My father was a true baseball fan, in fact that was how he met my mother. They were at an American Legion game in Memphis. My mother was there with another guy and got tickled about something and turned around, my dad was sitting behind her and she hit him on the knee.

 Not long after that, the other guy went on a trip to Florida with some buddies. One of my mother’s friends thought it would be hilarious to put laxative in their fudge.

 He didn’t think it was very funny. So she found someone with a better sense of humor - My father.

 They were married for 49 years when he passed away in September of 2006. They would have made the 50th May of 2007.

I’ve just gotten out of a 6-year relationship about 3 months ago. I wanted to marry this guy, however, he said that he always felt that there was something missing in the relationship, and he never felt complete when I am with him, so he broke up with me. I was distraught. He wanted me to date other people…so I slowly tried to move on…

One week after the break-up, I met a gentleman at my God-brother’s wedding. He was sitting in the same table as I was. He happens to be my God-brother’s cousin. He was a very nice person, and a very easy to talk to, so we decided to keep in contact with each other through facebook. For the past 3 months, we’ve just been talking to each other casually through wall posts…then fb messages…then aim…then phone calls…then skype. I never saw him as being more than a friend until now. From talking to him so much, I realized that we have soo many things in common..it’s scary!

He’s very easy to talk to, very understanding, very smart, and very funny. We have been chatting every night in the past week for hours and hours. One time, we were chatting so long, I saw the sun started to rise! I think I’m love with this guy. I look forward to talking to him every night. I would really love to date him, however…I live in NJ…and he lives in Texas! I don’t know what to do. I just got out of a serious relationship. Am I ready to move on?

Can long distance relationships work? Well, right now, I’m just going to continue to talk to him every night. He’s a wonderful friend…I just wish he could be more than that…but due to the circumstances I’m in, would I be able to date this guy?

In 2001, I “met” a wonderful man.  I say “met” because we found each other online in a chat room.  It was a voice chat and as soon as he spoke I sent a private message to a friend asking her if she knew who he was because his voice was working for me.  We quickly connected and talked often online.  He was in MI and I was in NJ.  After months of talking online and running up phone bills over $600 a month, we were in love and crazy about each other but had still not met in person.  I couldn’t move because I had 2 young boys from a previous relationship so after about 6 months he decided to move to NJ. 

I loaded my boys in my car and drove 12 hours so that we could meet and he would come home with me.  When we met we shared a hug but we didn’t kiss.  When we did kiss that first kiss was sweet and tender and full of love.  He came home with us and filled a void that I didn’t even know was missing.  He was a wonderful man and became my best friend and partner in everything.  We were happy and in love.  We had been living together for about 18 months and no one believed that we hadn’t been together for years.  We were just such a tight couple and the love and affection were apparent to complete strangers. 

Then he got sick, really really sick.  After almost a month in the hospital I got a call that the end was near.  I was told he had a week so I spent as much time with him as I could.  The day after I was told that he had a week he was barely lucid.  He whispered that he loved me and fell asleep.  The nurse was in there so I ran outside to have a cigarette.  I came back and the nurse told me that he stopped breathing as I walked out of the room.  She thought he didn’t want to leave while I was there.  I was devastated.  7 years later and I’m still devastated over the loss of him.  He was my best friend and partner and I loved him and he loved me.  Now that I’ve known real love I am not willing to settle for less than what I had with him and I have begun to doubt that it will happen again for me, but I’m still hopeful. 

When I was 15, I was busy loading up my college application with tons of academic competitions. I noticed this one boy, Leo, at every single one. I developed a little crush on him, due to the fact that he looked exactly like Paul McCartney, my favorite Beatle. One day at a certain competition, I was listening to my iPod to the song “She Loves You” by the Beatles, and I didn’t realize I was humming along to it. Next thing I knew, he was sitting across from me and smiling. He waited until I turned off my music and asked “Who loves you?” I laughed and we started talking and he asked me if I wanted to go to a showing of “A Hard Day’s Night” at a local theater. It was a successful date, and we started seeing each other more and more often. Now, even though we compete in at least three various local competitions, we have been dating for 7 months and are completely in love at this point. And I will always have the Bealtles to thank for my first great love.

In high school, I met this wonderful, gorgeous, theater-smart guy. I promptly fell head over heels for him. I thought he was absolutely perfect—he was in drama club, he was in the musical, he could sing, and he was extremely attractive. It was too good to be true.

Unfortunately, I was right in thinking so. During rehearsal one night, one of my friends was kind enough to enlighten me upon the fact that this perfect person was, in fact, gay. I was utterly disappointed and my heart was broken. I vowed that I would get over him the next day and it would never happen again. (Of course, neither of these things happened. I continued to like this guy more than anyone should. And since then, I’ve fallen for two other gay men.)

I guess that’s what you get for being involved in musical theater.

After an intense six weeks of school, I was headed to go away with some friends for the weekend. It was going to be just the break that I needed - get out of the city, relax, and catch up on sleep. However, I found out a few days before the trip that I had to attend a manditory seminar all day on the Saturday so I wouldn’t be able to go. I wasn’t pleased and considered my weekend ruined.

I was wrong.

After the seminar I had a group meeting in the campus bar. A few people decided to hang around after the meeting was done for some drinks. I decided to join them, which was completely uncharacteristic of me as I barely knew them, but I figured I’d try to make the best of the situation.

Everything was going well when some friends of a group-mate showed up, one of whom happened to be very cute. They invited us to a party, and for some reason, even though again, it was completely unlike me to wander off with a bunch of guys I didn’t really know, I decided to go.

I spent most of the party talking to the cute friend about anything and everything - it was as if no one else existed. And now, almost a year later, we’re still together.

I always think about that night and how almost fated it seemed. He thinks so too, as he almost didn’t come to the bar that night.

One thing’s for sure - the weekend that school supposedly ruined turned out to be kind of amazing.

So there I was, in my student accommodation building in Kingston, London, just wandering past the door down the hallway back to my room at 3 in the morning. There were two small windows in the door to our flat, you could barely see anything through them, but I thought I saw someone standing outside in the corner of my eye. So I turned around and went back to open the door. It turned out to be a guy, a teeny bit drunk and therefore also a teeny bit lost. He was clearly on the wrong floor or something. But when he realised that this was, in fact, NOT his friend’s flat, it became increasingly clear to me that he just didn’t want to leave. He was stalling. We eventually started talking.

We conversed in English at first, because when you’re in a town in London where there are only approximately 150 other students who come from the same country as you do, it seems reasonable to assume that English is the way to go. But about 5 minutes into the conversation, he mentioned that he was from Norway. And just like that, the language switched from English to Norwegian.

We ended up talking until 6 in the morning. He spent 3 hours talking to some girl he had never met before, in the middle of the night, just like that. He listened to all my problems, told me he knew where I was coming from because he had been in a similar place himself, and said so many nice things to me that no other guy has EVER said to me before. This was an entirely new experience for me, as I don’t really expose myself to guys. I have terribly low self-esteem, and I’m terrified of falling in love. So I never have, and I told this guy I probably never will. No chance that I will ever developing feelings like that for another human being.

But of course, I already had. I just did my best to hide it, and I succeeded. I usually do, with most of the things I feel. I hide my feelings until I can’t bear it anymore. It’s what I do, because I just think it’s WRONG for me to actually feel things. Especially having feelings for someone else, because there is no reason why they should feel the same way about me.

I was bullied in secondary school, when I was 14 and 15. They told me every single day how I was too ugly to be alive, and that I wasn’t worth anything, and so on. I told this guy about those years, and how they shattered my self-esteem and completely ruined my life. I’m still trying to deal with it, 6 years later. And he said I shouldn’t believe those things just because those people said it, because they were not worth listening to. It’s not true, he said. You are beautiful.

I have no idea why he said that. I mean, sure, to make me feel better, but why did he stay for 3 hours, why did he say a million nice things to me? Why? This scared me more than words could possibly express. I tried to act as if I was unaffected. Piece of cake.

About a month or so later I moved back home because I was sick and depressed and couldn’t put up with the pressure of living on my own in a foreign country anymore. I never saw him again, apart from passing him a couple of times on the street. But I never stopped thinking about him. I found out that not only are we from the same country, we’re from the same COUNTY as well. He lives about an hour away from me. Of course this practically blew my mind. What are the odds?

Right before he left me that morning, he told me I could come down and see him whenever, if I wanted to talk. I knew I would never, because I wouldn’t dare. He had changed something in me, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. It wasn’t safe.

Several months later, in early May, I was back in Kingston visiting some friends of mine. I got a bit drunk and decided to text him, just to say that I was back in town and would like to see him. So I asked a mutual friend of ours for his number. How silly, right? Of course he didn’t respond. It broke me. After so many months of not being able to get him out of my mind, I finally made myself contact him. Just DO IT, you know? I had somehow managed to make myself believe that he was different from other people.

Well, he wasn’t. The guards are back up. I refuse to let someone get to me like that ever again. I just couldn’t cope. It’s too painful.

I’m so afraid to trust people, and I struggle to see the good in them. I wish I could, but it’s so hard. Besides, guys never pay any attention to me. HE was the only exception, and he probably just felt sorry for me. I’m going to end up alone, aren’t I?

I had dated this guy for almost a month and he took me to the prom which was fun.  I honestly thought that when we were together he was devoted to me because he seemed to always gaze into my eyes like he loved me.  But two days after prom I found out he had been flirting with a friend of mine the week before prom….Then I found out a lot of other things I didn’t like. Pretty much he was a sneaky boy that shouldn’t be trusted. 

It absolutely broke my heart that he had been doing things behind my back. I ended it that day! Which was TWO days after prom. I feel now I don’t know if I can ever trust a guy again knowing how sneaky they can be.

Well this I find kinda ironic because of Promises, Promises.

So my dad was invited to a party by his college roommate, Thor. The host (I don’t think I ever met the guy) said there was this girl there that he wanted my dad to meet. My dad goes to the party. He meets my mum.

His pickup line: “Do you like basketball?”

WHAT KIND OF GREETING IS THAT?! Funny enough, my mum loves basketball! Her dad was the basketball coach for Dickinson College and before that the high school. My mum herself was in the first girls basketball team for her school. OF COURSE SHE LIKES BASKETBALL! (cue song SHE LIKES BASKETBALL) They have been married for about 30 (or somethin’) years and are still together.

So the funny thing: dad goes to his friend and says that yes he did meet the girl and he really likes her. His friend said that she wasn’t it. Well I guess that’s actually good luck on his part.

A swish of a skirt.  The slap of footsteps on the tile floors.  He cathes up to Her, and pulls her in for a kiss.  She doesn’t protest (too much).  First love, romance, and all in 3rd grade.

Thats the story of my parents first romance.  Since Kindergarten, they’d been going to the same school, had shared a kiss in 3rd grade, and dated on and off through out middle and high school.

Now, senior year: My dad and my mom had had some sort of fight.  My dad asked her if she would go back out with him.  She said no.  My dad asked her if she’d marry him.  She said yes.  today, over 30 years later, they’re still together happily, and just as in love as ever.