How did your parents meet?

My Mom’s best friend was dating my Uncle and she met my father at my grandmother’s house. She had skipped school and dropped acid that day.

My dad was new to my mom's school in their freshman year of high school. My dad's voice hadn't changed yet, so when the teacher called the roll in their first class together and my dad answered "here," my mom didn't know whether my dad -- "Francis" -- was a boy or a girl.

They didn't start dating until the end of their junior year, and they broke up after they went to different colleges. But they bumped into each other the summer after they both graduated from college, and things quickly rekindled from there. Married in the summer of '71, and by October of '72, I came along.

In the psychiatric ward.

They never met I was hybridized by aliens my decanter was a lizard.

R4 Neat.

Church, I think. Possibly a wedding (not theirs).

It's crazy how incidental most lifelong partnerships are at first.

I really wish people married someone extremely good for them, like a mate whose values and temperament were ideally matched with their own....rather than whoever happened to live in the same town or psychiatric ward or whatever.

No offense to anyone's parents. Or r4's aliens.

My dad, and my grandfather are around the same age, and very good friends. My mom having just moved to the same state as her parents, came to visit my grandfather at work one day, and my dad saw her. He was married at the time, and asked my mother to go to a Crosby, Stills, and Nash (Young was missing from the lineup) concert. She agreed, and they must have had a good time, because she told my dad she was pregnant with me a little over a month later. She wanted an abortion, he talked her into keeping me, and said he would raise me. He then had to tell his wife (the lady I call mom) what happened. She stayed with him, and they raised me as their little reminder my dad liked to chase tail. To add more spice into the marriage, we later learned my dad had fathered a daughter when he was in Australia 6 years before I was born. Some dads really need to keep it in their pants when they are on shore leave.

My grandparents on both sides knew each other before my parents were even born. Lived in the same neighborhood, attended the same church; my parents have never dated anyone other themselves.

English learning class for immigrants. My mother's worst decision was to give him the time of day, honestly.

My parents worked in the same office building. There was a Christmas party for all the building’s tenants and that’s where they met. They got married and eight years later I was born

I met him at the candy store.

At an Arthur Murray Dance Studio class.

They met at a dance and made a date to go bowling. She said while they were bowling, she couldn't take her eyes off his nice ass and decided then to go steady with him.

My mom and her brother were on the way to a rock concert, Glastonbury UK, in about 1970. They picked up this trippy hippy hitchhiker, draft doing American with long hair and a guitar. He was Quai Chang Kaine/ Steven Stills personified. Nine months later I came along. I came out Rock and roll and have remained so ever since. My mother wanted a scientist or at least somebody worthy of interviews on NPR.

Terry gross: how did you get so famous, smart and wealthy? Me:It was the influence of my mother.

She didn't get that she got a gay stoner with a fuck you attitude.

They lived in the same apartment building.

My aunt introduced them in high school. She thought they'd be a cute mismatched couple since my dad was a jock and my mom was a nerd. They've been together ever since and my oft-married aunt has lamented theirs was the only union she was involved in that lasted.

My Mom's brother was married to my Dad's sister, and so it began 70+ years ago.

In college in the late 40s. Mom and her friends were selling tickets to a dance. Dad and his friend had just finished practice in the gym (they were jocks). They decided to stop and flirt with the girls. Dad ended up asking Mom out for a coke date (the drink, not the drug).

Mom was a 20-year-old co-ed and dad was 27-year-old young man about town with a convertible driving through the campus.

This was the Spring of 1940. They were married in the summer of '42.

Believe it or not my parents met on Fire 🔥 Island in 1958.

Fire Island in the late 60s. My dad was a bohemian artist/art director and my mom was going to grad school at Columbia, making extra money as a model. They met at a boozy kite party on the beach.

With that DNA, it's no surprise that two of their 3 kids turned out to be gay.

My dad was my mom's doctor. He made her mad because he told her she was overweight. Well she got even and lost weight and then came back and went after him. He didn't stand a chance.

a debutante cotillion

It was the early 90s. My mother was 23 and the only waitress at a luncheonette in the NJ town they both lived. My father was 21 and must have been the world's last milkman. The luncheonette was on his route, and he'd stick around to get breakfast and chat up the cute girl behind the counter. They went to the same high school and knew many of the same people but because of their age difference (and both being dropouts) they never ran into each other. My father had been dating a girl for years that everyone thought he was going to marry, and he broke up with her (to much drama and histrionics) before he asked my Mom on their first date. I always thought it was kind of old fashioned and romantic.

The story of my grandparents is better. My grandfather was 21 and stopped at a red light with his friend. My grandmother was 17 and pulled up next to him in her car with her friend. They made eye contact and she revved her engine. When the light turned green, she peeled away and pulled into the parking lot of a burger joint. He followed her and the two couples had lunch together. They decided to double date, my grandfather with her friend, my grandmother with his. After a few weeks of this, they both realized they'd picked the wrong one and switched.

1950.

While in college in SC my Mom was a nanny to two little boys. She was in the choir one Sunday, and while scanning the congregation she saw two big ears that stuck out. Then she saw the face attached to the ears... and she was smitten. She said she could hear his strong singing voice (I rather doubt that part of the story; it was a BIG church).

Dad was a Louisiana boy, stationed at Fort Jackson in Columbia, SC. After church Future Mom shyly approached Future Dad, and there was instant connection.

Six weeks later Dad shipped out to Korea. FF three years, and the day he got Stateside he called the home where Mom had been a nanny. They told her FMom was in grad school at Ohio State. FDad tracked her down; by then she'd moved back to SC to teach elementary school. He called and asked "Are you married?" She said teasingly "No, I ain't married yet." He paid for a train ticket to Louisiana, and there they married on 12/29/53, never again to part until she died in 2018.

In the shadow of a keg at a 60s Animal House-style frat party. Sig Chi, I believe, midwestern liberal arts college.

Didn't last (they made it to 17 years), but it was beautiful while it did.

My dad was one of my mom's "clients"

High school marching band.

18 years married then my father tried to murder her so yeah, it was over.

At a bar.

Mine too, R28. They married because she was pregnant with my brother.

My dad raped my mom

Blind date. My mom's best friend was dating my dad's best friend. They went to rival schools somewhere in Los Angeles in '67. They were married in '69 and I came around in '70. They separated in '75 and divorced by '76.

My dad met my mother when he was stationed in Kentucky before he went overseas during WW2. they went on 9 dates and got married. Stayed married for 45+ years until my mom died. It wasn't a happy marriage and I think she married him to get out of KY. Plus my dad had movie star looks. But I believe my mom was a closet lesbian.

My mom was a 19 year old waitress, and was engaged to another man. When my dad came in with his friends to eat, she slipped her engagement ring into her pocket before serving them. She broke off the engagement and started seeing my dad pretty much immediately.

My dad had a friend going into the service and was asked to keep a watch on his friend's girlfriend while he was gone. Well, he did more than that. Several months later my folks were married.

No hard feelings between my dad and his friend and they remained friends for many years.

My mother literally caught her first husband cheating, got a divorce and moved in with my grandmother. Mom was outside hanging laundry one day and my father, who had just divorced his first wife and moved in across the street, approached her and said he'd mow their lawn if she would do his laundry. She agreed. This arrangement went on for a couple of years (with Dad even shoveling Mom and Grandma's drive in the winter). He finally asked her out and two weeks later, they eloped.

My great aunt also lived across the street, and after the first time Dad mowed their lawn, aunt called Grandma and asked her "who is that naked man mowing your lawn?!" after which Mom asked Dad to keep his shirt on... at least in the front yard.

Through an escort agency (now defunct)

OP your mom sounds super slutty. I really like her.

My Dad was a social worker and my Mom was a nurse, and they both worked in an insane asylum. The met during the electroshock therapy of a resident.

Sparks flew.

R38 That explains a lot about you

At a cocktail party given by a mutual friend.

[quote]r5 I really wish people married someone extremely good for them, like a mate whose values and temperament were ideally matched with their own....rather than whoever happened to live in the same town or psychiatric ward or whatever.

People usually date and marry those within their physical proximity. Unless you’re buying some mail order spouse, that’s who you meet.

Arranged marriage back in the old country in the mid 1950s.

My mother's family was coming over to this country. My father's family wanted to get their son on the boat to America the promised land so they came a calling offering jewelry and cash. My mother was considered an old maid at 23 so my grandparents agreed and they were married within a matter of weeks before the family left for 'Merica.

Disastrous volatile union that resulted in divorce. Their divorce was a big scandal in the tight knit Catholic Italian immigrant community. My mother was ex-communicated and forever tainted. Didn't remarry.

Growing up I was told that my father "refused to work". In reality and as I learned as I got older, the full story was that he "refused to work" for my mobster uncle's "construction company". I respect that he refused to get involved with his vile brother-in-law although that doesn't excuse what a horrible husband he was otherwise.

Purdue University, circa 1947. My mom’s dorm mate arranged a blind date for her with one of her boyfriend’s frat brothers, who was my dad. The four of them set off for a picnic together at a nearby state park and when my mom found out my dad was from a Chicago suburb not far from where she’d grown up, began asking him if he knew various friends and relatives of hers from that town. She asked him if he knew Mary Jane Andrews (not her real name) and my dad replied, “Oh my god, I went to high school with her and she was so ugly we referred to her as Medusa!” My mom then said, “She’s my cousin.” Smooth move, Dad! In spite of my father’s occasional cluelessness, they were happily married for fifty years. And my mom admitted later that Cousin Mary Jane wasn’t any prize in the looks department.

Organically.

My mom was a friend of my dad’s aunt and was actually kinda dating his cousin at first. No my mom isn’t a Ho, she is actually a saint. My dad was just better looking and richer. However karma is real because he is a complete sociopath and he took my mama on a wild ride lol.

There was pressure on my mother to get engaged to someone she didn't much like, so she wanted to take a vacation before that step was taken. Meantime my father was about to join the Army, and he wanted to take a vacation before that step was taken. These two disparate people from different locations thus happened both to go to a dude ranch, where they met; and both had reasons to marry quickly, and did.

My dad was a carny in a traveling carnival and my mom was a HS junior up to no good.

My mother immigrated from Ireland at 19, and married her first husband at 20, having three kids in rapid succession.

When she was 26, he was murdered in a barfight.

She went back to Ireland, and my father (her first husband’s best friend and the godfather of my older sister) started writing her (he was married to uis first wife).. After my father divorced his first wife, he asked my mother to come to California for a visit with my siblings.

They decided to get married during that visit and got married in a funeral home. My mother was wearing a red dress. They had me and my younger sister. Then she discovered my father was a bipolar alcoholic with rage issues. They divorced.

She swore off men and marriage and never remarried or dated again. He married a mail order bride from Colombia. He never learned Spanish; my stepmother never learned English, and that’s probably why they stayed married for 25 years.

The Emperor told me that my biological father was this guy named Palo who was in the Legislative Youth Program with my mother. He was a few years older than her: supposedly very cute, dark curly hair, dreamy eyes. Later, to my shock, I learned from brother that my mother actually met my father in a junk shop where he was essentially child, slave labor! That was creepy as fuck: my mom was giving creepy pedo vibes, and he was already flirting with her calling her an "angel". At that age! What a scruffy, little horn dog!

In the most unimaginative way: in college.

My father was taking a class at University. His professor was a neighbor and friend of my mother's family. My mom went on a field trip with the class (botany). She saw my dad (both of my parents were VERY good looking) and arranged to be in his car. They have been married for over 64 years and counting. Unfortunately for me and my siblings, they produced average looking children.

When my dad adopted my mom.

My dad purchased my mom from a mail order bride catalog.

I wasn’t there.

My dad was the high school football team captain.

My mom was the Homecoming Queen.

It was October 1989. My dad was the lead guitarist in a Portland-based band that toured regionally around the western US. My mother was a twentysomething party girl from Billings, Montana, who was wowed by my dad, originally a city kid from LA. After the show, they got a cheap motel off I-90 in Billings, and the condom failed them. I guess I really was determined to make it to this hellscape, though I'm still not sure why.

R55 My mom actually was the first black homecoming queen of her high school. And she was the black prom queen. This was the south in the 80s though my mom is originally from New York.

My mom was in her late 20s, my dad was finishing up his undergraduate (GI Bill, mining engineering, post WWII). They met at a dance at the mining engineering college he was attending. He was from a Protestant background, she was Irish Catholic so there were some initial obstacles. They married when she was 29 and he was 28. She was sure she couldn't have children at such an advanced age, so she said a Novena that she might at least have one child. They proceeded to have 7 while they were between the ages of 30 and 39. Never discount the power of prayer! LOL. They divorced after 30 years of marriage, but neither ever remarried. My dad's dead, but mom is still alive at 102.

r30 I'm sorry to hear that.

My mom met my dad in a gynecologist's office. Dad was a vial of anonymous jizz, most likely Scots Irish.

They were lecturers at the same college. Both were married to other people at the time, but the pull was too strong. The marriage has lasted, though.

R60 awww. I love stories like that.

My father was at Vassar and my mother was at West Point and the West Point cadets invite Vassar students to a party. Both are flaming queers but they hit it off and went on to have children.

R62 are they still married and did they permit each other to date/fuck other people?

My mom was 19, enrolled in a “teacher’s college” and engaged to some guy who was studying to be a preacher. She went to a party with her cousin, where she met this 21 year old hunk, fresh out of the Navy. He went home that night and told his sisters he’d just met the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and was going to marry her. She returned the ring to the future preacher the next day and broke it off.

They were married a month later, and had the first of 4 kids 10 months after that. They were married almost 50 years. Mom died just a few months short of that anniversary.

I was an “ooops” baby and came along after they’d been married 20 years, and growing up, they were just normal middle aged parents to me. But looking at photos of them when they were young—it’s no wonder they hooked up. They really both looked like movie stars.

My mom stalked my dad.

My dad kidnapped my mom and has kept her in his basement. Still there - she's grown to like it.

My dad was feeling insecure that his younger brother had just gotten married, so he saw my mom at random on a ski weekend and figured she seemed like a good choice. They stayed married for 50 years until he died.

My mom and her sister went to the drive in theater to see Psycho. My dad and a buddy were there. Dad's buddy was interested in my mom's sister, so he invited her to sit in his car and sent Dad to keep Mom company in her car. They married six months later.

My aunt, Dad's older sister, then a young mother, moved in nextdoor to my mother's family in 1945. My Mom was babysitting for her one day when my father showed up unexpectedly after returning home from the war overseas. They married a few months later.

My Mama used to dance for the money they'd throw. Papa would do whatever he could.

My mum was nagged into going to a nice Catholic dance so she could meet nice Catholic boys. My dad asked her for a dance as he'd never danced with a Irish girl (she did look like The Coors long lost sibling in her youth). Then the host called out the lucky door number and dad pulled out a wad of door tickets he'd saved from previous dances. He offered her a lift home, along with whoever he could fit in his car, as not everyone owned cars in 1950's Sydney. Five kids and a happy marriage, despite dad being a protestant.

Grindr.

My uncle’s (by marriage) dad was neighbors with my mom. My dad helped out the old man with rides and stuff and he introduced him to my mom. They had their first date at the newly opened red Lobster. My mom got super drunk. They got married in November and I was born in April.

Mommy was Daddy's boss at work. Mommy bought Daddy a whole bunch of Pokemon cards, then Grandma and Grandpa wrote a permission note to the courthouse, and then they got married.

My mother had her heart broken by a homosexual and ran toward the most he-man example she could find - my dad. As a tiny gayling, I learned all about a “real man”.

That bitch died early and I was allowed to care for him.

My mom was a jr. scientist in my dad’s lab. He said that she was best dissector of mosquitoes he’d ever seen..so he married the heck out of her.

My mother came to NY from Rome in 1956 sponsored by her sister. Her sister's husband had a nephew who she met at a gathering of relatives and friends just a couple of weeks after her arrival. He asked her on a date, they hit it off, and were married less than a year later. They were married 53 years when my father died.

My mom was 18 years old and working as cashier/waitress at a Catskills Diner. It was the 40s. She was earning money the summer between her sophomore and Junior years at Hunter College in NY. Not only was she brilliant and had graduated two years early from high school, but she had been her school's Valedictorian.

My dad was a 33yr old handsome, charming jazz musician. He was a member of the band on a summer gig playing at the very popular jazz club across the street. (like Dirty Dancing). The diner was open very late; my dad and his musician friends would go there most nights for dinner after the gig. Both he and one of the other musicians had the hots for the waitress and were in a good-natured competition.

Obviously, my dad won!

... parents?

My dad was dating my mom's sister. Never really did learn the details of how he ended up with mom, but there were no bad feelings about it.

R80 so basically your mom was Vivica Fox in Soul Food.

My mom was waiting for a friend on a city corner, under a streetlight. My dad walked by, and she said:

"Hey mister - you gotta dime?

Hey mister - do you want to spend some time ?

I got what you want, you got what I need.

I'll be your baby, come and spend it on me...

Hey mister, I'll spend some time with you.

With you - yeah - you fine. With you...

Toot-toot, hey, beep-beep !"

She met him at the caaaaandy stoooore...

She turned around and smiled at him.

You get the picture?

My mother went to nursing school in Charlotte and my father went to Belmont Abbey, a men’s college.

There were “mixer” dances. This was in about 1967.

I guess my mother wasn’t having a good time because she was outside, sitting on a trash can. She was a pretty girl but small town shy. My father was probably drunk.

He went up and sat beside her and they talked and exchanged addresses. My mother dropped out of nursing school and my father got kicked out of college and joined the Army. Aside from one big argument, they kept corresponding and eventually got married in June 1970. She died young and my father began his wonderful habit of screwing up everyone else’s life and blaming it on everyone but himself. His mother, very Italian, didn’t get along well with my mother. But after Mom died, Grandma acknowledged she had been a hell of a mother.

My dad was my mom's doctor. She was going through a divorce, he told her she could stand to lose some weight. She huffed out. How dare he!

She did lose weight, and came back for more than a prescription.

Bumpers.

Brothel.

My mother was the younger sister of two of my dad’s friends. Her parents thought she could do better and probably were right. His friends were the less responsible sons in the family. Her choice of my dad reflected a rebellious streak of sorts. Her one other serious BF a was Jewish and both sets of parents ended that. My dad was Protestant but basically a theist, so they must of known they would be stuck a novelty item for a son-in-law. They were Catholic. The Jewish guy became a prominent dentist and trained my current dentist (who practices in another state).

Wow, R67, I never heard of a man having that insecurity. Good on him for admitting it to himself, and doing something about it.

Well done, Dad!

Teeny tiny coal town. My mother's best friend was the sister of my eventual father.

My mom was a Madame Claude girl in Paris. My dad was her American client. They took things past “working” hours, ended up falling in love, and got married. This was all revealed decades later in a very dramatic family scandale of epic proportions.

R91 Tony Peck

[quote] Teeny tiny coal town. My mother's best friend was the sister of my eventual father.

And cousin?

The way my mom told it was that her best friend was dating my dad. But then my dad was more interested in my mom, so he dumped my mom's best friend for my mom.

Over the years, through my own sleuthing (and common sense), I've come to believe the actual story is as follows:

My dad was dating my mom's best friend. My dad thought my mom was hot, and being the oversexed horn dog that he was, behind his girlfriend's back, he slept with mom. But then my mom got pregnant with my brother, and being as it was 1959, he had to marry my mom.

What followed was 46 years of a loveless marriage, ended only by father's death.

After class, my father noticed my mother had mislaid an expensive fountain pen. He handed it back to her. Next came a five-year engagement and four years of fertility treatments, and I was born.

My mom lost the fountain pen for good within a week of my dad.

At a teen nightclub in the late 60s. My mom was a HS senior and dad had already graduated the year before. I was born soon after in 71.

A dance at the Totem Pole Ballroom in Norumbega Park, an amusement park just outside of Boston, to hear Benny Goodman’s band in the summer of 1940. My Dad was poor and took a streetcar to get there while my Mom had a new Ford convertible and drove him home.

Happily married for 45 years.

My dad was a 19 year old pilot flying an artificial insemination route over the cattle ranches (bull sperm on dry ice, dropped by parachute). My mom thought pilots were glamorous. They married in 1949 and my dad became a TWA pilot. He died 21 years ago and she is still kicking at 95. They were a great looking couple but they despised each other. On their honeymoon he took her to tour the state prison, what a romantic.

R98 My dad once gave my mom a wheelbarrow for Mother's Day.

Haha, r93! Hardly! We're north of the Mason-Dixon Line! Sicilian Mom and Irish Dad. Not a scintillating tale, though the Molly Maguire Coal Region had its moments.

In a bar on st Patrick’s day. Yes I’m of Irish descent. They’re divorced now after three kids and 25 years of misery

They each were on a date with other people - at a "dance", which I don't think are a thing anymore - and liked each other better than the people they were dating.

Not very glamorous, but maybe in their day would have been a "meet cute" story. They were married 25 years when my mother died suddenly.

My dad's car was in the shop so he had to take the subway to work, which is where he met my mom. She was 18 and he was 33. He told her when his car was fixed he would give her a ride to and from work. He lied about his age and she didn't find out until after they were married. It lasted 50 years until his death.

R75

I saw a movie short once that had that plot-line, but the son arranged an accident to kill his mother so he could take care of his father and little brother.

They met at a Roy Orbison concert and arranged to meet. The thing is my dad arranged to meet a 2nd girl. So he actually did a toss up..and met the other girl. My mom saw them in the dancehall later, havibg been stood up, and gave him a right bollocking. He said he fell in love at that moment.

R99 That’s OK. Endicott “Chub” Peabody was governor of Massachusetts in the 1960’s. Cheap Yankee.

One year his Christmas present to his wife was a pair of snow tires.

My parents actually met long before they ever went out. They were probably around 14 (dad) and 12 (mom). The boys were playing hockey on the frozen river and the girls were skating. The boys chased the girls off the spot where they were playing hockey. Around 7 years later, after my dad had returned from WWII, at 21, they hung out with mutual friends, then went out, got engaged and married. I was born over a decade later.

My dad was a bouncer at NYC’s Peppermint Lounge in the 60’s, it was well known as a gay hustler club and when I told him I was gay, he admitted that men came on to him constantly and he’d partake once in awhile… Mom was a go go dancer on 42nd St. a willowy Petrula Clark lookalike. They would dance up and away from the crowd with clothes on, and sit at a table on stage on breaks.

This actually explained a lot when I found out.

I took mom and her friend to 42nd St. 50 years later. You know what impressed them the most?

Sephora.

Dad asked mom’s friend if she would talk to him in the lobby. Mom said no.

Dad saw mom at party. Asked her out. Mom said ok.

Well they were nine, so in the neighborhood.