Tell me a love story!!!

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

Seems like threads are started pretty frequently in this particular forum to discuss crappy relationships... and, that's no fun...

Anyone have a love story to share with the ever-sappy Queen of Dopplegangers? Those are fun!!

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Seems like threads are started pretty frequently in this particular forum to discuss crappy relationships... and, that's no fun...

Anyone have a love story to share with the ever-sappy Queen of Dopplegangers? Those are fun!!

So, you want a love story? OK, I'll bite. It has a bit of a long setup, so bear with me.

In the summer of 1997, I attended New York University's Summer Publishing Institute, in the hopes that I could expand my education a bit and land a decent job in the publishing industry, as I had been out of college for a couple years and bouncing from low paying retail job to low paying retail job. The NYU program had 90 people in in, of which 9 were guys (including me). That was a great ratio of guys to girls, in my favor. Only problem was, I was engaged to someone at the time. So I went through the summer, going out with friends on occasion, and riding the train back upstate every weekend to visit my fiance, who did nothing but complain that I was wasting my time living in New York City.

After the program ended in August 1997, I got a job as an editorial assistant for HarperCollins Publishers in the science fiction division, HarperPrism. In November, I received an invite to the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) annual authors and editors party. I went, met many authors, talked with some people, and eventually found myself in a room full of 200+ people who had been in the science fiction field for years, and I was one of the few "new people", and was pretty much ignored. I'm not the kind of guy who can just walk up and start talking to people, so I ended up pretty much a wallflower, standing by the bar and watching the parade of authors whom I admired go by, not talking to anyone.

Then I saw a face I recognised from the NYU program. There was this girl across the room, talking to a small group of young people. I watched her for a while, then made my way across the room and said hello, and asked her "Weren't you in the NYU publishing program?" When she confirmed this, we started talking about the program, and what jobs we had landed. She had ended up working in the marketing department of Tor Books, which she found funny, as she had never read an SF book in her life. And here she was, at a party with many of the biggest names in SF on the east coast. I had to ask her name (Laura), as I didn't remember it from NYU, we had only talked one time, and only in a very short group discussion. But she remembered me, but there were only 9 guys for her to remember, and there were 81 girls for me to remember. At the party, however, we talked for hours about all sorts of stuff-our jobs, where we were from (me-upstate NY, her-central Virginia), hiking, movies, living in NYC, etc. We went out on the hotel balcony overlooking Central Park to talk as the party was very loud.

Eventually I realized that my watch had stopped (seriously!) and I had less than 30 minutes to get from 57th Street to the Port Authority bus station to catch the last commuter bus to New Jersey where I was living at the time with my then-fiance. So I broke off the conversation, grabbed my coat, ran downstairs, hailed a cab, and high-tailed it to the bus station.

we kept in touch via email, trading books back and forth, as I could get her many books from HarperCollins, and she could get me the SF & fantasy books I wanted from Tor.

Come December, 2 days after Christmas, I split with my fiance, ending a relationship that should have ended long before, for many reasons I won't get into, since this is supposed to be a love story, right?

In mid January 1998, Laura and I met up again at a small NYU publishing gathering, where those of us who had stayed in NYC got together to talk about our jobs and have a few drinks. We talked for a while, and I found that she really was a cool girl, and I thought I'd like to get to know her as more than just one of the many people whom I was trading books with at the various publishing houses. So a week or two later, I asked her out to dinner. We had a good time, and decided that we should do it again. Several dinners and a Jimmy Buffett concert later, we were pretty much an item. we spent the next two years exploring NYC together, going to museums, concerts, bars, and escaping on weekends to go hiking in upstate NY. In the fall of 1999 we moved to Charlottesville, VA together. In April 2003 I proposed to her in a hot air balloon. In October 2003 we bought a house. On May 30, 2004 we got married, 6 years and 4 months after our first dinner together.

 

[Thanee]

I'm not the kind of guy who can just walk up and start talking to people...

...

I watched her for a while, then made my way across the room and said hello...

Good thing you broke out of your routine then.

Best wishes for the future!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Good thing you broke out of your routine then.

Well, we had been in class together and had briefly spoken, so it wasn't as if she was a complete stranger. By that point, a slightly familiar face was a welcome break.

Best wishes for the future!

Thank you!

 

[BOZ]

i met my wife, we love each other. end of story.

 

[MonsterMash]

Cthulhu's Librarian - that's a nice story and glad to hear things worked out for you both. Given how often we tend to get tales of woe on the message boards it's nice to have good news and things that make it seem like life can get better.

 

[green slime]

A story of love is often also a story of pain, loss, reconciliation, and on occassion ends in sadness. But it is truly better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.

Ah, such bitter sweet memories.

I cannot yet bear to place them in print.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

OK, I'll give you mine, a true story of love at first sight, at least for me.

I had moved up to northern New Hampshire along the Vermont border to start a new job. I had ended a relationship just before I moved. Once I moved in I discovered that the town I was in was very closed to "outsiders" so meeting new people in a social setting was difficult.

One morning I was at the front desk of the building picking up some things from the receptionist when this beautiful young woman entered the building. No word describes how I felt better than "smitten." She had come for an interview in another department. After she left, half the company was buzzing about her, myself included. I looked at the visitor log to see what her name was. I could read her first name, Anne, but could not decipher her last name. For the next few weeks every time I had to go to the front desk I looked at that log and tried to figure out her full name, until one day the receptionist told me that I could ask her myself the next day as she was starting at our company.

That next day I was introduced to her by the person who was training her as we passed in the hallway. That afternoon our company softball team had a game. She came to the game with her new co-worker. Following the game I managed to sit next to her when we all went out for post-game pizza and beer. We talked and I learned that she was from upstate New York and the company was putting her up in a Bed and Breakfast while she looked for an apartment. The next Saturday I was out running errands when I saw her sitting by herself at a cafe looking at the apartment listings. I said hello and offered her some help in selecting apartments to look at since I had just done the same thing a few months earlier and knew a few places to stay away from. I showed her the way to one of the apartments she wanted to check out and asked her if she was interested in getting some dinner afterwards. She said yes.

We had dinner out - nothing fancy - and taked some more. After the movie we rented a video and went back to my apartment to watch it (I assume I suggested this, but I really don't recall). After the movie we talked more. Only when the sun began to rise did we realize that we had talked throughout the night.

She found an apartment and I helped her move in, getting the chance to meet her parents while I was at it. A few days later we had dinner together again, and it was then that I discovered she was seeing someone still, although he was now living quite a ways away. I was crushed by this - I had a history of women I dated telling me they were seeing someone else - it had always indicated to me a sign of "I don't like you enough to dump the guy I've been seeing, but thanks for the dates." As a result I always just walked away. After Anne left, my inital reaction was the same - I should just give up, but then I felt some part of my rise up and refuse to do so. For the next couple of days I talked to her at work when I got the chance, and we had dinner a couple more times.

Friday afternoon. I knew she was leaving after work to go to a friend's wedding and was picking up her boyfiend to go with her. Before she left on her trip, I left a card under the windshield wiper of her car saying how I would miss her while she was gone.

The following Tuesday I knew she was returning in the afternoon. After work I picked up some flowers and a bottle of wine and dropped by her new place. She had just arrived home and was so happy to see me. Because of my card, she spent the entire 5 hour drive to pick up her boyfriend thinking of me instead. Add in the fact that he acted like a jerk a few times and he was history.

That was more than 12 years ago. Anne and I have now been married for 11 years. It hasn't always been bliss, but the good times have far outweighed the bad.

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

I'll add mine.

I first saw her in line the first Friday of my first week of college. We were standing in line waiting for a locker assignment. She turned around, and started complaining to whoever was closest that we did more standing in line than learning anything so far. I happened to be closest, and I looked up at the clock, as I saw who was speaking. It was 4:19:36 pm.

That’s burned forever in my memory, because that’s when I first saw her.

I looked at her, red hair gleaming in the shaft of innocuous September sunlight coming through the office window, storm-grey and blue eyes fired with annoyance. I thought to myself, “Oh. That’s the woman I’m going to marry.” I introduced myself, made small talk, and in general, got to know her over lunch that day. A couple weeks later, I asked her to be my date to the get-acquainted picnic. By summer, we were living together. Two years later, we were married.

No major fights, a summer apart as she went home to help her folks with me traveling 110 miles by bus every weekend to be with her, and financial and health ups and downs over the years have only made us stonger. We just celebrated our eighteenth wedding anniversary, and out twentieth year together.

We bought our house a few months ago after twenty years of renting, we have two handsome, well-behaved teenaged sons, and in two weeks, we’re having friends come from all over to game with us. It’s the 20th anniversary of my homebrew game, which she rolled the first character for and, with both our sons, has been playing in ever since.

Not long, not detailed, but we still dance in the kitchen, we still hold hands in our sleep, and we sill take long walks in the sunset together. And we always will.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

In April 2003 I proposed to her in a hot air balloon. In October 2003 we bought a house. On May 30, 2004 we got married, 6 years and 6 months to the day after our first dinner together.

There's just something about the hot air balloon proposal that makes me tear up... SO sweet!