How I Met Your Father

In honor of Valentine’s Day, a slightly sappy post and a challenge for you to write on the same topic.

How did you meet your spouse/partner/significant-other?

In college, a grad student I knew was actually doing interesting research on how couples tell the stories of their lives, and how that relates to their overall happiness and well-being. The question was less about the content and more about how the story was told. I’ll never forget that, and so I love to hear people tell their stories. Here’s mine, and beware, there are quite a number of players involved.

So, I moved to Boston in the summer of 2000 to start grad school. Barely knew anyone, as the rest of my friends moved mainly to Chicago or New York. But there was one person, a sorority sister a year older than me who I didn’t know terribly well. Mallory moved to Boston in the early fall, and we quickly latched onto one another in a “hey, you’ll be my friend!” kind of way.

Mallory had a friend from high school, Guido, who was taking continuing education classes at one of the nearby Boston colleges. His email address at said college was mistakenly subscribed to the listserv for the college’s student theater program. He ignored the misdirected emails and didn’t bother trying to unsubscribe. Then, one day, Ryan sent an email on this listserv, asking for anyone and everyone to come help hang lights. “Bring your friends,” it said. Well, Guido remembers that Mallory used to do theater in college, and is trying to meet people. He forwards Ryan’s email, and Mallory starts helping out in the college theater.

The fact that Ryan is no longer an undergrad has not stopped him from designing lighting for and directing student shows, so it’s not any more unusual that Mallory shows up. And brings her friend, me. I had nothing else to do. One night, Mallory and I met Dave. Another several-years-past-graduation guy still hanging around the theater. We called him “hottie Dave” (not “haughty”). Well, I stopped going, but Mallory continued to hang around the student theater at the college that wasn’t hers with guys who only used to go there. Another of those guys was Dave’s roommate. M.

So, one night, Ryan is having his theater buddies over. Mallory invites me to tag along. I remembered hottie Dave and wondered if he’d be there. He wasn’t. But M was. Love at first sight? Not exactly. I was a little drunk (it doesn’t take much) and was reliving my undergraduate days by singing along (loudly) to the South Park Movie. Charming. So, M’s first impression of me was, “who is that annoying drunk girl, and why won’t she stop singing?”

Lucky for me, Mallory invited me over to her house a few weeks later for some pre-holidays takeout with Dave and M. I was less drunk, we flirted, we hit it off. Around the new year we started emailing, and by Martin Luther King Day, we had rapidly become an item.

As a funny addendum, Mallory and I became roommates that summer. M lived with Dave. Mallory started dating Dave, and we were suddenly roommates dating roommates. Two years later, Mallory and Dave got married. A year and a half after that, it was me and M.

And we still sometimes sing along to the South Park Movie, just for old time’s sake. Probably shouldn’t sing those songs in front of the kids, though.