Nicole posted this question on my Ask Me Anything form: How did you meet your husband?
My husband and I met at college in fall of 2001. Oh my goodness, that is eons ago!
The short answer is that he knew my former roommate, so we met through her. But, if you have been reading this blog for more than five minutes, you know I am no good at short answers. So here’s the full story:
One of my college friends (who had been my roommate for two years) and I decided to go to a concert. We were juniors and I had never heard of the band before – and have never listened to a lick of their music since – but I was enthusiastic. I even bought a T-shirt with the band name on it, a little pink thing that barely covered my navel. Ah, those long ago days of baring my navel without a thought!
We went to the concert. My sole recollection of the concert was that it was Very Loud. (I am not much for loud music, or concerts in general.) We may have had some beers, I can’t recall. In any event, we were STARVING after the concert. So, together with a few other concertgoers, we went to a local convenience store that sold sandwiches and then all trooped back to somebody’s dorm room to eat them. I do not remember how many of us there were, all I remember is that one of them was a very cute boy with shaggy brown hair and gorgeous blue eyes. He’d ordered hot peppers on his sandwich, but for some reason didn’t want them, so I ate them.
That was it. That was the spark that ignited what has become a decades-long fire.
After the sandwiches, this very sweet boy walked me home. He was very sweet, and very gentlemanly, and simply walked me to my dorm room and left. Didn’t even try to kiss me.
After that, we’d see each other at meals and wouldn’t talk. We’d catch each other’s eyes, and blush, and resume talking to whomever we’d been talking to.
We went to a big fancy black-tie party in early November of that year, and that was the first time we’d kissed. I still remember what I was wearing: A black dress with a hot pink layer underneath, and a frilly bottom edge that revealed the pink when I walked. I still remember kissing him on the dance floor, all those weeks of flirtatious glances finally coming to fruition.
After that, he’d come over to my dorm room almost daily, so we could watch Seinfeld together. Then he’d traipse back to his own dorm to do his homework. We were still shy around each other in public. We each went our separate ways over winter break – I went back to my hometown and he flew overseas to where his family was living at the time – but we emailed every day. When we got back to campus in January, we each sat whatever exams we had (I had learned by that point how to avoid ALL exams and only write papers; the major benefit of being an English major) and I had a full week left before classes were to resume. So I drove with him back to his hometown – which is where we live now – so he could do something with his car, and so I could meet his mother, his aunt, and his sister. I had to sleep on a trundle bed in his sister’s room and it was all a little awkward, but it was wonderful, too.
One night, I sat on the edge of my trundle bed in the dark, talking to my mom on the phone. I wanted to tell her I thought I was going to marry this boy, but it sounded too outlandish so I swallowed it down. We’d known each other for two, maybe three months at that point, but I was already in love. I’ve loved him every day since.
How did you meet your partner, if you have one?
It seems as though I am doing NaBloPoMo this month, which is 30 blog posts in 30 days. (Will I make it??? Only time will tell.) Details at San’s blog here.
I couldn’t click the link fast enough when I saw this pop up in my feed! I love hearing all of these backstories. My husband would never get hot peppers on a sandwich, but if he did I would certainly scarf them up.
I met the hubs online! I was stone cold single and had a gut feeling that online was the answer but I was so scared to try it. One New Year’s Eve I got together with a single girlfriend and she helped me set up my profile. The next day she had her first date with her now husband and I had the first message from the hubs in my inbox. We met IRL a few weeks later and the rest is history.
Oh I love that!!! You both found your matches!
We also met in college, my very first day on campus, in 1985. She was a sophomore, working as dorm staff and she checked me into my dorm. She was literally the first person I met at college. We became friends almost immediately, but it was a couple years before it turned romantic.
Omg! She was the first person you met on campus?! That is amazing 🥰
It gets better. The dorm where we met was called Noah Hall.
🥰❤️😊 I love it!!!
When we met, I was just out of college and living with my parents in Illinois. He was about 5 years out of college and living in Atlanta, a few hours from his parents in Tennessee. We are both civil engineers and were at a continuing education course held at Northwestern University. I knocked one of those Japanese beetles that look like lady bugs off his back (they were everywhere on campus and one had bit me and it was terribly painful. I was trying to spare him). We started talking and basically took every meal and spent every waking hour together for the week.
(Eleven days earlier, my college boyfriend had broken up with me over the phone. We had been together for THREE AND A HALF YEARS. I was devastated and thought this might be a rebound thing. I guess not.)
We did the long distance thing and one time he was waiting with me until I had to go through security at the airport. We were holding hands and talking. A stern man came up to us and said “I know true love when I see it. You two need to get married!”
9 months after meeting, he got a job and moved to my state. 9 months after that we were engaged. We have been married 16 years, have three kids, and I still am so thankful. 🙂
This is so cute! A beetle! I love it
Oh, I love this so much. The hot pepper thing feels so appropriate – you have a SPICY start to your story. I love that when you know, you know. Thanks for answering my question!! Also, that dress sounds adorable.
Heehee 😊🌶
Oh, I love this story! Did you go to this black-tie affair as a “date” or just both show up there, and were happy to see each other? Love the description of your dress, too, and the trundle-bed phone call! Swooooon!
I met my husband at work. I would see him when I went to his department to meet with other people, and thought he was cute, and then we actually met each other and talked for the first time at the company picnic on a Saturday. The very next Monday he asked me to lunch. And the rest is history! 😉
I didn’t know you met him at work! That is so cool – I always love work colleagues love stories!
We both just showed up, but it wasn’t, like, fate that we each were there; it was an event that we each had a high likelihood of attending
That is such a sweet story!
I wanted to cry when I read…”I’ve loved him every day since.”
This is so, so beautiful. All the details are just – PERFECT. From the dress to the dancing to the spicy peppers to the trundle bed realization.
I LOVE these backstories and I actually wrote the backstory of meeting my husband after you requested it!!! (here: http://elisabeth-frost.com/?p=8529).
We met in church – oddly enough – but there were all these comedy-of-error sort of things that happened where I’m still amazed we ended up together. The moment he knew he loved me? When I brought him some homemade wacky Christmas gifts to fulfill these silly requests he had made; I also baked him cookies, and he saved one – secretly – until the night of our rehearsal dinner. He put it in the freezer for almost 2 years because he was so convinced, before we were even officially dating!!, that he would marry me someday. <3
I am glad you linked to it – it was so fun to read again!
Aw… I love this! There seem to be a lot of stories lately of how people met their spouses. My husband and I met playing a show together, and it wasn’t exactly love at first sight because he had a different girlfriend at the time! It took a while for us to get together.
Oooh that is so intriguing! Were you friends first? How did you make the leap to romance?
First off I am your opposite in school – I loved being a math major because I did not have to write any papers for those classes. Give me a test over a paper any day of the week! I still had to write papers in college but very few overall.
I love hearing how people met! I was set UO with my husband by his coworker. He wanted to meet me when he heard that I was a math major and worked in finance as that isn’t a common degree/field of work among women. I had just gotten back into online dating after a very long break but I deactivated my profile when I came home since we had an instant connection. We did not have a linear path to marriage, though, as I got relocated for work about 5 months after we met and we didn’t stay together during my time in Charlotte since I didn’t know how long I would be there. But neither of us dated anyone while I was in Charlotte and I would see him when I came home to see family/friends. And then we just picked up where we left off when I moved back a year later. And the rest is history!
I was his banker! My 9 year relationship had shattered almost 2 years before and I had moved back to New England to be closer to family and started working in a local bank. I had had no interest in dating or really anything social for so long, but I noticed that he was cute and started looking forward to talking to him whenever he came in, and sometimes I’d go out to do Aisle Time in the grocery store that the bank was in and he’d join me and we’d walk around talking. And then one day I was on my way to the restroom but saw that he had come in and detoured to say hi and he asked me out, in the most non-creepy, cutest way- something like “I’m aware that this is potentially a jerkmove to ask you out at your workplace and if it makes you feel at all awkward At All just say so and I promise I will pretend this never happened and never bring it up again, but would you like to go to the movies with me sometime?” And, completely shocking myself, I found myself saying “I’d love to” and then immediately panicked and texted my sister all ‘What did I dooooo?”. And then backpedaled on the movie date until it became just hanging out at his house and heading over to a local bar, which was much more my speed. That was 10 years ago, we got engaged a year ago and are getting married next year!
(in one of those ‘what the heck, universe’ moments, my ex called me that very day, for the first time in the 2+ years since he’d left me, to say that he was thinking about me and hoping I was well and wondering if I’d like to talk sometime)
Oh my gosh this is adorable!
I love this question! I was at a family wedding recently and just went around asking all of my husband’s aunts and uncles how they met. It was fun to hear the stories, especially if I heard the story from each person separately. It’s funny how each person can have a different perspective on the same event.
My husband and I met in grad school. He was a cohort further along than I was and a much better grad student. He actually wanted to date my roommate, but when she turned him down, he looked my way. LOL.
That is same story of how my parents met – my dad was dating her roommate! Must be a good way to meet the right person. 😉
Wonderful story!
I loved reading this story – so sweet! My husband and I also met in college, in Austria on a semester abroad together. Our first kiss was in Assisi, Italy swoon!
Adorable! Ben and I met in high school… at speech camp, which is like band camp but even dorkier.
My husband actually was the first person who interviewed me for the job I moved across the country for (academic job so many rounds of interviews), which I no longer have. But I still have him, 18 years later, so.
!!! I feel that I need additional details!
Oh, I loved to read about how you met your husband, Suzanne. And the “I loved him every day since” made my heart melt.
Our stories have some similarities. I also met Jon in the fall of 2001 in college. He says he knew after a few weeks that he was going to marry me even though we were from different countries and I was poised to leave in a few months.
The times where email was all we had – no cell phones, no text messages, no FaceTime LOL
Yes! Only email! My husband and I sent each other SNAIL MAIL during the summers when we were apart!
I love these “How I met my partner” posts so much! Yours sound really sweet and like something one could wish for their own kids experiencing one day. I met my husband at a friends/colleagues birthday party in my mid 20s. They studied at University together before they did their PhDs in different labs but ran into each other the day of the party. Over the next couple of weeks we hung out more and more (after my colleague pushing me I should call him again) and it took sometime before we decided to be official about it. It all worked out in the end since that was 20 years ago this year.
This is a sweet story. I love learning the backstory.
I met Coach when I was a freshman in high school and he was in 8th grade. We’d just moved in and he was my younger brother’s buddy. We didn’t start daing until I finished college and he was starting his senior year. I hadn’t seen him in years because his family relocated.
!!!! I did not know this! How did your brother’s friend turn into a romantic interest?!
I love all the details in this story! That dress sounds amazing!
My husband and I met way, way back in 1990. My best friend’s sister lived next door to him and they kept trying to get us together. Eventually, they were successful and here we are more than 31 years later.
Oh, and thanks for sharing the link again – I will submit soon!
Oh, how neat it was a setup!
Awww…I love it! Such a good love story! And like the others, I just melted with “And I’ve loved him every day since.”
We met in college, more than 30yrs ago! So many seem to start their relationships/marriages this way! So fun!!!
Omgggg, this is like every YA love story that I’ve ever read. Can you please write a cute YA romance that mirrors this love story? AND THE COUPLE *DID* LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER, TOO. This is so cute. UGhhhhh.
These are my favorite kinds of posts! It’s so darn sweet that you fell in love so quickly, and you’ve maintained that sweetness with your husband. Did you ever remember what the concert was? Do you guys still enjoy watching Seinfeld?
Coach and I met on a blind date (Robert Plant concert) in 1985; I was just shy of 18 years old. I know I shared it somewhere on the blog.
I do remember the concert, although I still don’t listen to any of that band’s music. And my husband HATES Seinfeld! He was just watching it with me to be with me!
A blind date – that’s a wonderful story. 🙂
Ahhhh I love that story. And sometimes you just know. I can relate to this feeling very well. I just knew.
I love that you went to that concert not knowing the band and never listening to it again. That is so random but then due to what happened afterwards is locked down in. memory. So fun.
What a lovely, lovely story. You are still so clearly in love with him after all these years. Sometimes, it is just meant to be. (BTW, I *really* love how shy you both were at the beginning – and the catalyst of the dance… oh, storybook romance FTW… :>)