We were dating for a few months when he said “elephant shoe” to me at a friend’s barbecue. I was lost and had no idea what it meant. So I nervously laughed it off. One of my friends overheard our conversation, shook his head and said, “He said, ‘I love you!’ ” The whole time he was smiling and looking at me. (But he did yell at my friend for ruining the moment.)

—Stuck

Postscript: It lasted two years. I left him because I thought he stopped loving me. It turns out, he never did. He continued to be my Superman and rock, even after the breakup.

2

My dog had died. I was crying in the kitchen when, out of the blue, my boyfriend asked me, “Do you want to roll on the floor?” And you know, strangely I did. So we both got onto the grubby kitchen floor and just kinda rolled around and over each other. And I felt a million times better.

—Hattie

Postscript: There were some really amazing moments but we were both disasters and it didn’t last.

9

I felt sorry for the one lonely fish in the aquarium of my dentist’s waiting room. The handsome guy sitting across from me saw my fleeting expression of pity for the fish and said (in a subtle Russian accent) “She’s sad, no?”

—Grace

Postscript: He asked me to marry him after the first time I beat him in a game of chess.

11

A guy I was dating emailed me a photo of his hands forming the shape of a heart while on a business trip in Asia.

—Amy

Postscript: I stupidly left the guy to go back to an ex-boyfriend, which I still regret.

1

After a day on the coast, we drove back in a downpour as she took corners too quickly on a winding highway. Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” started to play on a static-fuzzed radio and I thought, “I’m in love with this girl and I might die.”

—Jonathon

Postscript: She didn’t actually kill me and we dated for three years. The breakup, however, nearly killed me.

1

I had a dream in which Elvis Presley told me he was the one I was looking for.

—Suzanna

Postscript: After eight years of on-again, off-again high passion and high drama, it turns out Elvis ain’t the smartest guy about relationships. The guy may be gone, but my love for Elvis remains.

3

In college, I was a fan of the “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip and ate Honey Bunches of Oats cereal religiously. After dating a girl for only a couple of weeks, Valentine’s Day came around and she gave me a box of the cereal with “Calvin and Hobbes” strips taped over all over it.

—Aaron

Postscript: I never told her I loved her and proceeded to make several more bad decisions to eventually end it.

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