Seattle Dating Scene features readers’ thoughts and stories about what it’s like to date in Seattle. For our next feature, follow this prompt: Trying to settle an argument with your significant other? Need some guidance on where to have a socially distanced date or need any other advice? Send in your questions to be answered by our columnist Marina Resto, who runs the lively @Dating_in_Seattle Instagram account.
By Thursday, June 10, please email your submissions to dating@seattletimes.com or submit them via Instagram direct message to @dating_in_seattle, and they may be published in a future edition of The Mix.
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How We Met
We asked readers to submit stories about how they met their significant others. Here are some of your success stories!
Answers have been edited for spelling and clarity.
Elaine and Myra
“We didn’t meet at the theater play.
Even when I was garbed in a torn costume chanting the witches of ‘Macbeth’ curse, and she sat in the darkened college audience watching me perform on the stage.
We didn’t meet at the Lilith Fair in California. Even though we both were dancing in the moonlight and high on life.
Our paths probably crossed many times, but it took 25 years for us to find each other.
I didn’t really want to take that morning bike ride, but my friend Elizabeth urged me on an adventure with Betty’s List, outings for gay women. There were promises of many enjoying the bike path along the San Francisco Bay.
When we pulled into the parking lot, searching for the rainbow flag, I looked over the myriad cars and my attention caught a lone bicyclist. There was something special about her …
Here’s when I said to my friend, ‘That’s the one. We have to meet her and ask her for directions.’
I was pointing at Myra. And finally we met. As the bike ride progressed we exchanged names and niceties, and I turned on the charm as I cranked up the gears. She also had been reluctant to join the bike ride, due to being a shy gal.
And at the end, over lunch, I said to her, ‘We should do this again.’ She was hesitant, having left a relationship a few months past. She finally said yes.
And a year later, she said yes to us being legally married in California.
Fourteen years together and happily living in Seattle, I’ll always remember that beautiful woman in that parking lot and how fate finally finally brought us together.”
— Elaine
Elyse and Sunni
“It’s the spring of 2016. I, newer to the queer community, joined a friend at a Women on Top networking event downtown, in hope of meeting more queers.
I spotted Sunni, a longtime local, who was waiting outside for their own friend. Once inside, Sunni also noticed me in the hallway!
We began chatting, Sunni invited me to join their soccer team and we exchanged information. Neither of us was looking for new dates at the time, so we just texted back and forth for a while.
Later that month, for Sunni’s birthday, I suggested hanging out at a Storm game, which, for the record, I had little interest in at the time, but I knew Sunni was a fan.
After many hours together — and a Britney Spears karaoke serenade — I made the first move and asked Sunni for a kiss. Sunni, surprised, declined at first!
But then, while waiting for the streetcar in the Chinatown International District, Sunni realized their error and agreed to the kiss. Needless to say, it was an absolutely fireworks kiss, and we’ve been fairly inseparable since.
In the five years since that kiss, we’ve built a powerful little family and community, continued the karaoke legacy that started that first date and launched a wedding planning business, Modern Aisles, to channel our love of celebration and joy to share with others in community. We are wildly different and probably would have never met if not for that mixer! I’m still grateful for the bright blue shirt I wore that day that helped catch Sunni’s eye, and Sunni is forever grateful they came back for that kiss.”
— Elyse
The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only and do not reflect the opinions of The Seattle Times.