Benjamin and Blanca, 41 and 40, hit it off after their first meeting, but didn’t meet up again for another year. They are now married and live in LA

Benjamin Speed was on holiday in Los Angeles when his friend suggested he meet Blanca Lista, a film producer. “I am a composer working in the film and TV industry, and he thought we’d have common interests,” Benjamin remembers. Blanca set aside some time one afternoon for the meeting. “I noticed he was handsome and radiated confidence, which was very attractive.” Benjamin instantly fell for her and asked her out via email, but she turned him down. “I thought he was just passing through town and I had my mum staying at the time,” she says. Benjamin says he returned home to Australia feeling “really sad”.

A year later, in September 2012, Blanca was offered the chance to visit Australia for work. She visited four states over the course of her month-long trip, ending in New South Wales. Once there, she visited Sydney, where Benjamin was living. “Our old mutual friend recommended getting in touch again, so I wrote to him.” He was delighted to hear from Blanca and took her to his favourite restaurant in Chinatown. Blanca had been due to leave the following day, but before their meeting she extended her trip another 24 hours. “I think I already knew I would want more time with him.”

Amy and Richard Caterina, 56 and 60, met at a party in 1987. They became a couple a few months later, after a case of mistaken identity, and now live in Del Mar, California

Amy Scease was living in Boston, Massachusetts, with her identical twin, Becky, in 1987. “That winter, she invited me to a party in this old loft,” she remembers. When they arrived, Amy spotted a good-looking man in a brown leather jacket. He introduced himself as Richard, and the pair hit it off. “We went out to the roof to talk all night because it was noisy,” he says. She discovered he was from San Diego and they both worked in banks. “There are so many jerks out there. When you meet someone nice you want to see them again,” she says. But as the party drew to a close, one of Becky’s friends threw his arm around Amy, and Richard made the assumption they were a couple.

Thinking nothing would happen between them, he left. “When I told my sister I didn’t have his number, she said I was an idiot,” Amy says. “I ran outside to find him, but he had disappeared.” The next week she tried calling the bank he worked at, but with so many Richards working there it was impossible to find him. “I thought that was that,” she says.

Charles and Yidi Outhier, 54 and 47, met on a train in the US before Christmas in 2003. They live in the suburbs of Philadelphia with their pet tortoise

Charles Outhier was travelling from Austin, Texas to Tucson, Arizona to see his grandparents for Christmas at the end of 2003. “I had seen the film The Station Agent, and I thought the idea of taking a train sounded appealing,” he says. “But in San Antonio, the train car I was in had separated and all the passengers continuing on were herded into two cars that would connect with an incoming train.” He spent a miserable night trying to sleep on the crowded train with no air-conditioning and, once the trains connected in the morning, he went to the empty cafe car with sightseeing windows.

He was soon joined by Yidi Shen, who sat down near him. “I had left China to study in Germany, and I was on an exchange programme in Wisconsin,” she says. “I got a train pass to travel the country and wanted to make the most of my opportunity in the US.” She had previously been travelling with friends, but had separated from them in Orlando, Florida, to go west towards California.