How did you two meet? It’s a question your friends ask once you’ve told them the name and age of your new partner.

That being said, not everybody is as forthcoming with the true details of the magical rendezvous.

A lot of emphasis is often placed on how you met somebody, because we’ve been sold the idea that it forms the basis of your relationship.

The secrecy around how they truly met might unite the couples who spoke with Means Happy, but they all agree it doesn’t define their relationship.

Kinky DMs

Justin met his partner through Twitter. Well, that’s the story he tells most people who ask.

“He and I had a mutual friend from Copenhagen who thought we’d get along, so he told us to message each other,” Justin recalls.

Sliding into the DMs, the pair began chatting over Twitter before going on a few dates - quickly realising that they shared a love of Kink.

“We’re comfortable telling other gays we got together because of our shared interest in Kink, but less so vanilla or straight people,” explains Justin.

There is also a certain stigma attached to people who meet on dating apps, especially from more conservative family members.

“I think apps just have a connotation of being seedy and entirely sexual, so it’s not great to talk about,” he says. “I tell family and straight people that we met on Twitter, because it’s not entirely untrue.”

An affair to remember

Darren’s wandering eye on the dance floor of a gay club spotted his now husband. The only problem being that Darren was engaged to be married to another man at the time.

“Meeting my husband through an affair isn’t exactly the gay rom-com we’re all queuing up to watch,” laughs Darren. “It’s not very romantic, is it?”

The pair locked lips and swapped numbers that night – Darren’s ex-fiancé none the wiser.

“I was seeing my husband for five months, whilst I was still with my ex,” he admits, saying that his former partner still doesn’t know the real reason why he broke up with him.

It was the reaction of his mother that made Darren stay silent about how he and his husband met.

“I tell my mum everything, we’ve always been close. She didn’t speak to me for weeks after I’d told her about the cheating,” he remembers of this “difficult” time in his life.

As a result, he says, he can’t bring himself to tell friends or family about the affair, though fear of rejection.

What does he and his husband tell people when they ask how they met?

“We just tell people we met at a funeral, and that usually kills the conversation.”

When three become two

Ruby met her girlfriend, Penny, after having a threesome with Penny’s male work colleague.

“It was all very spontaneous!” she beams whilst retelling the story. “Penny and I had been chatting on a dating app for a few days and she invited me over for some fun.”

Ruby admits that she didn’t know there would be three people in the bed, let alone a man, but says the experience helped her explore her sexuality.

“Then Penny and I met up after that first time and it was just us two,” she recalls. “The chemistry was there and I knew we didn’t need a dick between the sheets to make things happen for us.”

She doesn’t tell her friends how they met because she’s too “prudish” to talk about threesomes with them; she tells them they met through a mutual friend.

“It was my first threesome and I’ve not had one since,” explains Ruby. “I suppose I’m a bit awkward when it comes to talking about sex and the thought of having to tell people I had a threesome fills me with embarrassment.”

The couple are still in touch with Penny’s work colleague, however.

“If we ever get married, he will be our best man!”

Take control of your narrative

From kinks, to threesomes and affairs, it seems there really are endless ways of meeting a future partner.

So, next time you ask somebody how they met their partner, perhaps take the story with a pinch of salt.