With all the dating apps, the overabundance of available hotties, lack of commitment, real-life meet-cutes and just general dating dismay, this generation has a hard time believing in love.
It’s no longer “cool” to be a hopeless romantic. No one wants to chill with the hopeless romantic, let alone for him or her. You know what I mean? The cynical game-players are the popular kids.
Yet all you cold-hearted assholes are still looking for love. Don’t even pretend you’re not. Just because you’re “not looking for anything serious right now” doesn’t mean you’re not looking.
Sometimes love just comes and gets you out of f*cking nowhere.
I met my boo on Tinder circa four years ago, back when the app was less about catching the dick and more about finding a bae. We hung over here and there over the years, neither one of us wanting a real relationship.
But then he wanted to date, like for real. I was more into his D than I was into him. He eventually gave me an ultimatum: Commit or he was done.
It wasn’t the most romantic story ever told, but it was uniquely Millennial. It was very in 2016. We may not have met in a dimly lit bar over Cabernet and Barry Manilow, and we may not have had witty banter that led to passionate love right away, but it worked out for us regardless.
What I’m trying to say is that even in this world inundated with dating apps and bullsh*t, you can still find love. It may seem shocking given everything we’re told in the media, but it actually is possible to find love in 2016.
Here are some real Millennial ladies and their unorthodox, bizarre, funny, and unromantic and yet amazing “how we met” stories to either restore (or destroy, whatever) your faith in love:
1. Her bold move was having her cake and eating it too.
“I went to a bar with my friends and met this guy. We started chatting, and we were really hitting it off. The problem is before I met him, I had texted my f*ck buddy because I really wanted to get it in that night. Lo and behold, a few hours later, the f*ck buddy arrived. I wanted to get this new guy’s number for later, but I didn’t want him to see me leave with someone else, so I lied to him and told him my landlord was coming to pick me up because I left my keys at home. He was like, OK. Then he watched me leave with this dude (who was clearly not my landlord). I figured I’d never hear from him again.
Two weeks later, he texted me and now we’re dating!”
— Sheena, 25
*Editor’s Note: She is currently being ghosted by him.
2. It’s always the blond guy.
“I met my boyfriend at my 22nd birthday party at a sports bar in Manhattan (Hair of the Dog in L.E.S. to be exact, for all you New Yorkers). I was still in that phase where I thought I was invincible and could drink heavily on weeknights and show up for work on time the next morning.
With that in mind, I decided to have my party on my actual birthday, aka a Tuesday night (casual, I know). The bar had three-dollar drink specials that night, and when I walked in I immediately ordered multiple rounds of shots for my friends. I was definitely already wasted so when the bartender asked me whose tab it was on; I simply pointed back to where my group was and said them.
“The blond guy?” she responded. I nodded and proceeded to put everyone’s drinks on it for the rest of the night.
Well, long story short, that blond guy is now my boyfriend, and we officially met after my birthday, when I needed to apologize for racking up close to $300 on his tab on three-dollar drink night. I like to think it was love at first Jameson shot.”
— Ali, 23
3. Colorado is for lovers, or something.
“My boyfriend and I met on OKCupid last summer because we happened to swipe right on each other. He was really confused though, because I had set my “location” to Colorado because I wanted to see what the dudes were like. He straight up asked me why we matched when I’m in CO, and I was honest about my dumb little experiment. He went with it and didn’t think I was a total weirdo.
We’ve been happily dating for the past eight months.”
— Talia, 23
4. She took a three-hour damn bus when they hadn’t even met.
“Two days after meeting on Tinder, we would talk on the phone for, like, seven hours a night. If we weren’t on the phone, we were texting. I lived three hours away from her, so for the first two weeks, we just talked nonstop. I already loved her and had never even seen her in person. She took a bus to visit me for a weekend, and it was the best weekend of my life.
I was horribly nervous the entire time. (I still get nervous when we’re together, and we live together now.) The first night we spent together, I took her to a baseball game, and there was a Ferris wheel, and we were stuck at the top, and she told me she loved me. A year and a half later, I still get butterflies when I think about that moment and that weekend.
She’s the most amazing person, and I am constantly aware of how lucky I am that I have her.”
— Britt, 24
5. “Yo, your f*ckin pretty:” A pickup line for the books.
“I met my BF on OkCupid, and his first message to me was, “Yo, your f*ckin pretty. What part of CA u from?” (As a grammar freak, this pained me a little.) He also messaged one of my good friends something ridiculous, but I decided to go on a date with him anyway.
I’m glad I did because we’ve been dating for three years and are totally ~in love~.”
— Aly, 23
6. The old “U-Haul” joke.
“I met my last girlfriend on OKCupid, spoke via text for two weeks, went down to Philly to meet her, didn’t know her at all, had sex on the first night and was in an instant relationship.”
— Zara, 29
7. He was only on Tinder for 11 hours. LOL. Classic.
“I went back on Tinder after a stupid breakup to distract myself with a ton of IDGAF dates. Then I set up a coffee date during the workday with a guy whose picture made me smile. I figured I was being a strong, mysterious woman by only giving this guy an hour of my time from my busy work schedule, but it ended up being the best first date I ever had.
We went on two more dates in the span of a week, and I had the feeling I wouldn’t be going on dates with anyone else ever again.
But there is a catch. My boyfriend was only on Tinder for 11 HOURS BEFORE WE SET UP OUR FIRST DATE. And I messaged him first. Ugh, I’m still bitter.”
— Blair, 28
8. Snapchat for love.
“So for years, my older sister and her best friend, Sarah, have been telling me I need to meet Sarah’s brother. He visits NYC periodically, and when I was living here two years ago, he came but was sick, and I couldn’t meet him.
A year ago, we finally met in person and hit it off immediately. He went back to where he lives on the West Coast, and we continued communicating for a year without seeing each other. And by communicating I mean Snapchatting, FB messaging, texting, sexting, until he told me he was coming back to NYC in January 2016.
We started talking on the phone closer to his arrival date. When he FINALLY came back, it was like he never left. Major sparks were flying, and we talked about our future, and were both so sad to have him leave again.
He’s still the only guy I’ve been interested in for a while, but he’s still in school for the rest of this year, so here’s to seeing what will happen!”
— Lisa*, 24
9. I’m happy he wasn’t just good on paper <3.
“My boyfriend and I met on OKCupid, and we started exchanging these epic, hilarious emails several times a day before we actually met up. They were the kind of emails you refresh your inbox all day waiting for. When one came in, I would basically devour it instantly, and then read it through like ten more times, savoring each word.
We were obviously already falling in love, but sometimes you have that great chemistry over email and then when you meet in person it all collapses. (Luckily, our chemistry was just as magical in person.) One day early in our courtship, I woke up and discovered that I had somehow accidentally deleted our whole thread, and I was like “Noooooooooo,” and that’s when he told me that he had already made a Google doc with our entire correspondence in it.
So we have it forever and can go back and look at how our love story began. We also have a Google form called the “date-a-base” with all our date ideas and things we want to do together in it. It’s pretty gross.”
— Emily, 32
10. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA. That is all.
“A few months ago, I matched with two separate guys on Bumble. I went on a date with the first guy, and then the next day, I went on a date with the second guy. While on my date with the second guy, I learned that the two of them WORKED TOGETHER in the SAME TINY OFFICE (I didn’t let Guy 2 know that I knew Guy 1, though).
That night, I looked at their LinkedIn profiles to confirm that they both worked at this same company, and lo and behold, they f*cking did.
I didn’t go on a second date with Guy 1 because I felt too guilty and thought he’d find out about Guy 2, but then I ultimately ended things with Guy 2 out of disinterest (and also continued guilt).
Then, a couple of months later, Guy 1’s profile came up on Hinge, so I decided to swipe right, and we matched! So we went out again. Been dating ever since.”
— Marnie*, 22
11. A f*ckboy coming around is a SERIOUS miracle.
“I met my boyfriend when I was still with my college boyfriend of 3 years. I had never been unfaithful in my life, but in a very ‘un-millennial’ fashion, I knew he was the one from the minute we met.
Three days later, I went back to school in Maryland, broke up with my boyfriend. The next two years were a rollercoaster of typical millennial f*ckboy shit. He didn’t know what he wanted, I was young and wild but I knew our love was ‘it.’ He would make time to see me (literally) once a month, yet would text me incessantly every. single. day. My friends didn’t understand it at all and my family hated him.
I finally got fed up and told him to never talk to me again. We had been through this before, but I knew he grasped this time was it. We didn’t speak for four months.
When summer was around the corner, I IM-ed him on AIM. We’ve been together ever since.
I guess the most millennial part of our “love story” is that sometimes you can meet a guy when they’re still in total f*ckboy mode, and while it may not make for the most ideal beginning, it’s riding worth riding it out when you feel a deep connection to someone.”
— Joana, 25
*Name has been changed.
11 Millennial Love Stories That Prove Love Still (Kind Of) Exists In 2016
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