From Bars to Boredom: One Woman’s Quest to Meet the Couple of Her Dreams

I’ve always been very social. I never thought I’d be the type to ditch my friends for a guy. And then I met Victor. I was swept away. We started to spend more and more time together and then it was like one day after the honeymoon was over (literally) we realized that we’d both drifted away from our friends.

I had trouble relating to my single friends, and many of my newly married friends were raising small children for the first time and hadn’t yet figured out how to balance an active social life with the demands of work and raising kids. Victor, for his part, had always been more of a loner and seemed to get his fill of social stimulus from a full week at the office and a regular Saturday morning tee time with his buddy Tom. Were we becoming our parents? GASP! I wasn’t even thirty and I was starting to feel more like 60.

And then it happened. I woke up one Friday night after passing out on the couch, my husband still snoring beside me and the clock read 10:30. The outgoing and gregarious Adrian, my husband Victor had fallen in love with, was now spending more time with Ben & Jerry than with people my own age. I’m not saying I wanted to revert back into my table dancing days of yore, but 10:30? Out cold? On a Friday night? If this was what I had to look forward to in my married life, then maybe married life wasn’t for me after all. Something had to change.

I realized that what we needed were more “couple friends.” Now that that was out of the way, all we had to do was make them. But where? Easier said than done. I was working in a greenhouse where the median age was about 52 and Victor just wasn’t the type to schmooze too much with his co-workers. So work was out. I realized if we were going to make “couple friends” it was up to me. And I was going to have to be industrious.

I figured church would be a good place to start, but whenever got together with couples from church we found that our commonalities didn’t reach far beyond the pew. Victor mentioned that Tom’s wife played golf and suggested that I take lessons. I sucked it up and gave it a try, but ultimately golf ended up just compounding my frustrations. I was looking for a way to relieve stress, not make it.

Eventually, I stumbled upon Kupple.com I was a little apprehensive at first. I’d never “met anyone online” and I knew what Victor would say. But as I started to look through the profiles I saw that site for what is was– people just like us, looking to make “couple friends.” Someone to share a beer and a board game with.

That was eight months ago. Since then we went through a few sets of couples, but it was always interesting even when it wasn’t a good fit. It was kind of like bringing your best friend along on a date. Afterwards you get to gossip about how it went, what you did or didn’t expect, and if it’s worth a second date. Eventually we found ourselves on third dates, then fourth dates, then tenth dates. Now we’ve found a couple we hang out with constantly, and a few others we see from time-to-time.

Best of all, the whole experience has made our marriage stronger. I think people’s marriages start having trouble when they sacrifice too much of their own identities. Sure, I was done being the party girl, but socializing has always been something that makes me feel like—me. If I wasn’t feeling good about me, how could I feel good about “us?”