Men

I've only dated two men in my life, and I ended up marrying one of them.
I met the first one through a dating website. He was around 8 years older, had been married once before and was very independent. It was very much a rebound thing for me - I was ready to slip back into the comfortable relationship feeling I'd had a few months earlier and if he's asked me to move in or move overseas with him I would have considered it. I probably would have gone, actually.. Thank goodness it didn't come to that. He realised I was a bit more involved than he was and he dumped me over email. I was at work when I got it. That was probably the first time I've really been dumped on my backside and it was a complete surprise. My mother was thrilled; she thought he was an arrogant pig and now that I've had time to consider, she may have seen him a bit more clearly than I did.
I was still dating him when I met Moda (my Minister of Dangerous Activities). I went to a birthday party with a girlfriend and pointed him out to her. She was single, I wasn't, I told her to check out the cute guy in the kitchen and she asked him out. D'oh! They dated for about a month, then it kind of fizzled out. I think she was offended when I asked her if I could maintain a friendship with him - I thought he was awesome and it would be a shame to lose a friend just because she broke up with him. He and I just hung out for close to a year, we had a lot in common and got along great as friends. That was also the first time I hooked up with someone I'd been friends with first. Best experience, that - I totally recommend hooking up with someone you can be great friends with. We had our first blue amongst friends during a weekend trip to the snow - he spent two hours teaching me to ski, then went off to play with the "big boys" on the black runs. I stayed with the beginners (there were 5 of us) on the green run and then someone had a brilliant idea to go to a green run higher up the mountain. We checked the map and sure enough, it was green. So up the chair lift we went. It was Way out of my league. I fell about 10 times and at one point I fell on a big rock. I looked down & saw a bit of blood on my hand. I freaked out, wadded up some tissues & shoved my hand deep into the glove with them. I took my skis off & walked across to the others, put down my skis to check my hand at which point one of the skiis careened down the hill. I had horrible visions of it spearing into the back of someone's head (those things go like arrows, you know). So one of my friends cried "I'll get your ski, miss!" and took off down the hill after it. My hand was fine by the way. It was just a tiny scratch that bled a lot. The others were struggling to stay with me (it really was quite steep) so I told them to go ahead & I'd walk down & meet them for coffee at the kiosk at the bottom of the hill.
About 300 meters from the kiosk, Moda found me.

"What are you doing? Why are you walking?"
My friend slid over to us with the other ski.
"Why does he have your ski?"
"It slid down the hill."
"What, it just came off? We mustn't have done them up properly! I wonder what happened to the safety rope (that attaches them to your ankle in case they come off)"
"I undid it."
"...What?"
"I fell over, so I thought I'd walk down the hill and I took them off and one slid away..."
"WHAT?"
"And I think I cut my hand"
"How did you cut your hand with gloves on?"
"..."
"YOU WERE SKIING WITHOUT GLOVES ON??"
And so on. He made me put the bast*rds back on & ski down the hill. But mostly he was mad that I had panicked & made some silly decisions. He's a caring and protective guy but he doesn't have a lot of patience if I hurt myself through carelessness.
I had bought a house about 6 years earlier, and when Moda and I hooked up and found that we were likely to remain a couple for a long time, we sold that house of mine and bought one together. We live in a run-down ex-govvie in a great location and the plan will be to fix it up over time. It's looking awesome, but the project will take a lot longer than we initially thought.