Your Stories

Kalamazoo, MI, USA on the 20th of February, 2010, at 10:00pm

By Ana P

I met my future wife in Kalamazoo, Mi on Feb 20th 2010 somewhere between 10pm and 11pm. I was single and in my early 20s and although I was getting tired of playing the field but my friends had convinced me to go out on a whim. I am lesbian and at the time the Metro Bar was the only gay friendly bar in the immediate area so naturally that is where we usually ended up.

I will admit that when I saw my wife that I was a wee bit intoxicated but I found out that she was as well. I sauntered up to the bar that she was sitting at, alone, and ordered a drink but kept her in my side view as I ordered. As I was waiting I turned to her and I told her that I thought she was pretty. This was kind of a bold move for me but I had some liquid courage so I was feeling (overly)confident. She looked at me and her response was "You're straight". So for the next hour or so we went back and forth like that. I found out about her job and where she was from and that we had some mutual friends (which is not uncommon in the LGBT community). I went home that night a little dazed and not just because of the alcohol.

The next morning when I woke up I tried to recount my evening and could not for the life of me remember my her name. I knew that I had talked to someone who I thought was attractive and she knew one of my friends and that she was really funny. So I did some light "facebook stalking" and managed to figure out who she was (thankfully!). Knowing my wife she would not have gone through these lengths because she is much shyer than I am so luckily I remembered enough to find her!

I added her on facebook and we started chatting and picked up right where we left off. She charmed me with her wit and humor and I knew pretty quickly that we were right for each other. We agreed to meet the following weekend at the same bar and spot and the rest is herstory.

The bar is now defunct but it holds such a special memory for us. As a young LGBTQ person you need to have safe spaces to meet and just be yourself and the Metro provided that for us. I may have never met my wife if we didn't have the Metro.

The photo was taken in June 2014 on our wedding day. :} We couldn't legally get married in our home state so we went to Niagara Falls, NY. In June of 2015 our marriage was made legal federally, which includes our home state of Michigan.