We have probably known each other, mostly through friends, for at least a year and a half actually. The short answer is "through friends."

The long answer is that a few years back I was single as usual and had been for long enough to forget that sites like OKC are far more depressing than successful in finding a date, at least for me. I decided to change my approach.

I decided to use OKC to find tennis partners.

I'd thought this out. I considered that tennis was both free to play, and relatively cheap to begin playing; it was an unusual first date activity but dinner and a movie is far worse; it would allow me to observe things about the other person like whether they were a sore loser/arrogant winner, whether they got frustrated if they had trouble, basically it would give me interesting potential insight and some might help me sort out duds more quickly than a regular boring stupid expensive fancy date. Plus I really care about being physically active, so anyone willing to play tennis on a date would presumably enjoy being active too.

I only got serious take ups on my offer from girls. I met and played tennis with 2 lesbians who, it turned out, also knew each other through OKC. Most of them also had a few ancillary friends, like significant others, etc. one of the girls really liked to entertain so she would have us together for parties a few times a year until we all casually knew each other.

this is already totally too long.

OK so then I got to know a subgroup better and developed a crush on MG (muh girl). I flirted with her real hard for like 2 months, contrived us to hook up, and continued to pursue until she realized i wasn't trying to be friends who maybe fucked but the whole shebang.

when we started dating i said "no talking. i hate talking about things."

so far this completely counterintuitive approach...has actually worked out.