Marriage Mondays: How Did You Meet?

When A.P. and I first started dating, we were too embarrassed to tell people how we met, especially our families. In fact, when I first met A.P.'s family, I discovered none of them knew how we met. And I had the tough job of answering that question. Luckily, I'm a smart gal and I kept thinking of clever ways to hand it off to A.P. Poor A.P. He didn't know what to say either. I remember that A.P.'s late mother thought that we met on the El train, and I was too scared to correct her. So for two days, I kept answering questions about how we met on the El ("How did it happen?" and "Did you just see A.P. and want to talk to him?") until finally A.P. told his mother we didn't meet on the train. Looking back, we laugh about the fact that I kept lying.

Here's the great, big dirty secret: A.P. and I met online. GASP!! It's true. I used to be obsessed with Craigslist and when I worked in advertising, I would fool around on the site during lunch and down time. I was obsessed with the Missed Connections, and the Best Of section. I loved (and still do) looking for antiques or stuff for sale. Anyway, back then, I would post stuff for no other reason than to be funny or crack up my friends.

Anyway, one day, I posted on Craigslist, talking about this one band I love, Animal Collective. A ton of people responded, but A.P. was the only one who knew the band. We ended up emailing back and forth and then eventually talked on the phone. Then one day, we decided to meet. We talked about what to do on our first date a lot. We both agreed we wanted to do something out of the ordinary. Finally, as a joke, A.P. suggested baking a cake. I loved the idea. So, A.P. came over to my place and we made a vanilla cake with a chocolate frosting. We also lit sparklers on my back porch. And we talked...a lot. It was so much fun. And it was on the couch, when I was listening to him talk, and looking at his profile that I fell for him. I loved his mild, Southern twang and the slow way in which he spoke. I loved that he asked me tons of questions, too.

But the thing that made me fall for him hard was at the end of the night. He had a business trip the next week and I figured I wouldn't talk to him until he got back. As I was walking him out, I said as much and he immediately replied, "I'm going to call you before then." And he did. He called me the next day. It was great to date someone who didn't play games and did what he said he was going to do. A couple of months into our relationship, I wrote in my journal that I thought I was going to marry him. I had thought it but not written it before because I hadn't wanted to jinx it. Five years later, I couldn't have been more right.

Now, we openly tell people how we met. In fact, we've got our whole story down. We take turns telling it and A.P. even added a new dimension the other day when he asked someone we were telling to guess the site we met on. People seem to get a kick out of us meeting online, that it was random and fateful. But a few months into our relationship, we discovered the real fate in our relationship: A.P.'s ex-girlfriend knew my sister because they had worked together at a store where I had also worked.

One day, through a random conversation, we discovered that A.P's ex-girlfriend had worked at the same small, Uptown neighborhood home accessories/antique business where I had worked over my summer break during college. I quit to go back to school and my sister, who was also back in school, took my position. She ended up working there with A.P.'s ex-girlfriend. A.P. used to come visit her in Chicago while they were still dating long distance. I would also go back there during my breaks (until the guy tried to screw me over with my pay). I could have easily met A.P. or his ex, but never did. So weird, right?

I've always believed in fate and destiny. I don't as much any more. But I do believe that A.P. and I were meant to be together. I didn't used to think of him as a soulmate, because I think that word diminishes the work we put into our relationship. But that story always reminds me that there is a reason that A.P. and I met and that despite our story's randomness, it wasn't necessarily random.

How did you meet your significant other? Do you feel like you were meant to be together? Or do you feel it just worked out that way?

Do you subscribe to Not the Marrying Kind? If not, you should! It's free and fun and it means you automatically get new posts when the blog is updated. No having to check back! Click here for more details!

(The Triumph of Death or The Three Fates via here)