I knew The Smoker was a man worth getting know when I saw a copy of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches on the bookshelf directly behind his bed. Because I'm a book snob like that.

Talk about the teensy-tiny things that light up your eyes or cause you to say, "Urk."

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2001

Answers

During our very first conversation, Mr. Boy not only knew who Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey are, but went into raptures over Mavericks, their little-known gem of an album. I think the slow-acting germ of the love virus was injected into my bloodstream right then.

I should have known that a particularly loathsome ex was not the cousin for me (TM AB) when he declared his belief that all sexualities other than hetero were "a mental disorder." Ugh.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2001

C and I started out kind of slow - after our first date, I went out of town for a week. We went out again about a week after I got back to town (when I got back, my sister was in town for a week), and for our third date, he asked me to hang out at his apartment. He told me he would get take-out and rent a movie.

I went to his house, and he told me that he had forgotten that his VCR hadn't worked in about a year or two - would I mind playing Scrabble, instead? So we ate pizza and played Scrabble and I saw him wearing jeans for the first time and he played Lucinda and Townes. I also saw that he had lots of pictures of his parents and his sister, and that he had a wonderful kitchen appliance collection. I knew that this was definitely something special.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2001

I once dated a guy who did not have a single book in his entire apartment. Not one. I couldn't get out fast enough.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2001

By the same token, if someone comes to my apartment and says "Wow, you have a million books," it had best be said in an awestruck, reverent manner and not in a "why would you actually read" tone of voice.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2001

Mike, that copy of Angels was a book among many. How can I not love a man who kept all his college textbooks just in case?

Of course, there's a good bit of Piers Anthony in there, but we all have our weaknesses.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2001

Mike, that goes double for me. But then, it would, 'cause I'm (almost!) a librarian.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2001

On our first date, we compared words that we loved. None of them overlapped, which thrilled me.

Then, to seal the deal, he used a word that I didn't know. We argued about it all the way home, and of course, made a bet on it.

He was right, and I fell in love with him the minute I saw that word in the dictionary.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2001

When I was 19, I had a huge crush on a boy who always sat near me in the college library. He was very foxy, and sort of adorably dishevelled looking, but what really made me love him from afar was (a) the fact that, judging by the books all over his desk, he was writing an essay on Angela Carter's fairy tales and (b) he used to read Sandman comics. That was enough for me.

We eventually met through mutual chums and gradually became good friends. Over the years, we've both had serious relationships with other people. And then, in January, six years after I used to admire his literary taste in the library, we finally got together, and have been very happy ever since.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2001

This is terrible, but when I asked the now-ex to move out and started the whole Divorce Process, he called me one day soon afterwards to tell me how he had figured out that him stifling me and trying to make me get rid of all my friends, social life, business travel, etc., was a BAD thing.

In his words, he had had an "epiphamy".

No. I'm not spelling that incorrectly, y'all.

I know, it looks like such a little thing, but between that and the fact that this boy did NOT read anything but ESPN: The Magazine, it underlined a major fault line in our relationship, believe me.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001