I was kinda late to the game, my guess is that it was just because there was literally no one interesting around me at the time where I could have started to be interested in people. But in 10th grade (age 16-ish?) a lot of new people transferred to my school (normal thing here in Germany, in 10th grade everyone who wants to do their A-level transfers to Grammar School). So there was a new girl who did some awesome work in art class. So I totally wanted to talk to her… sometime down the line. I saw her across the street waiting for a bus about a week later, when a specific girl that was notoriously clingy and annoying started approaching her. Apparently no one had warned the new girl about her. I watched with a mix of horror and jealousy as the annoying girl started talking to her. I don’t think I ever consciously felt jealous before or after that event.

Anyways, we somehow landed in the same friend group and that girl was my first kiss (just in a spin the bottle situation at a party, nothing serious I think) and I seriously considered following her to art school after we graduated. I couldn’t justify that financially though and became a programmer instead. I do sometimes ponder about how different life would have been if I took that path tho. Especially since I am actually really glad to have met my husband in university, and the life that we ended up settling in is the polar opposite of what art school life would have been.

We were in the same class freshman year in high school, and we were part of a group who always ate lunch together. The other students called us the freaks under the stairs, or FUTS, because of where our table was. Anyway he’d been crushing on me pretty hard, and I had a ton of fun hanging out with him. We started dating, got married around a decade later, and he still puts up with me today!

Dating app. Months of bad dates, a few spurts of nothing, and then poof he’s here out of nowhere. 🥰 That’s how adults in our 30s date though. We’re looking for someone who can fit into our already established lives.

As the man said, “I helped her out of a jam I guess.” Now I wouldn’t exactly say that I “used a little too much force”, but I sure did over-achieve on the whole helping a stranger out thing.

Anyway, we’ve been married for five years now.

First time was happenstance, when I was 15. I was kinda nervous about starting high school the following week; the anxiety of doing so in a new town wasn’t helping anything. I was running errands with my mom one day, we’d capped off the afternoon by picking my sister up from marching band practice. She’d brought this other girl along, having offered her a ride home. I don’t really remember the specifics about the trip, just ‘ooh, meeting a new person, let’s start the “new place” jitters early’. I think this girl and my sister were chatting something vaguely along the lines of coming over for French horn lessons. I don’t remember the specifics.

Two years later though, I’d gotten into theatre. Day 1 of rehearsals for a play I was cast in, there she was again. The roles we were playing didn’t interact much on stage, so when I wasn’t playing my part, I got to spend a lot of time in the wings. Watching her, being enamored with her performance, gradually realizing I was catching feelings for her.

I made a move, eventually, we went out for a while, it was great while it lasted. But, ultimately, we made better friends than lovers. We’re still friends, or at least friendly, to this day though.

I met all of my loves in the same bar in the 90s. Sometimes the love was short lived, sometimes a little longer and one is still with me for 30 years next january.

I’ve met all my partners offline. Friends of friends usually, and concerts, the park or the pub.

First love I met in a park - they were hanging with their friends nearby my friends and the groups started mixing. Stayed out way too long just to keep talking.

She stalked me on Facebook because I dressed like the Crow and acted like a quirk chungus. It was a different time.

in high school.

She taught me how to cross my eyes while we sat on the floor in a circle next to each other.

I was 18 at the time and received a PM on a online forum from her because my username indicated we were born the same year.

The second one I found from a platform similar to Omegle.

Third I PM’d on Instagram.

That’s almost two decades of my life. Now I’m single again. If there is to be a fourth one, I expect them to be discovered from an equally odd place - likely somewhere online.

Had never had a date to a school dance. Someone suggested one of the girls from the grade under mine in Quiz Bowl with me so I turned to her and asked. Apparently she asked around about me and decided to go with me. She was my first high school love in like 2013

We broke up when I went out of state for school and kinda kept hooking up for a while as we were in school and available. Eventually she did something to make me angry and I haven’t spoken to her in 7+ years

On a bus to a juvenile detention facility. We bailed when it stopped for gas and spent the next ~8 years on the run together. She would sweet talk us into places to stay, I would steal food and fight predators when that didn’t work. She has a regular job now and tries to check on me a few times a year. I’m as angry and poor as ever but no longer young. That depth of connection is not available in normal society. She frames it as trauma bonding and wants to help me integrate. I see it as fundamentally human and want to watch the systems that atomize and exploit us burn.

Life outside the computer? Well, I fail that one. But to answer the question very short and sweet.

Met online. Q-Link, 1986. Been together since.

Multiple points of contact. Our parents were friends. Our older brothers were friends. We went to the same school but were in different classes. We had some hobbies in common. I don’t recall when we first met, we were probably 4-7 years old and certainly no unique relationship feelings until many years after that.