Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

Is she aware of your unappealing HF fantasies?

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

I met my last serious s/o through a group of women that gets together every month or so. I was too shy to ask her out when I realized I was into her, and she was too shy to ask me out cause she wasn't sure I was into her, but she schemed to find out my interests and invited me to something that she could find a way to ask without really asking me out (she was pretty smooth I'll give her that and I'm pretty hard to read so I don't blame her.)

Over the next month we ended up spending an incredible amount of time together, but I don't think you could technically call it dating. We went out, we were asking each other out going to dinner, what have you, but there was no real physical interaction. So in a way, we ended up dating without realizing we were dating. This lasted about a month. Finally, one night she had me over for dinner and jumped me, the month of frustration got to be too much I guess. It was pretty funny. And there you go, relationship. It was a great relationship too, until the end when it fell apart and I had to put it out of its misery. Such things happen.

I'm not seriously involved with anyone now, so I can't speak to anything current.

I will add that I find the best relationships when I am not looking. But I don't know that I ever really look. There just seem to be times when I am ready to be in a relationship, and when I am, they find me. And there are times when I am not ready to be in one, and I reject the opportunities as they come, or they come less frequently because of the big old STAY AWAY FROM ME waves that flow off my body during those times.

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

I agree it is easier to meet someone when you aren't looking, but I honestly think it has more to do with the prophylactic effects of the stench of desperation than inner peace. However, I agree (if this is an accurate restatement of yoru position) that no one else can fulfill or fill the holes in your life or psyche; you can't be completed by someone else. [insert reference to Silverstein's "Missing Piece" books here.]

I met the Mr. in school when I was definitely not looking, though I wasn't really "at peace": I was on a big "celibacy/finding myself" kick after a protracted and cynic-making dumping (not quite the 2 year + odessy of Deal Toy's bust-up, but still a wearing pain in the ass). The Mr. and I disliked each other on sight. He thought I was a taking-myself-too-seriously all-work-no-play resume padder, I thought he was a pretty-boy god's-gift-to-women arrogant SOB.

I realized he was the one when I realized that Aristophanes was right about there being another human out there who is not a missing part of you or some perfect fit for you, but in fact part of exactly the same person as you; however you two just got split up down the middle by angry gods. (Besides, the images of the two parts meeting and trying to push themselves back together by embracing and kissing and trying to hold onto each other is such a lovely image.) Mutual friends started commenting, a few months after we had met, "wow, Debt and Mr. Slave are really the same person, aren't they?" and I realized they had hit the nail exactly on the head. It's not that we get along well, or compliment one another, or make a nice pair, we aren't even two halves of a whole; we are the same thing, just in packages differing in size, hariness and appendages. I consider us to basically be part of the same person, just as much as my right leg or liver is part of me. Doesn't mean I always understand him, or agree, or that we always share the same priorities, but ... it's hard to explain.

That didn't mean I realized I wanted to marry him - that realization came when I realized he was going to ask me, and I freaked out about the idea of getting married until I though "well, what would it mean - it would mean spending the rest of our lives bound together forever with no exit," and that sounded not scary at all but exactly right and, in fact, like the only possible outcome.

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

I met the OM at a restaurant/bar at 1 am. I noticed him because he was talking to the bartender and I wanted some water.

I was attracted to his brain. I knew I wanted to get to know him after about five minutes of talking. After 8 hours of talking (with friends at the bar and over breakfast, and later on the phone), I was smitten.

Edited to answer the rest of the question:

When we met, we were both casually dating other people and we were not interested in settling down. At all.

We started dating each other and talked every single day. After a three or four weeks, we decided to see each other exclusively.

After five or six months, I knew he was "the one." I realized I wanted to wake up next to him for the rest of my life and that we had fun just being together. There is something about finding an SO who is also your best friend.

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

Funny. The guy I am currently seeing reminds me of me adn I thought that was a bad thing. Not bc I dont like myself (bc as PK, who I am obsessed with will attest, I heart myself), but bc I thought it would be best to be with someone the opposite of me - to balance out my idiosyncracies or whatnot. The prior guy was just like me in many ways, except that he was a narcissist so it was like Me Plus One Squared and that led to a lot of fighting. The guy before that was the total opposite of me- which worked out well from a relationship perspective, but I was just not that attracted to him.

Hmmm, so I get along better with the opposite of me, but would rather fuck me than the opposite of me. Oh lordy, what does it mean and what does it portend for the current guy (who seems to hate people, DC and his job more than I do). Then again, he has never done an illegal drug and thinks Jerry Garcia was not a good guitarist, so maybe we arent that alike.

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

my husband and I were very good friends. I wasn't attracted to him in the slightest. Then one night I had a dream about him in which he became wildly attractive. After that I couldn't stop thinking about him and I pursued him with the ferocity of a starving mountain lion. Happily for me, he didn't bolt like any sane man would have done. It took a while though.

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

Mmmm....donuts. Well since Oprah answered, I will go. This is completely and utterly outable. I was in a long-term relationship at the time and not looking for anything. Future-SO TA'd one of my law school classes. I thought he was brilliant - still do. The next year we we shared a cheap apartment (as friends and with another guy -like 3's Company- and yes, I was still dating the soon-to-be-ex), we went out as friends, got drunk, got lucky and here I am today. We are truly opposites and no one thought it would last, but it works.

-T(just found out that Cletus is a boy, btw)L :D

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

You need to stop this. It is truly fucking annoying.

TM

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

I gave you the total setup to do a paigow and her three inner minds translation and this is what I get?

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

Because it is probably unusual for an otherwise sane professional person to meet em's SO this way (and thus outable) I will not admit that I met my current husband in an AOL chatroom nor will I admit that he lived in the city I wanted to move to so I used his obvious infatuation with me against him by making him move out on his roommate and get a new apartment so that I could be his roommate and thus move to this new city where a guy I was infatuated with also lived and I certainly won't admit that I don't know how the fuck it happened but 6 months later we were married and pregnant. I will admit, however, that I had enough sense when this ride began to prepare and file divorce papers with regard to my first husband -- if he would have just agreed to move to the new city with me none of this would have happened. ;)

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

Who are you talking about? I thought these were supposed to be actual stories about our real lives.

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

I was going to take you up on it, but (i) it was just way too easy and even I couldn't translate whatever the hell it is you just said and (ii) I was distracted and annoyed because you copied the whole DS post.

TM

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

This will make such a touching story when your Lil Fan asks how you and daddy met.

Even(daaaaaaaaamn . . . )Odds

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

No SO currently.

There are two that I think of as having had the potential to have been the one. Timing and distance fucked with my destiny.

The first, I met when I woke up on his couch the morning after a Superbowl party. I was hungover as hell, and not entirely sure where I was. He was getting ready for work, but he spent maybe an hour talking to me and making sure that I was ok before he left. I'd hung out with his roommate before, but I didn't realize how awesome he was before that morning. Later that week, I met him at a bar and spent hours just talking to him and becoming more and more convinced that he was amazing. My life, at the time, was probably the happiest I've ever been. I wasn't looking for anything, but it sort of fell into my lap. Unfortunately, he was in the navy and had to get on a ship for several months out of the year, and it was impossible to pursue anything after those first few months together. We lost touch, and I recently discovered that he's now married.

The second, I met at a party in another city that niether of us lived in. He was the younger brother of a friend of mine, and I wasn't really thinking about anything with him because I was in a relationship and he was so much younger and a friend's brother. But as the night wore on we kept on running into each other and not wanting to leave each other's company. We talked all night long, and it felt like we'd known each other for years instead of just that night. He was very much like me, but also not like me. It's weird to explain. Anyhow, I broke things off with my SO of three years the very next day, and I ended up sort of dating him for about six months until we both realized that long distance relationships suck. My life, at that point, was fairly content, except for the relationship that I was in at the time. It should have been killed maybe a year before it did, and I'll be always thankful to him for making me realize that it was not a good relationship for me to be in. Every single time I see him, though, my heart does a little flutter and it's impossible for either one of us to be separated from the other for too long. I'm thinking about going to see him soon to see if it's really something worth pursuing.

Excuse Me Miss, What's Your Name POLL
 

Like TM, met the wife in college. She was a friend of a friend (from a different school) but I had not seen her before. Was dating somebody else at the time, but dropped the other to start dating the wife. We were married 3 years later. Was quite a help during some of the darker points of law school.