Peeps
She sat behind me in speech class. I had just finished my sales presentation on the glorious food that is Marshmallow Peeps, and was taking my place in front of her. ”I love Peeps,” she told me. I knew at this precise moment my just-born love for this woman was complete, and pure: a love that, if microwaved, would poof up to four times its original size.

A week later my marshmallow mama and I were off to the cinema to begin our lives together. My game was all off. I wore my Docksides with white tube socks and shorts.   During the movie, she told me that she was cold. I remained sitting with both arms locked in tight against my side.  As we watched Gwyneth leaving the subway train for the second time, she told me again of her coldness. Still, nothing. I might as well have been playing checkers using highly ionized iron rods on a magnetic board.  I could not make my move. 

Somehow my confidence by the end of the night had not completely blown up. As we said goodnight in my garage, I went in for the kiss. My lips met her face somewhere between her nose, mouth and cheek. I was just trying to draw up a simple line graph, and found myself suddenly on the z axis. I knew I was in the wrong place, but it was too late.   She reassured me with “it gets better after the first time,” apparently sensing that my poorly plotted coordinates were the product of inexperience and not the bold new experiment of a connoisseur tired of the malaise of lip-kissing.  I nodded, and we parted ways for the evening. She remains a very close friend of mine to this day, but sharing in a finely melted animal-shaped marshmallow is as gooey as we get.
—Jonathan Irwin

Southwest
Some folks fall in love gradually; for me it always happens in an instant.  I was at the airport in Albuquerque, headed for California, when I saw a beautiful and sweet girl dressed in white, maybe twenty-three years old.  I watched her at the check-in counter–she was sad but radiant, and she moved and spoke delicately, like an Arctic bird on a fragile bit of ice.  With her was a gumpy guy in a hot pink NO FEAR t-shirt.  He was pestering the lady behind the counter with questions about the plane: was it a 747 or a 767?  The lady had no idea, but he was determined to pry an answer from her.  I prayed that this guy was not the boyfriend of my sweet girl.  It seemed inconceivable, and yet I knew the world was filled with strangenesses, so it was hard to say.  The pair finished their business at the counter, and to my delight said goodbyes and headed off separately–I was startled to see that the girl walked with a slow, struggling flopped-leggedness, a condition I’d never quite seen before.  This effortful gait combined with her sad glow twisted something in me, and my heart hurt, and I was in love.

It’s been my peculiar blessing that every time I see a beautiful girl in an airport, she ends up sitting next to me on the plane.  This has led to a number of thrilling flights filled with excited conversation, followed by an exchange of email addresses at baggage claim.  But what do you email to a girl who lives in Jacksonville, Florida or Vancouver or Dublin?  Ships crossing.  It never adds up to much.  So it was no surprise but a kind of painful wonder when I got on the plane in Albuquerque and found myself sharing a row with the sweet flopped-legged girl in white.  She had the window, I had the aisle.  Between us, her purse and my backpack shared a seat and gently caressed.

Our plane rocketed into the sky and the girl looked sadly out the window.  I waited for her to glance my way so I could begin the conversation that I guessed would end painfully when we parted ways in San Diego, but she was so lost in her aching and faraway thoughts that she never turned from the window, even when the beverage cart rolled past with pretzels and Coke.  To busy myself, and because it was the only other thing on my mind, I pulled from my bag the long story I’d been working on for three weeks and had just finished that morning and printed out, and went through it making little changes, turning the pages loudly in hopes that the girl would peek over.  It hurt to have her so close yet oceans apart.  Her lips were pursed; her eyes cut at the clouds.  In a way, she was too nicely-dressed for my tastes, but that bland elegance was exotic to me and made me hunger for her more.  I looked back at the typed pages in my hands–I was still in that fleeting honeymoon phase you’ll sometimes have with a just-finished story, where for a moment everything about it feels perfect and snugly in place.  Finally I said to the girl, “Hey, what’s your name?”

She smiled at me, which was a surprise.  Her name was Kara.  She was a student in Seattle.  I asked about her boyfriend’s interest in planes.  Boyfriend?  At the check-in.  Oh, no, she explained, that was only her cousin; she’d been visiting family in New Mexico.  I’d thought her sadness would make conversation lurch and buckle, but everything sailed smooth as could be–she acted oddly grateful to me for the small-talk, and she seemed to occasionally hold my gaze for an extra sixteenth-note.  But how could I parlay this chance meeting and warm chemistry into a lasting love?  I told Kara I’d be right back and took the riddle with me to the back of the plane.  Among portholes and strange cabinets I stretched my legs and listened to two male flight attendants tease each other about some misadventure involving a motorcycle and a birthday gift.  I needed to give Kara something that would keep us in contact, but what?  Then I knew at once–I’d give her the story.  It would communicate something of me, and more importantly, it would give her something to respond to, a reason to stay in touch.

I glided back down the aisle and took my seat again.  Kara laughed, “Wondered if you were coming back.”

“Got held up in traffic,” I said.  “Listen, do you like to read?”

“What?”

“Reading, do you like to read?”

She paused and thought about it.  Granted, it was a stupid question, but not a complicated one.  At last she said, “No.”

“No?  You don’t like to read?”

“No,” she said.  “I hate reading.”

“You hate reading.”

“I just don’t like it.”

“You just don’t like it.”  I laughed.  She clearly wasn’t kidding.  All I could do was repeat after her like an idiot child.

“Sometimes I read magazines,” she offered hopefully.

“Sometimes you read magazines.”

“But only sometimes.  Mostly I look at the cosmetics.”

Sadly, shamefully, pathetically, I forced my story on her anyway.  I tried to explain what it was about, but the crashing down of my fantasies made me tongue-tied and weary.  I wrote my email address and my cell phone number at the top.  “In case you want to let me know what you thought of it,” I said.

Kara smiled brightly and folded the story carefully into her purse, as though it was a sick mouse.  Later, I imagined, she’d rid herself of the thing in the ladies’ room trashcan.  Still, her eyes seemed to express to me that she wasn’t ruling out the possibility of staying in touch.

In San Diego, I was headed for baggage claim and she was off to catch her connecting flight.  We hugged.  She had no scent at all.  I knew–for that reason, somehow–that I would never hear from her.  “Keep in touch,” I said.

“I will,” she said.  Then her face took on the dark look she’d had when I’d first seen her.  She turned and I stood watching as she shuffled away down the long corridor until at last she disappeared out of sight.
—Davy Rothbart

Say Anything, Carefully
Oh, the drama! Romance is such an important part of daily existence. And I mean real romance, the kind that’s jam-packed with lofty sentiment and a healthily impractical level of desire, be it unrequited or otherwise. But it’s crucially important to recognize that we’re not living in Britain in the early 1800s, and that hardly anyone can get away with walking off into the sea and merging with the infinite on a romantic whim. Yes, in these less beautiful and more litigious times, it’s important to remember the words of roaster maven Kenny Rogers, who crooned soulfully of needing to know when to “hold ‘em,” and when to “fold ‘em,” and so on and so forth.

It is with that preface that I recount a sordid tale from my slightly younger years, and I’m glad that I can smile about it now, because at the time it was terrible. I found myself, for reasons outside the scope of this column, on the outs with a girlfriend for quite some time. The whole relationship had taken on quite a theatrical air and included an overly dramatic years-long period of not talking—something that I don’t recommend, no matter how miffed you get at someone. At any rate, I’d begun communicating with my ex about three weeks before I was slated to, most likely, never see her again. This awoke a spark of classic romantic excitement within me; and with it, as one might imagine, a host of bad ideas.

Shortly before the move, I watched “Angus” with a few of my friends. For those unfamiliar with the film, it’s about a chubby middle-schooler who wants to date a popular girl. At one point, Angus’ grandfather gives Angus a pep talk regarding his reservations about going to the “big dance” where he would undoubtedly be mocked, taunted, hazed, etc. Maybe it was a prom of some sort. It doesn’t really matter. The point is, the grandfather, in a touching scene, sermonizes young confused Angus on the virtue of bravery. “Superman is not brave,” he states, or at least that’s how I remember it. He continues on about Superman’s invulnerability making him incapable of showing true bravery, and how extending oneself in an emotionally precarious position, knowing that one is prone to being crushed, is the essence of bravery. And you know it had to be solid advice, because it was the last thing that old Grandpa Angus said before he took a nap and subsequently slipped off into the eternal abyss.

I’d been reading a lot of Nietzsche at this time and it was making my hold on reality tenuous to begin with, and I found the ideas of Angus’s grandfather to be intoxicating and seductive. At least as intoxicating as all the terrible things you are warned to stay away from in grade school, and at least as seductive as, let’s say, orthodox Marxism? I knew that drastic action had to be taken. Fending off a particularly bizarre look from an acquaintance of mine, I borrowed her sidewalk chalk at about 4 a.m. and set out to the building in front of which I first kissed my ex-girlfriend. I wrote, for the whole world to see ,“Since feeling is first…,” my favorite e.e. cummings poem, a copy of which I had once given her. How’s that for romance? Did I mention I am fairly certain she had a boyfriend at this point? Eep. Nonetheless, I was so taken by this notion of a transcendent expression of affection that I felt it had to be done.

I never heard from her again. Suppose I should have seen that one coming, eh? Smooth move, ace. The virtue of bravery, eh? I still agree with Angus’ grandfather, but I neglected to realize that, unlike in the movies, the heroic protagonist sometimes does get crushed. At least I can say that I’ve done something so romantic that it would only have happened in a movie. Then again, people are routinely eaten by monsters in the movies.

Yes, romance is what it’s all about, but be effin’ careful how many times you watch Say Anything in one week, especially when alcohol is involved. Those two can be a dangerous combination. Remember, standing outside an open window with a boombox above your head can be an amazing gesture, or it can get you chased by a gun-wielding father clad only in his tighty-whities.
— Matthew Stern

Free Falling
In May 2001, I had just started a new job, and the whole staff decided to go skydiving. I have, for as long as I can remember, had a horrible fear of airplanes. My fiance, however, urged me to go. He thought facing my fears would do me some good. Plus, he was an avid skydiver and hoped I’d like it so we could go together. So at the last minute, I caved.

The morning of the jump, I felt sick to my stomach and tried to back out. My fiance, angry, sounded like a father. “Oh no, you’re going!” he said. So, I went. At the skydiving place, cars rolled up with people blaring Tom Petty singing “Free Fallin’.” I sat outside on a blanket and quietly chain-smoked. Then, after telling my fiance what to do in the event of my demise, I boarded the small, rickety old plane with my jumpmaster.

All the experienced jumpers told me to cross my fingers at take-off. I thought about death a lot as the plane climbed and groups of jumpers started to pile out of the plane. I was second to last. My jumpmaster tapped me on the back, pulled my sweaty arm and said, “Uncross your fingers. Take-off is when we cross ‘em. It’s the most dangerous part.” We walked to the door of the plane. The ground looked like a patchwork quilt, and horror rushed over me. I clutched the door of the plane, trying to prevent myself from being pushed out. But my jumpmaster was attached to my back. He lifted me and shoved me out the door.

Flying through the air at 118 m.p.h., I felt I looked death square in the eye. When people ask me what it was like, I say, “Life changing,” and I mean it. I’m small, so I was able to freefall for a long time—I had time to imagine bouncing on the ground—with the wind roaring in my ears. When the chute finally opened, the air was silent, no cars on the freeway, no children screaming outside, pure silence, except from my breath. The most peace imaginable. And as I floated gently to the ground and landed on both feet, I realized that it was over. I would not marry the man who was smiling at me and snapping pictures. My world had changed. Death could happen, even to me. And had I died, my only regret would have been choosing what was practical, and socially correct, over love, romance and passion.

The rush of surviving the experience was the best high I’ve ever experienced. It lasted well into the evening when my shift at work began. When I walked into work, the first person I saw was Aaron, a fellow employee who hadn’t been skydiving due to a serious fear of heights. I felt the normal flutter I had when he was around. Before the jump, I ignored it, repeating the mantra, “You are getting married. You cannot have a crush on a younger man.” I didn’t fall in love with Aaron that day. But after skydiving I made the decision to ignore what was socially acceptable and only do what made me happy. Two days later I left a house that I owned, the only person I’d ever dated seriously, and the prospect of a middle-class future. After I left, the door was open to whatever, like the door of the plane from which I jumped. Soon enough, I was freefalling again, dating Aaron, the younger man with little ambition for the future. I am still with Aaron today and happier than I could have imagined was possible when I boarded the plane.

For those that might be wondering, would I ever skydive again? Hell no.
— Aimee Bingham

Punch Drunk - Bare Naked Ladies
This is a story of disappointment countered with elation.

I’ve only dated one guy that I knew I had to get rid of immediately. It was a culmination, really, of several things about him over the course of one awkward date. I met him at a party and should have backed out as soon as he asked me to call him Guido instead of name. I thought, OK, I could go with this, I guess. Maybe there’s some funny story behind it and he has a great sense of humor. We exchanged phone numbers and met up one evening at his place. We rented some horrible movie, and after it was over we started up a conversation to try to get to know one another. I found out two things: First, he was a member of a marching band and second, he listened to the Barenaked Ladies. I would have been able to overcome each one of these alone, but together it was going to be tough. The real deal-breaker, though, was that he was obsessed with both of them. He didn’t just like the Barenaked Ladies, he loved them. He had posters of them on the wall. He wanted to talk about them constantly and put their CDs on while we talked. He called them BNL. It was pretty much the same routine with the marching band. He showed me his uniform and told me all of his friends were members of The Band. He even discussed the way weather conditions can affect the fabric of the outfit. After that, I tried to stick it out one more date, but it got no better, and we never spoke again.

But my story has a happy ending in the time I realized I had to keep my current little kitten-pie around. Well, first of all, he doesn’t get mad when I call him kitten-pie, which I appreciate. Beyond that, I knew I had a good thing going about two or three weeks into our relationship. We were sitting on the couch in his apartment watching TV when he asked me if I had seen the movie Punch-Drunk Love. I told him I had and that I liked it and he just kind of nodded. Then I did something that could have broken the deal: I quoted a line from the movie. I told him that his face was just so cute that I wanted to smash it. Just smash it to pieces with a sledgehammer. He looked at me for a few seconds and then, unblinkingly, said that I was so pretty he wanted to scoop out my eyes and chew on them. Ahh, it was then that I knew it was meant to be.
— Jenna Gerds

A Bad Case of Abercrombie
My boyfriend during the second semester of my senior year was a boy named Dave. He was a kinesiology major and hoped to one day work on Wall Street, which I had no problem with. However, over the course of his job search he became a candidate for a corporate job with Abercrombie and Fitch. At first, we both made fun of the prospect, but as the interview approached, he seemed to be getting really excited. He walked around campus taking digital photos of girls wearing sheepskin over coats and boys wearing visors, then organized the pictures in a little scrapbook of fashions that he planned to show his interviewer. I wished him luck (but didn’t really mean it) and sent him off to a little town in Ohio, where there’s a block filled with only Abercrombie stores. I’m not sure what went down there, but when Dave came back from Abercrombie-land, he wouldn’t stop talking about how pissed off he was about the company’s policies. He told me that he was planning to spend the next year filming a documentary about how Abercrombie and Fitch is brainwashing the kids of America. Did I want to help him film this masterpiece?, he asked. I was out of there faster than you can say hooded sweatshirt.
—Stephanie Kapera

Romance, Van Damme-style

I’ve got a lot of fond memories of the fall of 1994. It may have been a drab year for some, but it was my first year of college, which meant drinking bottomless bottles of Boone’s Farm, being totally girl crazy, and the going on the most embarrassing date I’ve ever had.

My friends and I, all nonsmokers, would sit in the smoking section of the local trendy coffee shop because we all know the foxiest girls smoked. It was at this coffee shop I developed a flaming crush on a girl who worked there, and somehow I was able to pass my number off to her. My friends told me not to expect too much, but one Monday night in February, she called. My sweaty hand almost dropped the phone as I fumbled my way through our awkward first conversation.

Eventually she asked me what I was doing that night. After several failed tries at wacky humor, I admitted that I, of course, had no plans at all. She asked if I maybe wanted to see a movie with her. I quickly agreed, adding that I had only one dollar to my name. I assured her that there was always the broke movie-lover’s first love, the local dollar theater. As I flipped through the newspaper listings, my eyes landed on the end of cinema rainbow. Jean-Claude Van Damme’s thrilling adaptation of the video game Street Fighter was playing! It was my first of two mistakes: I admitted to loving the Street Fighter video game. My second was owning up to a deep affection for the films of Mr. Van Damme. Amazingly, the coffee shop girl agreed to see it with me and said she’d be at my apartment within the hour.

I ran around my apartment in circles for a while, then, as promised, she showed up. We took my car to the dollar theater. I was going through a major music phase and listened only to The Monkees, and as we drove along, I explained to her how much their album Headquarters meant to me. She was not impressed. I broke the tension by simply continuing to blab about Mike Nesmith’s banjo skills. When we finally reached the theater, I gracefully slipped on the ice outside the car and fell flat on my back. I laid there for a moment, realizing just what a stupid thing had just happened and trying to get some air back into my lungs. She ran around the front of the car and sweetly helped me back up. We had made our way to this theater and I wasn’t going to let anything else tragic happen. The rest of this night would be filled with romance and hopefully an extreme make-out session.

Those dreams were shattered as the movie on the screen showed Jean-Claude fighting Raul Julia as General Bison, the power-mad leader of Shadaloo. As the action unfolded, I would lean over and impress my gal by telling her what was changed in the character of Dhalsim from game to film. She would slowly nod, raise her eyebrows and sip her soda. After the film, I had the balls to admit that I thought that it was actually pretty good. After making that bold statement, I noticed that a car in the theater’s parking had its lights still on. Yes, that was my car, and yes, the battery died. Being a complete idiot, I had no idea how to jump-start my car. I ran back into the theater and asked everyone there if they could help me and received stares. Finally someone from the parking lot of the nearby Kmart came over in a pickup truck and proceeded to jump my car. I had a moment of clarity: The date was doomed. I dropped coffee-shop girl off at her car. There would be no wild hour-long make-out session for me. There would not even be a hug. I had taken a fox to see a Jean-Claude Van Damme film. Did I mention she had to pay her own way?

Months later, I saw a friend of hers at school. Out of curiosity, I mentioned the coffee-shop girl and the date of doom. She quickly slapped my arm and yelled at me for never calling her back after that night. She went on to explain that she had more fun that night than any date she could remember, thought it was very romantic and was waiting for me to call her, but had eventually given up. I wandered off to class in a daze, wondering just how she could ever think that night was romantic. Later I began to wonder just why I ever thought it wasn’t.
— Jason Gibner