Yes, online dating is a modern wonder. We're way past any sense of shame about finding the love of your life on Tinder — you celebrate that serendipitous swipe! But it's also true that there is something about first encountering an eventual partner out in the world that captures our imaginations. As apps for finding casual hookups and serious relationships and everything in between proliferate, it can seem that fewer and fewer love stories are beginning IRL.
Here, we're celebrating the times that they do. The following anecdotes prove that yes, it is still possible to meet your future lover by chance, whether in line or at a bar or on the sidewalk or through that athletic team you joined. Click through to remember that life really can be like a Nora Ephron movie sometimes. And who knows? You might even feel inspired to sign up for that art class or ditch your couch in favor of that friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend's party this weekend.
"I was living abroad in Israel for the summer, and on my first night there I went to a club with my friends. I saw him walk in and immediately felt the need to go talk to him, so I did! It turned out he was also American and living in Israel for the summer, and we talked all night and then walked on the beach together. I believe it was a version of love at first sight, since I felt totally compelled to approach him even though that's not something I would normally do. We consider that day our anniversary because we've been together ever since!"
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"I worked as a waitress at a coffee shop in our college town, and he started coming in regularly in the evenings to study. I thought he was so cute, and I had a major intellectual crush on him based on what he was reading. I tried being flirtatious, but I am really bad at that, so I finally just started randomly giving him free cake. He didn't really take the hint, but it did open up more opportunities to talk. I mentioned to him that it was sometimes a little scary to walk home at night when my shift was over at 3 a.m., so he started offering to wait until I was done and walk me home. One thing led to another! He turned out to be an asshole who cheated on me during study abroad, and then he married the girl he cheated on me with one month before I got married (not bitter or anything), but there you go."
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"I had a date with a guy whom I met online at this bar downtown, and I got there a little early. When I walked in I noticed this really hot guy scribbling in a notebook at the end of the bar. A few minutes later, my date walked in, and he wound up being a TOTAL drip, and I kept making eyes with the guy at the end of the bar over my date's shoulder. After one drink, I told my date that I had to get to dinner, and I practically shoved him in a cab. As soon as the cab rounded the corner, I marched back into the bar and started talking to the hot guy! We wound up bar-hopping all night, getting good and drunk, and then I took him home. We started seeing each other immediately, and have been on and off for about two years. Not sure if it was ‘love' at first sight (I don't believe in that), but it was definitely lust — and we've had some good times together since."
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"I met my (future) boyfriend in an elevator at work. He had a raspy voice since he was sick and he told me about the frog humidifier he purchased in the Target kids' section. I was instantly attracted because he is handsome and funny."
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"We had a class together while I was studying abroad in Italy. It was one of those huge lecture halls and we would always make eye contact. One day I sat in front of him and wrote my name in really large letters on a pop quiz we received in class, and an hour later I got a friend request from him on Facebook. He asked me out to coffee after class the next day and it took off. What started off as a three-month semester abroad led to me staying in Italy for over a year and us now living together in New York!"
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"I was at a bar with my friends dancing and having a girls’ night... As we were dancing, my best friend suggested I accidentally back into him. The bump turned into him offering to buy me a drink and now we've been together for three years!"
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"A friend of mine invited me to a client outing for her work. It was very random that she invited me since it was a Saturday trip for her company to take clients out, but her boss had extra tickets, so she brought me along. It was a beautiful fall day in October and we took a bus up to West Point for an Army football game, where we tailgated all day and went to the game. As if that wasn't enough, her company rented a yacht to go down the Hudson River to get back to NYC.
"I met him as we were boarding the yacht — his company was my friend's client. It was ironic because we had been on the same bus and at the same tailgate that whole day but didn't meet each other until the boat. We absolutely hit it off and proceeded to dance into the night. When it came time to exchange numbers, both of our phones were dead so we asked the bartender for a napkin to write my number down (old-school). Instead of a napkin, he proceeded to give us a Band-Aid (unused, in the package), which after a five-hour open bar seemed totally normal, so I went ahead and wrote down my number.
"A few days passed and I still hadn't heard from him, which I thought was odd seeing how well we had gotten along. I had already found him on Facebook so I finally gathered up the courage to message him. He responded the next day — turns out he lost the Band-Aid and had been trying to find me as well, and we went out that weekend. We've been dating for two and a half years, and just moved in together this past month. Lesson learned: Open-bar yachts are always a good idea, and if you are thinking twice about making the first move, go for it — you really have nothing to lose, but everything to gain!"
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"We were in a long bathroom line at an Austrian beer hall. I had drunk too many steins. He was behind me in line and kept talking to me as I was fidgeting. I had to pee so badly! I felt so vulnerable and did not appreciate his conversation. We got engaged a year later and married a year after that."
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"It was senior year of college and a group of students from my school went on spring break in Punta Cana. At the last minute I decided to join the trip (totally unexpected) and met my now-boyfriend the second night. We had the exact same group of friends throughout all of college but had never been introduced, so this was the first time we had ever met each other. After a few too many rum-and-cokes on our first night in the DR, I went up and introduced myself ( totally out of character for me). We got back to school with only a few more weeks left until graduation, and we started dating, soon realizing that I would be moving to NYC and he would be moving back home to Massachusetts. After he finished his masters degree, with us doing long-distance, I was able to convince him to join me in the concrete jungle — and the rest is history. The theme song of the entire trip in Punta Cana was 'We Found Love In A Hopeless Place.'"
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"My friends and I went out to a gay bar and everyone was in a bad mood. They all just kept complaining about their lack of love lives and how it's impossible to meet someone. I got fed up and took one of my friends, picked two guys out of the bar, and went up to them. I was annoyed and half-expected the guys to roll their eyes and turn away, so when I greeted them I probably sounded exasperated. We talked for a bit, it was friendly. Having proved that it was possible to talk to someone new at a bar, I felt I had accomplished my goal and let the boys go about their night. A bit later, one of the guys came to find me. I was a little tongue-tied because I had mostly wanted to prove my friends wrong and wasn't expecting to meet someone myself. We talked and I realized he was charming and funny. We stayed until the bar closed, went home together, and I've been with him ever since."
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"A friend of mine was moving out of NYC in a week and asked me to grab a drink. He took me to a tech company's silly happy hour. While sitting at the bar, he turned to a girl next to him and asked her if she happened to be his neighbor. Weirdly enough, she was, and we all started talking. On top of the randomness of that, we connected the dots and it turned out I had gone to college with a co-worker of hers. We talked a little bit, but nothing serious. Over the next few years, I would see her at our mutual friends' birthday parties. We followed each other on Twitter but never hung out outside of that. I think those years we were just looking for all the wrong things. It wasn't until I saw her on OkCupid and messaged her "lol, hi Jessica" that we started dating. We have been dating ever since and just moved in together this weekend. It still freaks me out to know that had my friend moved a different week, I would have never met her."
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"It was summer and I was working at a bank in Midtown. A fellow colleague invited me to go to a young professionals' happy hour (read: open bar) at a museum on a Thursday night. Although I was expecting lots of finance bros, the crowd turned out to be an interesting mix of people. Right before last call as I'm walking over to the bar for one last refreshment, a guy approaches and rattles something off about wanting to buy me a drink. We share a laugh about it being an open bar and continue chatting, then make moves to another bar. At the end of the night, after some light making out on the E train platform, we make plans to do laundry the next night as an official date. Call me crazy, but this is the best first date out there. We grabbed some tall boys as we watched our undies mingle in the washer/dryer and played pinball (special shout out to Sunshine Laundromat in Greenpoint). The rest is history."
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"My boyfriend and I met on pretty much the first day of college — we lived on the same floor in the dorms and had started talking at our 'get to know you' event our RAs held. He asked if I wanted to come watch a show with him later that night in his room, and I was super nervous because I thought he was awesome, funny, and really cute, but I was trying to play it cool. However, I have a serious spilling problem, which seems to come out at the most inopportune times. He offered me some jelly beans, since he had a huge container, and of course, I picked it up by the lid and spilled the entire four pounds of jelly beans all over his room. I was mortified, and thought for sure that would be the last time I heard from him. Little did I know, he'd find it endearing for some reason, and we'd still be dating and crazy in love almost five years later."
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"I was out with my best friend at a friend's house party in central Boston. The minute I opened the door, I saw these vividly blue eyes staring back at me, which to this day I can remember perfectly. Later, as my friend and I smoked our first cigarette while waiting for our Uber, the owner of the blue eyes and I made awkward eye contact, but neither of us made the first move. The Uber had arrived but wasn't ready to leave, so I hinted to my friend about 'how badly I needed another cig.' The person I had been making eyes at took this as a cue I was interested, but when he came up to talk to us, I was so nervous I couldn't say anything (this had never, and has never again, happened to me). Luckily for him, my friend had been dying to get me with someone (she had recently gotten into a relationship) and so she asked him and his friends to come back to hers so we could have a drink together. And bada-boom, bada-bing, within a week, I was dating that man."
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"It was two in the morning and we both ended up at a local Greenpoint fave, Enid's. Even though we were with our respective friend groups, we couldn't take our eyes off one another. I hoped he would approach me, but the only move he made was to stand up from the table his friends were at. (Turns out he was too tongue-tied to come talk to me.) So, I went up to him and spat out a ridiculous pick up line — which worked! We danced to early-aughts hip-hop hits, kissed, and exchanged numbers before departing with our crews. The next day, he asked me on a proper date. Now, we've been together for a year and a half and I just moved in with him."
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"I met Dan in November of 2015, right after I had turned 30 and gotten out of a long-term serious relationship. He works at a bar in Brooklyn and I randomly walked in there one night with a close friend who was visiting from Chicago. We were both a little drunk and looking to just get out of the house where I was staying, and his bar just happened to be the first place we saw. Funnily, he wasn't even supposed to be there at that time — he just happened to be working a double shift and had stayed late to cover for a friend.
"When he seated us, I noticed that he was cute, and I definitely made eyes with him, but he made the first move. He chatted with me and once his shift was over, he actually sat down and shared a beer with me and my friend, who was very clearly trying to send him signals that I was interested. I was drunkenly and blissfully unaware of that humiliation. He was a perfect gentleman. He asked for my number, said he wanted to take me out on a date, and ultimately did just that. We had no friends in common and no common network. It was pure happenstance and I'm forever grateful for being drunk and lazy that night."
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"Our first meeting was disastrous. It was back in college and he hit on me obnoxiously and I snapped at him, and we hated each other throughout the duration of college (even though we had mutual friends). Almost 10 years later, our mutual friend invited him to my Superbowl party. Months later we ended up starting to date and eventually fell in love! He is my best friend."
Illustrated By Tristan Offit.
"I’ve had rheumatoid arthritis for more than half of my life and started cycling as a way to maintain my mobility. I had been training hard for months to participate in The Ride To Montauk, a one-day, 155-mile bicycle ride from Penn Station to the Montauk Lighthouse, but I didn’t have a group to ride with.
"Four days before the ride, I attended a cycling club meeting and was introduced to a group of cyclists who were participating in the ride. They invited me to join their pack, and a nice guy looped me into their e-mail chain. The day of the ride, Nice Guy rode with me for the first 60 miles, but we eventually got separated. After a grueling 10.5 hours of cycling, we somehow made it to the finish line at the same time.
"Nice Guy explained that he had planned on spending the night at a nearby campground, but the sites had sold out last minute and he was contemplating camping (illegally!) on the beach since the last shuttle to the train was about to leave. My parents had driven out to Montauk to meet me at the finish line. I don’t know what possessed me, but I asked if he wanted to stay at my parents' house. Thinking I was inviting him to my own place, he said yes.
"Long story short, this guy who was basically a stranger ended up staying at my parents' house, locked in the basement bedroom (he didn’t know he was locked downstairs!). We ended up talking all night, and all day the next day (Father’s Day!). I remember thinking, 'Oh shit, something weird just happened. I wonder if I’ll marry this guy.' Four years later, we are engaged to be married in September."
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