How Did You Meet Your LOYL

allen levine said:

Ive read all these stories, and its pretty cool to see how people find each other. There was only one thing that bothered me.
Stu-how the hec did you bath if you had an apt with now bath or shower, even down the hall?
Amazing you ever got a date.(just joshing,)

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Hey, I'm still amazed to this day!

The dojo has showers, but no heated water, fine in the summer, but makes for really quick showers in the winter

There was a coin operated shower down the street, $2 for 5 minutes, think you can shower and shave in 5 minutes in a shower stall so small I could not bend over to pick up my razor if I dropped it? Well you can, you just have to be organized and fast, and then there is the public bath, or Sento, this is really nice, I love it, but it is EXPENSIVE at about $5 a pop!

cheers!

I guess i'll chime in here. She was the new girl in school where i first seen her. She had just moved up to PA from Florida. Being a country boy from a very small school you didn't see a lot of new kids.5 ft 100 lbs with long blond hair. I just knew i was gonna have to at least try.Well we ended up going out with each other off and on for a couple years. One night my mom calls me at my brothers and says i heed to get home NOW. Shers house had just burnt to the ground killing bouth of her sisters and she was in critical condiction at the burn unit of the locial hospital. It turned out that the only thing that saved her life was the Guy next door was the fire chief, that and this stuped flannel night gown that i had bought her that she wanted so bad.(i wanted to buy her one of them sexy little things) Later after her dad was able to go through the ashes one of the only things they found in that pile of ash was this cheap k- mart ring that i had bought her when we first started dating.It hadn't even been tarnished.It did have the yarn burnt off it that she had to put on so she could where it.This was 34 years ago so all i can say is somethings are ment to be and there's nothin we can do to stop it.

Some interesting stories here... My LOML is my second partner, the first didn't take so well... but did provide me with my son - my pride and joy... After the first marriage failed, I took custody of him and spent the next 15 years raising him... My LOML worked for a local South American carrier that I had used in the past, but after several screw ups, I was fed up and had removed them from my list of usual carriers. I had a shipment one day that would not fit on any of my acceptable list of carriers.... I had to call the screw up carrier.. The voice on the other end of the line was friendly sounding and very accommodating.. we talked for about 30 minutes. I asked for a rate quote, expecting to have a long wait until someone got back to me, but in 5 minutes I had a call back... Another 30 minute conversation. I started using the carrier again, and became a regular customer.
A few months later they had an open house and I was invited as one of their good customers. She was hosting and introduced herself... I wasn't particularly interested, had a beer and left.
Two months later, at the Houston Cargo Association Christmas party, she called and asked if I would go as her escort... after a moments hesitation, I said "Sure why not"
That was December...we were married at the end of March - 18 years ago.
Smartest move I've made...

I guess it's only fair that I tell my story. It's a long story, but I'm going to condense it here.

I play the piano. Classical piano. And my kids both play acoustic guitar. Well I came home from a trip visiting my brother, and to make a long story short, I had it in my head that I wanted to learn how to play the banjo. Not just any kind of banjo but 3-finger pick-style (Scruggs) banjo (5-string). And I just had to learn it in the worst way.

Well, I was living in Calgary, not exactly the bluegrass capital of the world, and I could not find a banjo teacher. That is I couldn't find a teacher who would teach 3-finger pick-style (Scruggs) banjo (5-string). Not within a 100 miles. I could find people to teach "frailing" banjo or tenor banjo, but that's not what I wanted.

I searched high and low and just as I was giving up hope, I finally found a Bluegrass association website based in Calgary so I emailed everyone on the board of directors asking if anyone could find me a teacher......And Glassman emailed me back, "I can find you a teacher." Turns out he's an expert banjo (bluegrass) musician.

And the rest is history. Now I have my own private teacher--permanently. I'm learning guitar too. No place for keyboards in a Bluegrass jam....

boy oh boy, you sure had to pay him some price for private lessons.

I was drafted shortly after college and eventually sent to Vietnam, where I was assigned to MACV HQ in Saigon doing computer programming. My future wife was also in Vietnam working for Control Data. We worked in the same office. We were married in 1972, a year after we returned to the US.

I usually tell some more dramatic stories but the above is how it really happened.

Mike

I was on Temporary duty in the Navy at Philly Navel Station. Went to a USO/GSO dance with two other guys. Walked into the hall and there she was across the room in a pink cihiffon dress, with two of her friends.

The next week, I was transferred to Camp Perry, Ohio for the National Rifle and Pistol Championship.

Went home to Dayton for a week before being transferred to The Mediterrian aboard the USS Springfield, Command for 7th Fleet. Tranfering to Mcguire AFB allowed me a day in Philly.

As we rode the bus to Mcguire, we decided to keep in touch, but no commitments.

One year later, our ship came to Boston to get some work done. I took a Class A school for six weeks, then a shipmate wanted to sell a bus ticket to Philly so he could do something- don't know what. So I called Barb - got her Mother. She said "Come on down. We have a spare bed. When I arrived, Barb was still at work. BIG surprise! Spent the weekend seeing the sites then back to the ship. Got another chance to see Barb in July - It was her Birthday. Another surprise. Spent Sunday rowing around, finally talking about how many kids we wanted. That was my proposal! Quite a line if I do say myself!

We were married that November. By the way, when I left for the Med Barb's mother told her that I was going to come back and marry her. I DIDN"T know I was going to!

Bruce

PS: our total time together before marriage was 148 Hours and we're still together 43 years later!

Becky and I were high school sweethearts. I asked her to a DeMolay dance in the fall of 1962 and we hit it off. We dated through high school and both attended Indiana State University. Things continued to go well and we married on August 27, 1967. She hasn't kicked me out yet.

It was December of 1972, I was a Jr in High School. The girl I had been going steady with for the past 2 years broke up with me a month or two before. Our church choir was on a bus trip somewhere, don't even remember where now, and I was sitting a few rows behind the former girl friend, and there a row or two on the other side of her was this girl. I know I stared at her the whole trip. She was a Sr. and went to a little school outside of town. As a high school student, she was our choir's pianist, so she was pretty good. We talked some at church after that, started sitting together during the services. By that time I was in the start of track season, gone every weekend all over the state and into Texas even that February. I was too tired to think about anything when I got home. During that Spring, we went on 2 real dates. One after the local track meet. A week or two after the state finals I asked her to go steady. Got grounded for 2 weeks because I stayed out too late on a night before finals.
Later that summer, we went on a mission trip at church. Eating at a Luby's in Harlingen Glenna and I walked past the table with our Pastor, Music and Youth director. I think it was Pete, the Music director that spoke up and greeted us as "Mr and Mrs O'Dell and asked how we were. We were taken by surprise, but I thought it was neat that others saw what I knew.
I went to Jr college in Texas on a track scholarship, then transferred to Baylor to finish my degree. We got married my second year at Baylor. Not sure I could have gotten through without her! That was 33 years ago last August 5th. With her being sick, this year has been our toughest. But it's only made me love her more, if that was even possible. Jim.

We were setup to casually meet at a backyard gathering in the fall of 1986 by a mutual friend. We hit it off and started dating.

She went to Chubb Institute for Computer Programming while I was going to Rutgers. The course of study and computer programming in general seemed cool to me. After I washed out at Rutgers I also attended Chubb, got a programming job and never looked back.

We had dated for six years when we got married in Nov 1992. 18 years later here we are - still happily married.

Cheers

Jim

Well, I'm really bad at all the dates and things, but the gist of it is that I had been bopping around a bit from a few jobs, and ended up getting a job with a company that required me to move to South Carolina. I got an apartment there and all was well, except that the project I was working on there was based on some false assumptions, and didn't quite work out.

So my company had a temporary opportunity for me to go out to the West coast and work on a project. They got me a corporate apartment in downtowon San Francisco and I made the most of it. It was a few blocks from the office and we'd have happy hours there and stuff.

So anyhow, got to working on the project and this redheaded girl was there. We were co-workers on the same project and got along pretty well. I managed to talk them into offering me a transfer and only went back to NC one or two times to get everything packed up and moved out to the west coast.

Long story short we got together and managed to keep it a secret from the rest of the office for a while. We went camping together. She got me back into hunting, ducks of all things. Eventually I proposed to her on Opening Duck Day even in Duck line in Mendota California.

A couple years later some of my family was coming out for a visit and we were going to meet up in South Lake Tahoe. We thought it was as good a time as any to get married, so we got the rings and thought we'd figure out the rest when we got there. We spilled the beans to my Sister and BIL, and the next day my BIL and Sister had helped us get it all arranged.

My Dad and Stepmom had no idea, but when they met us in the casino and I was wearing my stylish denim shirt and Elvis tie, they knew something was up.

That was in 1997 and we still haven't gotten too fed up with each other yet. We both still work for the same company, although we are in different departments now, and yet we both work out of the house...

Well, that's my story and I'm sticking with it....

Technically I met my wife while in college. She was a neighbor at a fairly large apartment complex I lived at. She had a serious boyfriend at the time and at that point I was a bit of a player so our interactions were limited to saying "hi" in passing. After graduating, I got a internship and worked with a guy who talked nonstop about this girl who went to the same college I did. He always wanted to know if I knew her. I told him the name didn't ring a bell but I did go to school with 12,000 other students so it was possible. Unfortunately for him, he eventually came to realize his feelings of love were unrequited.

The guy and I became (and remain to this day) very good friends, so I considered her off limits (painful lesson learned the hard way from my younger days). I had come by expensive tickets for a play in Seattle (Les Miserables) and had no one to accompany me. After swearing that his feelings wouldn't be hurt, he convinced me to ask her to accompany me. For whatever reason, she said yes and we got married about 2 years later. That was 20 years, 2 daughters, a dog, countless fish, and two birds ago.

I met her thru an arranged meeting. My sister met her at a wedding in Chicago and told me about her and showed me her pics. She was living in Toronto and I in Los Angeles. Her Uncle and my uncle were good friends. I had my uncle initiate a call to her uncle and setup a meeting. We met at her parent's home in Toronto. This was a supervised meeting.

I came back to LA and asked my parents to send a formal marriage proposal to her parents. We got engaged shortly after that and got married 7 months later. That was over 11 years ago.

Mohammad, you owe your sister bigtime. She found you a great lady.

I won't go into any detail about the whys and wherefores with and of my ex. Suffice it to say she got the younger man she wanted and now she has to live with what she got! On the other hand, the split allowed me to find the woman who is my true soulmate!

Bobbie and I had worked at the same company for ten years after she joined it in 1982. I was the engineering manager and she worked in the call center. She became my go-to person for customer issues and she knew she could come to me if she needed a technical explanation about something in dealing with customers. One day she was in my office and saw family photos, so we had a brief discussion about families. That's when we discovered we were in similar situations with our respective relationships.

Over the next year, she began divorce proceedings to finally get away from abusive idiot she had been married to for 25 years. He expedited the matter by trying to hire another man to kill Bobbie, got caught and spent jail time while she got her freedom. My relationship had been rocky for several years and, without going into details, my ex and I divorced.

During all of the events that were happening, Bobbie and I started having lunch routinely. We began to see that something besides a work relationship was developing. It was amazing to realize how much we had in common once we were outside the work environment. Our relationship continued to develop to the point that we attended company functions together. We maintained the same professional relationship that we had had at work for ten years. Most people had no idea we had a relationship away from work. Each of us had thought we'd be alone the rest of our lives after being burned the way we were. The growth of our relationship surprised both of us. We were truly "best friends" that became much more - true soulmates. We've been happily married since February, 1996.

(footnote: the "Devil" in me enjoys the fact that my ex hates to see me so happy! )

I was taking my lunch break at a cabinet shop I worked in in Baltimore. The shop was in a small strip center with a subdivision in back of it. Well I was eating lunch sitting in the showroom up front When these two teenage girls came walking by and one of them shouted "hi" into the door we had proped open to let a breeze in. They took off running after that but they weren't fast enough cause I caught them as they were about to walk into the grocery store. The one that said hi was interested in me but I was interested in her friend Norma. I asked her out but said I would have to meet her parents. I said no problem when can I meet them. That was 27 1/2 years ago. Somehow I knew I was going to marry her from the moment I met her.

Alan Bienlein said:

I was taking my lunch break at a cabinet shop I worked in in Baltimore. The shop was in a small strip center with a subdivision in back of it. Well I was eating lunch sitting in the showroom up front When these two teenage girls came walking by and one of them shouted "hi" into the door we had proped open to let a breeze in. They took off running after that but they weren't fast enough cause I caught them as they were about to walk into the grocery store. The one that said hi was interested in me but I was interested in her friend Norma. I asked her out but said I would have to meet her parents. I said no problem when can I meet them. That was 27 1/2 years ago. Somehow I knew I was going to marry her from the moment I met her.

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well what did her parents say alan???? huh were they shocked that yu could run so fast and catch there little girl

Steve Ash said:

...who am I kidding, I am a painfully shy guy
... at least 10 times I asked with the same results.

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Shy? That doesn't sound like shy to me.
I doubt I would have tried again after the first "No."

Vaughn McMillan said:

...and smokers were definitely gross.

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Wow, Vaughn. You must be quite the catch to overlook that.

Paul Downes said:

Karen introduced me as the guy who took her to the dump and got her stung by hornets.
...
However her brother woke me at 6:00 a.m. and asked if I would work harvesting potatoes
...

The photos I shot of the moon came out double exposed with 2 moons instead of one. One photo was used for an album cover for a band based in Boston Ma. So the photo trip wasn't a total wash. And I did find a fine woman.

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Paul, this is one of the best stories so far, IMHO. I laughed, I printed it off, and read it to the LOML, and she laughed also.
So, which album?

Stuart Ablett said:

One day while in the L-shop I overheard her talking to this Australian gal in just about perfect English...

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And her Mom let her go out with this crazy Canuck?


Seriously, folks, these have been some amazing stories. Very interesting.

As for me? I was employed as the computer guy at a small college, and through mutual friends got introduced to this cute freshman. That's right, I was an employee and she wasn't. We kept that quiet for a while...

Let me say her dad was not that impressed that his 18yr old baby girl was getting to know a guy 5 years older who was NOT a student... But I won him over eventually. 20 year anniversary next May for us.

larry merlau said:

well what did her parents say alan???? huh were they shocked that yu could run so fast and catch there little girl

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You know I don't remeber Larry. All I remember is her father sitting in his chair in the corner of the living rm watching the news and working out his lottery numbers. I did have to take one of her older sisters with us on our first date.

I have enjoyed reading all the stories. It just made me remember that 36 years ago on monday will be our first date. I was set up by my cousin's girlfriend. The young lady who worked at the local hospital as a nurses aid worked with my cousins girlfriend (Shirley). Shirley called one sunday and talked to me for awhile and I was interested in another girl. All this time I didn't know that the future LOML was listening in on the line. A couple of weeks later I circled the parking lot at the hospital to she if she was working. I had done my home work and knew what she drove for a car. Shirley told me that she ws working. So I mustered up the guts to call the hospital and ask for her. She was busy and couldn't come to the phone, but would call me back. I waited by the pay phone for 1/2 hr and called her back. I got to talk to her and found out she was going to be staying in town that evening as we had had a snowstorm and her dad had brought her in to work. I picked her up at 11:00pm and took her to her grandparents. Come to find out that her grandparents had a farm less that a mile from my folks as the crow flies. The rest is history. Married for 32 years now.