Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

When/Where/How did you meet DP/DH?

62 replies

Earlybird · 04/07/2004 00:33

I'm curious to know how people met their DP or DH. I'm a single mum who wants to get "back on the pitch", but don't know where to begin. I've been single for 6 years, and want to meet someone, but don't know where to begin.

Most friends are married, and seem to have no suitable/available men to introduce me to. Can't imagine myself sitting at a pub waiting to meet someone, joining a dating agency, or doing a lonely hearts classified ad. I've done an evening class, but there was no time for socialising during, and everyone seemed to run out the door for home straight after. So, I'm at a bit of a loss. I know I need to do something to make myself more available, as it is clear that Mr. Wonderful isn't going to knock on my front door......Would love to hear how others met - both conventional and unconventional! It might provide me with some inspiration, or at the very least, some good ideas.

OP posts:

Lisa78 · 04/07/2004 00:34

Thru work - he came to audit me and spent two days sat next to me tutting! But he shared his chips with me so all was forgiven - he wouldn't DARE tut at me these days

OldieMum · 04/07/2004 00:35

Like a lot of people, I met my dh at work. Not much help, I'm afraid. I have a cousin who met his now ex-wife when he interviewed her for a job (she got the job). How about voluntary work, or joining a choir/drama group?

beetroot · 04/07/2004 00:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

mummytosteven · 04/07/2004 00:37

On the internet - strictly speaking the intranet -we were both at the same university and "talked" over the university network - bit like msn. Work or uni are good places to meet people - do you work? Not feeling very inspired....

bran · 04/07/2004 00:47

Not much help here either, I met mine at uni while I was still a teenager (at the bridge club, so romantic). A friend of mine moved from Sydney a few years ago because she wanted to settle down and wasn't meeting anyone. When she got here she went to every party, barbecue or gathering of every kind and had fun even if there wasn't a suitable man there. She met her DH at the party of a woman that she had met at another party. So perhaps if your friends don't know any available men, perhaps their friends will.

cuppy · 04/07/2004 00:59

Earlybird - I met my dh at a singles club .
Please belieive me when i say neither of us were there looking - I already had a boyfriend. The reason we were there was the cheap drinks - £1.20 for southern comfort and coke!!!!
I think cos we werent looking we found eachother.
In hindsight though, they are really good places to meet people. Nightclubs are useless, theyre ok when you 18 and just wanna snog someones face off but naff for meeting mr right -you cant hear each other talk .
The singles club we went to was more like a family party - with people of all ages -maybe u should give it a bash!?

Please dont think im odd - im really quite normal.

pepsi · 04/07/2004 01:03

Was engaged to someone else and lost the engagement ring whilst he was away in Oz, got myself in a right panic so went straight down the pub, got totally plastered on double G & T's, as I was leaving bumped into a friend and with him was this lovely looking guy, it was instant for both of us, spent the next week flirting with each other and had a secret relationship for a month before spilling the beans, we have been together for 11 years now and married 5 years ago. Dont feel sorry for the original boyfriend though...he used to spend all my money, knock me about and then went of gallavanting to Oz for 6 months on a loan. He said when he came back we could buy a house and add his £2,000 loan to the mortgage. I only got drunk in the pub because I knew he woudl hit the roof when I told him Id lost the rign. I decided to tell him of my new found love when he called me from Oz....which I expected to be on my birthday, but he forgot it and called 2 days later. I told him it was over and that was that.

womba1 · 04/07/2004 01:08

I met my dh while we were both working at the Bluebird Foodhall in Chelsea. I walked past him and he said to me, "you look like my 2nd wife". I asked him how many times he'd been married and he said just the once!
We continued flirting with each other for weeks. He was the butchery manager and i was the foodstore manager...and eventually...he wapped his sausage out over his butchery counter and trust me, that won me over!!!!!

Original poster

Earlybird · 04/07/2004 01:13

Thanks for the feedback so far. First serious relationship was someone I met at college, and next was with someone I met through work. Last relationship was with dp who I moved to England to be with, but the relationship failed. I love it here, but don't have a lifetime of established friendships to draw on to introduce me around. Most friends are gay men, single women, or married couples - so not necessarily the best sources for available men.

I'm not working at the moment, as I'm taking a career break to be with dd for a few years. It seems to be true that being a mum can be a bit isolating - especially from eligible members of the opposite sex. In my world, they're almost an endangered species! It's clear to me that I'm going to have to be more focused on meeting someone, because it isn't happening spontaneously. Keep the ideas coming please.....

OP posts:

Slinky · 04/07/2004 01:15

We were working in the same building although didn't know each other.

Then we both got roped into the local "Carnival" - our company did a float - Peter Pan. DH was dressed as Captain Hook and I was a "Little Red Indian"

We got chatting, he offered to buy me an ice-cream (that sealed it for me ) - and we took it from there - although I was a very naughty girl as I was engaged to someone else!

Carried on seeing them both for a while - found it too stressful, finished with the other bloke and stayed with DH.

This was WAYYYYY back in August 1990 and we married in September 1993

libb · 04/07/2004 01:22

I was married but worked with DP, his big brown eyes did it for me every time we spoke. Knew that he was the one pretty early on but was glad that I got another job as I would've had to have taken some kind of action if I hadn't - then on my last day at work he told me he loved me . . . . the rest is history.

My extobe-DH is still one of my closest friends though and will make a brilliant/fantastic partner (although not for me) for a girl that deserves him. Can introduce you if you like? he really is wonderful.

Original poster

Earlybird · 04/07/2004 01:27

Cuppy - wouldn't know where/how to find a singles club. Advice please.......Most of the singles events I've heard about sound like desperate affairs populated very heavily by women, with many fewer men in attendance. And, I've read about those "speed dating" events which are the newest singles events, and they sound absolutely hideous to me. There must be a better/easier way to meet someone.

womba1 - what a funny story. I take it neither of you work at the Bluebird any longer? I was there a month ago with a shopping list for a few luxury gourmet items and found it's now a mini Sainsbury's!! That was a shock! So, no yummy food, and no yummy men either.....at least not that I saw!

OP posts:

Tommy · 04/07/2004 01:28

I met mine while we were both doing voluntary work. I had a party and invited a few of my fellow volunteers along including one bloke I really fancied....he didn't come and I ended up snogging DH on the doorstep - don't know who was more surprised - me or him!

MrsDoolittle · 04/07/2004 01:37

I was backpacking/working in Auckland. Two of us gatecrashed a friend of a friends leaving do, he was leaving to live in Sydney. We rocked up absolutely plastered in the very early hours of the morning. I guess being foreigners we were a novelty and everyone wanted to talk to us.

Anyway, the chap who was leaving sidled up to me at one point and evidently we had a dunken indepth discussion about..er...something! Next day he asked my friend for my phonenumber. He was emigrating and I was travelling, but we met up anyway. He moved to Sydney which is also where my sister was backpacking, so I had the perfect excuse to go too.
The rest is history.... We have been married two years and live here in ol' blighty!

Chandra · 04/07/2004 01:48

I went to Spain to do an MA, I met him the night I landed there at a welcome party, he was so arrogant I could only think, dear God what a pain would it be that I'm going to marry him??? We married a year afterwards and have been together for 8 yrs. And he was not that arrogant after all, as soon as he got used to my accent and stopped making jokes about it our relationship began to flourish

The hidden message in this is that some brutes can be diamonds waiting to be polished... but it doesn't happen very often though

tammybear · 04/07/2004 01:52

I met my dp off the internet in a wrestling chatroom lol, weve known each other since we were 14/15. its quite a weird story, but thats basically the jist of it

HelloMama · 04/07/2004 02:09

My friend tried to set me up on a blind date with DH's best friend. It didn't work out and when I saw the intended fella a couple of weeks later (in passing - not on a date)I was glad as he was SO not my type... anyway, she then said she had an even nicer guy she wanted me to meet... By this time I thought she really doesn't know my type so I refused to go on said date. Another couple of weeks passed and my friend and I went to our local club and suddenly she introduced me to this amazing looking man, "this is the other guy I tried to set you up with..." she said. And we've been together ever since that night and happily married for 4 years! So it was kind of a blind date gone wrong, gone right! He is the love of my life! (And I never was a romantic before and I didn't believe in love at first sight, but when I met him I just knew...)

jampot · 04/07/2004 02:42

Dh was going out with my best mate, she was murdered, kind of drew us close together, tried to avoid any kind of relationship until one day we didn't!!! Met in about 1984, got it together in 1987 married in 1997!

colinsmommy · 04/07/2004 03:15

He was my boss. How cliche is that? I had another boyfriend who treated me like dirt, and I was always depressed and never ate. He told me I was too thin, and would bring food to work for me and secretly slip notes in my locker telling me what he had made for me and told me I had better eat it before I wasted away. How could you not love that?

oxocube · 04/07/2004 08:18

On a blind date set up by a mutual friend

Fairyfly · 04/07/2004 09:03

Earlybird you should get everyone on Mumsnet to put
all the single men they know in a pile and then sift through them. I reckon somebody on here will be a sister of or friend of a man you would like. Get everyone to post photos

ggglimpopo · 04/07/2004 09:49

Message withdrawn

womba1 · 04/07/2004 10:32

Earlybird, i'm appalled that Bluebird is now a bloody Sainsbury's!! My dh and i were there in 1997 when it first opened and it was the most fantastic place to work. People would flock for miles around to shop with us and it amazes me to this day, that people would spend £1.60 on a tin of Heinz baked beans just so they could be seen walking up Kings Road with a Bluebird bag!
Mind you...the sausages were second to none...

motherinferior · 04/07/2004 10:55

Work again here, I'm afraid; he'd left some years before, and moved to another city where I was on a conference, so colleagues introduced us. We clocked each other, and in fact checked each other out - he found out I had a boyfriend and I found out he had a reputation of being a bit of a womaniser(completely unfounded, I've subsequently discovered - his response tends to be 'I wish!'. We finally got it together a couple of years later when he'd moved to Brussels but needed some editing work done; he emailed me; we started up a cheery correspondence about our mutually appalling love lives; met up just before New Year; and I asked him home to finish my Christmas vodka

Toothache · 04/07/2004 11:07

I met DH in the pub. He had come to Scotland from Liverpool to help his mate run a pub.... which just so happened to be my local. Lots of late night lock-ins.

Flip

1 2 3

Swipe left for the next trending thread