On Valentine’s Day, one tradition is to make fun of all the love in the air, and cheesy pick-up lines are an easy target, but sometimes they actually work.

In 1969, Leonore Huser Bourdekas, my grandmother, met the love of her life in a Greek nightclub, where she had gone for her friend’s birthday.

“I didn’t know it then, but the man I had met that night was my true love,” she said.

Leonore Bourdekas is originally from Queens, New York, but she had traveled to Greece for her friend’s birthday.

George Bourdekas was the Greek man who married her.

The first time he saw Leonore, she was by the bar in the nightclub. He coaxed her into sitting by him by saying that if she did, he would buy everyone breakfast in the morning.

“So of course I said, ‘Why not?'” the now-Mrs. Bourdekas said. After that, George got close and whispered in her ear a pick-up line that would change their lives: “I want you to know, if you coming with me, you coming with me forever.”

Three years of dating later, they married and traveled back to New York to take care of Leonore’s parents, who were both sick. Her mother later died of a stroke and her father of cancer.

A lifetime later, both Mrs. and Mr. Bourdekas moved to Maui, Hawai’i, where her daughter Dianalee Voutsas Kapua lived with her four children (one being me). This lasted for a couple years until George got called back to work in Greece, while Leonore stayed in Maui and moved in with her daughter. Six years went by without seeing each other, and before they could be reunited, Mr. Bourdekas passed away in 2007.

It’s been 1 1 years since George Bourdekas died and Leonore Bourdekas said “[she] still misses waking up together and having walks on the beach in Athens.”

Their love story all started in a bar with a pick-up line that actually worked and brought Leonore Bourdekas the love of her life.

The cheesy pick-up line may be a cliche’, but if you don’t at least give it a try once in awhile, you never know what you could be missing out on.