Meeting that someone when you least expect it.

[Hoppitybobbins]

after a recent separation, I’m of the mindset that I will never get involved with another man again. I literally cannot think of one attribute that would impress me enough to fall for another person.

However, one must never say never.

I’d therefore like to know if any of you felt like me at one time but ended up surprising themselves by falling in love at a time when it seemed most unlikely.

can that happen? Or is it that once you step over the line into single-dom and end up rather liking it, you’ll never go back?

and if it has happened to you, what was it that turned things upside down?

id like to think these things can happen to even tired, cynical types like me who has a career and a dog and likes own company. I cannot imagine it, but maybe…?

I felt like this in my last breakup. It totally broke my heart and I felt like absolutely nobody was worth potentially feeling that pain for again. Ive always been happy in my own company so just decided to focus on my degree and travel inbetween. Booked a solo travelling trip around Europe, 3 weeks after my breakup I met my now husband in the bar at our hostel. Was definitely not the plan 😂 I was adamant I’d be staying single and doing my own thing for at least a few years. Now we’re married and have a house and 3 kids together! It happens

Yep, I was happily single, travelled a bit, had just moved in with my best friend and was having the most fun with no intention of meeting anyone. Then covid hit and my now husband and I started talking and haven’t stopped since then.
He had big plans to go travelling throughout 2020 so he definitely wasn’t looking for a relationship either.
You really never know when it’ll happen, but I know when I was hoping to meet someone it just didn’t happen. Once I was truly happy being single then suddenly was in a relationship!

I have Aspergers’ and low self-esteem, resulting in a couple of pretty crap relationships. I’m actually quite content just as a single parent, so I wasn’t looking at all as just too weary to put all the effort in again and be so taken for granted.

Anyways, I finally discovered what deep love feels like at nearly fifty - I met my DP (a neighbour) and something immediately felt ‘right’. An unexplained connection that I couldn’t deny to myself but never dreamt would be reciprocated. We became friends, then best friends then all my dreams came true when we got together. It’s such a simple, joy filled relationship.

Well I've been single nearly 8 years and it hasn't happened. I'm sure it does but not often??

Not me but I can think of two friends this has happened to.

One bumped into an old high school acquaintance in the grocery store and the rest is history.

The other met someone at a party who was so completely not what she thought she was looking for after years of diligently doing OLD. Said she never in a million years would have gone for his profile.

Yep! It happened to me. I ended an awful, abusive marriage when he finally did something I couldn't explain away or justify in my head. I was initially of the opinion that all men are evil. Then my friends convinced me to try OLD which I did, only expecting some casual dates and nothing serious. Met my DP after chatting online for 6 weeks. After the first date we were totally smitten with each other. Like a PP said, a connection that just felt right. We were both just casually exploring the dating world, not looking for a serious relationship. We've both described it as a wrecking ball moment 😆I still tell him he wasn't part of my plan. Wouldn't change it for the world though. Totally head over heels for each other and the happiest I have ever been.

After being dumped by, in hindsight, a womaniser, I joined a social activities organisation. I met my now husband at a new members event. I had been enjoying being single and continued going solo to events. It was a slow burner but we married 5 years later and had children.

OP, you could have described me - I'm (still) tired with a busy career and a dog and very much like my own company. I met my DP when my grumpy little dog argued in a cafe with his chilled dog, we just got chatting, went on a few dog walks together which has turned into a relationship, we've been really happy for the last year. It was unexpected, particularly after being married for 15+ years, followed by a bad relationship after that point, I was very cynical but we are smitten.

I had been blindsided by the explosion of my relationship. A long (and I thought a pretty good) relationship after a vile contempt-filled drunken revelation that I was just the placeholder because he had been deeply in love with my best friend since we were all teens and I was just the convenient way he got to see her regularly while living comfortably, getting a boring but regular shag and enjoying the benefits of my money.

He ditched me as soon as she split from her long-term partner and poured his heart out to her. He was horrified, then embarrassed and then raged when she rejected him. I am only glad that he, being absolutely sure that his romance story was about to happen, told me first before going to declare his undying love or I am sure he would have strung me along until it suited him not to.

I was out of the game at that point, there was absolutely no way you can come back from that but I was lonely so joined a local D&D group.

There was this super cute and funny lad who flirted outrageously with me. We decided, due to our separate relationship baggage not to get together, keep it light, have some fun but be commitment-free and just to have a ONS.

The 'light-hearted, commitment-free' ONS has been going on for about 22 years now...

After a 16 year relationship with an alcoholic, I was convinced that I never wanted a relationship with anyone again. I focussed on caring for my SEN son and gradually building up a life on my own. However at a local music event a year later I danced with a very smiley man to whom I gave my number on impulse. He lives 300 miles away and it seemed impossible however.

I so regretted it the next day when he texted and I told him there was no way I was in a position for a relationship, but we still arranged to meet two weeks later at the same place as he had free tickets. In between we video called once and my heart sank - I just didn't fancy him at all. I arrived at the date grumpy about having to waste my time but after a couple of drinks and laughs and seeing his lovely smiley dancing again - we spent that night together and agreed to keep meeting when we could.

It has been 2.5 years now and we are still going strong, although due to the distance and part time nature of the relationship, and the constraints caused by my caring responsibilities, it has not been easy and we have separated a couple of times. However I am so grateful for the good times and affection and sex and adventures that we have. Even if we don't make it in the end, I'm so glad I gave him my number that night.

I would NEVER have chosen his profile OLD, he is nothing at all like who I thought I might want or be attracted to in looks or character.

I've been single forever (like literally forever), pride myself as being that strong independent career driven female etc but recently started dating someone i've known for a while through a hobby group. I wasn't sure at first and the guards are still up as I absolutely wasn't actively looking for a relationship when he asked me out but to be honest, I'm quite enjoying it! It's very early days and I don't think we'll be moving in with each other any time soon (back story, he's divorced with shared custody of a teenage daughter) but it's nice to have someone check in how your day is going and ring for a chat, and take you out for dinner etc. I feel a bit like a giddy teenager again and look forward to next seeing him which is something I haven't felt for years and I had rather written off feeling again as a middle aged peri-menopausal woman!

When I left my husband I was determined that I'd never let a man near me ever again.
Some while after some friends persuaded me to try online dating. I started it just out of curiosity more than anything and wasn't expecting anything to come of it. Initially I just enjoyed meeting people. Then.... boom.... matched with a guy who turns out is shaping up to be my soul mate.

So not exactly spontaneous - as I suppose I was actively looking to a certain extent but it worked for me. Couldn't be happier (or more surprised).

All I can say is when the time is right you will know when you're ready to let someone new in your life.

What fantastic stories! Thanks for sharing. Still not convinced the frozen old bint here is up for thawing, but as you all know, you never know!

I really like the posts that genuinely seem like fate. Finding him down the road or at a dance or over a dog attack or just going about your business in a grocery store, rather than the dating app stories (as you are surely considered in the market if you’re on OLD?).

Same. Single for about 10 years now, haven't been looking and nothing. But i'm old and not attractive so the odds are against me lol

Haven't had a single bit of interest in the last 8 years! Well at least it's not just me 😂

To be honest, even if you do not enjoy singledom, you don’t have much of a choice over a certain age as most people aren’t single. I have been single bar a few short relationships for nearly ten years and it is not for lack of trying. In my case my education and earning power put me in the top 1% and that seems to make single men run as fast as possible away from me.
I think you need to be very lucky to meet someone when not looking.

Absolutely. After ending a bad relationship that had dragged on for years, I promised myself I would stay single for at least six months, preferably for ever.

But friends seized the chance to push me and a friend of theirs together, and did everything to smooth our path. We’ve now been happily married for over 20 years.

It happened to me. I swore off men and dating after my awful ex. I was broken. Got a flat share, took on extra shifts at work, got a therapist and just focused on me.

About a year later I met a guy I used to work with who had moved jobs a few years earlier, got chatting and we clicked. Neither of us had expected to get into relationship and we were both pretty battle-scarred so we didn't even call it one for the first 18 months.

20 years this year and still as happy as we were in the beginning. I think it's because neither of us had any expectations it started off differently - and both of us had learned that our own happiness came first. Like, I knew he was with me because he wanted to be, and I knew if he didn't, he would be gone. And vice versa.

That resonates with me. What I love about my current relationship is that he doesn't need me - he just wants me. Whilst my ex saw me as a possession - we both know that we are free human beings who choose to be together, and we will both be totally fine (if very sad) if it ends.

I already have an SEN son, my ex was so needy that he was destroyed when I had to leave because of his drinking - I can't have anyone need me again

I’ve been single for 7 years and have 2 children. I’ve loved being single (I was in a toxic emotionally and financially abusive relationship with their dad). I was able to fix myself again, make new friends and just be happy alone and I love it.
But recently I have fallen for someone who is in a kind of professional situation for me and at first I didn’t look at him twice, not interested, not looking type thing but I’ve got to know him and I’ve fallen for him and I cannot stop thinking about him. I’ve not felt this way in a long long time. I genuinely thought I’d be single forever and I may well be, but this is the first man that I keep fantasise having a life with and it’s scary yet exciting. I don’t even know if he’s single or not. He’s slightly younger and may want children and I’m nearly 40 but I find myself thinking I’d happily have his children.
He’s just the sweetest guy who it turns out IS absolutely my type (I was definitely in denial before 😂) but whether anything comes of it or not I don’t know. But it has taught me to never say never.

Well I am in the thick of it- going through a divorce after an 18 years not much sex marriage ( 3 kids) to a man who cheated on me and admitted after all these years of my self doubt about myself that he was in fact gay. He left a few months back to live his care free life with his younger boyfriend clearing all the bank accounts- another story I have a shit hot lawyer -and now the doubt in my mind for all those years has been proven by his post separation abuse.

However I now find myself with an admirer within my mutual circles who had sniffed around for ages. He's younger than me and I kept him at bay. He found out what I am going through and well...the attention, the kindness and laughs has given me hope that I am still desirable.
He is drop dead gorgeous and I honestly can't believe he could ever see anything in me. And yet the looks, the winks and the little touches of flirting culminated in me agreeing to go for a coffee and a walk with him in the park. He told me how incredible I was and always had thought so. I still think he was being kind-

I don't know what will happen, but to feel so dead for so long to have a man look into your eyes and smile at me has shown that there is hope, even if nothing happens, for someone like me. He's invited me to go to the city next week when the kids are with their dad for lunch, a museum - all that I had begged in my marriage and asked for. It makes me cry when I think a new life at 48 has passed me by. I know this friend wants marriage and I am sad to know at some point I will have to say no because he'll want kids and what can I offer him. But he still wants to spend time with me. So we shall see

I think anything is possible - I never thought I would be where I am and now I have a date next week- goodness me so keep hoping

@ThisKookyPeachDreamer @Hemakesmesmile2 here is wishing you two all the luck in the world!

Maybe you’ll be like the two posters racking up 20 years together.

it’s nice to know that the feeling can be reignited. ThisKooky, I especially am touched by your story as you really sound as if you had lost all hope. It sounds as if he’s smitten!

These stories are nice to read. I'm just out of a 5 year relationship and right now I feel sick with the thought of letting another man near me intimately again! However, I do feel lonely. Actually I felt lonely in the relationship too. It would be nice to think I might fall in love again one day.

I can't comment from recent experience, but I did used to notice in my younger days that the moments I proclaimed "that's it, I'm done, I don't need anyone" - and REALLY meant it - were always followed pretty shortly thereafter by impossibly meet-cute situations. Most of which didn't work out, but hey, whatever, they were what they were for the time they lasted. However, they left me thinking that the moment you don't care whether anyone else ever turns up again - truly don't care, really, will happily embrace all the excellent things single life offers, plus cats -well, that's the moment the universe will throw someone at you.

Yes. I was with my ex from age 20-41. He was abusive and horrible. In the latter years of the marriage I would think about getting divorced and then think what was the point, I’d just end up with another horrible selfish man to deal with. I genuinely thought how my ex behaved towards me was normal. The thought of finding love again was utterly foreign to me.

My marriage ended in late 2022 and around the same time I reconnected with an ex boyfriend. When I was an exchange student in 1999 we held hands and kissed at parties over a period of about 3 weeks 😂

We had dinner together as both were travelling for work and it was lovely to see him - I hadn’t seen him for 24 years. We live on opposite sides of the planet. It was so lovely and I remember thinking that exH had never looked at me the way Old Flame did, and one day I’d love to find someone who looked at me like that. Of course I didn’t think it would be OF given 18,000km distance.

When OF found out I was single at the end of 2022, he sent me flowers for Valentine’s day the following February, then we met in New York for a week in May 2023. We are utterly, utterly smitten, he is the kindest most wonderful man I’ve ever met. I feel so extremely lucky to have had the chance to experience what a loving relationship is like - I genuinely didn’t know relationships could be so happy and easy.