My GLBT family: How did you meet your significant other?

[Prism]

66. World of Warcraft

We'd known each other for several years and disliked one another intensely. Not for any personal reason, but our respective groups of friends did not get along. It seemed proper that we should be hostile towards one another on account, even though we played the game together with the same group of people four nights a week. One day he realized I was the only person on very late at night, so he'd start bouncing around and actively trying to annoy me out of boredom. Night after night, we engaged in a kind semi-humorous mutual irking about how much we bothered each other. Then he started jokingly referring to me as Bear On Call, bugging me to come help him. Which I started always doing. I started referring him to Otter on Standby in return, joking that when I broke up with my current boyfriend, I'd take up with him.

Well, that current boyfriend was a compulsive liar and cheat, so that came rapidly and easily.

I lived in Chicago and he lived in San Francisco, but after several months we arranged to meet. I flew out his way. It was not a charmed meeting. He wore eye-liner, purple pants, a mohawk, and discussed David Bowie and Lou Reed at great length. To his dismay, I was never going bald, not paunchy, and stereotypical t-shirt and jeans quiet Midwesterner. His parents stared. My parents thought I was a borderline child molester (I was 29 and he 19).

After several more trips, I moved out to the Bay Area, and we've been together for 3.5 years now. We get along so well, our friends are nauseated. Our respective parents adore the other. We don't use first names ever. It's always "Bear!" "Yes, otter?"

I'm pretty sure this is the man I mean to marry someday. We're in one of those situations where we take it as a given and talk about it, but when it will be "official" may not happen for years. We're content as we are, totally, totally unalike, not at all each other's type, but working out ridiculously well just the same. Sometimes, people just fit.

And we still play WoW together.