Drum roll please. Let's meet the contestants. The love-stories below are based on the stories that the contestants have e-mailed to me, re-told in my own words.
| Karen & Joost | ||
 | Joost and Karen first met at a gay bar in West Hollywood that Karen had wondered into with a friend on Halloween. Joost, a Dutch native, was in the United States on an intenship. A week after their initial meeting at the bar, they started dating. But six months later, Joost went back to Holland after his internship ended and Karen moved to the Bay Area. | |
| For the next 2 years and 3 months Karen and Joost continued to have a long-distance relationship, keeping the flames alive by Internet, video cam, Skype, and of course trips together throughout Europe and the U.S. They realized that, despite the distance, they preferred to be with each other than with anyone else. | ||
| And of course this story has a happy ending. In August 2008 Joost came back to California for another internship and on December 11, 2009 Joost formally proposed to Karen. Their wedding is to take place at San Francisco City Hall on May 27th of this year. | ||
| Anya & Slavik | ||
 | Anya met Slavik outside a club, as she was looking for a likely candidate from whom she could bum a cigarette for herself and a friend. In fact, it was Anya's friend who had caught Slavik looking at Anya, and she suggested that she approach him, as she was sure he wouldn't turn them down. Indeed he did not. Anya and her friend did not see Slavik again until, after dancing for a few hours at the club, they came out again for air and saw Slavik engaged in a bloody fight with another drunk club-goer. Being underage, at the time, Anya and her friend fled the scene to avoid any unpleasant interactions with the police, which was be sure to arrive. | |
| It was 9 months later that Slavik re-appeared unexpectedly in Anya's life. She was at a coffee shop with the same friend, looking at a popular social networking site, when she received an instant message from Slavik. Anya's friend suggested that he had been released from prison and now wanted to hunt her down to eliminate a dangerous witness. From the message, however, it did not appear that that Slavik knew who she was. He proceeded to ask her to go on a date, despite repeated refusals by Anya. Slavik found out her schedule and hang-out spots. Despite all odds, Anya had reasoned that if Slavik was a crazy stalker and had wanted to hurt her, he would have already done so, instead of continuing to court her, and agreed to go out with him! Just in case, she went on her date with a pocket knife in her purse. | ||
| Slavik arrived for the date in a black BMW with tinted windows. No one came out and Anya decided not to get in. But the BMW blocked her way to her own car, so she had to get in. To her surprise, inside sat a "nice Jewish boy, wearing a sweater two sizes too big, jeans, faded out and 2 inches too short, grandpa shoes, and an old black jacket." An hour into the date, Anya realized that Slavik really had no idea who she was and had on a vague recollection of that fateful night 9 months ago. Anya was endeared to Slavik for admitting during their date that he thought she was too pretty to date someone like him. | ||
| It has been 2 years since their first date and they are getting married on October 16th of this year. | ||
| Tamara & Jason | ||
 | Tamara and Jason met in graduate school at a seminar in Feminist Theory at the University of Colorado. When Jason immediately made the link between Tamara's research and the work of W.E.B. DuBois, Tamara was interested. | |
| For a while Jason and Tamara spent time together only as friends. Tamara knew she was comfortable about Jason the way she wasn't around anyone else. Tamara and Jason did not start dating until several months later when she invited him to her home and cooked him pot roast. Their transition to dating was seamless and comfortable. They moved in together soon thereafter. | ||
| At the start of the next semester, Tamara and Jason started to discuss marriage, without a formal engagement, but it was a difficult financial time for them, and wedding plans had to be put off. | ||
| Amidst long-term planning for a wedding two years out, Tamara learned that her father was very ill. Wedding plans were immediately expedited on an emergency basis. Tamara even bought a dress. Jason stood by her in this difficult time, doing what he could to support Tamara. Fortunately, it had turned out that Tamara's father's condition had been an exaggeration. But Tamara felt terrible about the way she had pushed forward with the wedding, like a "black widow spider." Jason proposed the next week on Tamara's 35th birthday, taking her completely by surprise! Tamara and Jason will be married on December 29, 2010 at the San Francisco City Hall. | ||
I would like to thank our wonderful contestants for sending in their entries. Every story is special in its own right and I only hope I did each of them justice in re-telling them on this blog! Best of luck in the contest and I hope to see all or at least a few of you at the Books Inc. lecture and book signing this Saturday, March 6th at 3pm.
Until next time!
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