I'm not going to find the right woman Am I?
PA and I met in a management class in 1969. We both kinda liked each other, but literally sat at opposite sides of the room, him in the back and me in first chair. I thought he was a bit scary, he thought I was a hippie. I kept looking every semester to see him in the halls, but no joy. In 1982 we "formally" met at a singles group. I approached him and this was literally the conversation:
Me, Didn't you go to UNO?
Him, Yes.
Me, I thought I recognized you. Can I get you a cup of coffee?
Him, No I don't drink coffee.
Me, Can I get you a cup of tea?
Him, I don't drink tea.
Me, Can I get you a cup of hot water?
He burst into the most glorious laughter (and I knew I had him.)
It took almost a year of conversations before he asked me out. We went to a play and he asked me if I'd like to go out again. I said yes. Nine months later he called me up for our second date. He had a theory that if you were depressed, just get some more rejection and you'll climb out of it quicker. He expected me to bawl him out, but I said sure. Threw him for a loop. We started dating intensely.
In Fall 1984 we were engaged and married in March 1985. He was 43, I was 34.
The weird part was that:
his father knew my aunt,
one of his uncles worked in my mom's childhood best friend's family business,
my grand uncle and his grandfather were baker,
my dad shopped at the grocery store that his aunt and her husband owned,
his father and mother shared a house in WW2 with my mother's cousin and his wife
my mother and his mother lived around the corner from each other for a while as children
But we never met until college.
I realize that this may not happen to you, but sometimes a Hollywood script falls into your life and it can happen at the oddest time.
P.S. Neither he or I had been on more than 3 dates with others, we were different religions, had an intense love of history (mine is social, his was WW2/military), we backed rival football teams, etc. but we made it work.