I have never wanted a lover. In order to have a lover, I must go back to the root of the word. For I have never wanted a lover, but I have always wanted to love, and to be loved.

There is no word for the recipient of the love. There is only a word for the giver. There is the assumption that lovers come in pairs.

When I say, Be my lover, I don’t mean, Let’s have an affair. I don’t mean, Sleep with me. I don’t mean, Be my secret.

I want us to go back down to that root.

I want you to be the one who loves me.

I want to be the one who loves you.

M

macabre, adj.

If you ever need proof that I love you, the fact that I allowed you to dress me up as a dead baby Jesus for Halloween should do it. Although I suppose it would be even better proof if it hadn’t been Halloween.

makeshift, adj.

I had always thought there were two types of people: the helpless and the fixers. Since I’d always been in the first group, calling my landlord whenever the faucet dripped, I was hoping you’d be a fixer. But once we moved in together, I realized there’s a third group: the inventors. You possess only a vague notion of how to fix things, but that doesn’t stop you from using bubble gum as a sealant, or trying to create ouchless mousetraps out of peanut-butter crackers, a hollowed-out Dustbuster, and a picture of a scarecrow torn out of a magazine fashion spread.

Things rarely get fixed the way they need to be.

masochist, n.

If there wasn’t a word for it, would we realize our masochism as much?

meander, v.

“. . . because when it all comes down to it, there’s no such thing as a two-hit wonder. So it’s better just to have that one song that everyone knows, instead of diluting it with a follow-up that only half succeeds. I mean, who really cares what Soft Cell’s next single was, as long as we have ‘Tainted Love’?”

I stop. You’re still listening.

“Wait,” I say. “What was I talking about? How did we get to ‘Tainted Love’?”

“Let’s see,” you say. “I believe we started roughly at the Democratic gains in the South, then jumped back to the election of 1948, dipping briefly into northern constructions of the South, vis-à-vis Steel Magnolias, Birth of a Nation, Johnny Cash, and Fried Green Tomatoes. Which landed you on To Kill a Mockingbird, and how it is both Southern and universal, which — correct me if I’m wrong — got us to Harper Lee and her lack of a follow-up novel, intersected with the theory, probably wrong, that Truman Capote wrote the novel, then hopping over to literary one-hit wonders, and using musical one-hit wonders to make a point about their special place in our culture. I think.”

“Thank you,” I say. “That’s wonderful.”

misgivings, n.

Last night, I got up the courage to ask you if you regretted us.

“There are things I miss,” you said. “But if I didn’t have you, I’d miss more.”

motif, n.

You don’t love me as much as I love you. You don’t love me as much as I love you. You don’t love me as much as I love you.

N

narcissism, n.

You couldn’t believe I didn’t own a full-length mirror.

nascent, adj.

“I just don’t like babies,” you said as I led you home.

“Now is probably not the time for this conversation,” I told you.

“Whatever. I’m just saying. I really don’t like babies. You should know that. I don’t want to keep that from you.”

“We’ve actually had this conversation,” I said. “And also conversations where you say how great kids are. But the last time we had this specific conversation, it was after Lila’s kid threw up on you.”

I should not have mentioned it. You paused for a moment and I thought, Lord, please don’t puke now, just to illustrate a point.

But you recovered.

“I’m just saying. I really can’t stand babies.”

I should have let it go. But instead I asked, “But don’t you want to pass on your incredible genes?”

neophyte, n.

There are millions upon millions of people who have been through this before — why is it that no one can give me good advice?

nomenclature, n.

You got up to stretch, and I said, “Hey, you’re in Ivan’s way.”

You looked at the TV and said, “That’s Tina Fey.”

I tried to keep a straight face when I explained, “No. The TV’s name is Ivan.”

“The TV has a name.”

“Yes. And you’ll never guess what it is.”

“Does everything have a name?”

The answer was no, only Ivan. Because when I bought it with Joanna, I promised her I would call it Ivan.

But I didn’t tell you that. Instead, I told you I’d named everything.

You pointed to the couch.

“Olga,” I said.

The refrigerator.

“Calvin.”

The kitchen table.

“Selena.”

The bed.

“Otis,” I said. “The bed is named Otis.”

You pointed to the light fixture over our head.

“C’mon,” I said. “Who names a light fixture?”

non sequitur, n.

This is what it sounds like when doves cry.

O

obstinate, adj.

Sometimes it becomes a contest: Which is more stubborn, the love or the two arguing people caught within it?

offshoot, n.

“I don’t like Vampire Weekend nearly as much as Kathryn does,” you said. “Ask her to go with you.”

And so we went on our first date without you — awkward, hesitant, self-conscious. The best friend and the boyfriend — no way to know how to split the check. To talk about you would be disloyal, weird. But what else did we have in common?

Oh, yes. Vampire Weekend.

But halfway through the meal I said something she found funny, and when she laughed, I had to say, “Wow, you two have the same laugh. Did one of you get it from the other, or have you always laughed like that?” And we were off. She said she hoped I was more successful in sharing a bed with you than she had been on your junior year road trip, when you would take up all the space and snore so loudly that one night she went and slept in the bathtub. You didn’t notice, and the next morning you turned on the shower without noticing she was inside. She still didn’t know who screamed louder. And I told her about the time that I got so tired of you stealing the sheets that in my sleep-weary logic I decided the thing to do was to tie them around my legs, knot and all, and how, when you attempted to steal them that night, you ended yanking me into you, and I was so startled that I sprang up, tripped, and was nearly concussed.

“That’s how you end up when you’re with our dear one,” she said wryly. “Nearly concussed.”

It wasn’t like we held hands during the concert. We didn’t go out for wine or shots or milkshakes afterwards. But I liked that she was no longer entirely yours. We had four hours of history without you.

only, adj.

That’s the dilemma, isn’t it? When you’re single, there’s the sadness and joy of only me. And when you’re paired, there’s the sadness and joy of only you.

P

paleontology, n.

You couldn’t believe the longest relationship I’d ever been in had only lasted for five months.

“Ever?” you asked, as if I might have overlooked a marriage.

I couldn’t say, “I never found anyone who interested me all that much,” because it was only our second date, and the jury was still hearing your case.

I sat there as you excavated your boyfriends, laid the bones out on the table for me to see. I shifted them around, tried to reassemble them, if only to see if they bore any resemblance to me.

panoply, n.

We stuck to the plan: you had your bookshelves and I had mine. Yours simply had books, most of them from college, while mine was overrun by souvenir thimbles purchased by my preteen self, compact discs that had been orphaned from their cases, mugs from colleges attended by forgotten friends, and jam jars of quarters (just in case, for some reason, I had to quickly launder everything we owned).

You never seemed to mind. Although one day you did say, “If our shelves were a seesaw, my things would be stuck in the air.”

I didn’t know whether you were being judgmental or self-pitying. But I had learned: there’s no good answer to either.

peregrinations, n.

I’d never had to teach someone how to travel before. Drugging you up for the airplane, dragging you hither and thither through Montreal, Seattle, San Francisco. Your parents never took you on trips as a kid, not when they were together and not when they were apart, and I think this left your sense of exploration stunted. At least, that’s my theory. Eventually I won you over to the geography of wandering. Although I will admit that for you the best part is still the napping in the middle of the day.

perfunctory, adj.

I get to sign some of your Christmas cards, but others I don’t.

persevere, v.

Those first few weeks, after you told me, I wasn’t sure we were going to make it. After working for so long on being sure of each other, sure of this thing, suddenly we were unsure again. I didn’t know whether or not to touch you, sleep with you, have sex with you.

Finally, I said, “It’s over.”

You started to cry, and I quickly said, “No — I mean this part is over. We have to get to the next part.”

placid, adj.

Sometimes I love it when we just lie on our backs, gaze off, stay still.

posterity, n.

I try not to think about us growing old together, mostly because I try not to think about growing old at all. Both things — the years passing, the years together — are too enormous to contemplate. But one morning, I gave in. You were asleep, and I imagined you older and older. Your hair graying, your skin folded and creased, your breath catching. And I found myself thinking: If this continues, if this goes on, then when I die, your memories of me will be my greatest accomplishment. Your memories will be my most lasting impression.

punctuate, v.

Cue the imaginary interviewer:

Q: So when all is said and done, what have you learned here?

A: The key to a successful relationship isn’t just in the words, it’s in the choice of punctuation. When you’re in love with someone, a well-placed question mark can be the difference between bliss and disaster, and a deeply respected period or a cleverly inserted ellipsis can prevent all kinds of exclamations.

Q

qualm, n.

There is no reason to make fun of me for flossing twice a day.

quintessence, n.

It’s the way you say thank you like you’re genuinely thankful. I have never met anyone else who does that on a regular basis.

quixotic, adj.

Finally, I said, “It’s over.”

You started to cry, and I quickly said, “No — I mean this part is over. We have to get to the next part.”

And you said, “I’m not sure we can.”

R

rapprochement, n.

I remember my grandmother saying, “You have to let the cake cool before you frost it.”

raze, v.

It sounded like you were lifting me, but it all fell.

recant, v.

I want to take back at least half of the “I love you”s, because I didn’t mean them as much as the other ones. I want to take back the book of artsy photos I gave you, because you didn’t get it and said it was hipster trash. I want to take back what I said about you being an emotional zombie. I want to take back the time I called you “honey” in front of your sister and you looked like I had just shown her pictures of us having sex. I want to take back the wineglass I broke when I was mad, because it was a nice wineglass and the argument would have ended anyway. I want to take back the time we had sex in a rent-a-car, not because I feel bad about the people who got the car after us, but because it was massively uncomfortable. I want to take back the trust I had while you were away in Austin. I want to take back the time I said you were a genius, because I was being sarcastic and I should have just said you’d hurt my feelings. I want to take back the secrets I told you so I can decide now whether to tell them to you again. I want to take back the piece of me that lies in you, to see if I truly miss it. I want to take back at least half the “I love you”s, because it feels safer that way.