Introduction, a Love Story, by Joshua Tamerlane.

this is for you.

        So, you’re in love.

Or, perhaps worse, you’re afraid you are.

It’s perfectly normal to be afraid of love. It’s absolutely canon to be so paralyzed with fear that you haven’t left your apartment in so long the U.S. Mail has declared you legally dead. 

Love is some scary s**t.

What else can you think of that can make an otherwise perfectly normal and even often logical human being wake up on top of someone else and pretend they are a kitten? What can take a grown man or woman and turn them from a free-thinking and forward acting individual to a half-naked experiment in adorable submission, rubbing their hands like paws into this person’s back or chest, in an effort to wake them up in the softest way possible? They might even try and purr into the person’s ear. This person knows they are not a cat. They use toilets. They eat with silverware, occasionally. They do not let strangers pet them, often. Love makes us act in ways that are not only normally foreign to us but in some ways directly adverse to our continued survival on this planet. 

Yet we do all these things anyway. We do them because love is awesome. Love wakes you up when you have to get to work on time. Love makes you breakfast when you’re too hung-over to stand up in human fashion.  Love is hilarious. Love tastes like fresh strawberries. 

Love is responsibility. You are responsible for feeling these feelings and being held captive by these then at gunpoint. Now, you may have never been in the position to have a gun pointed at your head, but you do have an imagination, so try to imagine you have love hovering over you as you are kneeling on the floor, handcuffed to a radiator, with love’s gun pointing at you mere inches from your eyes. You’d most likely do whatever it was that love wanted and you’d do your absolute best to get those things right the first time. That’s a heavy responsibility, even if it’s totally worth it. Love is powerful.

It is this inescapable fact that most likely led you to hold this book now in your hands. You want to know what love is, or maybe even how to love. Maybe you’re walking the shores of love for the first time and as you’re daydreaming over your high school trigonometry books you’re wondering if this girl/boy/idea/ Canadian, mop-haired, pop singer could be “The One.” Maybe you’ve slept with more people than someone who gets paid to sleep with people and you’ve finally stumbled upon the person you want to settle down with. Love is like a sexy cancer. It can strike anyone at almost any time, but some people are certainly in a position to be predisposed to it. 

This book will guide you. It says so on the cover.

Now, you’re probably wondering who exactly I am to be commenting on love. What kinds of qualifications do I possess to write an entire book on the subject?

To clarify, I do not:

Play guitar

Write any kind of advice column for a large, syndicated news affiliate

Have a degree in psycho-physiology

Live in Paris, France

Read Cosmopolitan magazine

I have, however, done my research.

I have read a large number of volumes on the subject, including “A History of Love” by Diane Ackerman, “The Fifty Greatest Love Letters” by David Lowenherz and “The Psycho Ex Game” by Merrill Markee and Andy Prieboy.

I have listened almost non-stop to the music of Barry White, Rod Stewart, John Lennon the Cure and Death Cab for Cutie.

I have watched, in their entirety, the movies Sleepless in Seatle, Ghost, City of Angels, Casablanca and The Wedding Singer.

I have interviewed twenty three couples in various stages of love and asked almost every question I could conceivably think of.

I have studied the real-romances of Sid and Nancy, John F. Kennedy and Jackie Onassis, Marie and Pierre Curry, and Edward the VIII and Mrs. Wallis Warfield.

I have even read through and took liberal notes from every text book I could get my legally get my hands on regarding the subject, including the incredibly useful “Oxytocin and Sexual Behavior” by C. S. Carter.

This was all done and documented and then, one day, I took all my research, all my tablets and note pads and audio tapes and burned them, outside in my backyard. That same day I went inside, finished off one bottle of Jamison’s Irish whiskey, called the last four girlfriends I have had and spent three hours asking them honestly where I went wrong. I went through enough cigarettes then to fill an ash tray, a wine glass and most of a small gold fish bowl and cried real tears for the first time in as long as I can remember. 

I feel since then I am more than qualified for this endeavor and wish to share my experiences. 

So please, read on. If you think you might be in love, don’t f**k this one up.

Shoe Tamerlane.

Reviews

[KillerWithWords]

As i was reading this a constant thought flashed across my mind. That thought was "F**K YEA".
Well done. You began with a bang:
" So, you’re in love. - Or, perhaps worse, you’re afraid you are."

I couldn't agree more. The person being described in this story sounds like he is talking both about him and his counterpart.

See this character is not afraid of love, atleast i understood it this way he is only afraid of having stronger feelings than his counterpart. As if to say "Love isn't bad a long as its mutual." But to take an initiative-now that's the horrifying feeling you begin with.

Thumbs way up.

[Francis Danger]

thank you! this was the first chapter in a novel, or, more accurately, a collection of short stories about modern love, but all told through the lens of the unreliable narrator. here's hoping it sticks, ha. but thank you for your appraisal! it is more appreciated than birthdays