How'd you meet your significant other(s)?

Did you use a kit or just improvise?

The best advice I ever got on relationships was from this lady who was a professional "horoscopist"--person who does horoscopes for a living. Did an interview with her once--had an OPEC meeting coming up for about the umpteenth time and had run out of stuff to write in advance, especially since nothing much was expected of this one. So I came up with the idea of doing something about the horoscope of Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, then the Saudi Arabian oil minister, who was so into astrology that he used it to pick a wife for his oldest son. Guy is such a believer that his day and month of birth isn't even listed in his registration at the East Coast US college he attended. However, happened that this astrologist's father had been a petroleum engineer who had once met the sheik. According to her dad, Yamani came into the room carrying a falcon and accompanied by hunting hound, so she deducted he was an animal fancier and worked out his sign from there. I looked up the birthdays and she came up with the signs and forecasts for several other top players and I got an interesting little feature out of it.

At the same time, there was a gal I was hitting on who was running around with another married guy--this gal was into astronomy so I tried to get this astrologist to work up a reading to the effect that she'd be better off with me than him. She ended up working up a reading on me instead that said the object of my affection was bad for me but not nearly as bad as my second wife to whom I was married at the time. Didn't really matter because, as I told her, I don't believe in astrology. She responds, "Of course you don't. You're an Aries. You don't believe in anything."

Anyhow, at some point in the discussion I made some crack that I eventually would likely end up alone, but I never worried about it. And that's when she laid a really heavy thought on me.

She said, "You won't end up alone, because if you've ever attracted love once, you can always attract it again."

Problem is, she said, most people keep attracting the same kind of love, usually one that has proved bad for them before. She told me, "Sit down and make a list of everything you liked and everything you didn't like about a major love from your past. Then the next time you feel attracted to someone, take out that list and read it."

She said, "Chances are the same thing you like and dislike about your new love will be exactly the same thing you liked and disliked about your old love." That's because we usually are attracted to people with whom we're comfortable. And we're comfortable with the same type of person with whom we were comfortable before, even if she turned out to be a bitch on wheels.

Usually that means we're comfortable with the type of relationship we grew up with--the kind of relationship between your dad and mom. Guys usually end up marrying someone a lot like their moms; gals end up marrying men a lot like their dads.

Sometime after that, I took my family on vacation and stopped by to visit my folks, and suddenly realized that my wife was much like my mom--and I didn't even like my mom!!!! Needless to say, she's long since became an ex-wife. And my present wife is nothing at all like my mom.

Anyway, good news is that love is still out there waiting for you; bad news is that it's probably in the form of a mugger a lot like the last person who broke your heart. The saving grace is that you don't have to keep playing that game. Kick over the table and start looking for love in differenct places.

We had some odd semi-introductions in the past due to the fact that she went to high school a grade below my sister and they had some mutual friends, but I first really met Sydney at a local video-store where I started working part-time, nights last June. She worked there on her summer break from college.

When I asked her out I had no idea how likely it was that she'd actually be interested in me as more than a friend -- she's a good deal younger, smart, talented, self-assured and with no shortage of potential relationships of any sort she could want -- but I wanted to find out and just as importantly to continue being friends outside of work. She was seriously surprised when I held her hand in the movie theater last August 13th. She says it crossed her mind that I might be interested when I suggested the meeting, but until then thought I was "out of her league."

There was plenty of drama for a couple weeks after that initial surprise-date. When she asked me to wait for her to sort out the mess of her feelings for her off-and-on ex of the previous year -- who had stunningly awkward timing in prostrating himself before her the day after our date -- I had serious doubts. But after a little nudge and continued assurances of my sincerity she took the decisive step and we had our first real date, with actual kissing (the first time for me) last September 1st.

Since then it's been great. A lot of firsts, plenty of insecurity on my part, but good intimacy, constant communication, numerous adventures mingled with simple enjoyment of each-others company. We just spent the last two weeks together doing nothing in particular.

In a fragrant daze of pear cider

I can romanticise it a little bit more than that. Well, add some good intentions and serendipity anyway . We were both only out and about to help out some friends. I was supporting a mate who was running a modest club night (even though I can't stand his taste in music ), and she was reconciling a friendship that had turned stormy, and hadn't wanted to come out but this was her last chance to see that friend for a while.

Thanks to the spanking new smoking ban we were both sat outside (me fleeing the music downstairs, as politely as possible). She thought I was sitting with some others there and just started randomly chatting about something. She likes a random chat does my lady . Luckily, so do i, and we talked nonsense for a bit. I stayed with the girls for the rest of the night, dutifully taking them to the basement club at one point, but mercifully they didn't like it either , and we opted for dancing around upstairs. Her mate lived near me and had to go off to watch some 2am boxing, so we trooped off together. When i was left on take-Leela-safely-to-bed duty, her friend Maeve gave me a look that said 'I will deck you myself if you don't get her home safely, and treat her right, and not act like a cad and such like'. I promised her with a look that I was indeed not a rapist, kitten murderer or male prostitute of ill-repute. Me and my lady of now one-and-a-half-years then talked a helluva lot more nonsense on the semi-picturesque urban walk to my flat

(Please note, no kittens were hurt on this date).

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Hey, great story, lines--you're a true romantic!

The crazy thing about exchanging these accounts on line without knowing much about the person writing is that when you talk of her being "a good deal younger" and she speaks of you being "out of her league," one can picture a nubile young woman being seduced by an "older" man, whatever that implies, but then you throw in her going to high school with your sister, and you having a part-time job at the video store, and it suddenly seems more of a May-June romance than May-September arrangement from the movies!

The thing about exes showing up at inconvenient times can be a bitch, like when Patsy went off on a weekend with her ex-husband. But that's usually not worth worrying about if you concentrate on him being on his way out while you're on your way in. If you keep your cool and your confidence, you can quickly reach the point where competition just makes you look better! Confidence is the key. Act like you own the earth, and pretty soon others will think maybe you might. Don't get a big head, of course, but most women like a guy who appears confident, who sort of takes charge while at the same time being considerate of her feelings.

Intimacy is good, too. Especially physical intimacy where the basic rule is always, always, ladies first! Communication is always good. So many guys are poor communicators that when a good one comes along, women really appreciate it. And the way to convince her you're a good communicator is to turn off the TV and look her in the eye while she's talking, and listen to what she's say. Listening in 99% of being a good conconversationalist. There's an old rule of thumb I first heard when I was a boy but is amazingly true even today--if you can talk to her, you can kiss her. And if you can kiss her, you can make love to her.

Insecurities are natural, but don't let them make you doubt yourself. Believe me, love is a lot like riding a bike--you start worrying whether you're going to fall off, and sure enuf, you'll end up in a ditch. Just pay attention to what you're doing, have confidence in your abilities, maintain a steady rthymn, ring the bell every once in awhile, and try to ignore it if you get a charlie horse--you can walk it off later!

You're my kinda guy, Golgot, because you have a good grip on the basics. Chat up the ladies. Hang out with the ladies. Be considerate and helpful. Dance anywhere, anytime. That can make you seem a daring kind of guy. I've danced with ladies in record shops where no one else was dancing, in the dirt, on the sidewalk, in lines at Disneyworld, on boats, in airliners, behind a bar (the opening night at a Willie Nelson nightclub when everyone else was standing on the dance floor looking up at ugly Willie!) in the narrow aisles of the Astrodome where you'd think there wasn't room to turn around with a dance partner. The main trick is to dance well enough so that you always make her look good. She's looking good, she's getting special attention that the other ladies are not, you come across as a wild and crazy guy who's fun and likes to party--it's a win-win-win situation!

I especially like the part about taking care of the lady while her (male?) "mate" is watching boxing on TV. It's easy to peel a babe away from some guy who's watching sports on TV. Back when I was still single and running the bars, I'd polish up my boots and head for the honky-tonks on Super Bowl Sundays. Usually the places were packed primarily with "Super Bowl" widows looking for a good time and occasional revenge, while the few guys in the place are all plugged into the TV. If you look at the girls instead of the game and can dance without tripping over yourself, you can make out in a bar on Super Bowl Sunday even if you look like the hunchback of Notre Dame!!!

Your accounts of your ex and the future contender puts me in mind of a couple of country songs. With your ex, it's the old Garth Brooks hit, ". . . I could have missed the pain, but I'd have had to miss the dance." (I'm not a big Garth fan, but when they play "The Dance" at a Texas honky tonk, you can get a gal to dance with you even if you have 2 heads and both are ugly.)

For your current lady, "It's never too late for young love." Go for it, buddy. Give it your best shot.

They do say "for better or worse" in that dreaded registry office, don't they?

I keep saying to myself that I'd have gotten the hell outa Dodge earlier if we didn't have children. Baldy Garth (or as they say here, Gareth Brooks) is right, though - she was addictive. Like meths...

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

I met my wife when I was 16 and she was 15, we met in a graveyard. Yes seriously in a graveyard

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~In the event of a Zombie Uprising, remember to sever the head or destroy the brain!~

Please tell me neither of you were carrying a shovel.

Hey, my grandparents met at a funeral and they've been together for 60 years (last November). Nothing brings everlasting love more than death.

Wow thats very impressive Sir

We met just walking through it, it was a very very old unused graveyards and most of the tombs and headstones were missing and broken. Now all the remains have been moved and there is a road going through it now.