It was the summer of 2009 and we were both 17 years old. We met at a summer camp in the mountains and hit it off right away. We spent the whole month together, exploring the wilderness, sharing stories around the campfire, and just enjoying each other's company. When the summer ended, we went back to our cities and as it often happens, life got in the way and we lost touch. Fast forward eight years later, I found myself working for a tech company. One day, as I stepped into the elevator, I looked up and there he was, my long-lost summer camp friend, standing right next to me. We both did a double-take and before we knew it, we were catching up like old times. As it turned out, we had both ended up working for the same company and in the same building no less! We went out for coffee that same day and started dating shortly after. It's crazy to think that if we hadn't run into each other in that elevator, we might have never reconnected.
When I turned 20, I moved back home to live with my parents. Word got around quickly that I moved back and I was offered a Sales job at J. Crew with an old manager/friend I use to work with. She warned me not to catch feelings for the tall, handsome guy because she said, He wasn’t good for me. She wasn’t wrong at the time, lol! After working there for a few months, I was scheduled to work an overnight shift with him and a few other people. I got to know him and he was actually pretty cool. We hung out as friends for a few weeks and well let’s just say that it took a quick turn, pretty fast. We managed to keep it undercover for a few months but then it was getting serious so l decided to look for another job. Found another job and Long story short, here we are 16 years later with 3 kids!
My partner and I met in high school. We were a part of the same friend group of six. During high school, we would hang out a lot but were never that close. Once we graduated, our friend group grew apart, and the two of us started spending a lot of time together. That's when we realized we have a lot of shared values, common life goals, and visions for the future. After one year, we started dating. That was in 2017, and we're celebrating our 6-year anniversary this April. We officially met in 2012, but both of us were competitive swimmers as kids, and we attended many events and competitions at the same time. He even visited my hometown for a small competition. We were in many different places at the same time, but we only met years later - I say it was meant to be.
I spent a summer on a traveling ensemble singing at churches and camps across the country. Being raised in Philadelphia, I had never been further west than Minnesota. When we started touring the Rocky Mountains, I fell in love --- with the mountains. We sang at a camp in Montana, and the moment I laid eyes on a certain counselor, I knew I wanted to know him more. We spent a little time together as the week progressed, but I didn't want to seem as interested as I was, so I mostly avoided him. Luckily, he managed to get my email address, because that's the way people communicated back then. We started emailing back and forth and a few months later, I was moving my things to Montana. It's been almost 19 years since that first meeting, and that love at first sight has turned into a deepening and enduring true love of a lifetime.
I met my boyfriend through a common friend - I knew her from high school, and he did from college. At first, we didn't talk much; we went out with our friend group several and didn't really consider ourselves close friends. During the second year of our studies we ran into each other quite often. We discovered that we lived next to each other, which brought us a little bit closer. Eventually, we started hanging out on our own - and the rest of the story is kind of obvious!
It's a pretty dull story, but those few years back it was a laughing matter for us. The way we look at meeting people online is changing a lot. Nowadays, dating people through Tinder is completely normal. But those 5 years ago it was somehow still quite new, and usually, you didn't say that you met online because it was taboo. My other half and I met absolutely by accident. The algorithm suggested my photo in the "discover" tab on Instagram, and after that, things just went on their own. From messages to phone calls and finally the first meeting...