Focus: Where do you go to meet people? Your local bar? The downtown clubs? The grocery store? Do you go out for the express purpose of trying to get laid or just to relax after work? Alt-Focus: For those currently in relationships, where did you meet your partner? Alt-Focus: Ever dip your pen in the company ink?
My last two long term relationships were with girls I worked with. Both were temporary employees - one was an intern, and the other an office temp. I feel that an office relationship can work with some careful consideration. Working in the same department is probably off-limits, but more importantly, you need to feel out the other person to identify if they're a mature human being who would deal with a breakup, or if they're going to go nuts. And, of course, you can't be doing things to make them nuts like cheating. In both cases, the girls were smart and mature, and it's not really in my nature to cheat or do crazy things that trigger insane breakups, so I went with it. One of the girls I broke up with while we were still working at the same building - she had gone from a temp to a permanent employee - and she dealt with it fine. She wasn't super friendly to me afterwards, but we spoke professionally and had no issues. The other, I'm still dating... but I know it would have been the same way. It may be that my crazy-meter is a little more finely calibrated than some, but I think, by and large, you can identify the kind of person that will deal well with an office relationship. It depends heavily on your job, of course.
Whoops. Alt-Focus: I worked at a retail job when I was 19. It was an office supply store and they bring you in on your first day to show you around and explain your responsibilities. Everyone was very friendly and forthcoming except this cute 26 year old latina who seemed to be going out of her way to not make eye contact or even talk to me. As far as I was concerned, those were clear signs of interest because she wasn't behaving like all the other 'normal' employees. Weeks later, we started talking at the store and I end up asking for her number. We're texting back and forth that evening and I'm trying to get her to come out. I finally get her to agree and we head out. That was the first time sexing in a vehicle. I immediately requested a transfer to a different store and went over with my store manager. The gal and I dated for 2 months until she decided we had to break up because she had a long distance crush with an 18 year old she had not met. The store manager was always talking to me about her because he'd been trying to get with her for a couple years. Spoiler I could fit this girl in this thread, the crazy girl thread and the first car you made sexy time in. She rented a room in a house and she had 4 cats in that room. They would go crazy in the room and fight each other off while we were pumping away on the bed. She had black hair with a strip of hair dyed white. I now know that that is as close to the international warning for crazy as you'll get. 'You can't rape the willing' is a very effective funny/disarming line I've used over the years, initially with her.
I met my husband online, on a messageboard similar to this one. Which means a) he knew I was crazy, and b) he knew I posted my tits on the internet. Talk about romance and courting, right there.
I don't go out to meet people, I go out to flash my cleavage at bartenders and get free drinks. I've come to the realization that, due to my bizarre standards, my dating pool is currently non-existent. I cope by being grossly busy with work and school during the week to distract myself, then sexin' up the Ex on the weekends in between sleeping and drinking. The Ex is as close as I am to being in a relationship. We met when he managed the auto parts store I worked at 4 years ago. It was love at first sight for him, and love at first sight of abs for me. See above, and then some.
Alt-alt-focus: I briefly dated my boss at my part-time college job and it was a MISTAKE. Especially since I was only a little interested and didn't go into it expecting anything big, which would've probably made it a bit more worth it. It was actually the cutest way I've been asked out. I had made a ton of chicken soup right before work one night, and decided to bring some for him at work because I'm just precious. Then, the next time we worked together he invited me to dinner "in exchange for the soup." (Yes, I have seduced a man with my homemade chicken soup. All of my Jewish ancestors must be so proud.) Unbeknownst to me, he had pretty much immediately started to like me as soon as I started working there months before. I was just kind of in it for funsies. After our second date (after we had already slept together), I decided I was not interested whatsoever, but felt kind of trapped in fear of what would happen if I were to dump my boss. Unfortunately, he became alarmingly emotionally attached and invested very, very quickly, and it turned into a shit show. He started picking fights with me that I not only thought were only appropriate for people who were actually in a relationship, but for people who had been in a relationship for a long time. Mostly, he would pick these fights when we were working together. It was awful. This lasted for about two months, until there was a series of times when he'd ask to hang out and I had legitimate excuses for not being free (being in class, already had plans with friends, etc). He snapped and said that if I was "done with him" to just say it, and I told him I wasn't lying, but yes, I was. I worked there for another three months, but I guess he was in charge of the schedule because we didn't work together again until the very end (so he could check in to see if another employee was pretending my register was short when he was actually stealing money, which he was) and by that point it was awkward but bearable. Still, never, ever, ever doing something like that again. Thank god pretty much everywhere I will work in the near future is staffed by women and gays.
I met the girlfriend in a chemistry lab. Also, I sort-of knew her roommate, who recognized me from the previous year when we apparently sat near each other in a physics lecture at a different university. I didn't recognize her, but I went with it.
I met my wife at work. We knew each other a year before we started dating and when we did it was like magic. We were married a year later. Sometimes I bitch about her but she's an awesome woman and a great wife.
I meet people at school all the time. They're always too young or too Republican for my tastes, but it's a great place to make acquaintances. Bars are okay sometimes, too. I mostly rely on friends or friends-of-friends to enlarge my dating pool and social network. OkCupid. He was actually not the best match, percentage-wise. And he was a wee bit outside my upper limit for preferred age. But he's good-looking and he wrote an awesome first message (that I stupidly, stupidly deleted...ARGH) so I decided to take a chance and meet him. Once. It was...awkward. To his credit, he always behaved admirably at work and never gave any indication that I was meeting him during our lunch hour for furtive sex. But I started avoiding him and not meeting his eyes during team meetings because my paranoid brain assumed that OMG EVERYONE KNOWS WE'RE DOING IT, so it was a relief for both of us when I quit and moved on.
1) A good number of people my wife and I hang out with are fraternity brothers and friends of mine from college. Any people I've met and befriended post-college have been through my college friends. I hang out infrequently with people I work with, but it's very rare, and in fact, is limited to a few drinks after work. I won't Facebook friend them and I try not to socialize with them, since people where I work have a history of spying on you, and using things that happen after-hours, as ways of trying to get you fired. Plus, I'm married, so I have no need to meet new people. 2) My wife actually taught my little sister's high school English class. My sister was certain that we were perfect for one another, and tried to get us to hook up. By the time it happened, I had just gotten out of an on-again/off-again 3 year relationship with an evil shrew, and was only interested in going to Poundtown. Seeing as how my wife was the good, virgin Catholic girl (and Catholic schoolteacher), this was not the way to a relationship. We went out a few times, had some drinks, then I would sporadically call her to say hi. When my sister graduated high school 2 years later, we were seated next to one another at the baccalaureate luncheon, and afterwards, I asked her out to dinner after that evening's graduation. 5 years later, we're married, trying to start a family, and own a house together. 3) I never dipped my pen in the company ink, as I've had enough examples of "Why restaurant employees should not date one another" in 11 years to last me. I have, however, "fished off the company pier" and hooked up with quite a few women that I waited on or made drinks for. I would explicitly recommend that, but always keep it casual, and try not to screw it up too badly.
Focus: Where do you go to meet people? Almost exclusively through friends of friends. I've never kept in touch with anyone I've met out at a bar, although two of my friends are in long term relationships with girls they met at raves. Alt-Focus: Ever dip your pen in the company ink? Came very close to it with a poorly adjusted woman who was in the process of divorcing her husband. We made out a bit here and there, but she was frighteningly unstable so I never consummated the process. (NB: I'm talking 'get my address from the work database and rock up at my house drunk at 2am on a weeknight screaming and demanding to be let in' unstable.) But a girl from work is taking me on a surprise date tomorrow, so wish me luck!
Yes. However, it turns out that a.) I've always misunderstood that phrase and b.) OfficeMax has a one-strike policy about that sort of thing.
Unfortunately I don't. There are pretty much no women in my circle of friends, so there's no real opportunity there. Minnesota is also very insular, so if you don't have a connection through your friends you're pretty much screwed. Absolutely not. I'm intensely private as it is, and getting into a relationship with a coworker - even just casually - is way too out in the open for me. Besides, that and every other good reason why you shouldn't get your honey where you get your money.
Alt-Focus: For those currently in relationships, where did you meet your partner? I think I've mentioned before that I met my wife at a Virginia LARP event while she was dating a friend of mine. I would head down there for various weekends during the year and we would all hang out, along with others, before or after events. Eventually they broke up and we, with my friend's blessing, got together as she was moving back up to New England. In terms of extracting a life lesson from all this, it's that large social circles centered around a common interest seem to work well. Soemthing that offers new people but is manageable in terms of getting acquainted.
Focus: I'm lazy at the age of 27 in the regards that if you're not the intention of the night (e.g. hanging out with my friends) I really don't feel like talking to you, approaching you. Yeah, I have no problem holding a conversation and having fun at the bar if I'm out, I just would never go out with the intent of meeting someone at the bar. Alt-Focus: I actually met my current GF on match.com (as shown by my prior laziness). She's a great fit for me and it cut so much of the random BS out of the occasion. Easily the best girlfriend I've ever had. When people ask where we met, I have no qualms about telling them I met her online. Some people get afraid of that stuff, I endorse it. Alt-Focus: At my last job, I actually dipped my pen in company ink.... with three different women. They all came at different intervals (one was towards the start, one was towards the middle, and one was towards the end) and surprisingly with all of them we all knew we could never date, just wanted some ass. It's surprising how the girl you rarely talk to at work is all of a sudden coming over after a happy hour for some more beer and to hang out. I will say, one of them was easily the best lay I've ever had; we would never be relationship compatible though. So for me, I've had no issues with it. Starting a relationship in the workplace is probably a no-no in my eyes. No-strings attached fucking? Go for it.
Meeting women at bars is always a crapshoot. I preferred meeting girls at parties, because you always know somebody who knows them, and you can do a little diligence before you get yourself into a shitstorm. Plus, it's always a much softer "in" to approach somebody at a party because you already probably share similar acquaintances. The truth is, there's really no "great" place to meet women. My brother met his current girlfriend on a plane ride out to Oregon for my wedding. Sounds odd, but if you think about it, it's a great way to get to know a stranger if you're mutually attracted and are forced to sit next to each other for 4 hours. I met my wife at a wedding. We were set up by mutual friends. Until that point, I had a very strict no-set-up policy as a result of bad prior experiences. This worked out really well, though. Neither of us were really looking for a relationship, so we took things slowly, and it worked out great. I've had my dick in the payroll before, and it turned out horrifically. She was a subordinate, and turned out to be certifiably crazy. She ended up getting fired for stealing money from the company and later tried to extort money from me. It almost ruined my life. I spoke about it on the old board...won't rehash the details again. I learned my lesson the hard way. Almost wrote off trusting women for good because of it.
I met my boyfriend at a disgusting country bar. I was there for a fundraiser and he was there for a pub-crawl for the engineering competition he was in for the weekend. We hit it off and spent the majority of the weekend together. Unfortunately, he lived half-way across the country at the time, but I had just applied to the same school as him right before we met. I figured we wouldn't stay in touch after that weekend, but he kept texting me. I went to visit him/check out my new school a couple months after we met and we started dating. We did a couple more months of many Skype dates before I moved for school. I've dipped my pen into the company ink once. It happened a few days after I dumped with my ex. My co-workers (including a new, hot 18 year old) and I went out to celebrate my newfound singleness. After way too many drinks and everyone else had gone home, it was just the 18 year old and I. I would have had no problem continuing to sleep with a co-worker, except for the fact that he wasn't very good in bed.