Ask HN: How did yall meet your SO?
First of all, sorry if this is off-topic.
I am pushing 30 and have been unable to find a partner. I just wanted to hear your stories (maybe some advices, too).
I am pushing 30 and have been unable to find a partner. I just wanted to hear your stories (maybe some advices, too).
Also may be helpful your astrology sign.
"Where can representatives of the Zodiac signs look for love in the second half of February 2024?
Aquarius is the eleventh sign from Aries. Accordingly, Aries, remember if you have a certain pretty person hanging out in your friend zone. Also, visit companies more often these days.
Taurus, Aquarius is the tenth sign for you. Look in government agencies or in places where the cream of society gathers.
Gemini, you should pay attention to those with whom you studied at the University. You can look for love on a trip abroad. You can also go to church, just don’t make a sad face there.
Cancer, love can come to you in extreme situations during these two weeks. You can also go into the bank and shoot around with your eyes, you’ll see what happens.
Leos, love will find you on its own, you are so magnificent. Shine as always.
Virgos, you can go in search of love to your usual places - medical institutions, bird markets, veterinary hospitals. You can also have an affair at work. Forget at least for a while about your hyper-responsibility.
Libra, go where people enjoy life - festive events, restaurants, theaters, entertainment centers.
Scorpios, fate will find you at home in these two weeks. You can actually sit at home and look out the window.
Sagittarius, your places to hunt for love are shops, schools, public transport.
Capricorns, go to places where people eat. And you will be happy.
Aquarius, just like Leo, you just need to shine during these two weeks. No matter where, no matter with whom. Love will fall on you unexpectedly in an Aquarius way." :)
I used to work for a medical device company. We worked closely with a chain of local clinics, early users of our products. One of the therapists there was having trouble with a dosimetry system, and she would call me up for help. "That box is broken again", she would say. She always called the system "that box". Usually it was just a user error, but on one occasion there was a genuine hardware problem, so I drove down to the clinic to fix it.
When I walked into the clinic with my armful of equipment, there was a tall beautiful redhead working at the front desk. She looked at me, and seeing that I did not look much like a cancer patient, she asked, "Who are you?"
"I'm here to fix your box", I said.
She smiled at me, glanced down, and said, "I'm pretty sure that mine is working fine."
She guided me to the back where the therapist was messing around with the dosimetry system. Over the next hour, while I fixed the system, the attractive redhead from the front desk kept sneaking back to talk and flirt with me. As I was finishing up, I tried to think of a good way to ask her out. She walked up to me, shoved a piece of paper in my hand, and cutely ran away. On the paper was written her phone number and 'You better call me'.
I wish I had advice to give. Meeting Kim was pure luck for me.
Make sure you: - get to know a lot of people, in a positive context - be interested in them, get to know them. Let them in your life, get them to know you too. - meet them regularly - make sure it's a casual setting so nothing's forced.
Any person you get to know well (man or woman) is a gateway to someone else ("have you met my friend"). A large social network is key.
I read that you go on walks - get a dog too. This is awesome for starting conversation.
So my first words to the women who would become my wife were:
"Would you care for a quickstep?"
If you want to find a SO then you need to meet people. If you want to meet people you need to go where they are. So you need to have hobbies or activities that allow you to meet a wide range of people. You will already have at least one thing in common, so that's a start.
Go to a juggling club, or a walking club, or a dancing club. Play ultimate frisbee, join a maker space. Go and be where people are talking to each other.
Or use an on-line dating site and rely on the algorithms.
EDIT: We met when I was 32, we married when I was 39 ... there are storied to tell about the time in between, but this is not the place.
I want to, but I have no idea what hobbies to pickup or where to search for places where people hang. I walk for hours to fill the void, but I end up feeling even sadder.
If you walk and walk and walk on your own, that's not going to help you meet people. I don't know where you are or what is around you, but is there a walking club? Is there a bridge club? is there a tennis club? Football?
It's almost axiomatic that if you want to met a SO then you need to meet people, so you need to find local clubs or societies that you can join.
Does your local library have a bulletin board with listings of clubs in the area?
Clearly it won't be easy because you haven't done it yet, but if you don't make the effort to find some way to interact with people, then you won't meet people, so you won't meet a (potential) SO.
Do you have a dog? You could do dog training. Do you do art? You could take art classes. Do you like to code? (Obviously) Go to coding meetups. Do you like writing/poetry? Go to poetry / open mic night. Do you like games? Check out gaming stores for social events.
Do NOT expect to get dates at these places: that's a bad strategy. But try to meet friends at these places. You meet partners by proxy, and by having fun with your friends.
As a straight male: it's a lot easier to meet guys than to meet girls. Use that strategy.
> I have no idea what hobbies to pickup or where to search for places where people hang.
I suggest that instead of finding a hobby that you think will help you meet people, you focus on what you love to do. If it's a solo activity (e.g. gaming, coding), go figure out how to do it socially (meetups, game nights, hackathons etc). Follow the stuff you love and use it to connect to people. It will allow you to be authentic and meet people who have the same interests as you and share your values.
Hang in there!
Don't have a hobby that is good to do with others? Find one. Don't be afraid to be bad at it at first, you'll get better at it overtime. This past year I picked up strength training and this spring I'm going to try rock climbing more. I was surprised by how much I enjoy strength training, going into it, I thought it would feel like a chore that would be difficult to keep doing.
You could also attend courses of sales persons, they teach people exactly to begin conversation and to got what you need (sure, most sales target sale, but you could target something other, for example to get contact or to begin conversation).
NB, if you go to a "how to date / build a relationship" workshop or seminar, pretty much everyone there is single and looking.
He was the last person I expected to want to be in a relationship, yet, I couldn't imagine not being with him since we met.
Just put yourself out there and live your life. Expect nothing from no one. Enjoy yourself being single and get to know who the heck you are.
That is the only advice. If you are out there living life, expecting nothing, and enjoy everything that life has to give good and bad; someone will take notice and want to be with you.
I met my fiance the Friday in March, 2020 when the pandemic started.. we were both on a coast to coast flight that got cancelled. I had an airline lounge membership, and I offered to bring her into the lounge where the lines to talk to a human to re-book where shorter than the 200+ person long line in the terminal. We became facetime friends/quarantine buddies (she lives 1000mi from me) and eventually we got engaged last year. When my son graduates from high school, I'll move to be with her.
I think those are all the relevant facts about how we met but I'll also mention that "meeting your SO" is very much like "getting your foot in the door" for a job interview. "Keeping your SO" is a whole different game akin to "getting the job offer" or "performing well at that job long-term" or better yet, "embarking on a deep spiritual journey". I recommend reading The Soul Of Sex by Thomas Moore for getting in the right headspace of "keeping an SO". I recall The Art Of Loving by Erich Fromm also being helpful. Like any other major endeavor in life, my bet is that I have to commit to a lifelong learning process; in my case I'm always trying to improve my communication, keep the relationship fun, fiercely protect the trust we've built up, keep the passion going, etc. Good luck! We've only been married for two years (together 4 total) so definitely don't put too much weight on my perspective - just a fellow traveler like yourself sharing what's worked for me so far
In general, I had success during the dating phase by looking at the woman's profile, finding something interesting, and then making my initial message reference that. Gets a conversation starter, stands out from the thousands of "hey" messages. If there was nothing interesting, I just moved on to the next person.
One thing I consider important that I did was to make a list with 5 categories: "No-go" aspects that I'd break off a potential relationship over, "must have" aspects I would require, "prefer not to have" traits I'd rather avoid but would compromise if there weren't many, and "prefer to have" traits where I could accept the absence if there weren't many, and lastly "don't care" traits. The list wasn't the important part, but evaluating my own preferences & deciding what I truly cared about was important.
I get the temptation, I got very curios too and my first impulse would be asking the same, but maybe it might be better to just sit down and make one's own list instead.
I'd been meeting people through both IRL (work, group activities, friends-of-friends) and online dating since my 20's.
Stick with it :) Also, random relationship advice: you can love/date many people, but you can only live with a few of them. It can take a while to find someone that you love each other and can live with each other.
Been married 30+ years.
Like others have said, find something that lets you spend a lot of time with people (sports, volunteering, religion...), and meet frequently. Don't worry about age, a fair number of my happily married friends met in their 30's and beyond.
I met one partner at my sport club, one partner at UFC night (friend of a friend) and my current g/f I met through my brother. I would say it's certainly easiest to meet people "humanely" in person. It won't break your soul like online dating, but it honestly requires just as much effort.
You have to GO to parties. You have to hang out with your friends, a lot. You cannot be looking for a girlfriend, but try to keep expanding your circle. Like, I have some friends who do not have ONE attractive single friend. Attractive people congregate, so try to hang out with more interesting, sociable, attractive friends. This sounds like weird advice, but I think "choose your friends wisely" applies to many facets of life, and dating is certainly one of them.
Advice? Think about and do more of what makes you happy and gets you out and about and go do that. Maybe you'll meet someone to share it with and maybe you won't but it will help your own perspectives.
Now the kids are older, we both moved on. I've found my SO through work (different field, not tech) but through common work friends. We spend much more time engaging with each other, and is a much different relationship.
I think the main thing to look at is why you aren't finding someone. Are you open to it in your head? It might be worth getting some coaching for an outside perspective.
I have met a hundred people this way, by simply going to a cafe every day until the people became familiar, and this includes my wife (and the shop owners, the mayor, roommates, a sculptor, enough friends to make a liquor tasting group, etc).
Interactions with other people have to be more deliberate. It's harder than ever to bump into people. It won't happen by accident, you have to do it. It is worth spending lots of time and a little money to be more social.
Assuming you bought at least a cup of coffee each visit and average cup costs 3$ thats $1095 per year spent. Do you still go everyday? I guess it’s worth it
Best decision of my life!
We've been married 17 years next month.
Note: I love these stories (and I love mine too), but it's important to remember that these are all just meet-cutes. They don't represent key components to a good relationship. It seems like the thing they have in common is socializing.
Thanks to medical strides and our indoor-loving HN crew [0], hitting 30 is simply not a crisis. The phrase "30's are the new 20's" is something to live by.
You've got loads of time ahead, no worries.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE. Explores why previous generations looked older when they were our age.
First, attend as many events as you could (as health accept :) ). Good to attend with potential partner. Always gather contacts.
Second, give others a try. This is very important, many humans are not brave enough to make appointment, so you should keep your eyes opened and invite others. Also, first meet is not easy for most people, so give second chance. Sometimes need to push.
It is very possible, you already meet your future partner, you just need to remember her or him and call.
And sorry, third advice: some people are not ready for relations NOW, but they will be ready in some future. Psychologists named this "make touch", when you periodically make delicate attempts to remember about yourself. You don't need to make full-featured date, may be just attend some event. Yes, when somebody said "Not" it could be "Not now", remember this.
And the last advice, some people avoid to make first move, or their move could looking confusing or weird, or they could even afraid to do this. Be careful to catch this and make your move brave and enough delicate but strong and fast.
I'm very serious - if you will trained to see in crowd somebody interested in you, this will make your chances quadrupled at least.
I know a few people who met their significant other under similar circumstances, but honestly, you just have to be willing to meet people, if I see something in common with everyone else's comments here, is they went somewhere to meet new people or to spend time with friends, and voila met their loved one.
You won't find them sitting at home, unless you go somewhere to meet strangers online to talk to.
I've also heard of people meeting their SO on 4chan (though based on one friend's experience, I would not recommend this), someone else here commented they met their on HN. I won't be surprised if you can find one on Discord these days. One key thing if you want to find someone online not on a dating platform, look for communities with mutual interests as your own.
Turned out she was pretty badass, so we stayed in contact and ended up getting married a year later, going on 16 years this summer.
As to other people I dated I just met so many people. I am into lots of social clubs like climbing, soccer, flag football, CrossFit, hiking, group figure drawing, board games, and meetups. I met so many people this way, plenty of them single. I also think I was able to meet enough single people that I somehow got over a lot of my anxiety about talking to people, and didn't get quite so many "hard crushes". That made it easier to realize there's a lot of people out there who would be extremely incompatible with me, and also just how to be myself and be friendly while taking a genuine interest in whoever I was talking to, regardless of their potential dating status.
I definitely see a lot of people who meet one person and get completely into puppy love without knowing the other person at all. They get infatuated with their looks, which is extremely important, but then never get deep enough to check for compatibility on financial and life goals. Also, at least for me, it's really hard to be authentic when I'm completely head over heels for a person.
I'm also lucky in an important way: I'm pretty short. I think a lot of potential partners aren't immediately crushing on me either, so I'm able to genuinely get to know them without them trying super hard to impress me either. The few times I've met people who had huge crushes on me we didn't get very far, they always wanted to tell me whatever they thought I wanted to hear.
My advice is always, find the kind of thing that you want to be doing and then do it. In my case it was do something more meaningful with my life, in my now wife's case it was walk with the people in the country we were in. Our overall life aims were relatively close, and so one thing led to another.
You'll be disappointed if you force the issue. Participate in the things that bring you joy with other people. Don't start trying to date when you first meet people.
Don't worry about your age. My wife and I were in our early-mid 30s when we met.
Evaluate your reasons. Loneliness? Feeling less complete by some standards? Sexual frustration? etc. Don't worry about whether those reasons are "right". Just be honest with yourself, so that you can be honest with someone else. You may even find that you're looking for the wrong thing, which is a path towards unhappiness (there's a reason why 50% of marriages end in divorce)
On the other hand... when I was just a couple years older than you are, I went to a Halloween rave at an abandoned school; after a couple hours' dancing, I sat down for a breather, struck up a conversation with the woman who happened to be next to me, lost track of time, fell madly and more or less instantly in love, and spent the next several years struggling through a whirlwind of high drama and occasionally-violent chaos culminating in a devastating divorce. ::shrug::
Every successful relationship I've had started out as friends. Any relationship where we weren't friends first was less successful. I've repeated this experiment enough times to be confident in my results.
I'm not good with dating and flirting in general. I had many friends who were just magnets; if they were around I was invisible, and they didn't seem to have to do anything. I can't replicate that.
So the only advice I can give is create opportunities to meet people, and don't stress about it too much. You will meet someone it clicks with eventually.
You're 20 years too late for that option but I see most 28+ year olds who actually try to put themselves out there finding partners while doing in-person hobbies (rock climbing, biking, running, puzzles, board game nights), from work (where it starts off as work banter), solo travel (example: getting scuba diving certification forces you to "buddy" up and getting drinks with instructor and other students after)
A while later she needed a place to sleep for a longer visit to my home town, I offered my sofa for that time and during that week we lived together we noticed we're very compatible - rest is history.
We've had a couple of friends who met and started dating through a figure skating class (not so common, maybe --- this is also where a couple people in my wife's friend's group came from).
Truth be told that was back when online dating wasn't as common as it is today. Tinder already existed, but wasn't particularly popular in my corner of the world yet.
As for advice: I don't have any, but I was the best man for a good friend of mine who met his wife when he was your age and that was the first woman to ever reciprocate his feelings. Also he "gave up on love" two years prior.
My observation is that couples typically eventually form wherever there's repeated in-person interaction.
Didn't work out the way she thought though.
Most friends after later 20s have met through a mutual friend or a shared hobby/interest like tennis, CrossFit, hill walking, dancing etc. People meeting via apps hasn’t panned out well in the main.
I know this is anecdotal but I have two couples in my circle of friends that met via app, one couple already married. The other one moving in together. Both met when they where over 30.
Good hygiene, reasonable social skills and then putting yourself in the position to meet people seem generally how things go.
I know you might be a geek, but that really isn't the definition of "one-night stand"...
The dating landscape has dramatically changed for single people around the age of 30. If you go online, you’ll see that there are two emerging patterns: men are spending way more time being single than they were before and online dating is the most dominant way people are getting into a relationship. You’ll notice most folks aren’t going to reference either of those things…
A lot of the anecdotes you’ll be reading are going to be for a different time and culture and environment. Where you currently live has a huge effect on your success as well and not everyone is going to share such things. For instance, I’m in NYC and SF. There is no lack of educated and highly paid men in these areas. How many people in this thread met their partners in such a competitive landscape and did it within the last few years? Probably few posting here…
Personally, I met my only partner through social dancing and that has been the only way I’ve ever met anyone for anything. But I am also uniquely ugly, short for modern standards, and incredibly weak looking thanks to decades long IBS constantly sabotaging my bulking efforts at the gym. Social dancing allowed for women to close their eyes and just experience how I made them feel. They didn’t have to look at my ugly mug, they could just feel something else entirely. I don’t have a nice feeling body btw, I just move well. It’s always something those few women would talk about - how I dance with them and make them feel in that moment. That said, I don’t recommend it as an avenue. It’s incredibly challenging to get good at as a lead to where you will impress women enough to get over your homely looks (and even then, that’s a shrinkingly small demographic in today’s landscape…) and requires immense time and dedication… oh and there is a ton of competition involved. Everytime an attractive woman walks into a venue, every man in that venue will be approaching and making a move. You will be in a competition and will have to be very crafty about it. You will lose 999/1000.
That said, I’ve dedicated 15 years of my life to it. It started to pay off around year 7-8 when I met my ex.
I’ve tried most everything else as well btw. Sports, rock climbing, hiking, parties, etc. I come back to the dance thing because everything else kinda sucks more and is more predetermined on your genetics even more so. Most anyone can dance short of some disability. Just cause you’re short or ugly or don’t have great muscle building genes doesn’t mean you can’t dance. So, that’s a nice part of it.
Most of the good dates I met were from bookstores.
I never got the story clarified more than that, but they were in their thirties.
another one is: the next one after a long relationship might not be very succesful
For some reason, I am planning to get mine from RoseBrides.
My CTO and myself both met our wives at a Tango class for beginners. Take a long one that lasts several weeks. Everyone is terrible at first, nobody cares about looking stupid, and everyone knows that in a few weeks you will start to enjoy it beyond initial expectations.
Women out number men 3:1 in a tango class, you won't get better odds anywhere else that I have seen. After a bunch of lessons you will go to a Milonga which is an open dance where a lot of people from all the classes of all levels show up. Your odds go up to 6:1 if you are halfway decent since the ratio will be even more in your favor.
Your age is perfect for Tango.
Before Match.com bought them, OkCupid used to be a really amazing service for those of us who wanted more nuanced matches. Decades ago, it used to have detailed user-curated quizzes that everyone could answer, then it'd match you by % similarity and dissimilarity based on how you answered and weighted the questions.
Today the system has been drastically dumbed down and made more swipeable and similar to the other dating apps (sigh), but at least as of 3-4 years ago, it was still more informative than the other apps. You could have detailed profiles with paragraphs of text, answer and weigh questions (though they're no longer the only, or perhaps main, part of the matching algorithm). It's not as much as before, but still way more than the mere 1-2 sentences that other swipe-based apps give you.
I wrote a lot about myself on the profile, both humorous and serious, with the sort of honest self-reflection that being a 30-something gives you. Mentioned my hobbies, values, quirks, etc., and was honest about the things I did not want (namely, kids or a heavy focus on job ambition/money).
I was traveling through the US at that point (and honest about that), my now-partner found me and messaged me first, took me on a hike... and the rest was history.
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I'm not particularly attractive or unattractive, maybe 6.5/10. I didn't make much money (was working for a nonprofit then), had no house or assets, etc., but also didn't have much baggage (no addictions, no bad exes, had all my teeth, whatever). We both loved the outdoors and bonded primarily over that. In the years to come, we'd find ourselves very different, almost polar opposites in terms of personalities (I'm way more outgoing & adventurous, she's way more grounded and stable), but none of it really came as a surprise. Our OkCupid selves were pretty true to our real ones, and we never had a fight through these years (disagreements, sure, but we were very good at communicating and resolving them).
What I'm getting at is that we're both just ordinary people, nothing exceptional in any way, but we were at peace with that and looking for a compatible SO to nurture and treasure, and we found that in each other. We didn't go looking for the hottest date or the sexiest gentleman or the fittest athlete or whatever, just two nice enough people looking for the same. We're also of the same generation (older Millennial) and grew up before tech made sex & dating trivial, so maybe we still had more of that old-school mentality when it comes to partnerships (meaning serial monogamy, plus honesty/trust above all).
She was my 4th or so actual relationship (but like 20th or 30th online date). I was a similar relationship # for her, but it was her first time looking online (lucky her, lol, many of my women friends had terrible experiences and way too many dick pics).
I'll say that in all the time I've used OkCupid (10-15 years+?), I never had a bad experience. Sure, not every date worked out. Many did not have a 2nd date. But none of they were ever "bad"; I had a good time at them, just didn't match IRL. I also tried pretty much all the other apps but they all seemed much more shallow, both during the online messaging phase and also in terms of the effort people put in even when we did meet up. I had better luck on Bumble than most of the rest, but OkC was still the best for what I was looking for (serious partnerships). Keep in mind this was like 2020-2021 though, so maybe things are different now.
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As for advice, it's hard to say anything useful without knowing your situation, but I will say that I was also a very late bloomer. Didn't have my first kiss until 29 years old, was a virgin into my mid early or late 30s, was always the "nice guy" that women passed over.
In my 20s, I was an absolute shitshow both romantically and also just in general. Over the years I gradually grew up, accumulated better behaviors (exercising more, eating better, dressing more nicely -- I just mean as in fun shirts, not suits and ties or sports coats -- and doing more social things, like in Meetup). I worked on my mental health a lot too, a combination of therapy, good friends, and time in nature. By my mid-30s, I was getting dates left and right, but I don't really think I changed all that much... probably the women in that age bracket were more open-minded to different kinds of men, not just your stereotypical jocks, and suddenly being a "nerdy" professional type was a bonus instead of a setback.
I'm also still really good friends with many of the women from my younger days, whether my exes or just platonic friends -- that's something not a lot of men necessarily have, and I consider myself very lucky for that. That was an unexpected upside to being the "best friend, but not dating material" from that era... eventually we all grow up and find partners, but stable, long-term cross-sex friendships are much harder to come by in middle adulthood.
Hang in there, and keep trying! Maybe an honest self-reflection would help? Or ask your friends for a review, especially if you have any women friends (but make it clear it's not about them, you just want some advice in general). Or post anonymously on this forum or another and see what strangers think of you. Identify your weaknesses, work on them, focus on your strengths... but don't be too hard on yourself. Find opportunities to have fun, develop passions, and let them shine through. People can overlook small flaws (everyone's got them) if you have something big and bright to sell them on. They're looking for a story about you that they can believe; your job is to bring that out in yourself as honestly as you can. It's hard work but totally worth it. Even if you don't find someone immediately, doing that will just make you happier anyway, even when you're alone, and in turn make others more interested in you. Insecurity and self-loathing are huge turn-offs. That's not to say you should wear false bravado, but develop sincere positives about yourself, co-developing self-efficacy (what you think about your abilities) along with your self-esteem (how you feel about yourself) so that the two feed into each other.
Have fun, be respectful to the people you meet, love yourself and others more... the rest just kinda fall into place eventually!