Last week we posted this on our Facebook page:

Read all of the responses here.

We absolutely loved reading all the different places people met “The One.” In movie terms, these are the “meet cute” scenes where the romantic leads lock eyes for the first time in an adorable, entertaining, or amusing way.

Our readers shared “meet cute” settings ranging from church, the library, and high school to Arby’s, the Pentagon, and even, one of our favorites, adjoining driveways. Apparently love blossoms anywhere. You all were so generous with your stories, we felt like we should be equally magnanimous with ours. Here are our “meet cute” scenes that led to twenty-plus years (and counting!) of true love. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have nothing on us.

And as a special bonus, our husbands are chiming in with their two cents (and corrections). They do help to keep us sensible and honest.

 Erin: In August before my senior year, I came back to school early because I was going to be a resident assistant. For a full week before classes began, I hung out with a group of great people who would also be working in the residence halls.

One day between sessions, I was hanging out on a grassy knoll with some of my new friends and someone commented on my shiny new shoes. We had all been together for a week, so I guess conversation was running a little thin. In any case, I felt it was the perfect time to see if anybody wanted to be my new running buddy. Steve piped up right away. Apparently, he had new shoes too and wouldn’t mind waking up at the ass crack o’ dawn to run with me. He didn’t look like a serial killer or a date rapist, so I said sure. It took us a full two months of running for me to figure out that a) he didn’t really have new shoes, b) he had never really run before, and c) he liked me. The rest is history.

Steve: Cute story, but that’s not really when we met. This is just when you remember meeting me. I actually met you a whole year before at a party of a mutual friend.

It was the night of the Christmas Dance. I was majorly interested in one of the girls I had met through some Student Life activities. I even worked up the courage to ask her if she wanted to go to the dance. Though I didn’t see it at the time, she politely told me “no” by suggesting that I meet up with a bunch of friends who were going to the dance together. Several days later, but still excited, I arrived at the meeting place apartment to find it mostly empty, but with people straggling in. Introductions were being made. “Oh, hey, I’m Erin,” was the basis and full extent of our first and apparently unmemorable first meeting.

I would also like to clarify some things from Erin’s “memory.” For the record, I did have new shoes. And while I hadn’t run regularly since high school, I had wanted to start jogging. Also, Erin never specified that we would be running so early in the morning. Finally, I didn’t know that I liked her at the time. It wasn’t until one morning jog when Erin stumbled that I realized I felt differently. As she fell, she blurted out, “Don’t leave me!” to which I realized I never would.

Ellen: Oh Sweet Cheezits! If Erin’s memory is, shall we say “extrapolated,” on something this life-altering, I have no hope.

Anyway, my “How I Met Your Father” story began in early September before classes started my junior year at the University of Maryland. But I was not there for a pursuit as noble as becoming an R.A., I was there to fight . . . for my right . . . to parrrr-tay. If you read that to the beat of The Beastie Boys, you are my people.

I was in a sorority and the week before school started was a wild time in the Greek system—all of the socializing, none of the interference from pesky things like classes. We’re talking partying so intense it should be an Olympic sport. My sisters and I primped and polished and headed out on the scene around 4:00 pm. By 2:00 am, our shine was dulled, to put it kindly.

I was sober amongst the tipsy and more than a little frustrated I hadn’t connected with my formal date from last spring. To up the annoyance factor, I was marooned on a fraternity house lawn waiting for my friend. She was incoherently babbling to some guy about how much she “lerrrvvved” his roommate. I wasn’t going to leave her, but I was too irritated to stand within earshot. My goodness, I just wanted to go home.

So there I stood in the middle of the revelry, as bristly as a school marm during a lice outbreak– metaphorically tapping my foot and actually scowling—when this cutie in a pink Monkees t-shirt approached me. Despite his appeal, I wanted no part of what he was laying down, but he forged on through my eye rolling and something “clicked.” In fact, we connected so well that when my old friend from high school sauntered by, she was fooled into thinking we had known each other for ages instead of minutes.

The minutes of banter stretched into hours of talking that night and when he showed up to my sorority rush practice the next day, he “clicked” the lock on my heart and stole the key forever.

Frank: First of all, the Monkees shirt was an award-winning Greek Week garment and secondly it wasn’t even mine. It was about the third or fourth shirt of the night due to the excessive amount of beverage spillage occurring at my fraternity’s crush party. By 2 am, it was the only dry piece of clothing in my room.

With my alluring shirt choice locked in, I scanned the crowd for a promising companion, and spotted a very attractive girl by herself on the sidewalk in front of my fraternity house. Little did I know I was strolling down the steps to approach my future bride. I cannot remember exactly what I said, but it did incur the wrathful and infamous Ellen Scowl. I knew what I was getting into from the start.

Of course I did not let that stop me; I had gotten far worse reactions from the opposite sex before. As Ellen said, we did hit it off quickly, but it got a whole lot more challenging when a local law enforcement officer interrupted us (and our party!!) and told me, “Why don’t you just take the young lady home?” This guy was killing me! I replied to Officer Smooth Talker, “I think the young lady might have something to say about that, sir.” Ellen deigned to give me her number and the rest is history.

Ellen: So if we were to marry where we met, I would have a gorgeous Georgian style mansion in the background, but my altar would be made out of empties and my guests would be seated on ratty plaid couches.

Erin: And I would be married–in running shoes, of course–on a grassy knoll nestled between three residence halls, because even if we did meet at a party the year before, our story didn’t really start until we met again.

In fact, our college has a beautiful chapel which we probably should have considered for the big day, but, ladies, for the record, don’t ever bring up something like that after the proverbial ship has sailed. That’s the kind of stuff that happily married people fight about. Just sayin’.

 How did you meet “The One”?

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