Ramie Sutter, 39, EMT, right: I was having coffee, sitting by myself at Vivace. This beautiful lady, as she was leaving, she popped a note on my table. And . . . Dana Wallentine, 31, full-time student at the University of WashingtonaE™s Foster School of Business, left: And thataE™s what I did. I said you are beautiful, please give me a call, maybe we can have coffee together sometime. And gave her my number!RS: And we did. Four years ago.DW: Oh, and I got her to move to Seattle. She never went home to Palm Springs.RS: I wasn’t living here at the time. So basically I stayed for her.DW: And braved the cold and wet, like a champ.RS: Most of the time. Our heat is on 80 degrees constantly. It’s not very often that the pretty girl chases me. I usually have to use a lot of humor and charm.DW: Have you seen our picture? She was on a stool the entire time!RS: I’m often on my tiptoes. But my calves look amazing.

Carlos Garcia, 41, product merchandiser at Nordstrom’s, right: Jim and I met because we were both doing volunteer work for an arts group in San Francisco called Visual Aid. I was 23 at the time.James Harris, 50, owner of James Harris Gallery in Pioneer Square, left: And I was 33.CG: We were going to hang up artwork made by artists who had AIDS in high schools for World AIDS Day. Jim picked me up in his little white pick-up, wearing his little white T-shirt. Jim, you go ahead and interrupt me if I get any of this wrong. Jim kept on talking about his boyfriend–basically telling me, Don’t be interested in me because I have a boyfriend. I was like, Fine, I don’t care. You’re old. Fast-forward to March. I was leaving my job to go to a meeting for [Visual Aid]. But I guess I got the time wrong, because when I showed up, the whole group was like, OK, that was a great meeting, we’ll talk to you guys later. I used to bike around San Francisco, and this guy comes up afterward and says, Hey, nice to see you. I see you’ve got your bike. Need a ride home? So I say Oh, great, thanks, that’d be awesome!– the whole time thinking Who the hell are you?JH: I parked in the same garage for work. At one point he put his card with his name on it, saying Call me sometimes.CG: That was after we’d already met! I thought you were cute by then.JH: We started going out around May, and that’s why we call our official anniversary May 6.CG: Is it May 6? I thought it was May 3rd.JH: No, it’s May 6 [audibly disappointed]. It’s the day after Cinco de Mayo.CG: You still have that business card I left you, don’t you? JH: I probably do, yeah.CG: And 17 years later weaE™re still together!

Leslie Bower, 33, practices Chinese medicine, left: We actually met on Valentine’s Day. We were both single and had a mutual friend who was having a dinner party for some other friends that we didn’t know. Neither of us really wanted to go.Jessica Rongitsch, 40, primary-care doctor, right: Maybe you shouldn’t say that.LB: Oh, yeah; she might read this. So we ended up at this dinner party with a bunch of people we didn’t know. I’d been living in Seattle for only, gosh, maybe two or three years, and I had never met anyone I was interested in until her. It was sort of stressful, because I was thinking How are we going to see each other again?JR: So I stepped up and invited a few of them over to my house the next weekend. Really I just wanted Leslie to come over.LB: It’s a total cliche, but when I met her I just knew right away. I started plotting. I’m a little bit younger than her. I was thinking, How am I going to get this amazing, beautiful, established doctor? So I had to start planning.

Josh Rohr, 36, Physician Assistant, left: So we had mutual friends that were having a dinner party. I saw Jeff walk in, and I said to my roommate at the time, Who’s that guy? I’d seen Jeff before, I couldn’t remember exactly where. We found out over the course of the dinner party. We got to talk. Friends on Facebook the next day. Asked him out a few days [later].Jeff Maggioli, 42, first-year nursing student at the UW, right: You know what’s funny? We had seen each other before, at Dina Martina at Re-bar. JR: Oh, jeez.JM: Josh was with a good friend, but I thought they were dating. So I ended up talking with Josh’s younger brother. Not for romantic reasons–we had both been in the Peace Corps.JR: The Dina Martina story [sighs]. I feel bad because we had an opportunity to meet sooner, but I was oblivious. There was a cute future partner of mine sitting right in front of me, but I was distracted. I’ll blame it on Dina.

Stephenie Landry, 34, runs AmazonaE™s baby division and is very pregnant, right: We met in high school.Alison Billings, 37, manages T-MobileaE™s mobile payments business, left: We did not meet in high school. That has a whole different connotation. Stephenie was a friend of my brother’s.SL: OK. I probably first met Alison while playing with her brother at the age of 13 at their parents’ house. Her brother and I were really good friends.AB: That’s the first time we met. The second time we met I was living in California.SL: Alison and I were both living in San Francisco, but we didn’t know that. A mutual friend invites us out for dim sum, and when I arrive Alison is sitting right there. I was like, Hey, youaE™re Brian Billings’s sister! But I was thinking And you’re gay! I was pretty excited. AB: And then we hung out again. Stephenie was moving into a . . . SL: Oh, come on. I asked Alison out on a date right away, and Alison wouldn’t go out with me because I was her brother’s friend. All the other stuff is not that interesting.AB: She was a friend of my brother’s! [laughter] My mother made a very distinct point that Stephenie was Brian’s friend and I was not to go out with her. Which also spoke a great deal to my mother’s confidence in my dating ability.SL: Dating Alison strengthened my relationship with her brother, too, which is fun because I’ve known her family since I was a little kid.AB: That was 11-and-a-half years ago. SL: Alison probably knows the exact date too. You know the date, honey?AB: November 25th.SL: She’s very good with numbers.

Kurt Reighley, 44, KEXPaE™s DJ El Toro, right: The flashpoint for me is Dr. BuzzardaE™s Original Savannah Band.Mark Mitchell, 49, costume designer, left: That was the song he was playing when we officially met at an underground nightclub downtown. He was DJing when I walked in. I threw myself at him. And I kept throwing myself at him until he caught me.KR: That’s pretty much the gist of it. We are both friends with Paula [a burlesque performer known as The Swedish Housewife]. In 2002 I was DJing different parties for her at a place that was then known as the Catwalk. One night when Mark was there . . . were you MC that night or were you just a guest? MM: I was just a drunk. A guest, I mean.KR: I played I’ll Be the Fool for You by Dr. BuzzardaE™s Original Savannah Band. Within the first hour of our meeting, he had declared that I was his new boyfriend. Like a child will say That’s hot or That’s red. I was his boyfriend, and he was going to make it stick. And he did.MM: My version of the story was way more succinct.KR: Caleb is a professional! He can edit them down into one version!

Alicia Berger, 48, writer/visual artist, right: Jodi was a barista at Vivace and I was a customer. I had just broken up with somebody and had lost a lot of weight, so I went to Vivace and got a mocha with whipped cream, which wasn’t what I normally ordered. I thought she was cute–she always remembered me as mocha with whipped cream, and because she was cute, I would get that.Jodi Jaecks, 46, private chef, left: She was trying to gain weight because of her break-up. Every time I would be working, I’d see her at the end of the line and say Oh, cute girl is here. She says she asked me out, but I think we asked each other out.AB: I asked her one day what was up, because she didn’t look like she was having a good day. She said she had just broken up with her girlfriend, and I said I’m so sorry, but walked out and said Yes! So I made her a break-up mixtape. You might not want to print that.JJ: She forgets the part where I said So when are we going to have lunch?AB: We’ve been together now for eight-and-a-half years. In case you can’t tell from the photograph, last year she had breast cancer.JJ: He probably just thought I was really butch.

Chris Caliz, 32, Microsoft program manager, left: We met on Match.com. Nathan had just moved positions into a new building, and saw someone who looked like me. Then later that night he saw my photo and profile on Match, and saw I was working for the Evil Empire, a.k.a. Microsoft. He realized one of his best friends worked in my building. When he contacted his friend–this person who was my co-worker–his friend showed up at my office 30 seconds later and said Hey, do you know Nathan Fish?Nathan Fish, 32, Microsoft program manager, right: When he found out we were talking, he said Oh my God, I’ve been thinking about setting you up for months! Every now and again I still see [Chris’s] doppelganger. I haven’t snapped his photo because that seems creepy. But he does exist.