Meaningful connections can happen anytime and anywhere. A late run to the gas station. A midday visit to the dog park. Maybe the quiet corner of a house party.
With Valentine’s Day around the corner, couples all around South Florida will be celebrating their love and, possibly, reminiscing about their own meet-cute — the term used for chance meetings in romantic comedies.
READ MORE: A love letter to Coconut Grove — on the big screen
But love and companionship come in different packages (and they are all great for you). So ahead of the day of romance, WLRN wanted to celebrate the moments of serendipity that bring not just partners, but also close friends together.
We asked people in South Florida to share their stories of finding love or forming genuine friendships. Here is what they had to say.
Going the distance
Love is not a game of chance for Annmarie.
The 62-year-old, who is originally from Jamaica, had what she called her weekly “online dating protocol.” Every Friday, she would go to her home office, pull up her inbox and check for new messages on dating service Match.com.
“ That's my philosophy. If you wanna meet someone, then you have to put the time and effort,” she said.
As a graduate student, part-time nurse and mother to a 13-year-old boy, Annmarie did not have much wiggle room in her schedule to wait around for “Mr. Right”. In 2004, she hoped that came across in her dating profile, where she captioned a photo of herself with the tagline “modern girl with old fashioned ideals.”
She found a match in Theodor Haerry, a Florida Atlantic University professor from Switzerland, who ticked all her boxes. They had common interests such as playing tennis, traveling and going to the opera.
Even still, 50 miles of South Florida traffic kept them apart. Annmarie lived in Aventura and Theodor in Boca Raton. Without the help of online dating, their paths would have never crossed.
“ Good people are out there, and [we] couldn't have been more different in our backgrounds,” she said. “South Florida brings people together.”
They count themselves lucky that their values and interests aligned. They said they were honest, open-minded and committed to finding a lifelong partner.
“ In the end, a lot of relationships go south because of money. Religion can [also] be a problem. From the beginning, everything was on the table and it was clear where this relationship [could] go,” Theodor said.
Annmarie told WLRN she had no idea that Theodor's first online message would start a new chapter of her life. Two weeks of long phone calls later, the busy university students met for lunch on a sunny Saturday afternoon. They clicked immediately.
”I earnestly wanted to have a partner, a person in my life, so when I met Theo, I felt whole because all the stuff I was doing — I loved it. I enjoyed it, but I said this was what was missing.”
Annmarie and Theodor have been married for 20 years.
A standing lunch invitation
Robert Lyle keeps track of the small wins — like when his friend James, or Jim for short, climbed up the stairs without the help of his cane.
Jim was recovering from a medical procedure and immediately told Robert. It's part of their ongoing ritual of tracking what they call "micro-success" No victory is too small in their friendship.
“We know so much about each other and we share our thoughts and our feelings," Robert said. "It's probably been the longest close personal friendship that I've ever had.”
Parallel experiences brought the octogenarians together in South Florida.
A couple of years ago, Lyle’s wife started exhibiting signs of dementia, so he joined an online support group for loved ones with dementia where he first met Jim.
“ When you've got a spouse who's got dementia, you really need support. I didn't know anything about it, didn't know how to deal with it,” Robert said.
Shortly after connecting, they learned that both of their wives were staying at the same memory care facility in Boca Raton. They struck up an easy friendship that started with an invitation to lunch.
“At our age, you don't find very many people to say, ‘Hey, let's go have a drink together,’ and we enjoyed each other's company,” Robert said.
Once a month, the pair would go to the same Mexican restaurant, sit in the same booth and just catch up. Their shared experience gave them the space to talk about their experiences without becoming too maudlin. Sometimes they avoided the topic all together.
“ We talked about anything because we didn't want to just talk about our wives or about dementia," Robert added. "I mean, we're both dealing with that constantly, so the last thing we wanted to do was to sit and chat about what's the latest with your wife or my wife. It was the purpose of two guys getting together and being friends. And that's what counted — having a friend.”
Jim moved to Colorado to be closer to family. Lyle still lives in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea. It's been two years since they have met up at their usual spot, but Lyle said they text almost every day.
Fateful friends
It only took one cigarette to ignite more than a decade of friendship for Alejandra Hierro. That alone was enough for her to believe in fate.
A little more than ten years ago, Hierro met her soon-to-be best friend Alex Brener at a birthday party in Miami. She saw a mysterious girl, her black attire clad in studs and leather, smoking a cigarette. She wanted to smoke too. In a bright floral skirt and rainbow wedge, Hierro cheerfully pranced up to her asking for a hit.
”Alex and I are always talking about how it was just written in the stars that we met that day. We're so different, but when we talk to each other, for some reason, it just clicks,” she said.
What Alejandra thought would be a short cigarette break turned into an hours-long conversation that lasted through the night. They look back at that first encounter fondly, joking how they thought they were too different to be friends.
“[Alex] said, I couldn't believe that the popular pretty girl came up to me and wanted to be my friend, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I thought you were the cool girl that wasn't gonna wanna talk to me,” Alejandra said.
Alex, who grew up with younger brothers, said she found a sister in Alejandra. And their opposite personalities only made their bond stronger.
"She's taught me a lot in terms of — just life in general, how to approach things, she's changed my perspective on so many situations and I think it's super important to have somebody like that in your life," Alex said.
Despite their differences, they discovered they actually had a lot in common. They were both born in Mexico and moved to South Florida when they were young. As they barreled through their twenties, they navigated the hurdles side by side.
“It's almost like… we're a mirror for each other, so whenever I doubt myself, she shows me through her own courage that I shouldn't. It's that kind of friendship that always renews and reminds you that you're not alone,” Alejandra said.
Now, in their 30s, both women are engaged, and planning their weddings together.
