These days, the advice for singles seems to be “date with purpose.” But oftentimes, the relationship you end up in feels like a big happy accident. Particularly in the age of online dating, which has both commodified and gamified the process of looking for love, the options can seem endless — to a detriment. Being single for a long period, frankly, can leave you feeling as though all options have been exhausted — or worse, that you’re doomed never to find the one person who will love and understand you unconditionally (if that’s what you’re into, of course).
But sometimes, the person you end up happily partnered with could be a blip in your periphery — someone who left early at that party you were late to; who sat on the opposite side of the bus and got off before you caught their eye; who’s a regular at the same bar as you, but only on nights that you never go. Here are the true stories of three metro Detroit couples who were — somehow — hiding in plain sight from each other for years and are thankful to have finally united.
A Series of Coincidences
Sarah was sitting in a psychology lecture at Michigan State University when the boy wearing the striped shirt first captured her attention. She thought he was cute. Suddenly, she started seeing him everywhere.
He frequented many of the same bars that she and her roommates did. She even saw him in the crowd at a couple of Pine Knob concerts. To Sarah and her friends, he was known simply as Striped Shirt Boy. Sarah had a boyfriend at the time. However, she believed Striped Shirt Boy would be a perfect match for her younger sister Becca, and hoped to set them up. But by the end of senior year, she hadn’t managed to talk with him — and neither had Becca.
Sarah was single again. Sort of — her boyfriend had moved away, and it didn’t seem like they’d be an item much longer. The year was 1991, and on the Saturday night after Thanksgiving, she was at her parents’ home in Birmingham. She was set to graduate the next weekend and had just finished her final paper. Sarah dialed up some friends, and they planned a girls’ night out at a bar called Augie’s in Madison Heights.
About 20 miles away in Lake Orion, Bill was also home from Michigan State for holiday break. He’d turned 21 earlier that year and was about to embark on a rite of passage — going out for drinks with his older siblings — and he found himself at Augie’s, too, with his brother, his sister, and her husband.
As the band played, Sarah was sitting at a booth with her friends, and her eyes wandered to the opposite side of the dance floor. That’s where she saw Bill. She said aloud, “He’s perfect.” Bill saw her staring and thought she looked perfect, too. But he wasn’t wearing his glasses — how could he be so sure? So he pretended to head to the bathroom and sneaked a closer look.
She continued to stare and repeat those words, “He’s perfect,” to the point that one friend grew weary of it and walked over to Bill.
“Hey, my friend’s been looking at you all night,” she told Bill. “She’s kind of shy. Why don’t you come over and say hello?”
Bill was game but played it cool. You see, his brother had just ordered a round of Gorilla Farts — potent shots of Bacardi 151 and tequila — so Bill said he’d come by afterward. With a little liquid courage, he strolled to Sarah’s booth, and the two struck up a conversation.
She complimented his outfit; she thought he was wearing J. Crew clothes, but he laughed and said they were just from JCPenney and Sears — and his boots weren’t Timberland, either. They talked about school. The conversation felt comfortable, easy. Something seemed to click.
Bill asked if she wanted to dance, and Sarah obliged. At the end of the night, they exchanged numbers — and even a kiss.
The next day, Bill called right away but didn’t hear back at first — Sarah’s mom took the message on her behalf (Sarah was brutally hungover and slept most of the day). Fortunately, they finally connected and made plans to go to Landshark, a popular college bar in East Lansing, the following Tuesday with some friends.
That evening, Sarah headed over to collect Bill from his house on Center Street. He let her in, and her giddiness turned to shock in an instant. On the couch was none other than Striped Shirt Boy. As it turned out, he was Bill’s roommate and one of his best friends. How had Sarah never noticed Bill before?
It was the first of many missed opportunities to connect that the two found inexplicable. For instance, Bill’s childhood friend Greg dated one of Sarah’s college roommates, Chaundra. Sarah had been meaning to go to one of Greg’s many parties — where she would have run into Bill — but never got around to it.
Bill lived next door to Sarah’s three friends Gina, Lee, and Michelle. Bill and his roommates liked to party — smoking weed and blasting rap music on their porch — which drew the three girls’ ire. So when Sarah asked her friends, “Are any of the boys next door cute?” They said, “No, not really.”
Bill and Sarah had even taken a geography class together, but the lecture hall was so jam-packed that they never caught one another’s eye. And if that wasn’t enough, Bill had worked on and off during summers as a cashier at the Perry Drugs at Maple and Lahser that Sarah’s family frequented — 45 minutes from his house. There was a good chance that Sarah had picked up a prescription from him before, and her mom definitely had.
Over pizza at Crunchy’s, Sarah introduced Bill to a few of her friends. They were laughing and having a good time. That’s when Sarah popped the question: “Do you have a girlfriend?”
He didn’t. But she was seeing someone, kind of. Bill’s heart sank. In that moment, he realized he’d never met someone that he’d felt so attracted to, so comfortable with. Sarah explained that she and the boyfriend hadn’t really broken up yet, but they weren’t together. Bill thought, “Who’s this guy? And what can I do to win her over?”
But he already had — Sarah ended her long-distance relationship for good and made things official with Bill. And they were happy. But something began to grate on Sarah: Bill’s laugh. It was annoying, she thought. And he had an unfortunate habit of stepping on her feet. She began to look inward: Was he really the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with? In an instant, she dumped him.
Bill was bummed. He met a new girl named Michelle at the bowling alley, and they went on a few dates, but it just wasn’t the same. He saw Sarah a few times when he was out with his friends that summer and she was with her friends. It hurt. He realized he had never missed someone so much.
Then, in September 1992, when he was at his house in East Lansing, he heard a knock on the door. It was Sarah, wearing Birkenstocks with socks. She had driven up to visit Becca and decided to stop by. A few weeks before, Becca had run into Bill at the bar and told Sarah she should call him.
They talked for a bit. “You still like me!” she taunted. He did.
She still liked him, too, and they got back together and were married in August 1995.
The maid of honor was Sarah’s friend who played wingwoman for her at Augie’s. Striped Shirt Boy was one of the ushers (though he made an exception that night with a black suit). Becca was there, too (though she never ended up with him). The ceremony was short, and the after-party was memorable. Their first dance was to Wet Wet Wet’s “Love Is All Around,” and other tunes included Ministry’s raucous industrial anthem “Stigmata.” They tell me there’s an old photo of Sarah lighting a cigarette from a votive as Bill dances on a table.
Today, Bill and Sarah live in Georgia. When I interview them on Zoom earlier this year, they call in independently of one another: Bill’s at the office, wearing a Michigan State sweatshirt; Sarah is at home. They’re enthusiastic to share their story — Sarah in particular — and where one leaves off, the other one picks up, but they never interrupt one another; there’s a sense of respect and that they’re enjoying each other’s company even in the middle of a workday.
“She’s my best friend,” Bill says. “We always talk about how sad it is when people don’t want to go home, right? Because they’re workaholics, or they might be at the golf club, at the bar, because they want to get away from their family, their kids. That’s sad because when we’re apart, we always want to get back together.”
Although Bill is less inclined to believe in fate, even he has trouble looking past all of the coincidences that led to their meeting; it truly seems to him that their relationship was “meant to be.” And the two agree on another thing: It wouldn’t have worked out if they had met earlier — it was perfect timing.
High School Sweethearts
Dave didn’t know too much about Denise when they were teenagers, other than that she was, in his words, “adorable.” They ran with different cliques: Denise, a cheerleader who partied on the weekends; Dave, an aspiring writer who played baseball and other intramural sports. In the entirety of their time spent at Cabrini High, a close-knit Catholic school in Allen Park, the two never exchanged so much as a word. After graduating the same year — 1977 — they went to different colleges. Afterward, they moved into homes with their respective spouses, began their careers, and became parents.
It wasn’t until 2013 that the two found themselves in the same place at the same time again — an Irish bar on Allen Road called Dunleavy’s. It was an informal meetup among the ’77 classmates leading up to an official reunion; Denise was one of the organizers. She saw him walk into the bar and thought to herself, “He’s cute.”
A day before, had someone mentioned Dave’s name to Denise, or vice versa, each might have pictured the other as the fresh-faced adolescent they remembered, eager to set sail toward the glittery horizon of adulthood. But here they were on the other side, with everything they’d experienced along the way. About three years before, Denise was widowed after losing her husband of 30 years to cancer. And two Julys ago, Dave had finalized his divorce with his wife of 28 years.
When the reunion rolled around, they managed to chat a bit. Then, a month later, they were at Dunleavy’s again. This time, they were helping out at a fundraiser for a classmate with a disability. They talked some more that night and bonded over their love of music, picking out songs together on the jukebox. At the end of the night, Dave helped Denise bring materials back to her car. They hugged, and Dave sprung the question: What was her number? “867- 5309,” she sung back to him. But eventually, she gave him her real digits.
The next day, Dave did some research. He called a mutual friend and asked if Denise was seeing anyone. The friend said, “You should call her.” He did, and the following year, on Aug. 16, 2014, they were wed.
In late March, I join Dave and Denise at the Brighton Bar & Grill. Although their wedding anniversary is in August, they return here once a year on April 17 to commemorate the anniversary of their first date. They always try to reserve the two-top by the window where they first sat together 12 years ago.
Denise tells me that after she was widowed, she was not ready to date. “I didn’t want to do online dating — I couldn’t even fathom it,” she says. “But even though I didn’t know Dave’s family, I felt like I did, because we went to a small school where everybody knew each other. My brother knew his sister. It just felt right, like ‘I can trust this person.’”
Dave seconds this. Though he tried the online dating thing, he walked away not much of a fan. But in meeting Denise, he says he felt comfort in what they had in common: They were both close with their families, had kids who were similar ages, and shared the same faith.
And of course, they both shared a love of music. The couple have been to at least 40 concerts together, the most recent being Elvis Costello. Denise is a die-hard Led Zeppelin fan (and not big on Greta Van Fleet), but one of the couple’s favorite songwriters is Ben Folds, whom they’ve seen twice. Dave says Folds’s 2001 hit “The Luckiest” holds a special place in his heart.
“The first line is ‘I don’t get many things right the first time; in fact, I am told that a lot,’”
Dave says. “I look at that in my first marriage, and I think that’s part of it. Sometimes, it just doesn’t work out. Stuff happens.”
Early into dating, Dave and Denise talked at length about what their previous marriages taught them and what they saw as the keys to a successful relationship — and agreed on “commitment,” “consideration,” and “respect.” Today, they seem to agree that they are “the luckiest” to have found one another in this stage of life.
Flavor of Love
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Leanne (like many of us) was stuck at home. During that time, she (like many of us) found a comfort watch: the reality competition show Hell’s Kitchen.
At some point, she was bingeing Season 15 (which originally aired in 2016). During the first episode’s Signature Dish Challenge — typically a gold mine of host Gordon Ramsay tearing aspiring chefs to absolute shreds — one contestant made an early positive impression: Hassan Musselmani, whose pan-seared scallops earned him praise and a 4-point score, tipping his team over the edge for a win.
Hassan’s larger-than-life presence on the screen left the audience with memorable quotes like “I’m not screaming — this is just how I talk!” before he was ultimately eliminated in Episode 7.
“He was quite a character to watch on TV,” Leanne remembers. “He was very loud. He was funny. I usually don’t think people are cute on TV, but I thought he was really cute. But ultimately, I didn’t think anything of it.”
In 2017, Hassan competed on Food Network’s Chopped, where he was the runner-up. Back in his native metro Detroit, the Chippewa Valley High School graduate started a food truck in 2013 called The Drunken Rooster.
A few years after pandemic restrictions eased up, Leanne was a single woman looking for love. She took to the popular dating app Tinder. One day, she was swiping when a familiar face popped up: It was Hassan. She couldn’t believe it. She had to swipe right. A week or so later, she got a notification: They’d matched.
“I was ecstatic; I remember feeling really giddy in that moment,” she recalls. And ever since their first date at an underrated Indian street food spot in Troy called Neehee’s, they’ve been essentially inseparable. The two became official less than two weeks later in October of 2022 when, as Hassan says, “She stole my house key.” And only a few months later, they decided to take a trip together: a weeklong vacation in Hawaii. One memory that stood out from the trip was a boat ride they took on New Year’s Eve. Floating along the Pacific off the coast of Honolulu, they watched the sky light up with fireworks.
Hassan recommends a week’s vacation to determine whether you like someone. “You know, you can get annoyed by someone pretty easily or fall in love with them pretty easily.”
For both, it was the latter. They’ve continued to travel together and share a love of dining — some of their favorite local restaurants being Mabel Gray, Selden Standard, and Mink.
The two enjoy cooking together as well, although Leanne, who works in the medical industry, recalls how intimidated she was the first time she made Hassan — a celebrity chef — chicken pot pie from a family recipe.
Both agree their personalities balance one another out. “Leanne’s a little more reserved,” Hassan says. “I like to embarrass her in public. I think that’s a nice dynamic, as much as she hates it a little bit.”
The couple got engaged this past February and are already planning another trip — this one to Puerto Rico, where Leanne’s father is from. Like their first vacation together in Hawaii, this trip will have a special significance; it’s when they plan to have their wedding.
Though they look forward to that day, there are still plenty of unknowns: The two haven’t reached a consensus on whether they want to have children.
Currently, they reside in Warren with two cats and two dogs. “[Leanne] treats our animals great; she’s sweet, and she’s loving,” Hassan says.
When I ask what made Leanne realize Hassan was the one, she says, “I’ve never dated somebody as responsible as him. … He’s so much fun, and he’s reliable.”
For Hassan, “She’s a kind, loving person, and she thinks I’m funny sometimes. And she puts up with my shit. … Anybody that can put up with my shit, you’re most likely the one, you know.”
This story originally appeared in the October 2025 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Click here to get our digital edition.
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