Is there a secret to finding your soulmate? Is there even such a thing as one soulmate? Where did LGBTIQ+ people meet each other before the deluge of hookup and dating apps?
These were just some of the questions bubbling around our heads when we met up with a bunch of Australian LGBTIQ+ married couples to hear the stories of how they first met. Was it love at first sight? When did they know they were onto something special?
Unsurprisingly, the resulting interviews were incredibly beautiful and moving and funny and involve lots of loving stares between longtime partners, so proceed with caution and easy access to a box of Kleenex.
Angela and Tori
"Brenda is a lesbian dating app, or it was when we started speaking," Tori told SBS Voices. "We felt that without Brenda, we never would have met each other."
"In our wedding, we actually did a special thank you to Brenda," Angela recalled with a grin.
"People thought it was a person," she laughed. "But it was the app."
Thinking back to the day they first met, Tori said: "I didn't even know a future wife was a possibility at that time. Like, marriage equality was so far away."
Andrew and Finn
"I had a bottle of beer that I opened with my teeth," Finn recalled. "That's really daggy to say, but you were quite impressed by that."
Andrew laughed: "I thought that was very butch, it was very tough."
He added: "I was like, 'Wow! What a man!"
Francisco and Zac
"I remember seeing this guy on the other side of the dance floor," Zac told SBS Voices. "Like, standing up against the wall. Very sort of James Dean.
"And I was like, 'Oh, wow! I need to go over there right now.' So I danced my way over."
Franciso had a different way of putting it: "[He] kind of bounced over... you know, this little strut. I couldn't resist. I guess the impression that I got from him was that he was confident, that he was cocky, that he knew what he wanted... so I couldn't say no."
You can watch all the interviews in full below:
