I’m really not sure how I feel about this story anymore, but figured I’d share it anyway.

Originally from issue #10, April 2007.

“You know, there is seriously a good chance I may never fall in love,” Jim says to his friend Paul looking up from his writing.

Paul, a scrawny college senior with black messy hair slightly hanging in front of his eyes and sporting a yellow Bad Brains t-shirt with the band’s ROIR tape cover on the front, glances up from his book while still trying to finish the sentence he’s reading. He mumbles a “Hmm?” only half paying attention.

“I said there is seriously a good chance I may never fall in love,” Jim, repeats himself, this time more firmly. Jim is the nerdier counterpart to Paul, with wire-rimmed glasses, short brown hair and wearing a button-up collared shirt. While not masking his interest in all things computer-related it does belie his more non-mainstream music tastes which range from Mr. Bungle to James Brown and old Green Day.

“I’d rather doubt that,” Paul says skeptically. A few seconds of silence pass before Paul adds, “Wait, you’ve never been in love before?”

“Uh, no,” Jim says hesitantly.

“Wow.”

“Why, have you?”

“Yeah, a couple times. Don’t worry though. It comes easier to some of us than others. Besides, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Why do you say that?” Jim asks. “Did you have a bad experience with it?” Jim finally puts down his pen on his notebook. Sensing that this is leading to a deeper conversation, Paul loosely places the bookmark in his book and lays it face down on their table at the coffeehouse.

“I wouldn’t say either experience was bad, per se, it’s just that love is a very intense emotion and often times it will turn you into someone you’re not. Later on, months or years down the line you wonder why you did what you did or said what you said.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard all that before,” Jim responds. “I was hoping you’d have some other insights beyond that.”

Paul laughs a quick “ha” and then says, “Afraid not man. What makes you think you’ll never fall in love anyway?”

“I dunno. I’m just not feeling the possibilities I guess. It seems like my life is all such a routine: school, work, sleep. It’s hard to imagine anything else.”

“Yeah, I hear ya,” Paul says, blowing on his still steaming cup of coffee.

“Does that really help at all?” Jim inquires, motioning to Paul’s hand holding the cup of coffee.

“What?” Paul asks, looking at his hand holding the piping hot cup of java. “Oh. Uh, I dunno.” Paul takes a sip and the warm liquid burns his tongue. “Ahh – still too hot,” he quips, rubbing his tongue around his mouth.

“So what are you reading, anyway?” Jim asks, pointing to the book lying face down in front of Paul.

“Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.”

“Any good?”

“I have no idea. I literally just started reading it.”

“What class is it for?”

“Modern Russian History. Solzhenitsyn was a political prisoner in the ‘40s and ‘50s in the Soviet Union. He also had internal exile imposed on him.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, according to my professor’s definition today in class,” Paul thinks for a second, “it’s ‘the detention of people in specific places by force.’ It’s within the person’s own country, but usually out in the middle of nowhere.”

“Ha. If that was a condition of the mind, I think it would be vaguely synonymous with love,” Jim quips, laughing. “Speaking of, do you mind if I ask what happened with the two relationships when you were in love?”

“Not at all. The most recent time was just last year with Maria. You remember her, right?”

“Yeah, totally,” Jim replies, recalling the girl a year ahead of them in college with the choppy brown hair and piercings in her nose, ears and lip. The seminal indie rocker minus the elitist attitude. She broke up with Paul after graduating and moving way. The two of them had been going out for a couple of years. It didn’t come as much of a surprise to either one of them when it happened, but it certainly didn’t make it any easier on Paul. He spent a good three days in his bedroom, coming out only to use the bathroom and to get the occasional glass of water. Jim was finally able to coax him out to go to a house party where Paul promptly got incredibly blitzed, fucked some girl he didn’t know and puked all over someone’s bed. It was one hell of a rebound.

“So yeah,” Paul responded, flickering through all his memories of a two year relationship in the course of five seconds, “you know that situation. The other time I was in love was before Maria – it was a very strange experience to say the least.” Paul leans back in his chair and exhales, staring blankly at the book in front of him. Nervously, Jim chimes in, “Hey man, if you don’t want to talk about it that’s ok.”

“No, no. It’s cool. I just haven’t talked about it much – hell, I haven’t thought about it in forever. It almost seems like another life,” his voice trails and for a split second he’s somewhere else. Paul wipes his hand over his face trying to clear his thoughts. Suddenly he asks Jim, “Do you remember the band I was in a few years ago?”

Ah, how could Jim forget Ache? Named after a Jawbreaker song, they were the toast of the indie scene in their college town for their two-year existence. Culminating in a couple of regional tours, an EP and an album, Ache was a good mix of punk and indie rock. Their live show was always a good time, usually degenerating into a full-on party with at least one band member drunk. What else could you expect from a band full of college students?

“Paul, I was at half your shows dude. Of course I remember.”

“Oh yeah. I guess that just seems like so long ago I haven’t thought about most of it in a while.”

“That’s too bad. You guys were good.”

“Thanks. Anywho, I was the guy in the band answering most of the email from our website and so I’d get the occasional email from some fan from somewhere in California or Texas who heard our stuff either online or some other way. They’d write and I’d write back just to be nice and answer any questions they might’ve asked.

“Anyway, one day my freshman year I get this email from a girl in New York City. She’s a student at Columbia and seemed sincere and friendly and after the initial email we kept writing, talking about our lives, schools, what inspired us and so on. Well, this went on for a few months and before I know it we’re talking on the phone a few times a week and sometimes for like four or five hours at a time. How I kept from failing my classes is beyond me.

“The girl’s name was Alex and she was a junior and lived in an apartment with a few roommates in Manhattan near the campus. And as weird as it may seem for people to meet over the internet, that’s totally what was happening. We were getting to know each other better and she really liked the songs I was writing and I liked that she was older and bookish. And you know how it is meeting someone over the internet.” Paul quipped, knowing his friend had made quite a few friends in the online gaming community.

“You can really get to know them to some degree but usually only what they want you to know. So after months of phone calls and emails and us opening up to one another and eventually sharing our feelings for one another, she told me I should come visit her in the spring since we both had the same spring break.

“So I bought my plane ticket and when spring break came I flew in to JFK and took a cab to her place. Here I was, nineteen, by myself in New York, and about to meet some girl I had primarily communicated with over the internet and spend four days with her.”

“Had you ever been to New York before?” Jim asked.

“Yeah, once with my family when I was about ten,” Paul replied.

“Okay. So is this the part where you tell me Alex was really a 48 year old man who weighed 300 pounds?” Jim questioned, laughing.

Paul smiled. “Hardly. Of course we had traded pictures beforehand. She looked pretty much like she did in her pictures: maybe 5’2” or 5’3”, short black hair, black eyes, just incredibly cute. I finally got to her apartment and she buzzed me up, I lugged my bag up the stairs and knocked on her door and there she was, finally before me. She gave me this big hug and squealed out, ‘Paul! It’s so good to see you!’ I hesitated for a moment and then returned her embrace. And it was right at that point that I thought to myself, ‘You know what? I’m gonna treat this just like anything else. I’m not going to make this weird. I’m just going to pretend this is like a normal relationship.’

“And so there we were. She introduced me to her roommates and then I was all ready to crash out on the couch since it was late and I was tired from being in airports all day. But as I threw my stuff down on the couch she just looked at me and said, ‘What are you doing?’ I told her I was pretty tired and was going to crash on the couch. ‘Oh no,’ she said to me in a really coy voice, ‘you’re sleeping with me tonight.’ I swear dude, my penis went from half mast to full-on raging boner like that,” Paul said, snapping his fingers.

Jim laughed. “Nice. You’re one lucky guy.”

“Oh, just you wait,” Paul replied with a half-tortured smile. “This story only gets more fun from here on out.”