The Problem With Your Perfect "How We Met" Story

Clothing, Face, Smile, Hairstyle, Denim, Textile, Outerwear, Happy, Facial expression, Style,
Getty ImagesGetty Images

There are two stories of how my partner and I met. There's the for-general-consumption version — the one I might share with a friend of a friend who asks, "So, how did you two meet?" as a conversation starter at a party. That's the story we share with family members and Facebook acquaintances. And then there's the real version.

In the approved-for-all-audiences story, I meet C. at a Halloween house party my roommates and I are throwing, to which my best friend, M., brings C. along as her date. As M. flits around the party like the social butterfly she is, I make conversation with C., just trying to be a good hostess. After only a few minutes, I'm smitten. C. and I go on our first date the following week and it's amazing, and her fling with M. is history. Three years later, M. gives one of the readings at our wedding.

I always deliver that story with a certain amount of embarrassment. It's a bit sleazy to ask out someone who's on a date with someone else, so I play up the shame I don't really feel and let everyone who hears the story feel they've been let in on a secret. They usually laugh conspiratorially and promise to keep it to themselves. Everyone likes to sympathize with a little bit of sin, something that's naughty but not too egregious.

But there are details I almost never include in the retelling, that only my closest friends know, and I'm honestly still not sure if it's because I'm embarrassed or because it's just too much information for most listeners. The real story is that the night we met, I convinced a friend of ours to give M. a ride home so C. could stay at my house, and we had drunken sex that C. says is the whole reason we ever went on a date in the first place. (Does it sound less trashy if I mention that M. knew we were hooking up and was fine with it, because she and C. were never exclusively together? Not much? Well, OK.) We still joke that it's a good thing we're both so easy, or we might never have gotten together.

The fact that we slept together a good week before our first date is an important part of our love story. Our connection was so immediate and intense, and we felt so comfortable with each other, that falling into bed was as inevitable as falling in love later became. Plus, if it hadn't been so hot, C. might never have called me. Sexual chemistry is important! But we don't share that part of our story with very many people (until now, I guess), because it doesn't line up with what people tend to expect from a "romantic" meeting. From movies to books to television shows and even commercials, pop culture teaches us that there are certain rules you have to follow in order to meet The One. You're supposed to get your leashes tangled while walking your dogs or accidentally touch hands while reaching for the last organic peach at the farmer's market. The person you sleep with after five tequila shots is not the person with whom, three years later, you walk down the aisle while Ella Fitzgerald sings "I'm Beginning to See the Light."

Since my partner and I didn't have the kind of cute first meeting that satisfies listeners, we keep the details to ourselves. We're embarrassed by our story, not just because our behavior was kind of embarrassing (though it certainly was) but because we're afraid that our tawdry beginnings will delegitimize us as a couple in the eyes of whomever we're talking to.

I know other couples who do the same thing because they met under less than rom-com-worthy circumstances — people who met when they worked together and dated in secret, or while one or both of them were involved with someone else, or in rehab, or at a Star Trek convention or, god forbid, online, or otherwise doing something weird, awkward, or morally questionable. All of these couples have their own version of the sanitized "how we met" story, the one where they come out looking good as listeners sigh and giggle and say, "That's so cute!" They keep firmly to themselves that their love stories have fallen short of what prevailing romantic narratives say they should be.

But the fact is that they haven't fallen short; it's the narrative that has failed them by not acknowledging the myriad possibilities of the human heart and all the different circumstances under which people can fall in love. The palatable romantic meeting is such a narrow representation of how relationships can take root.

When people imagine (or let books and movies and pop songs imagine for them) that you can only meet your love when you're well-behaved and engaged in an appropriately charming activity, romance becomes a kind of prize that is only visited upon the most deserving. In real life, though, romance is luck. It's randomly crossing paths with someone who happens to fit into your life, someone who can make you fall down laughing and rub the tension out of your shoulders and sympathize with all your hopes and fears. And you could meet that person any time — playing World of Warcraft, meeting with your compulsive-hoarding support group, falling down drunk at a Halloween house party wearing a ratty drugstore wig and several pints of fake blood.

It's a lie that you have to have your shit together before you can find love, but that, at its core, is what the sanitized version of the "how we met" story claims. People who are basically hot messes fall in love and have wonderful, sloppy, joyous relationships all the time, and sometimes they figure things out together, and sometimes they fall apart together, and all those stories deserve to be told. I kept mine to myself for a long time, but I've finally realized that if we didn't hurt anyone (the only person who could have been hurt by this story actually finds it hilarious), there's nothing to be ashamed of. I don't regret meeting the love of my life, so I won't pretend to regret the circumstances under which it happened.

If you, like me, met your sweetheart in a weird or unseemly way, I encourage you to claim that boldly and share it with the world. Our real stories are a testament to the fact that love can show up anywhere, that we all deserve it no matter our quirks and flaws. By telling your real story without blushing, you assert that to be worthy of love, you don't have to be anyone other than who you are. You just have to notice it when it crosses your path.

18 Signs You've Met the Man You Should Marry7 Crucial Rules for Dating Your Friend's Ex15 Things No One Tells You About Relationships14 Lies Romantic Comedies Tell You

Follow Lindsay on Twitter.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below