend, Ricky.  Ricky didnt live in our school district, so he wasnt anyone I would have known from school.  We met, he didnt say more than two words, with "Hello" being one of them.  Ricky proceeded to work the arcade, getting highscores on nearly all of them, entering "RLT" as his name in the highscore spot.  On our way out of Putt-Putt, I asked him what the letters stood for, thinking it was his name, and he just said "Ricky Loves Terri". He turned red and walked off and got in the car he and Danny had arrived in.  After that, he stole my number from his friend's wallet and called me to ask if he could write me a letter.  It was 12 pages front and back of handwritten I Love You's. With Ricky having passed away several years ago, raising our now 18 yr old daughter is like having him here all over again.  She's got all the best and worst of us both, and that is both a blessing and curse, I think!   


Best Girlfriend
WAYYYYYYY back in 6th or 7th grade, I was sitting in math class when I get a tap on the shoulder.  This girl with crazy hair was sitting behind me, grinning, and asked if I wanted to play hangman.  She had drawn it on the top of her desk.  I said yes, and there it began...probably the longest surviving friendship that I know of personally.  We've seen each other thru graduations, marriages, divorces, children being born, family passing away, sickness, and countless personal crises shared over cups of coffee.  I think she and I met when we were about 13 or 14 yrs old, and now in my mid-40's, I shudder to think how my life would be without her if she had not wanted to play hangman that day.

The best things seem to come from the places we arent looking.

[Ginafish]

How I met my Hubby:

Geez...the more I think about it, it's complicated. So basically... 
I was dating T. I talked to his best friend, Josh, on the phone one day and told him my name was Darlene and that I was a mermaid. His best friend took an instantly dislike to me. We eventually did become friends with each other. T and I broke up. His best friend, J, broke up with my best girl friend. Josh and I moaned about love lives over coffee and dessert.

We dated other people for two years. We eventually hooked up for 3 months. I broke it off. We dated other people for two more years but would still get together for coffee and dessert to complain or congratulate. I decided to move to another state. We decided to give it another try three weeks before I was moving.  We had a long distance relationship for 10 months and then I moved back to Arkansas. We were married 3 months later, and this summer will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. Best friends for 15.

I think we'll just tell our kids we knew from day one. 

T was best man at our wedding, my husband works with T, and we are all still good friends. So, um... thanks T!

[Stasven]

I don't have any exciting stories like you guys, but I'll tell you what I've known so far...

Chester, funny little guy, I knew him in the pre-school era. We had heaps of fun, but usually hung out at his place because he lived right next to a beach. In year 1 his dad got a new job and they had to move to Tasmania.

Kyle, Canadian, moved to my school in year 3, and just sat next to me in class on the first day. Later that day I was driving along with my mum and I saw him and his mum riding their bikes down a street so we drove with them, and I hung out at his place. We were good friends, but eventually in year 7 we started to distance, and in year 8 he moved back to Canada.

Matt, he was the coolest. He moved to my school in year 7 from South Africa. After about a week of knowing him at school he asked if I wanted to come over, so I said, "okay". It was awesome, we liked the same stuff, and played GTA: San Andreas the whole night just laughing at each other trying and failing to do medial tasks. Then the next day we went to the beach and did some body-boarding which was pretty fun too. Anyway, so basically we never really hung out much outside of school, just for each other's birthdays, and to see movies. At least Matt didn't leave, I did. It felt so strange leaving, because leaving him these years later, I realised how much he'd changed, both physically and mentally.

I never really had a girlfriend. In prehistoric times there was Jessica. This one time she threw this big party at her place, but when I got there she wasn't even with the other kids. I went to go ask her why, but when she saw me she just ran up and gave me a peck on the cheek.

More recently I had a friend named Julia. We talked on MSN a lot, I only met her in person maybe 3 times. We had so much fun just chatting, and I wanted to ask her out. Well, I knew Jessica because she was a friend of my bros, and it turns out that they had started dating. I never said anything to either of them, but it felt so bad seeing them together.

[ZeroG]

I met my wife while I was playing poker online. One night I was in a Yahoo! chat room with some of my buddies. We were all watching each other play poker online and using the Yahoo! chat window to comment on each other's play.

My yet to be wife was trying to get in contact with an old friend of hers who lives in Thailand. There was a tsunami which had happened just off the coast of Thailand and she was worried for his safety. She was looking at an e-mail from him and saw that one of the addressee's had a  next his Yahoo! address, indicating that I was online.

She double-clicked on my and she showed up in a new chat window on my computer. She explained how she was looking for her friend, and then we started chatting. I busted out of my poker game, told my buddies I had to go, and we chatted all night.

We have now been married 9 months and have a son on the way.

[Ginafish]

Now for the follow up to the Member Introductions thread: Amanda, how long have you known PK?

[ZeroG]

Amanda (typing under ZeroG's login)

I have known PK for a little over 20 years!!!  MORE than half my life.  We met in Geometry class at Willis High School in Texas.  Pretty neat!

[thartley]

ha!  That's a pretty long time.... but who was cheating off of whom?   

[In2Kermit]

Hunter and I knew each other most of our high school lives. I thought he was creepy, and didn't want anything to do with him, and he thought I was a gorgeous snob! Anyway, I was engaged to a guy who's name starts with T, and he started cheating on me. Hunter was the only one that was there that told me that I deserved better. We became friends, and when I left T, I found myself falling for Hunter. I know that it doesn't sound so romantic the way I told it, but without telling to many details, you know to protect those who aren't on here, etc, I have to tell the brief view. It was a long drawn out courtship. Maybe Hunter can tell it better!

[PK]

I was dating T.

We became friends, and when I left T, I found myself falling for Hunter.

Wait a minute! Heather and Ginafish BOTH dated T ?!?!

[In2Kermit]

I said his name starts with T!

[Hunter]

I dunno if I can tell it much better. You'd have to actually know me to know a lot of the details. Anyhow, in my defense, and Heathers, we both hung out with the same group of friends. What we didn't know at the time is that our friends were actually trying to keep us apart. The guys all wanted to go out with her and the girls all had a crush on me. (nope, no narcissism, that's really how it happened.) So the guys would tell me these horror stories about things she supposedly said about me, and the girls told her about all these girls I supposedly slept with and dumped. We didn't talk to each other much - though the few times we did we left wishing that things were different between us. Years later I got married, she got engaged, then my life got turned upside down. (theres a lot of personal family stuff here so I won't go into it.) Basically, she found me again, and we started clearing out the misconceptions we had about each other, then formed a pretty great friendship. She was still engaged, my wife at the time left me for someone else. When Heather found out her fiancee was, well, doing some pretty stupid stuff, I was pretty adamant that she deserved better - just never thought she'd choose me.
There may be a lot of things I wish I could do over again, but she's not one of them.

[PK]

There may be a lot of things I wish I could do over again, but she's not one of them.

That's a great comment.


How we met stories are always fun. Thanks for sharing all these moments.

[ZeroG]

What is cool is how these breakups in our past, usually sparked by some event, or series of events, are so painful at the time, yet they end up being fortunate events leading to the relationships we have now.

[Brandon]

I don't have any really neat stories like that, since I am only 21... but I'll share two....

Meeting my best friend Daniel

It was my first year of high-school, and I decided to try playing in the home school volleyball league.  I enjoyed sports and I needed the exercise.  Anyway, that was the year Star Wars, Episode 1 had come out, and I was DEEPLY obsessed with it!  So, Daniel and I started chatting because we were on the same team, and I found he shared my obsession of Star Wars, and we had both seen it 9 times in the theater.  Anyway, we exchanged email address's and began communicating during the week.  He sent me some short stories he'd written and I loved them.  I told him he needed to write more, and I wanted to write some as well!  Thus began the Noa/Rice partnership that would one day produce the film Smuggler's Ransom, and more.  We have been best friends since, and our work partnership has only made it stronger. 

Meeting my girlfriend Rachael

This is quite a story of coincidences in many ways. The story begins almost 4 years ago, in 2003.  My family had just switched church's to a much smaller church, and Rachael had become good friends with my sister. So Rachael began to hang out at our house a lot, and I immediately took a liking to her. Her and I began IM'ing on the computer and emailing each other.  Before we knew it we totally liked each other.  It was weird, because she was quite a bit younger than I (three years to be exact) so, we kind of just hung out in groups and with our families, but soon I wanted to be away from everyone and against her parents and my parents wishes I lied about where we were and what we were doing, etc.  So, Rachael very maturely said we should break up.  I was devastated and heartbroken, and I truly never thought we'd ever even be able to be friends again.  We blocked each other on IM and didn't speak for three years.  Then last August I set up a new IM screen name and imported all my old contacts into the address book.  Anyway, she popped up on there, and I was like, "Oh it's Rachael, haven't talked to her in awhile" So, I said hi, and we chit-chatted for awhile.  Our IM conversations were sparse at first, once every couple weeks, once a week, then three times a week, then every other day, then every day, then I started texting her and calling her.  Then one day I thought it would be fun to go have coffee with her, and just catch up on life.  So, I asked her out to coffee, she said yes, and then she went ahead and gave me the "this is nothing more than JUST friends" speech.  I was totally cool with that that night, but the next day I wasn't!  I realized I really liked her, and that I wanted a second chance, but I decided to wait to tell her what I felt for awhile... so, we hung out again at a concert and had a BLAST!  Then I finally decided I needed to tell her, so on Valentine's day, I called her and was completely honest about how I felt, and I found out later the moment she hung up the phone she burst into tears, overwhelmed by everything.  Then I didn't talk to her for a few days, and finally asked if she wanted to go to the beach with me, my brother, and his wife.  She said YES, and I knew she wasn't opposed to us getting back together again!  Anyway, we went out several more times after that, and now we're officially back together again.  We both are kind of shocked, and never thought it would ever happen.  We are both very happy though

[thartley]

These are really interesting posts...life is pretty random sometimes.