FLICK
I still find myself buying Vietnam-era Zippo lighters for your collection.
MY NINJA
I insisted that you keep your socks on not because your feet felt cold against mine, but because I didn’t want to see your ankle tattoo of a cartoon turtle.
MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE
You looked and talked right, but the smell was wrong.
NICE EVERYTHING
You were great at complimenting my eyes. Always with the eyes. But I needed to be lathered in compliments, mind and body.
FAULT
I don’t blame you. Well, I do, but maybe if I say it enough, I’ll believe it.
AW, FRESCO
We never got around to using that fancy picnic basket, did we?
OEDIPUS NEXT
Dating you made me feel like the single mother of a 30-year-old.
RAINED IN
I’ve gotten over my misguided stance against umbrellas. I now own several so large they make everyone on the sidewalk hate me. If you come back, I promise to keep you dry.
ON MUTE
You were so quiet. I’m still not sure if you were having a good time.
IN THE TEETH
Now that you’re in a band you don’t give me credit for being the one who talked you out of dental school.
YOU’RE RUBBERS, I’M GLUE
That bowl of condoms at your bedside was as intimidating as it was enchanting.
PEAKED
After you, it’s all been anticlimax.
TOO LATE
Okay, okay, I’ll dance with you.
CO-EDUCATION
To me, you’re forever wrapped up in Kant, darts, and collegiate pubbery.
ASHES TO ASHES
Will you at least deliver my eulogy?
SPLOTCH
If only I’d been a better and less abstract painter, I’d have a more realistic record of what you look like naked. “Capture your soul.” What was I thinking?
UNPERSUASIVE
I tried so hard to talk myself into you.
ON THROWING ME A BONE
Pity sex from you was better than true-love-forever sex with just about anyone else.
TRICKY DICK
Your penis has a leftward bend in it; your politics bend to the right. Only one is responsible for why we couldn’t be together.
SHROUD OF YOUR-IN
Whenever I see a fur-trimmed hood pulled way up, I can’t help but hope that it’s your face nestled inside.
WHAT A CROCKETT
I thought your stubble would scour away all my rough spots.
OOPS
We were so in love we forgot we weren’t supposed to be.
RIGHT A POUT NOW
If only your heart had been as full as your lips.
I’VE GOT SPIRIT, YES I DO
You can take the girl out of the cheerleading uniform, but you can’t take the fervid desire for that girl out of me.
FOOTBALL BEDSPREAD
When I first walked into your room, it reminded me of my little brother. I should’ve run for cover, but instead I curled up and stayed.
MISMATCH
The sex was incredible. You were unbearable.
TEEING OFF
If you own more T-shirts with dick jokes printed on them than not, you might want to rethink your wardrobe’s relationship to dick jokes.
SUCKY
When I described you as vampiric, it was meant as a compliment.
THE LAST GENTLEMAN
You were so chivalrous. Now, I expect other men to be the same, and I am disappointed every time.
JUST WISHES
Happy birthday. Also, screw you. Also, call me. Please?
B’GOSH
Because of you, overalls, to me, are forever the height of style.
FIZZED OUT
I Googled you hoping to find a sordid police report, but all I found was information about your antique soda-can collection.
MORE THAN ENOUGH
It’s not that you were even that amazing. You were just you.
PRIMARY CARE
I never thought we were playing doctor. I believed you could heal me.
APOLOGY BLANKET
Assume I’m aware of all the things I did wrong, and that I’m sorry I did them.
GAMES MEN PLAY
I miss trying to out-alpha your boisterous father.
BUILT FOR ONE, USED FOR TWO
You had me at “get on the handlebars.”
OLIVE GARDENING
Not that it makes any difference, but I saw your “ancestral” family lasagna recipe on the back of a Ronzoni box.
FREDDY’S COMING FOR YOU
It’s time for you to get out of my life now. My boyfriend has begun to have dreams about you, and it’s creeping both of us out.
COURTLY LOVE
If love is a food court, you gave me a sample of bourbon chicken on a toothpick. What I really wanted was a hot pretzel, the teriyaki lunch special, frozen yogurt, and a giant cinnamon roll. Plus a pound of Gummi Worms for the ride home.
NAMELESS DREAD
I’m still afraid of you, even if I can’t quite remember why.
BEDDING THE RULES
I suffer fools gladly, but only in the sack.
DRAWN OUT
I’ll never draw elaborate cartoon postcards for anyone else. It’s hard to believe I ever did that. I don’t just miss you—I miss me.
NOT NOW
I want you then.
HUNGRY EYES
True, there is no law against looking, but you didn’t have to proclaim it with such frequency and vigor.
COST OF DOING BUSINESS
I had to screw, and therefore lose, several close friends to get over you.
EVERYONE SAYS I PIE YOU
I learned the tough way you can’t say “I love you” just with pies.
ALIEN LANES
Perhaps on your home planet The Dead Mackerel Position is the most tender and affectionate of the ways your people make love.
RUG RATTED
I shouldn’t have let your kids scare me off. But they were scary!
BIG BAND BY THE SEA
Even in this retirement village, I can’t retire thoughts of waltzing with you.
FANCY MEETING YOU HERE
One more “coincidence” and I call the police.
PERSPECTIVE
That woman walking her dog who saw us having sex in the park that night? She has better memories of our relationship than I do.
CUE KISS
I pray we have our “You had a crush on me? I had a crush on you!” moment.
CLASS DISMISSED
I was pretty sure breaking up was the right thing to do. I’m even more confident now that I saw you’re online calling yourself “The Professor.”
I’M NO SLOUCH
You may not have intended this, but your posture felt like a rebuke to my entire way of life.
GRADUATION
Thank you for ruining the sexy schoolgirl look for me. I’m not being sarcastic—I’m genuinely grateful.
GHOSTED
If I have to be haunted by someone, I’m glad it’s you.
A STRETCH
Watching you spontaneously strike yoga poses on the sidewalk brought me close to Nirvana.
THE WAY I SEE IT
Whenever anyone meets you, they always call me and say, “Him? Really? That’s who you’ve been obsessed with all these years? I don’t believe it. Him?” And I’ll feel awful, because what more could you want than a person who sees the greatness in you that is invisible to the rest of the world?
TOUR DE PANTS
I’ve mounted your old bike seat on my wall like some exotic fertility symbol.
HISTORY REPEATING
You are the reason I broke up with my last boyfriend, and the reason I’ll break up with my next.
HOW POETRY GETS MADE
You cared more about your rhapsodic odes to my beauty than you did about me.
THOSE FOUR LITTLE WORDS
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I know you thought it was funny when I said, “I love you,” and you replied, “I love me, too.” But it wasn’t.
OFF TRACK
I don’t blame you for any of it. My train was liable to crash at any moment, and you just happened to be on it at the time.
MONEY IN THE MIDDLE
Me, you, and your bank account turned out to be the least sexy threesome. Did it have to be on top every time?
YOU’RE JUST NOT THAT INTO ME
I never leave the bookstore without checking for you in the relationship aisle first.
ALARMING
I finally found someone who doesn’t mind if I wake them up in the morning to say good-bye.
MY KINDA CONTRADICTION
I like how your computer keyboard was always covered with a protective film, but you hated condoms.
LONG TERM
But I had already looked into booking us adjacent grave sites!
EXPOSED
A current snapshot of you erased 25 years of fantasizing about what could have been.
SCHEME
I know I’m supposed to say, “Falling in love with you was never part of the plan.” But it was.
AWAY FROM IT ALL
My “happy place” is our country house, never to be built.
FOGHEART
If it’s a choice between going senile and allowing my muddled brain to think we ended up together, or easing gracefully into old age with all my faculties intact… I’m torn.
TRAVELED FAR
I feel your spirit in unexpectedly cool breezes that seem to come from other seasons, other continents, other centuries.
BEYOND HUGGER
Sometimes, when I’m walking past a tree, I’ll think of you and want to make out with it.
REUNION TOUR?
Even The Specials got back together. Call me if you’re feeling washed up.
OFFLINE
While you were busy searching for missed connections online, you missed one with me.
ONE MORE NIGHT
When anyone asks if I’d prefer a one-night stand or a fling with an ex, I’m thinking about you when I say a fling with an ex.
A GIFT
I finally fixed up my life, but, if you must know, I did it only so you can have something to mess up again.
WEIGHT FOR ME
You didn’t break my heart—you just made it heavier.
CULTURAL RELATIVISM
In some societies, the way I eat noodles—inhaling them in one giant cylinder—is considered a compliment to the chef, not grounds for ball-busting.
JUNIOR HIGH POINT
Thank you for teaching me that I was, at 13, worth dancing with.
GIDDY UP
Thoughts of you do to me what dreams of horses do for little girls.
FOUNDATION
If I had known I was going to meet the woman you would leave me for when we stopped at your office, I would have put on makeup.
NOTES FOR A COUNTRY SONG
You’re no good, but I’m going to be pissed when you marry someone else.
GOING COMPARTMENTAL
I was so outraged when you slept with someone else that I momentarily forgot I had been cheating on you for months.
RAMBLE ON
You read The Hobbit to me in our bed-fort at night. Mostly I remember how nice your voice was.
OUT OF CONTROL
I usually like to be the one in control, but oh man, did I love being pinned under you.
SAME BUT DIFF
I’m so miserable without you, it’s like you’re still here.
COMFORTABLY UNCOMFORTABLE
What I wouldn’t give to feel that awkward around you again.
BLATHER, RINSE, REPEAT
Every five years or so I contact you. Then I learn my lesson. Then I contact you again five years later.
ABSENCE IS A PRESENCE
I miss you in ways that are shocking and unproductive.
NOT QUITE A REGRET
On one hand, I should have kissed you. On the other hand, I’ve had thirty good years imagining that kiss.
The print edition of this book includes a fill-in document called The Dear Old Love Fill-Ins.
Please download a PDF of this document here: workman.com/ebookdownloads
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to everyone who has sent in a Dear Old Love note. This would not exist without you. I also thank all the dear old loves. No grudges! No regrets!
I want to give credit to Kelly Ambrose, as this book is shot through with his comic brilliance.
The entire team at Workman Publishing has been great—smart, professional, and kind. There, I especially appreciate Natalie Rinn, who plucked Dear Old Love from the blogosphere and nudged it in all the right directions.
This project got a huge boost from good friend and agent Devin McIntyre at Mary Evans Inc. And I’m grateful to my wife, Izzy Grinspan, for her support, companionship, and knack for coming up with ingenious headlines.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andy Selsberg has written for The Onion, GQ, The Oxford American, The Believer, Salon.com, and other publications. He is also an adjunct lecturer in English at John Jay College, CUNY, and a former stand-up comedian. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and his website is www.dearoldlove.com.
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