Went out for a fantastic meal at Clio after the exhibit hall closed. I’ll dish about it all later. But first: do you know the story of how your parents met?
See, over dinner, we discovered that all 4 women in attendance knew how their parents met, while all 3 guys didn’t know. We started asking busboys, and the only one who did know how his parents met seemed kinda fruity.
SO: do you know how your parents met, exactly?
My dad’s family moved to Des Allemands when he was about 10 years old, so he and my mom first met either in church or at school. But it’s a SMALL town, so I’m not sure they even remember their first meeting. (I’ll be sure to ask next time we talk.)
Does that count?
My mom got a part-time college student stringer job at the newspaper where my dad was city editor.
it’ll all be in my book!!!
“Do you know how your parents met, Gil?”
“They were both working at El Al. Or Mossad. I can’t remember.”
The inestimable Mia Wolff writes, “I don’t think I do know how my parents met — except that it was in college out in Berkeley, CA. They never talked about it. Probably says more about them than me.”
My dad was owed some money by some guy who was reluctant to pay up, so when he found out that said guy was having a party, he decided he would show up uninvited and drink back what he was owed. Under such auspicious circumstances he met my mum, who thought he was a creep.
My mom was fresh out of high school and got a job in the secretarial pool at an ad agency in the ‘big city’ of Grand Rapids. My dad was a young ad executive there. He knocked her up before they got hitched, then did it 9 more times to make up for it. Dad used to say, when pressed, that his first impression of mom was “What a skunk.”
Bonus answer: I met the father of my kids on the internets. If it wasn’t for the joy I find daily in my loinfruit, I wish I’d have left him there.
They met on a blind date. Aw.
My parents met on a blind date. Mom had just moved here from Belgium, and through mutual friends of my parents’ families they were set up. Apparently, it was love at first sight, although my father didn’t/doesn’t speak a word of French. My mom’s English was perfect.
One of my high school buddies (PA edition) writes, “Aside from the fact that my dad and mom were residents of the same small town, I don’t have the foggiest idea.”
Both sets of my grandparents as well as my maternal great-uncle and aunt were missionaries in China during the 1920s and ’30s, and all expats pretty much knew each other. My parents first met as children, but my father was a peer of my mother’s older brothers and I think they spent their time alternately teasing and ignoring the toddler. Years later, when my father’s older sister married my mother’s first cousin (a result of the China connection), and my father was a young curate in Baltimore running a summer camp and in search of counselors, Aunt Kate said something like, do you remember John’s cousin, that nice Mary Roberts? She’s a student at Swarthmore and I bet she’s looking for a summer job. Their first proper date was at the Victor Cafe in south Philadelphia, and after several years of my father chasing my mother around the world (he was in Okinawa and Taiwan, she was in Beirut and New York), she finally agreed to marry him.
My mother’s hairdresser introduced her to my father. if you could see my mother’s hairdo, you would get a sense of her all around bad judgement in this regard.
My parents worked at the same community college. My mom was a hall director and my dad was a teacher.
Buffalo, NY — My father dated several girls at his younger sister’s highschool. When it came time to find a date for some function, he opened his sister’s yearbook, saw my mother’s senior picture, and called immediately. My parents looked like Ken and Barbie — that’s where their “perfect fit” ended.
I don’t know how my mom and dad met. I know he was a dozen or so years older than she was (and had been married before) and that mom was working for the WPA. At the time, my dad had just given up running a small men’s habadashery store on 138th street and he was now an apprentice mortician. I also know they were engaged for five years, before they actually married in 1938. When I was a kid, often my mom would say that they were so distant with one another at parties and social gatherings during their lengthy engagement that their friends would tease them with accusations that they didn’t even know each other, much less that they were boyfriend and girlfriend about to get married.
I think I’ll ask my sister. Since you say women know these things, perhaps she has
the scoop.
I have the vaguest–the foggiest–of memories, from when I was a child of six or seven, of being introduced to one of my mother’s women friends, who claimed to be the person who introduced mom to dad–and my mother laughingly arguing that, no, it wasn’t her at all . . . But who it was or where, I have no idea.
It seems to be another confirmation of your thesis, Gil.
My mother moved from LA to San Francisco to live with a former foster mother. Shortly after she arrived, the daughter of the foster mom had plans with her boyfriend and asked him to bring a friend so my mother wouldn’t be third wheel or be stuck at home. The friend he brought was my father.
My parents had left their hometowns (Denver and Dallas) for jobs in Indiana and were attending the same church. They both volunteered for a church cleanup day, and I think my mom sprayed my dad with a hose while they were washing down the outside of the church (?). This was in October. They moved back to their hometowns before Christmas, corresponded and ran up big phone bills, and got married in February, a whole four months after they met!
Tim reports that his parents’ Manhattan meeting involved partner-swapping and vomit. But he, too, was vague on the details. You gotta love those old-school WASPs.
My buddy Deb writes, “My mom and dad met when they were 16 years old. My dad was in the hospital and my mom was a ‘candy-striper’ (nurse’s aid). My mom thought my dad was young and immature. When he left the hospital, he left little pieces of tape with his name on them stuck all over the room, so she wouldn’t forget him. The next time my dad was back in the hospital, my mom thought he had matured quite well, and when he was well again, they started dating. They married at 23.”
My buddy Derek writes:
Parents (Original) Sperm Donor and Egg Carrier – Met in Physical Education in high school, ended up playing tennis together
Dad & Stepmom – Met at a bar through mutual friends
Mom & Stepdad, chance meeting through mutual friends, while he was in from out of town, met on a lake in Washington
Amy’s buddy Scott writes:
Mom met Dad when they were teaching at the same school.
Mom met stepfather when she picked him up at a cheesy singles bar.
My mom and her grad-school roommate had just finished moving into a new apartment complex and went out to relax by the pool. Her roommate (with a carefully crafted, near-beehive, 60’s up-do) had fallen asleep on the edge of the pool. Without saying a word, my dad and some other resident of the complex (whom he didn’t yet know, I should point out) sneaked up on her and tossed her into the pool. From that moment on, a series of “neighborly” pranks ensued, involving superglued toilet seats, cars stuffed with balled-up newspaper, bars of soap painted with epoxy, and the like. . .
Friend-of-a-friend Noelle writes:
My parents are actually divorced . . . but they both met on the playground at school when they were 11 years old. My mom attended a private parochial school, and my dad went to a public school. They used to meet on the playground after school on and off until high school. There was a 3-year distance/gap in the communication, but their paths crossed again during their senior year of high school. They married at age 18, had me (their first born and only child together), and had separated closely before I was born, which was 2 years after they were married.
A friend of mine anonymously writes:
My mom and dad met in high school. They probably would have parted ways eventually, except that my mom got pregnant her sophomore year in college, so they got married. Ok, that’s weird. I guess I hadn’t realized that they’d been out of high school for quite a while at that point. Hmmm. I can’t quite figure out why they were still doing the kind of thing that results in pregnancy after they’d both been at different colleges for a couple years.
Anyway, that’s not all that interesting. I think my dad and stepmom’s story is kind of cool, though. They dated in high school before my mom and dad did. They were actually buddies all through grammar school as well. Apparently they broke up because my dad’s parents thought they were getting too serious. I think both of his older brothers had married younger than his parents would have liked, and they were worried that she and my dad would be up to no good or something. In any case, both she and my dad had married, had kid(s) and divorced when someone’s parents told one of them that they were both living on the east coast. They remet and decided to get married within a week.
They’ve been married something like 22 years at this point. And hey, if it doesn’t work out my dad can always marry the girl he had a crush on in kindergarten next.
I’m a bit vague on the details but my parents met at a Catholic school dance in 1959 or 1960. I want to say it was my Dad’s college, and my mom was in secretarial school. A mutual friend introduced them.
and MY parents (your grandparents, Gil) met at a Boxing Day Dance in London, sometime in the late 1920’s (and married in 1932) –
My mom was conducting a survey to find out how completely oblivious men are with respect to how romantic relationships begin. My dad was conducting a survey to find out why women care about such things. They met at the big store that sells really cool survey supplies.
One of my male buddies wrote his mom for the details (supporting my thesis that guys don’t know/care about this stuff). She replied:
“I am surprised that you don’t know how we met. It is a bit long to write the details, but if you want to know them, just call. Very abbreviated, we met because my college roommate gave Dad a ride home from an engagement party they both attended. His car was in the ‘shop’ and since they both lived in the same area, she drove him home. There is a lot more to the story.”
My coworker Jack writes:
I have known this story for years. My mother has two brothers (all 3 are still alive) who, after WWII, became friends with another local veteran who caught my mother’s eye. She asked her brothers to bring him around more often. They did, and she worked her magic. Today, 59 years later, they are still together, though he’s deaf and she never stops yakking.
Parallel: Fast forward to 1982. My friend Doug and I used to stop by a girl’s house to visit her — Jen and Doug were friends since high school — and I later learned that she was pestering him to bring me around more often. More magic. This month we celebrate our 23rd anniversary.
My mom was teaching English at a high school near Stanford University, and my dad was a Physics PhD candidate there (did I need to tell you his major? no, I did not, but I’m mighty proud). My dad belonged to an eating club (and that’s really what it was called), and my mom and her single girlfriends went there to cruise for smart, nice guys, and she met my dad. They met and didn’t see each other again for about a year, but then when they met again they went out on a fateful date and were married six weeks later. My mom wore a yellow suit with a matching pillbox hat that I’d just do just about anything to get my hands on.