From Fantasy to Reality

Our love story starts out in 2003 with a man and his dog in Dallas, Texas and woman snowed in, in Kansas City, Missouri. I’m originally from Texas so the Kansas City winters were killing me. I hardly even went out to the store let alone dated. Mostly stayed at home and played online computer games. I wasn’t interested in romance at the time.
Meanwhile my husband to be was in Dallas taking his mini schnauzer for a walk. The dog, Willum, slipped his leash and ran off. Hubby to be took off after him tearing though yards and alleys. He stepped in a hole and blew out his Achilles tendon. A neighbor found the dog and brought him home. Hubby went to the hospital the next day for surgery to repair his ankle. He ended up in a wheelchair with a cast on his leg.


Months later still in a cast and going crazy from boredom, he decided to try online gaming for something to do. He found an obscure online multi-player game and decided to try it. I was already playing that game. We met the very first night he was in the game. Somehow we hit it off an started talking. We discovered that we were both from Dallas and that he was male and I was female. An important fact to establish in a fantasy world.
It is a miracle that we met at all. Considering the fact that never one of us was looking for a mate and neither of us left the house much. The cosmos decided to bring us together despite our every effort to remain single.
As the months went by we met and talked in the games for hours. Sometimes until 2 or 3 in the morning. We graduated to talking on the telephone. About a year later we decided to meet in person. I flew from Kansas City to Dallas thinking I was crazy to do this but what the heck. He met me at the airport with a dozen yellow roses, my favorite. I can’t say it was love at first sight because we already loved each others brains and hearts. The seeing part was the last thing to happen in our chain of events.

Island Love

I had traveled to Cape Cod to visit my older sister one weekend. I had left the guy I was currently dating back home and looking forward to a weekend without men.
My sister took me to a party, we had to travel by boat to a houseboat moored off an island in Falmouth and I didn't know anyone other than my sister at the party.
Feeling a little lost among all these people I didn't know and was unable to connect with, I was quietly sitting on deck when another motorboat arrived to drop off guests for the party. A man
in his twenties climbed the ladder to come on deck and he had on a black t-shirt and salt and pepper hair. I have always been attracted to men with gray hair. I'll never forget
what he looked like the first time I met him. I immediately began talking to him and we talked and talked. We connected from the very beginning. We began dating that next
day and were married 8 months later. We've been happily married for 34 glorious years.

More Than Friends

I was attending Snow College, about a one hour drive from my parents. Like every good college student I hitched a ride home some weekends carrying loads of laundry, just to avoid the coin laundry outside my apartment door.  One weekend while visiting home, I was invited to attend a Singles Halloween Party (hosted by our church). I went with my older brother who was living at home, and a bunch of his friends from church. I got to meet this really nice guy. So I started going home on weekends to date this guy.


 I initially asked him out, but he eventually came around and asked me a couple times. In February (just a few short months after first meeting this guy) he called me up to see if I would be home that weekend, and if I'd like to double up with his friend. It sounded like fun, so I made arrangement to go home that weekend. "guy" picked me up, and we headed to his friends house to pick him and his date up. When we got there, my date called his friend to make sure he was home (I thought it was odd, because why not just ring the doorbell? anywhoo!). He was home, but his date had canceled on him. Now what? Well, we decided to head inside my date's friend's house (his parents actually) to play games.  Fun, I thought, me and two guys!This could be the most awkward date I've ever been on. It turned out to be pretty fun, though. The friend was living in his parents basement, so I got a quick meet with his parents, before we headed to the basement to find the friend. We got to talking and found out "friend" and I had attended the same high school,

Aint No Mountain High Enough

We met on the 4th floor in the Donohue Building at Suffolk University spring 2005. Both us us were fairly involved with extra curricular activities, I was with the the Student Government Association (SGA) and Masa with the Japanese Student Association. Masa stopped by the SGA office and some mutual friends were very surprised that we had not met. I was planning on studying in Prague for a semester and Masa had just come back from a week-long business seminar in Prague. He offered to show me his pictures. 

My birthday followed shortly thereafter, and I celebrated at one of my friend's apartments on Beacon Hill.. Of course the apartment was located on the "student end" of Beacon Hill, 7 Myrtle to be exact with a view of the State House from the bedroom windows. To get back to how we met or how we got to know each other. Masa brought me a beautiful big bouquet of flowers and I was sold, this is a gentleman of the sort you rarely find anymore. A couple weeks later we went on our first official date at Joe's American Bar and Grill. The same day happened to be the Greek Parade, which we watched from a distance. We strolled through the Public Garden. In the years to come this became one of our favorite spots in Boston. We weren't in touch during our three month summer break. Masa basically gave up, but I called as soon as I got back to Boston. We went for many long midnight walks and bicycle rides along Charles River and Back Bay.

That Day In History

I was a transfer student at the university we both attended, and me being the semi-social butterfly I am, I decided that it was time to make some new friends.  That day in history, I decided to befriend my classmate that was assigned by alphabetical order to sit next to me. We made plans to get together that Friday night and so I picked her up at her apartment and we headed off to visit with another one of her friends. After hanging around for a while, feeling totally uncomfortable, I thought I had made a mistake and should have asked the girl sitting to my right if she wanted to hang out instead.

 That’s when she said “Well, I met this guy at a party last weekend, we can see what he’s doing”. She called him up and he invited us over. When we got there we were greeted by the guy she met and a couple of other people who happened to be at their apartment. Little did I know my future husband was there in that apartment playing video games. (not much has changed)

 We talked all night and he tried to convince my why he should be my boyfriend. He was funny and charming and all the girls were after him that night, but he only had eyes for me. The rest is history, and speaking of history, I dropped my history class and never saw that girl again. She was kinda crazy, but without her, I never would have met the love of my life. Crazy how life works out sometimes.
http://marriedawayinmexico.blogspot.com/ 

Happily Ever After Romance

The first time I met D, I was looking for a studio space near the Waldorf School our children attended.  I wanted to be able to drop the kids off and get a few hours of uninterrupted doll making in while they were in class. My husband, kids and I lived a 45 minute drive away so it was too time-consuming to go home and come back again.

We Met On A Bus

It was the summer of seventh grade, and my school courageously took 130 or so thirteen-year-olds on a trip to Washington, D.C.

Out of the four buses rented to chauffer us around the city, one of them broke down. I was on it.

Instead of getting a new one, they distributed us evenly among the other buses. I ended up on Steven’s. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. I didn’t know it was him yet, but it was him. He stood up in his seat and chucked a pop bottle at the person sitting behind him. A laugh erupted on the bus. The boy popped his head up above the seat once more and gave a wide, friendly grin at his target and added to the laughter.

It was love at first sight. 

I told a friend sitting next to me that I thought the boy who threw the pop bottle was really cute. 

The friend, without me knowing, passed a handwritten note in a glass ginger ale bottle telling him that, if memory serves right, "I think you're cute. Will you hang out with me at Six Flags? Love, Jolee."

There were a few other notes passed back and forth in this bottle and soon I caught on and became excited to get to Six Flags (our much needed break from all the stuffy history tours). 

When we finally got there, however, Steven was a no show and we didn’t hang out. I figured that was the end of that.

Of course, it wasn’t.

After Six Flags, I sat on the bus waiting to go back to the hotel feeling a little bummed, but then there he was.

He plopped down in the seat next to me, and asked what would go down in the books as the best pick up line ever.

"So, what's your favorite cartoon?" 

Two days later on June 8, 1999, Steven asked me if I would be his girlfriend.

Ten years later, he asked me to marry him.

And I did.

 www.joleedonnelly.com

From Russia With Love

It's party time in Colorado Springs... Julie, my friend and co-worker, just got engaged. I've never been to an engagement party before, coming from Russia, where diamond rings aren't given out before weddings.

The party is right after work, which means I don't have an hour or three to get myself groomed and polished. I head to the fiance's house after a long day of staring into a computer screen. I'm wearing a questionable Chinese top (what was I thinking wearing it to work?or wearing it, period?). The house is packed and the majority of people is in the kitchen; the usual. This is where I head because I'm hungry. I hurry to greet a few friends,  force a smile at some acquaintances, and divert my full attention to a platter of nachos. Have I mentioned, I'm hungry? I dodge many a body as I struggle my way through to the mount of cheesy goo. I'm almost there when a tall lanky guy appears right above the platter and is already eying my food. I grab a paper plate, briskly move the platter toward me and help myself to a generous portion. The tall one doesn't seem to notice I'm not friendly.

Despite this he smiles and even asks me how I know the newly-engaged couple. I guess now that I took a bite, I'm becoming a little more human.

His name is Greg, he lives in that house with 4 other guys. We haven't even chatted for 5 minutes when he invites me to go to Denver to celebrate Cinco de Mayo with him and his friend Mark.

I like his straight-forwardness... and I covet his fab Joseph Abbaud  glasses. I have no other plans for Cinco de Mayo, I love Denver, so I hear myself say "yeah, sure, why not". Greg wonders off to inform his friend they have a new party attender. I see them chat and wonder if I'll have fun at all.

He Said...

Hmm...  Though both of them HAD to have been there, SOMEHOW they do not always see eye to eye on how it happened...
Eric's Story

I met Shica when she was dressed as a childhood fantasy, Betty Rubble. Dang,but she tricked me.She was not at all  interested in the party we were attending, so I thought that she looked like my Auntie Shica.

I started calling her that.  (For some reason, she did not like me calling her that)  I kept seeing her at different events, and she kept looking like she was not interested in being there, so I kept making fun of her.  This caused her to hate The Wonderful EB. 



 But, her friend kept waving her flaming, burning desire by constantly mentioning my name over and over again - keeping me at the forefront of her mind.  After constantly seeing her at different events, I was finally worn down, so I decided to ask her out at a party hosted at the Covered Bridge Condos.