I was incredibly lucky to have met my firstlove at the age of 15. She was my first girlfriend and all of our first experiences we had together. Within a short period of time, I knew deep inside that she was the woman of my life.

Her passion has always been collecting glass figures that her parents sent to her on special occasions. After we had spent a year together, I scraped together some money and bought her a glass figure to show her how much I loved her. Over the passing years, we got married, had two children and built a house. Every year on our anniversary, my wife repeated her wish for a matching figure. She said that they were only complete in pairs, just like the two of us. Every year, I promised her one for the following year.

In my mid-forties, I felt that I had missed out on something by being with just one woman. I started to go out into town, having sex with other women. I did not care that I would hurt my wife and shame my family. At some point my wife could not stand this situation anymore. I came home to an empty house. At that moment, I realized that I had not only thrown away the last 25 years of my life, but that I had also lost the most valuable thing to me, my family. I understood now that no other woman in this world could have ever given me the same feeling that my girl gave me. I hated myself for taking everything for granted andfor only caring about myself. I decided to do everything possible within my power to get her back. I pleaded and begged, I tried to prove my love and loyalty, and made a fool out of myself. Exactly one year after she left me, I bought a second figure made out of glass. The one she wanted for so long and the one I had never bought her. I went back to her with this figure to apologize for all my mistakes and begged for forgiveness for one last time.

Together we have given these two figures to the Museum of Lovestories. Not because they are not united. But just because they meant to be together just like the two of us.

The first time you fall in love with someone is something wonderful and frightening at the same time. How many teenagers dare to tell the person they have a crush on that they like them?

I, for one, didn’t dare. After all, he was the coolest boy ever and I… well… my strength was to turn bright red when he looked at me or talked to me. I hated myself for my shyness and every afternoon in my room I tried to find the right words to confess my feelings. But every day at school I didn’t get a word out again.

When I came home one afternoon from my piano lesson, my mother welcomed straight away at the door. “Go to your room”, she said and smiled. I was confused but did what she said. Slowly I went up the stairs and even slower I opened the door. I looked in my room very carefully. What I saw there made my head redder than ever before. There, in the middle of my small room, he stood. He held a sign that said “Kino?” (meaning “Cinema?”) in one hand and a pack of popcorn in the other. He smiled. But as always, I didn’t bring out a single word. But at least I managed to nod. Fortunately, that was enough for him.

Our story of love begins with our first meeting at the “Delhi Gay Pride”, a yearly festival to celebrate homosexuality, in 2017.
The moment I saw him I got attracted by his big smile and sparkling eyes. We celebrated all day long in colorful outfits.

By chance, we met again in a shopping mall. Can you imagine this in a city with almost 30 million inhabitants? We had a nice conversation in a small café as I felt attracted to him again. I couldn’t interpret his feelings. Back home I was confused, happy and sad at the same time. I couldn’t stop thinking about him the entire night.

The next morning when I woke up I had three missed calls on my phone. It was him. The following week we met again for movies, dinners and drinks. I realized that we had already created something special when we first kissed.

With our wedding we have now formed a strong bond for a lifetime. He makes my life so much more colorful and I cannot wait for all our adventures to come.

He’s my mother’s neighbor. For more than 2 years I only noticed him twice. I liked his look back then, but as I was in a relationship at that time I had no interest in getting to know him better.

One night I dreamed about him. Completely confused by the dream that kept me going, I decided to look for him on the Internet the next day. It didn’t take long for his photo to appear on my screen. I hesitated briefly and then texted to him. He answered soon, and we arranged a first date.

The date was terrible. So terrible that I drank alcohol… a lot of it! I was just talking nonsense all evening long. Next day I knew that I had screwed up. He didn’t answer the phone any more. Disappointed, but still convinced that he should be the man at my side, I persisted and took the initiative again. He, on the other hand, behaved distant and disinterested.

Sadly, I decided to give up. But it did not take long and he invited me to another date. One date turned into many dates. Finally, we decided to be a couple.

As a woman, I often thought that you should not chase after men. Looking back, my persistence was worth it and I couldn’t be happier to have such a great man at my side today.

My name is Ali and this is my love story.

I am a Bedouin, living in the Wadi Rum Desert in Jordan. I first met my wife Amnah when we were kids. Back then, both our families were living together. Amnah and I used to play with each other a lot. At the age of 13, she and her family left heading to the north of the desert. We stayed in the south. Moving places is normal in Bedouin life as people are constantly looking for proper hunting grounds.

Time passed by and when I turned 25 my mother strived to find a wife for me. It did not take long for her to find one … and to my surprise it was Amnah.
I was overly excited and couldn’t wait to finally meet her again because I clearly remembered this feeling of familiarity and trust that we shared when we were young. But still, I was scared. Scared about how she might react. What if she did not remember me? What if she wanted to become someone else’s wife?

In spring, I finally met her again. It is hard to describe the feelings I had that very moment. It was an unknown feeling. I was somehow irritated. But then we just looked into each other’s eyes and said “Hi” – and it felt right.

After a while our fathers met and we got the permission to get married. We didn’t wait any longer and finally got engaged. Soon after, we moved in together and three months later we celebrated our wedding. It felt like we had never been apart. Two years after our marriage, Amnah gave birth to our sons Bshar and Ziad. My little family was complete.

Today I feel the same way as when I met her, but I’m no longer irritated. I know that feeling. It is called love.

That’s the necklace Amnah gave me the day before she moved away. I kept it the whole time. I think this necklace was what brought us back together.

“People forget what you said. People forget what you did. But they never forget how you made them feel.

We met in high school in 1988. His first lesson at our school, I was asked to share my books with him as he was new at school and didn’t have the correct textbook yet. We became best friends and then fell in love. We got engaged in 1998 and married in 1999. Since then, we’ve extended our family with two beautiful daughters and lived on two different continents. Life is a journey and we’re enjoying our ride together.

I guess you can say it was like in a romantic movie. I’ve always been a big fan of mellow love stories and I’m so happy to live mine.

I figure this whole journey had started way before I met him. My life changed a bit when I decided to leave home and take a gap year somewhere far away. Somehow, I landed in Austria. This wasn’t really my plan, but the Au pair agency’s one. So, there I was, 10 thousand kilometers away from everything I knew. It was just me, my free spirit, my Mexican roots, hope – and my desire to celebrate my birthday.

Our birthdays are four days apart, but the fact that we ended up celebrating in the same club in Vienna, on the same Saturday of the same weekend and with probably the same amount of alcohol is somehow inexplicable to me.
There he was, standing in the middle of the dancefloor, while I was dancing like there was no tomorrow. Soon I figured there was no tomorrow – at least not without him. We stumbled into one another. As an apology I said, “It’s my birthday”, and he replied “It’s mine too”.

We’ve been each other’s birthday presents ever since and I’ve even postponed my return home to start a master in Vienna. I am ten thousand kilometres away from my home, but now, he is home to me.

Sometimes in life, you see each other twice.

We met for the first time in the market garden where I worked. He often bought flowers from us. There were days when he came several times and got tips for his plants. Each time I was happy when I saw him. He always greeted me with a sweet smile and his warm brown eyes sparkled at me.

Countless purchases later we arranged to go on a date. We had a good time. However, the “spark” was missing. After this meeting everyone went his way again. What remained was a nice acquaintance.

At a costume party, dressed as a flower girl, two years later, I suddenly looked into two very familiar, brown sparkling eyes. At that moment time stood still and we both knew – Now it’s the right time!

We’ve known each other for over 15 years. For a long time, we were best friends. We always got on well and knew exactly how the other one ticks. In the past, we spent a lot of time together. Also with our former partners. But at some point, we lost sight of each other.

Suddenly, after two years without hearing from one another, he stood in front of me. It “clicked” immediately. Crazy – How could that happen? We both thought that a relationship between two former friends couldn’t work after all. But it does. It does very well.

We complement each other well and are into the same things. Travelling is one of them. Every year we pack our backpacks and travel as long as we can. Usually we spent five to six months abroad and discover the world together.

Today we are a couple for more than five years and recently we are engaged. I got a very romantic proposal on our favorite island Koh Phangan. We will also get married there. He is the love of my life…

I looked up into his eyes, and softer than I expected I said, “Okay”. I wasn’t going to freak out or disregard what he said. Because to be completely honest, on our second date that week, I knew I was done looking too.

Meeting Tayler, even to go on the date, was something that I was choosing that was different. I was choosing to step out of what I had known, basically for my whole life, and I jumped into choosing something for myself. Something that was completely my own. I didn’t even really tell anyone that I was going on a date with Tayler. All of my past relationships had been because of someone introducing us, or we were part of the same friend group, or I don’t know – it was always what I already knew. But I stepped outside of that circle and Tayler was my first big moment. And that’s something that stuck with us into our relationship; we’ve continued to step outside of our comfort zones, we’re just doing it together now.

One of the first comfort zones for anyone, I think, is our personality. Our ways of doing things, mannerisms, habits, little quirks, and even our approach to how to think about things. They’re so comfortable because we lived with them for so long. It was our personalities that was the first place of overcoming for us. Let’s start with the most obvious one: communication. I’ve had to learn how to communicate on my feelings, on the day-to-day things, and I’ve learned to get to the point of a conversation. Tayler learned to be gentler, and not as blunt, while still making the point he was trying to make. Now take our love languages for instance. Physical affection is my favorite way to receive love and that one was tough for Tayler because of his background. And he is all about quality time. I like to know what the plans at, I like to even have to a schedule and to be able to plan around things because I like to prepare for things. Tayler can be absolutely intentional and quick-paced at getting things done but when it comes to spending time with loved ones, he likes to go with the flow. After working through all that, it feels 1,000% better since our first year of marriage. We recognize a lot faster when things are working or being communicated correctly. We get through an argument a lot faster and we’ve learned to be a lot more honest about whatever state that we’re in.

To be honest, we have overcome a lot of obstacles in the last four years of marriage. Situations that caused us to re-examine the reality of what was happening and be honest with ourselves and others. We have overcome the drama that integrated into our lives. One thing we were very intentional about doing together was praying about it and through it, whatever the “it” was. When we didn’t see eye to eye with a family member or friend, moving to another city, and taking certain jobs; prayer was our go-to thing. Even during the seemingly dark parts of our lives that include getting into a roll-over car accident and enduring a miscarriage after years of trying.

With all of these obstacles, we still choose each other. Choosing one another in marriage isn’t always the easiest thing to do. And choosing to continually love the other person can be hard when you have life’s obstacles thrown at you. But he is my person, the one person I prayed for since I was fifteen years old. Whatever obstacles we endured, it doesn’t compare to the joy we have shared together. When we found out we were pregnant, even for the short time, we were so joyful knowing that we were able to conceive. And when we survived our car accident, we learned to cherish the little moments we had with each other and with our friends and family. We choose to overcome every obstacle that gets thrown our way, together.

When we first met, we both knew what we didn’t want. We no longer wanted to stay in our comfort zone because life was waiting on the edge of that. While we knew everything we didn’t want, we found everything we did want. We just happened to catch each other at the right time. We learned a lot about ourselves and each other over the last four years of marriage and honestly cannot wait to see what else God has in store for us. And all it took was a simple choice. It was my favorite choice I made with my husband; when we chose to start talking to each other on a faith-based dating site.

When Tayler proposed he said that he would have another gift for me. He gave me this necklace with the words “You have me and my heart for the rest of our lives.” We got married seven months later.