As unromantic a person as I am, I love hearing about how couples met.
So I asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell me the unique ways they met their partners or spouses.
Here are 17 of the replies I got:
1. "We met at a boxing club. I was walking in on my own for the first time and he was sparring with someone in the ring. I was immediately struck by how gracefully he boxed and thought 'who dat?!'"
"We didn't speak for months and didn't even know one another's names until a club Christmas photo was posted to Facebook and we were both tagged in it. He messaged me the same evening that it was posted and now I have a great sparring partner AND husband!" —jessicashrader
2. "I met my boyfriend eight years ago in a small, quaint Italian restaurant in Santa Barbara, CA. It was Fat Tuesday and my friend and I went out to celebrate a nice meal before the lent season. I had decided to give up eating out and in turn make meals for my friends at home. My friend suggested that we go to this restaurant featured in a local coupon book that Santa Barbara comes out with annually. Fast forward to the restaurant scene, I was greeted and seated by this tall, charming Italian guy. When we sat down I told my friend that I thought he was SO cute and she encouraged me to leave my number at the end of the meal. Unfortunately, I was not very straightforward in that sense and had not ever done that before so I got all the courage I could muster up and wrote 'you are so handsome, call me sometime! Ciao (my name).'"
"I left as fast as I could once our meal ended, he reached out a week later, and the rest is history!" —misa_misa
3. "We have a joke that we tell people saying we met on Farmers Only. However, how we really met was that I had just ordered my first waterpipe (take that for what you will). And I went on Whisper to just ask how I should paint it. I couldn't find a pipe I really liked so I thought I'll just buy a plain one and paint it myself to my style. He was the only person who responded that wasn't overtly creepy. Had some cute ideas for what I might want to paint. And we just kind of hit it off talking about art. He's not even a really artistic person, he loves practical things but we just clicked while talking."
"Met at a Thai restaurant two weeks later for dinner and have been together for almost 10 months now." —bonnieprice092498
4. "We both have BPD. We met doing an outpatient DBT group. After it finished, we both went on to the grad group. I quit after about five months because it had turned into a whinge session. I was an inpatient at that hospital and when I went to the dining room for lunch I ran into Phil."
"We talked for the whole of his lunch break, exchanged numbers, and hugged goodbye. I wanted to kiss him but wasn't sure how he'd react. I found out later that he felt the same way. That night I sent him a bit of a cheeky text message, and that was it. We both knew within a couple of days that this was forever. He proposed three weeks after that lunch." —phimi
5. "My husband and I met in the psychiatric ward of a hospital back in 2014 when we were in our early twenties. We were both going through hard times and felt very depressed, which is how we landed there. Since then, we've helped build each other back up and have accomplished a lot together, including our dream of moving to a sunny state."
"We've now been together almost eight years and married six years in October. I'm grateful for my hard times because they led me to him." —funnyyface
6. "I was at a club and noticed this creepy older guy kept following this younger guy around, trying to dance with him and talk with him. It was clear the younger guy was creeped out and didn’t want anything to do with him. So when I walked by him I asked him if he wanted me to pretend to be his boyfriend. It was loud so the other guy didn’t hear. He said yes, so for the rest of the night we pretended to be a couple."
"Later we decided to meet up the next day at PrideFest. We’ve been together ever since!" —aditson
7. "My close friend's sis died tragically young. I flew to her and was at my friend's house to support her when her cousin walked in. We didn't speak much, but he was observing me cleaning, helping with the food, and trying to be useful despite the grief. We had to get a couple of things at the mall and exchanged numbers to meet up. A day after the funeral I went home and we texted daily for two months. Then we started doing movie dates over the phone."
"We've now been married for 10+ years. A sad beginning to a happy future." —racheenewman
8. "I was on holiday on my own in the Dominican Republic, and there was this really rowdy group of guys at a bachelor party. I clocked them and they immediately irritated me. I ended up chatting to them a bit, trying to brush them off, until I got chatting with the bachelor. He was 'safe' (as in he wasn’t hitting on me or flirting because he was just about to get married). I actually ended up having a laugh with these (still somewhat annoying) guys. The guy who was the bachelor was super cool and we chatted about our dogs and football, and he found my shoes that I had lost when I was drunk."
"We kept in touch via social media and I sent a wedding present on his big day. Cut to 18 months later, his wife had cheated on him and I’d been in and come out of a relationship and we were consoling each other through a tough time.
Cut to four years after that, we have two kids and are due to get married any day now!" —alisonrowbotham
9. "I was going through a bad breakup and decided to go to the local game store I'd heard about to play the miniatures game I'd just gotten into, X-Wing. I was the only woman there. (I've since been to regionals and championships and national games, and I'm always one of a few women there.) My husband was there playing, but it took us over a year to finally admit our feelings to each other. (I think the fact that he didn't have a beard when I met him and then grew it back is a big factor to me finally noticing him lol)"
"We still play the game together, a lot of our adult friends also play the game, and various people have expressed shock in that we met like we did. I had my pick, but he really hit a jackpot lol (the only local woman who plays the game)." —ladypalutena
10. "I accidentally came across my now husband on an anonymous chat app. He posted about being sad because he and his wife had separated. I was in the middle of a hellacious divorce. I just felt he needed one friendly stranger to reach out and say, "Hey man. I know this sucks. But it's going to be okay. I am here if you just need an objective ear or someone to tell you a silly joke and make you laugh." We chatted throughout the day, and video chatted for five hours that night. Then the next morning he video chats me while he's getting ready for work, cooking a real breakfast, singing, and dancing in his tiny kitchen. I think I fell in love with him right there because I went to work and told my coworkers I was gonna marry this guy."
"Well, over the next few weeks I was just going through an awful time. He said, 'Come in for the weekend, let me take care of you, get you a break from life.' so I did, and kind of never really left except to go back and pack up, quit my job.
Been together for three years, and just celebrated our first anniversary. We are blissfully happy and so grateful we took a chance on each other! Never too late to start again!" —a4e49862e3
11. "It was the summer before my first year of college. My best friends and I went to the beach for a weekend and we took some pictures and we did the hand sign for our university. I posted it on Instagram and got reposted by a page specifically for incoming freshmen of our school. Some people followed me after seeing it, including my now-husband. I followed him back and joked with my friends that I thought he was cute and hoped that maybe I'd see him around campus."
"Fast forward to the spring semester, and he sends me a message on Instagram. I remember sitting with one of my friends in class and being worried it would be an inappropriate picture. Well, I opened it up and it was actually a picture of pugs and him introducing himself. We went on a date two days later and have been together ever since.
We're now both teachers and got married over the summer. Going on eight years!" —lovebelenn
12. "We saw the same TikTok about an LGBT+ Google classroom and filled out a personality survey to help people make friends. I read theirs and knew they were really cool, so I messaged them. We've been together almost 2 years long distance, and they've just gone home from our first real-life meeting. The bizarre thing is if my TikTok restarts my FYP I just carry on scrolling, but this time I went back to find this video and it took me ages, but I felt like I had to find it."
"I eventually found the code for the classroom and the next day I was talking to my now partner and knew they were a keeper." —lgbtqenby
13. "I actually met my spouse as a child and didn't know it. Both of our moms went to the same high school and each of our moms got pregnant at the same time at age 16. We were born in the same hospital just three days apart from each other. I guess our moms would run into each other from time to time and catch up at the store, coffee shop, etc., but with time and more kids they lost touch."
"Later on in high school, I moved to the next town over, and a year after me so did he. Him being the new guy in school, I decided to talk to him...we realized we had so much in common, (close birthdays, having single moms, being the oldest siblings, etc.) it was just an instant connection. We were so much alike. Little did we know, our parents all ran around in the same friend group growing up and we knew each other as toddlers. It truly made me believe in the stars aligning." —septemberbaby98
14. "When we were children we lived on the street next to each other, we were at the same swimming lessons and judo club. I knew his grandmother and mother, but never met him."
"When I was 21 and he was 24 we met at a crazy house party, he was studying at university a few hours away and was home for the weekend. We fell in love and this May we are together for 10 years." —cshayen
15. "I met my husband in the fourth grade — he was my desk buddy. He moved away after that year and in high school friend-requested me. We never exchanged messages, just friends on Facebook to keep our friend lists from looking even more small and sad."
"I thought he looked pretty cute when I was cutting down my friends list at 23 to keep as family and real friends only and decided to message him because even if he didn't feel the same I could always use a new friend. Fortunately, we clicked right away, started dating two weeks later in July of 2018, engaged in May 2020, and married in October 2021. Never had another human I could relate to and communicate so much to. Very Glad I chose to give my old fourth-grade buddy a chance. He went from picking his nose to picking me :)" —noodel
16. "My husband and I have been together for 21 years and met as teens. When people ask how we met/started dating, we simply tell them, 'I/She crucified him/me.'
"The real story is we met at church in youth group and I convinced him to not only join the church choir for a short while but also to play Jesus in our passion play at church. My only line was, 'We have no king but Caesar; crucify him!'
We went on our first date afterward — now we're celebrating our daughter's sixth birthday and our 13th wedding anniversary in a few weeks." —saracecelia13
And finally...
17. "1995, right before my senior prom, my date canceled. I still wanted to go, so my best friend said: why not take my cousin? So she called him and he agreed. My prom date was a blind date."
"Obviously, it worked out because we have been married for 23 years. He’s my lobster." —catschelin
