Stories Collected While Living in France
Last night I saw a commercial on TV and it struck me that those cows and I have a great deal in common…
A lonely French bull and an American cow who speaks un peu French… or as Sacha, my son said, "Mom, that cow doesn't make sense, her French is terrible."
My eyes sparkled and I thought, oh the language of love, some good cheese, a bottle of wine (or should I say milk) and the I Beam…. perfect combo.
How did you meet the love of your life… care to share?
I met the lovvvvvve of my life, online by randomly messaging people through yahoo messenger. I lived in a rural part of Canada, I was bored and messaged different people every day. The very first thing I ever said to my soulmate was “grrrrr”. The first thing he said to me was “Are you a bear?” hahaha, I am positive it was fate, or something. We are on our 7th year of marriage. He came to Canada to meet me in person and stayed 5 days, met my family. And I left for sunnnnnny California with him at the end of 5 days. We were already engaged before meeting in person. I’m sure a few relatives rolled their eyes but after 7 years of amazing, incredible, super-fantastic-thank-goodness-for-yahoo-messenger years…..the eye rolling has stopped.
At a dance club. He memorized my unlisted phone number, we dated, fell in love and married after 9 months (s-l-o-w compared to TACE!) and have been married for 23 years!
I was working, at the time, for KOALA BLUE, a clothing boutique,at Horton Plaza (San Diego). The store had a very small stock room/office that had a faulty door lock, so we never shut the door. So one day as I was getting something in the room, I accidently closed it and I locked myself in! In order to get the mall maintenance to get me out, my co-worker had to go thru the mall information kiosk. That’s where my soon to be “husband” came in to play. He was working that day at the information kiosk and called maintenance. The next day he came in the store and wanted to see the girl who “locked herself in the store room.” And as they say, the rest is history. 🙂
Divine intervention brought me Prince Charming of this we are both convinced……….
I love that little video.
Oooooh La La.
Love is all you need.
Weekend, Weekend, Cha Cha Cha.
Love and hugs
Jeanne
I’m a newcomer to your blog and send deepest sympathy over your father’s death.
I met my Aussie-British love on the beach at Manly, New South Wales.
We will also be travelling on Sept. 1, from Sydney to Paris.
Cheers from Down Under.
While travelling in Australia, I met him.
He took me out for lunch and made laugh and laugh.
I had to go back to the UK, we telephoned each other and I ran up a 1,700 pound bill! He left his well paid job, rented out his house, sold his car and followed me to the UK.
We met at Heathrow……………..
One year later he proposed to me at our secret place in the Kentish countryside and presented me with three silver beans(from Tiffany). I did not want an engagement ring, just some Elsa Peretti beans.
I said Yes.
Thankyou for reminding me;)
New Years Eve Party.
It was a set-up!
(Wish I had a more romantic story! To make our relationship even more boring, he proposed to me at a laundromat!)
The second day after I moved to Paris in 2004, I had to find a restaurant to meet some friends who were visiting from Prague. I grabbed the guidebook, gave my friend the choice of three restaurants. She chose an Italian wine bar where my now husband worked as a sommelier . . .he was charming and funny and at the end of the night gave me his #. I got up the nerve to call him, we went out the next weekend on a cinematographic whirlwind tour of Paris, smooching all the while, and next month we’ll celebrate our first wedding anniversary!
thanks for the chance to reflect on the beauty and mystery of such meetings and to share other readers’ stories!
When I was a teenager I had done a lot of plays with the local Arts Guild in my hometown. Ten years later, I moved home again and wanted to get involved with the theater again, but decided to get my feet wet by hosting the intermission refreshment booth first. Several of my friends had told me to “watch out for” then president of the Guild…that he had a new girlfriend in every show, so when I was bringing a huge carton of cookies through the back door and he offered to help I said “I think I can handle it” He said o.k. and went off and asked a friend who the “bitchy” redhead was!
We were married about a year later and have been married for 18 years!
It was a set-up with a twist. My friend took me to be place to meet the bartender. She thought we’d hit it off. We didn’t. But one of her co-workers was also in the place that night. I spotted him and said to myself, “That’s going to be my next……and FINAL husband.”
Yep….it was true. We’re married 30 years in December.
– Suzanne, the Farmer’s Wife
Jeff and I met in a bar. He was a perfect gentleman which made me believe he was the one for me.
But, my great grandparents have more in common with you and Yann. My great grandfather was from Germany and my great grandmother was from Poland. Neither spoke each other’s language nor did they ever learn the other’s language either. But they both knew the language of love.
I met my husband in a parking lot. How romantic, huh? I had known of him (and seen him before) as he knew my brother. One night while admiring him from a far at a local bar, I leaned over to my friend and whispered “If I had a guy like that, I’d never go out again.” A few months later an introduction came outside of a restaurant in the parking lot. The rest is history. We were married 15 years this past May. 🙂
Joy
hehheeh sacha is so cool!
xxnancy
Met my Tech Hubby through a friend, right after swearing off men. Our 4th anniversary is in December.
Todd was the resident director of my dorm my junior year. This sounds so corny, but at our first hall meeting I was sitting on the floor in the hallway and he walked over and (this sounds unbelievable) but he just glowed–maybe it was the ceiling light over his head! Love at first sight!
We just had our 22nd anniversary!
Becky
I chaperoned my sis and her boyfriend when they graduated from high school (yes, back in those days there were still quaint mothers who thought that necessary) as they went on a weekend backpack trip to the ocean. We hiked the 2 1/2 miles to the beach, set up camp and I left them alone as I strolled along the beach. Hubby and his buddy were also backpacking as a mini-celebration from hubby finishing his Journeyman Machinist training. They were in the camp next to ours. They had trouble starting a fire and this former Girl Scout helped them start the fire. The rest is history and 42 years so far.
Mike picked my photo out of my yearbook, actually year pamphlet, since there were only 313 girls in my entire Catholic high school, 69 in my senior class. His sister, who was a freshman, was the yentl. We spoke on the phone each day for a week before meeting. As he approached my house for our first date, I was already smitten, but when I saw his blue eyes, I was a gonner. We’ll be married 39 years this coming September 13th.
I met my prince charming when he was assigned as a Marine Security Guard Detachment Commander at the American Embassy in Lisbon, Portugal… My roomate worked there, so I used to go to the TGIF parties thrown by the Marines, and knew all of them pretty well. One of them decided, when Mark arrived, that we would be a good fit for each other and set us up on a dinner blind date (together with 10 other Marines and Mark’s Commanding Officer, who was visiting!). My sweet husband tells me he knew that night he wanted to marry me… That was 17 years ago!!
Hi Corey,
Went to the prom with him when I was 16, haven’t been apart since. Our 32nd Anniversary is in Oct.
Amazing but true!
Have a great weekend,
Rosemary
walking home from kindergarten
My husband left the air force after 14 years and moved here for a job. We met at church–knew “of” each other for about 8 months before we started dating, dated 7 months before he asked me to marry him on the side of a mountain in Colorado at dusk, and married 5 months later on a day so cold that wind chills were in the -40s and -50s (Farenheit, of course).
Since we both had waited until we were in mid-late 30s to get married, we decided to count months rather than years to be able to get in those silver and golden moments–we’ve long passed those and just recently celebrated our 115th monthiversary.
Won’t be long and you’ll be back with your own true love.
My hubby saw me in typing class in college and asked me how many words per minute I could type!
What a line.
xoxo
Melissa
My best Friend and a friend of his had been dating for about 3 weeks when my best friend decided they should find someone for me. they did and had him call me. We went on a double date with them and he asked me to marry him 28 days later!!!!!!!! We celebrate or 11th anniversary in just a couple of weeks!
Jill
At 17 I got a job at the local Sears store. I was a “float” that worked wherever needed. One day I “floated” into hardware and met Gary. WoW! Love at first sight? Maybe … but I still had a year of high school and four more of university (far away) until we married. Married 24 years just this last week and it’s still WoW!!!! All because I tried to sell a lawnmower without ever having mown a lawn in my life — enter one knight in shining armor to start the thing. ; )
I met my husband in college at a Computer Lab Class. We were sitting next to each other. Well,the teacher was doing roll call and when she said his name and he said here, my mouth dropped to the floor. You see he has blond hair and blue eyes and he is Poturguese. So I said to him “Are you Portuguese?” He said yes. Well then we just keep talking to each other throughout the semister and then as they say the rest is history. Not very exciting is it? LOL
Lorene
My (now) brother-in-law and I were best buddies at college (halfway across the country from where we both lived). I was 18 at the time. BIL learned that I had never been to a rock concert, so he dared me to go to one during our summer break back at home. After he picked me up at my house to go to the concert, he said he had to “get something” at his house first. The “something” was his brother (my hubby!)! lol Being the ridiculously naive girl I was, I didn’t realize I was on a date with “the brother” during that entire Scorpions concert! lol
I was at a retreat center for a day. He was there for the weekend. I remember seeing him through a window (he was outside) and thinking “I wonder who he is.” Turns out, the first time he say me was across the meeting room and his first thought was “I wonder who SHE is.” We were married four MONTHS later and we’ve been mainly in sync ever since.
I am so glad you asked this question, Corey! I love telling our story – I’ll give the abbreviated version here.
I met my husband while I was on assignment for my travel/adventure radio series. I was covering ice racing in northern Alberta/ These crazy fun-loving guys take little Chevette cars and race them around a track on a frozen lake! He was one of the drivers, and I interviewed him.
After I interviewed him (and found him to be eloquent and interesting, to say nothing of very handsome). he took me for a high-speed tour of the track but the moment he stole my heart was when he helped me on with my helmet. A lock of hair was over my face, and he tenderly brushed it aside.
My heart said, “DONE!” and I was off the market. After that day, we were pretty much inseparable. 6 and a half years later, and I love him more than I ever thought possible. We got married in February ’07!
I wish you long love and all the happiness in the world.
Tamara
I actually saw my husband for the first time when I was 14 and he was 20. He was a camp counselor and I was a camper. I was busy with two 14-year-old boyfriends and did not pay him much attention. Two years later when I went to a different state to attend college, he was sitting across the aisle from me at church and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. That was 20 years ago this month, and I still can’t take my eyes off of him.
I met my husband at The Jolly Roger in San Diego. We both went to listen to the musicians, and I saw him several times, sitting alone, and doing sign language to the songs. I didn’t know if he was deaf, or just wierd. One night, he got up to leave, and one of the musicians grabbed him, brought him to my table, and introduced us to each other. Turns out he wasn’t deaf, he was practicing his sign. We ended up working at the same place, a circuit board shop. After a year and a half, we started dating, fell in love, and have been married 22 years. The only reason it took so long was that we were both hesitant to get involved again after really bad previous relationships.
The first time our eyes met I was looking thru a circle and a triangle or the eye holes of a jack-o-latern. It’s been trick or treat ever since.
Brother Mathew
I was working at a fish cannery in Alaska and looked over the dock to a fish tender down below. (A tender is a big boat with fish holding tanks that sits at the mouth of the river and the fishing boats unload to them and when the tender is full and the tides are right it comes in and unloads at the cannery.) When I looked down I saw a man in raingear cleaning out a tank. When our eyes met, sparks flew and my jaw dropped…he was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen! “What’s a beautiful girl like you doing working at a place like this?” he said. We were married nine months later. We live in the log home he built himself and have five beautiful children and have been married nineteen years…all because I followed my friend’s suggestion, “Let’s check out the Tender Boys…”
ooooh, how fun reading peoples’ love stories. My husband and I met when a mutual friend of ours invited us both to go watch the fireworks on the quatre juillet. We both saw fireworks, and four years later – to the day – we were married!
i met my hubby while working at a ren faire. i was hugging a group of friends goodbye for the day and he was passing by and asked if he could have a hug too,he was cute so i gave him a hug. he proposed one week later,we were married five months later,and we had our son one year later! we will be celebrating our 16th anniversary this october.
I met my love on a blind date set up by mutual friends. Within a week he asked me to marry him and presented me with a gorgeous engagement ring. I said yes but we didn’t get married for 4 years. He was a widower with 2 teen-aged daughters and I had cold feet. lol We’ve been married for 14 wonderful years.
I met my fiance, Tohny, when I was 15 and doing the play “A Christmas Carol” with the neighboring town. Tohny and I were paired as husband and wife and I guess it kind of stuck, haha. I was so lucky to be paired with such an amazing person. Just one of those amazing ways God brings people together. Little did we know, we’d been around each other most of our lives, having been in the same elementary school class and I went to a haunted house in middle school once and remember seeing a very tall Frankenstein… He was also my first and only boyfriend and I his first and only girlfriend.
I like to think it was love at first sight, I couldn’t stop thinking about him after that rehearsal. And, I will always cherish that image of a tall, dorky boy with bleached blonde hair and a yellow hawaiian shit… 🙂
I saw Double BB leaning against the bar at a local dance club, white shirt, jeans, boots … then I saw him when he walked away from me and determined then and there I would marry him just to have THAT A** in the family (hee hee). It’ll be 22 years on 9/19; he still kisses me like he did back then, and I still LOVE to see him (coming OR going).
I met my husband at a local dance on a Saturday evening. I was (17). Later, he told me he thought I had given him a fake name. Ha!!!The truth was I did not give him a fake name as he was to find out when he called and asked me for a date. We’ve been married 38 years now!!!
Kris
Well, I was the third wheel on several dates with my best friend and her boyfriend. When I had a boyfriend we double dated for Valentines I talked more to her boyfriend then mine…I just wanted him to be quiet very thing was “cool” or “awesome”. That night we basicly took over the conversation. My friend and her guy broke up as did I with mine you can only take so many cools! I would run into her ex at the festas we would visit, but no further he was off limits never date a best friends ex! So a few years went by Best Friends had moved on and had hook a great guy! They ran into ex at a princeton contas(sp?) She told him you should call Jeanette you two alway got along good give me a call if you want her number. Well he called. Our first date I saw stars and we talked for so long the resturant closed and we didn’t notice unitl they turned the lights out…we even got the lights turned out on us while we talked in the parking lot! History was made. My friend said who would of thought I would be inviting my ex boyfriend to my wedding or that I was the maid of honor at his wedding! So Lorene did I do the story justice?!
My husband and I were in an art clas in high school. He was a senior and I was a sophomore. He loved to tease me. He had a cast on his arm at the time. He would put his sleeve over it and drop the exacto knife into the cast to get my attention. He asked me to the prom, and we’ve been together since. We have now been married for 23 years.
Blessings,
Lorilee
A friend mentioned that he was in the same film class as me. Since I didn’t want to walk to those night classes alone, I asked if he’d be my escort. I fell for him instantly — he took a little longer (heh-heh). We’ve been watching movies together for 21 years now!
I was supposed to be on a blind date with guy who my friends set me up with at the horse races. We didn’t hit off but his friend and I did. He put a dollar down on a race and I picked the horse. It won and we decided we were a match and we have been together every since…18 years now and still loving each other more and laughing every time we see the horses run. We still giggle how we weren’t supposed to be together and yet we got lucky.
love and blessings
I met the love of my life at 15, while trying to ditch an unwanted suitor. I went up to him and told him, Hi I know you dont know who I am but could you please just pretend you want to talk to me and the rest is history, 35 years of wedded bliss on August 31, 2008
My husband and I had economics together our senior year in high school. We sat next to each other because our names were alphabetical. We did NOT like each other at all that year. After we graduated we ran into one another at a party and it was like seeing each other for the first time! I remember our first date and how he grabbed my hand to hold while he sat next to me and chills went up my back, the good kind of chills! To this day after 21 years he still gives me chills when he grabs my hand. Thanks for the post it made me smile. 🙂
My husband and I had economics together our senior year in high school. We sat next to each other because our names were alphabetical. We did NOT like each other at all that year. After we graduated we ran into one another at a party and it was like seeing each other for the first time! I remember our first date and how he grabbed my hand to hold while he sat next to me and chills went up my back, the good kind of chills! To this day after 21 years he still gives me chills when he grabs my hand. Thanks for the post it made me smile. 🙂
On opening night, I watched this darling 16 year-old boy in a small-town high school play sashay across the stage wearing platform shoes and a pink feather boa…his gumption, as well as his charming personality and style, simply captivated me! Soon after, we became best friends and he eventually admitted that he used to watch me change buses in front of his high school and had formed a huge crush on me. Our playful mutual crush lasted throughout our teen years until we decided to explore a romantic relationship together. We celebrated 32 years of glorious friendship and 24 years of blissful marriage this past June! Here’s to all of us lucky lovers and to sharing inspiration and hope with those still searching for their soul mates!
Hello Corey.
I met the first love of my life 38 years ago when my Dad held me.
The second love was at 16 at my sister’s engagement brunch. It was her fiance’s brother and little did I know, four years later we were married. When I first met him, he was a cute college student with the classic 80’s mullet. Shawn (the second love in question) was more interested in shooting the bull with my brothers than with me. A year later at my sister’s wedding we, through a series of coincidences that paired us found ourselves dancing together, talking, feeling an undeniable connection. A few months after that, I visited my sister and he, his brother, my sister’s husband. Confused yet? Yes, it is legal, sisters married to brothers! He walked through the door with a haircut and that was all she wrote. A year after that, he proposed while we babysat “our” niece. Of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my third love of my life, my daughter Vivian, my fourth love of my life, my son Mack and my fifth love, my daughter Eva. Ain’t love grand?
My divine, wonderful and handsome (late)husband was dancing with my best friend and I wth his. I looked into his eyes across the dance floor and thought that is the man I am going to marry (had never seen him before that night). He said that he thought the same thing. The rest is history. Although way way too short. Love is a magical thing.
Hi Corey,
I met the love of my life in a bowling alley at university. We were friends for a long time (bowled in the same league, went to dances , and hung out in the same group of people) and then one spring 3 and a half yrs later-. we went out to a hockey game and he kissed me. We started to date and he looked after my apartment while I went to summer school in the States. When I returned from summer school we decided that we were more than good friends- we have been a couple ever since- We were married in 1980.
It was a risk that was worth taking and he is still my dearest friend nearly 30 years later.
Regards from a Western Canadian quilter,
Anna
I met my French husband on a blind date in Austin, TX where he worked for IBM. I had been divorced for 7 years, not looking for anything serious. He wanted to get married after a few months but I wasn’t ready. He went back to Paris and I dated a series of losers for a year. When he came back to Austin-to win my heart-I said yes. I live in France now and am always amazed to find myself here. I feel like my life opened up when I got here. A new husband and a new life in a new country-you can’t dream up this stuff. Who knew?
We met in a private high school and then a few months later our family began attending the same church and it went from there, though the first couple years we were just friends. It took him awhile to figure out I was the one he wanted. Isn’t that often the way of it? Women seem able to weed out the ones not acceptable, so much quicker!! Patience is the name of the game. And NOT chasing him…running until he catches you…heehee!! Most men seem to like someone who is not always predictable…but keeps them guessing. (In nice ways, of course!) We have been married now almost 36 years…and it is STILL a good idea to surprize him!!
Corey,
I got the best bargain, the love of my life, at Wal-Mart in the electronics department. I was working for a PCA Photographer taking pictures of children with Santa. I was an elf, costume and all! A certain cute guy with striking blue eyes kept leaving his department and volunteering clean up in the area where our photo booth was set up in order to strike up a conversation. I had no idea at the time that I had met the one I would some day marry. We went our separate ways after this brief encounter. Three years later our paths crossed again and we began dating. Two children and almost thirty years later we are still together.
I met my husband in 1988 at the University of Arizona. I had been invited to a college group (church) square dance and hay ride by a classmate. My classmate introduced me to his roommate and WOW there he was. Cute in his overalls. 🙂 We dated for one year and were engaged and then married 5 months later.
I have been lurking and reading for sometime. I love your blog and the photographs here.
I met my husband on a fall day fishing along a creek near a cider mill here. I took his photograph. He wasn’t to happy about it. I was taking a photography class at a near by college and that was the assignment to take a picture of someone you did not know. So I did.
That was 35 years ago and he is still the love of my life always will be 🙂 Amazing isn’t it how it happens.
All these beautiful comments made me smile! It gives hope to us all that love is as you say, out there waiting when we least expect it!
I didn’t read this post earlier because I was being a bridesmaid at a wedding! Beautiful wedding it was too!!
I was introduced to a friend(girl) through and old high school acquaintance. We were both single and used to go out clubbing together in the D.C. area. I spied a picture of her brother in her apartment, and I just kind of knew. He was five years younger, and only 21, but very cute! His mother is a German citizen, and when he came back from Crete to visit, I knew this was an exciting person who enjoyed traveling the world. On his return to the U.S. about a year later we met again, dated and married(eloped) within three months time. I really shocked people when I came to work Monday and announced I was married!
I don’t think anyone thought it would last, but it’s been 15 years and he is the most decent and kind man I’ve ever known. When you know it’s right, you know it’s right; I didn’t want to wait to start my life with him.
We met at the candy machine in the back stairwell of my office building in Wash. D.C. He asked me if I was married, engaged or ‘going steady’! “None of those” said I. “Will you accompany me to my boss’s home for a barbecue on Sat. night” he said. As it was several years before becoming a vegetarian I said. “Certainly”. He was single, straight, had a good job, and a company car…………plus he was really cute then, with hair, what more did a gal need!
And here we are……..where have those 44 years gone!!!!!
When we meet in Oct. don’t tell him I said “cute then” – he’s still cute but less hair, lol!
I met him at the park when we were 7. He would push the merry go round faster and faster for me. We ended up 5 years later going to the same jr high school and then high school. We dated off and on and were always really good friends. I didn’t see him after high school. When I married he wrote me a letter saying that he always thought we would end up together, but here I was marrying someone else. I did not see or hear from him for almost 40 years and then he went to our high school reunion “looking for me”. I didn’t go, but he got my e-mail and we started a 2500 mile courtship, both of us single again. We have been married for over 3 years now and always wonder if it would have been this good when we were in our 20s.
When I was 15, me and my friend Gina walked the few blocks to the annual church carnival. I spotted 14 year old Nick while walking through the rows of carnival games and pointed him out to Gina. It so happened that Gina knew Nick… they both went to school at the church. So Gina introduced us. We enjoyed a carnival ride together and then took a walk around the church grounds. That evening we each became the other’s first kiss.
As exciting as it was for each of us, the relationship didn’t last much longer than a few weeks. We parted ways amicably… for the time being.
Five years later we were attending different colleges. On the last day of school, I drove the 3 hours home from college, dropped off all of my stuff and then drove another 1.5 hours to another college to a party thrown by some friends. It just so happened that Nick was in attendance at the very same party. We spent the evening getting reacquainted and kept in touch periodically for the remainder of the summer but it wasn’t until fall break that we began dating and we have been together ever since. We just had our 2 year anniversary (7 years together) and just adopted a puppy together.
I was asked to be the night receptionist at our church for two weeks. On the last night and the last hour in comes this handsome young man asking for a key. It was the night before Thanksgiving and people were dropping off turkeys to give to the poor and since the St. Vincent org had already distributed all the turkeys I had four turkeys in the resident frig. When this handsome man returns the key I asked him what he was doing for Thanksgiving and he wasn’t sure. I gave him one of the turkeys and we made plans to meet for coffee one week later. We found out we both love Christmas and he helped decorate my tree. We got married 18 mos later. Thirteen years later still cooking, still decorating Christmas trees and still in love. I say this is a match made in heaven.
Ann
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