Love Lines 2007

For the third year in a row, we are looking for your true-love stories. We will publish as many as we can on rd.ca throughout the year, and we may share our online favourites with all our readers in the February 2008 edition of the magazine—just in time for Valentine’s Day.

This year, we’d love to see what you all look like. So, please, send a jpg of yourselves—or what you looked like when you met or married—with your story if you can. And don’t leave out any details! Where did you meet? How old were you? Was it love at first sight or did love grow over time? And, please, tell us your true love’s name.

Here’s one of the stories we published in our 2006 compilation in the February issue of Reader’s Digest.

Seoul Mates

October 15, 1998. I’m waiting at Seoul’s Gimpo International Airport for my parents to arrive from Canada. Mark is waiting nearby for his mother to arrive from the States. He asks me which flight I’m waiting for—not the same one. He’s concerned that his mother should have already come through customs. After checking at the desk, he’s told his mother is on tomorrow’s flight. We say our goodbyes without even exchanging names.

Mark returns to the base where he’s stationed. There, he tells his boss and friends all about the girl he met at the airport. He tells them she is the most beautiful girl he’s seen in the last 15 months! That same day, I tell my parents about the man I met and write about him in my journal. At that point, I think I will never see him again.

One week later, my parents and I are at a tailor’s in downtown Seoul when Mark, shopping with his mother, spots me through the window. They come in, our parents meet, and we finally exchange names. But no numbers. That night, I write about him in my journal for the second time, thinking once more that we will never see each other again. With more than ten million people in Seoul, what are the chances we’ll run into each other a third time?

Another week goes by; my parents have left. My girlfriend and I are sitting in Seoul Pub when I see him at the door. He walks over and says, “This is unbelievable. I’m not leaving here until we exchange numbers!” So we do, and we get married on October 15, 1999—exactly one year after we met at the airport. Seven years later, we have two boys, ages five and three.

I never believed in fate before, but I truly do now.

Tina Simpson, Lawton, Okla.

Do you have a love story you’d like to share?