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1)
We met at Ramsey Wright, 10 minutes before a BIO150 final exam. Instead of doing last-minute cramming for biology, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I ended up getting the question wrong on the exam, but also got her contact. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love you!—Anonymous
2)
He was gorgeous. Last year, I spent Monday night Canadian Literature class, in McLennan Physical Labs, staring at the back of his head. I tried everything to have him notice me: the subtle cough, the long sigh. I even tried finding his name on the attendance sheet—entirely without success. I did not see him again until this year, while I was in the middle of distributing newspapers. I looked like a sweaty, stressed-out mess. He looked like sex in a black pea coat. Why does this always happen to me?—Victoria Asikis
3)
I saw a gorgeous boy at a UC coffeehouse in my first year. He had a guitar, and apparently had more important places to be. He left before I found out his name. I forgot about it months later and started dating my current boyfriend. One day over a conversation he mentioned that night, and we both realized he was my mystery coffeehouse boy.—D. Massicotte
4)
It was September and the moon was out and it was so cold. We sat on the benches in the UC quad; you lit a cigarette. I asked. Lies mumbled vaguely out of your mouth as compassion did out of mine. You told me that now was not our time—that you and I were finished. Mascara slid down my cheeks and for a moment the world slipped out of sight. There was only Laidlaw and the sky and your calm, cruel eyes.—Anonymous
5)
I got dumped outside the Astronomy and Astrophysics building during my first week at U of T. I unofficially decided to stay in Toronto for university because of this guy I was seeing. He’d just moved into Sigma Nu, a frat house on Huron Street, and we signed up for AST101 together at Con Hall. After avoiding me all frosh week, he finally sat down with me over a hot dog to talk.
While sitting on the cement slabs on St. George just south of Willcocks, he said we should just be friends. My heart was broken, obviously, and it seemed that everyone walking by was an acquaintance from my new classes. When we were about to finally part ways, he asked me if he could borrow $20. I still hate walking by that part of campus.—Laura K. Maize
6)
My father was a UC student and my mother was at U of T Law. After dating for a year and a half, he took her to the UC quad and proposed. “I don’t know how I schemed to get her there, but I did, and she said yes,” my Dad said. They married that August, and have been married for 30 years. And that’s why I’m alive.—Liz Kagedan
7)
I met my boyfriend a couple years ago through some mutual friends. For the first couple of months that I knew him, I would see him in Old Vic after one of my morning classes. Even though I only ran into him occasionally, I would spend so long getting ready in the mornings when I had that class, just in case. I hoped that he would ask me to have a coffee at Caffiends, but it took him a couple more months to notice me!—Anonymous
8)
I met my ex in The Gargoyle office. I thought he was a jackass. He spent the night on a diatribe about my home state: New Jersey (pre-Jersey Shore). We met again at a UC coffee house, where I blocked his view. Then, he saw me working at Reznikoff’s. While talking, he went to drink and instead spilled coffee all over himself. Being a terrible person, I burst into roaring laughter, and afterwards felt so bad I was compelled to talk to him again. We started hanging out and a few weeks later, he asked me out. We’re still friends today.—Cristina DÍaz-Borda
9)
I’ve had the bad luck to be single every Valentine’s Day. So the best February 14 of my life was hitting the (now defunct) Hart House shooting range with two of my best friends.—Ashley Challinor
10)
Back in high school when I was deciding between universities, I chose to spend a day at U of T. I’d asked an older friend where I could inconspicuously attend a typical class, and she’d recommended a first-year anthropology lecture in Convocation Hall.
Fearing the prof would notice I didn’t belong (a funny notion in retrospect), I took a seat on a top balcony, hidden somewhat behind a pillar. Suddenly, I heard heavy breathing, so I turned around—and in the row behind me, there was a couple engaged in a mating ritual quite different from the one our prof was describing. Needless to say, I was a ground floor devotee from that day onward.—Shoshana Wasser
11)
You were finally free of those antiseptic hospital halls, and winter was retreating. Wanting you to convalesce in the sun, I planned an elaborate picnic on the roof of Morrison Hall, accessed via a little-used maintenance ladder. We ate candy hors d’oeuvres and basked in our freedom, and your smile coruscated like a shattered glass. Were we not happy then? Before my tongue could make it through those three tiny words it was struggling to enunciate, your don showed up—that petite tyrant!—and promised to write you up.—Anonymous
12)
I remember us first speaking by a dumpster behind Wymilwood, smoking furtively. I remember suddenly believing in fatalism, your number scrawled on the inside of the pack, a movie half-watched, a coffee barely tasted. A dizzy sensation like heights and glass floors. I remember lust, and love, and lies. I remember treating one another like garbage, and thinking we’d come full circle.—Anonymous
