Working as a translator for a non-profit humanitarian organization in Mexico. She was going to be my replacement so she came along with the higher ups to survey all the build sites so I could introduce her to all our local contacts.
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.
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.