13 Real-Life Love Stories That Are More Romantic Than ‘The Notebook’
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and what better way to embrace the season of love—or playfully roll your eyes at those annoyingly blissful couples—than by diving into love stories that could easily inspire a Hollywood blockbuster?
With TikTok’s trending #RelationshipStorytime hashtag, which has racked up an incredible 368.9 million views, people are sharing once-in-a-lifetime tales of romance that will make your heart flutter—or make you feel oh-so-single, depending on your mood. These stories capture everything from chance encounters to epic proposals, proving that love truly has a way of surprising us when we least expect it. Whether you’re celebrating your own love story or happily flying solo, these viral moments are sure to leave you inspired, amused, or maybe even a little teary-eyed.
1. The Junior High Sweetheart
“It started in junior high school. We went to the same church together… she quickly became one of my best friends. Then we went to different colleges. One summer we were both in the same city, spent a lot of time together, started going on dates and officially started dating. It was awesome, we got to travel the country together and then she moved to Minnesota, which is where I was going to school. That being said, it was the perfect story of right person, wrong time. We ended up breaking up in 2015. Fast forward four years later, we started talking again. We started dating about a year ago and immediately I knew she was who I was going to spend the rest of my life with. So I proposed.”
2. The Best Place to Meet a Man is a Nursing Home
“[I] started working at a nursing home as a nurse and met the physical therapist. [I] also met these women, our patients. They told me how wonderful the physical therapist is and said we should date. He looked taken, [and I] told them he probably wasn’t interested. [So,] not taking no for an answer, [our patients] faked injuries so I would have to take them to go see him.”
Now, the couple is married with a baby!
3. The Pandemic Meet-Cute
“I met my boyfriend on Instagram three months ago during a national pandemic. I’m his first girlfriend and I’ve been single for the last five years. When I tell you love does really come and find you, I promise you that it does. And the right love will stay.”
4. The Second Chance at Love
“Found out I was pregnant at 19. My boyfriend and son’s biological father passed away [when] I was 14 weeks pregnant. I was completely devastated. Pregnancy was very depressing due to mourning and missing my boyfriend. I had my son and felt whole again. When my son was 10 months old, we met this guy…He accepted and loved my son like his own. My son started calling him daddy when he was 1-year-old and we got engaged after a year and a half of dating. We wanted to grow our family a year after marriage but needed some help through IVF. I transferred the only embryo we had and found out we were pregnant two weeks later! Now we are waiting on baby girl to come in February 2021.”
5. The Long, Long-Distance Love
“I’m from Germany and my husband is from the United States. I happened to be on a trip to LA where we matched on Tinder. I ended up asking him out on a date, which turned out to be the most amazing and craziest date I ever had! We got hot chocolate, coffee and went to Griffith, and got pulled over by a cop, but that’s a whole different story. We ended up in Santa Monica where he asked me to come see him perform at the National Association of Music Merchants. After the show, he surprised me by taking me to Disneyland, and asking me to be his girlfriend in front of the castle. I was in LA for only two weeks, which means I had to leave, which turned our whole relationship into long-distance for over a year. But we made it work and our love turned into more than we ever thought it would.”
6. The Proposal in Tulum
“It all started in the 90s when this family joined the swim club that my grandparents started in the 1960s. Fast forward to 2008, we started dating because I slid into his MySpace messages. We then became high school sweethearts and went to all the school dances together. We decided to split because we were going to different colleges, but still would see each other every now and then. After college, I visited him in Chicago and our romance sparked again. We traveled a month together to South Africa and after our trip, decided I should move to Chicago to give our relationship a shot. We got our first apartment together, and our puppy Jazzy joined us as well. Fast forward two years after moving to Chicago and I took a girls trip to Tulum with my friends. On the last day of vacation, we wanted to end with a fancy dinner to celebrate the trip. Anthony had traveled all the way to Tulum to surprise me at the restaurant with this moment. We hope to get married after COVID-19.”
7. The Story Behind 27 Years of Marriage
“We met when I was 14 and he was just turning 16. We were together on and off through high school, then went to college in different states. After driving overnight to visit me every other weekend, he changed schools and we became inseparable. We got engaged December 1991 and were married in November 1992. We had three baby boys in a row, and were so in love with each other and our little family. In the decade after our youngest was born, I had several miscarriages, and was told that another baby was extremely unlikely. We moved on and had many years of amazing adventures as a family of five. Fast forward to summer of 2015 when we had the biggest surprise of our lives. A baby girl was on the way! We kept her a secret for as long as we possibly could, and finally getting to tell her brothers was one of my happiest memories. Our daughter was born in March of 2016 and she’s the cherry on our sundae. Last December, we celebrated 27 years of marriage.”
8. The Blind Date in Front of 20,000 People
“It all started when I was randomly selected from a crowd of 20,000 people to go on a blind date with this man on stage as entertainment for the crowd. As fate would have it, we both went to the same college and he was kind of cute, athletic and nice. So I decided to go on a second date with him. On our second date, we found out my last name is Jester and his was King and our birthdays were back-to-back days. Weird right? This random blind date turned into lots of dates. Us traveling the world together, us getting a dog together, us getting engaged, us graduating college, us getting married, us traveling some more together, us getting another dog, and then buying a house. And now I get to mess with my family about how I went from a common Jester, to a King. All thinks to God and this one random blind date.”
9. The Bold Move That Paid Off
“I’m talking to my friends and I’m like, this guy is staring at me and I don’t know why he’s looking at me like this. I say he’s been staring at me for like an hour, and he finally comes up to me. I’m like, ‘What are you looking at?’ And he says, ‘You. I think you’re beautiful.’ And he just kissed me on the mouth, right then and there! I was like, what. But I admired his gusto and bravado. So I gave him my phone number and the rest is history.”
10. The Couple Turned Throuple
“Pow and Kass got married. They moved to LA, went to a party and met Carly. Kass and Carly became friends. They all go out, caught feelings and started dating.”
11. The Kiss at a Renaissance Faire
“I went to the original Renaissance Pleasure Faire for the first time and walk over to this group of strangers who seem to be having a lot of fun… This group of strangers was pretty drunk and one girl cheerfully announced that she would like to give all of us a kiss about five minutes into talking with them. With our consent, she proceeded to go around the circle and chastely but forcefully press her mouth against ours in a kiss that kind of made you stumble back. As I was recovering, the crowd parted and backlit by the sun was the human embodiment of every character crush I had ever had in my life, wearing a pirate costume. And she walked up to me, for God knows what reason, [and said], ‘May I also kiss the fae?’ [I] didn’t even know her name! That happened! And my heart went, oh no, as it was shot by lightening with FEELINGS.”
12. The Two-Year Wait
“We met in high school when I was 16 and Kendall was 15. We were both in choir together. The first time I saw him, I told him that we were going to fall in love… basically, I’m a fortune teller. Anyway, we date through high school… Kendall and I graduate and he gets called to serve in Croatia as a missionary for two years… We wrote lots of letters and we Skyped… Then he came home from his mission and it was the best day of my entire life… Once he came home, it was like he never left and we picked up right where we left off. We were dating, having a good ol’ time and we got engaged. Then we got married and it’s been the happiest two and a half years of my life.”
13. The Months in Saigon
“We met outside of the library at school 7 years ago. He was doing an information session to send students abroad and I was like, hey that sounds cool. My roommate Ryanne was friends with Matt and she introduced us. We bonded over Lana Del Rey like all sad gays. Two months later we made the irresponsible decision to save all of our money and get tickets to Vietnam to go teach English. And oh, we hardly knew each other, but now we lived together in an apartment in Saigon… We spent the next couple of months teaching English to business professionals and then we got to travel all around southeast Asia, and we were very broke but had so much fun. It all worked out in the end!”
