[helene_t]

https://www.stuff.co...idge-new-tinder

[pilowsky]

They'll have to start putting red lights in the windows.

[helene_t]

To be fair, the story isn't very naughty, it's about making friends at the bridge club and then occasionally it can grow into romance.

But the headline about replacing dating sites with bridge clubs made me laugh

[mw64ahw]

What percentage are you getting 😀

[Shugart23]

helene_t, on 2025-May-10, 17:17, said:

https://www.stuff.co...idge-new-tinder

In recent topics added , it adds ' by helene t ' to your topic.

[mycroft]

All I can say is "worked for me"...at least twice. A third time - well, we worked out it could have happened, later. A fourth time - well, that story's not for print, so let's say "could have maybe did happen?"

[kenberg]

mycroft, on 2025-May-11, 10:23, said:

All I can say is "worked for me"...at least twice. A third time - well, we worked out it could have happened, later. A fourth time - well, that story's not for print, so let's say "could have maybe did happen?"

After my second marriage ended I started playing duplicate bridge and yes, there were some side benefits. But I met my third wife at a mathematics conference. Third time's a charm, we have been married for thirty years.


Oh. Happy Mother's Day everyone.

[PassedOut]

I met my first wife at the University of Wisconsin chess club. I was sitting at a table waiting for an opponent when a young woman sat down and moved her king's pawn with an assertive manner. She launched a very aggressive and very unsound attack and stalked off in a rage after she lost. I followed her and had a tough time even getting her to talk but then sparks ignited.

One time we were out late in Madison and had started a mental chess game when the bar closed, so we stopped in a laundromat to finish our game while our memories were still fresh. Half an hour later a police officer came in, noticed that none of the machines were running, and asked what we were doing.

"Playing chess," she said as though it should be obvious. "You didn't see us doing anything else, did you?" The officer wasn't amused.

We became bridge partners also.

[kenberg]

PassedOut, on 2025-May-11, 16:54, said:

I met my first wife at the University of Wisconsin chess club. I was sitting at a table waiting for an opponent when a young woman sat down and moved her king's pawn with an assertive manner. She launched a very aggressive and very unsound attack and stalked off in a rage after she lost. I followed her and had a tough time even getting her to talk but then sparks ignited.

One time we were out late in Madison and had started a mental chess game when the bar closed, so we stopped in a laundromat to finish our game while our memories were still fresh. Half an hour later a police officer came in, noticed that none of the machines were running, and asked what we were doing.

"Playing chess," she said as though it should be obvious. "You didn't see us doing anything else, did you?" The officer wasn't amused.

We became bridge partners also.

I really like this story and I believe I would really like your first wife.

[helene_t]

Gosha and I were sitting North at two adjacent tables at Leeds Bridge Club. She said the way I passed boards to her made her gain courage to ask me for date. We were together for 12 years, split up two years ago.

[PassedOut]

kenberg, on 2025-May-11, 19:16, said:

I really like this story and I believe I would really like your first wife.

She was and is a wonderful person. A WWII refugee, she came to the US at age 11 speaking only Russian and German. She skipped ahead two grades of schooling in the US before college, completed college in three years, then earned her master's degree the next year. When we met at the UW chess club she was working toward her PhD. (I was an undergraduate, but not much younger.)

During WWII, she saw and experienced many things that no child should, including being wounded in the leg herself during a bombing by American planes. She came to believe very strongly that it is immoral to bring children into a world like ours and she never did. I was too dense to grasp the depth of her feelings about that before we married. We got a no-fault divorce, but it was tough for both of us.

[barmar]

mycroft, on 2025-May-11, 10:23, said:

All I can say is "worked for me"...at least twice.

Doesn't that also imply that it failed at least once?

That said, I know at least 3 or 4 long-term couples who met playing bridge.

[mycroft]

If you're commenting on me being available for success; well, yeah, I didn't marry my (nonexistent) highschool sweetheart at 17 and lived happily forever.

But, 4 years and 15 (and counting). Better, I think, than many.

If you're wondering how many times I *tried* to play bridge for "other reasons"; I'm not really sure I ever have. I certainly didn't when it worked. But that probably says more about my social obliviousness (incompetence?) than anything else...

For anybody hitting the TMI barrier, sorry :-).

[awm]

My wife and I met because of bridge, but not strictly speaking at the bridge table (we were introduced by a mutual bridge-playing friend, and actually met for the first time at a bridge tournament, but not at the table). While it seems not unusual for bridge players to meet their life partners through bridge, I'm not sure the pool of young players is large enough for it to be a reliable way for young people to meet. Maybe this is better in New Zealand. Older people meeting (often second or third) partners seems quite common though.