5. Peter

This is Peter. You weren't really looking for anything — definitely not anything serious, anything you'd actually have to put yourself into — which was why you spent that Saturday night sacked out at B&N on a chair near the travel section. He was browsing Europe: Central and Eastern with his back to you and you noticed that you were wearing the same sneakers. You had to say something. Over coffee — then beer — then scotch out of wine glasses back at his place — you realize that you know half a dozen people in common and you go to all the same bars.

For the next two months everything you love gets reinforced: Pancakes without syrup? Check. Fleetwood Mac but not Stevie Nicks? Check. One Hundred Years of Solitude? Check. Costume parties, the Mets, How I Met Your Mother, tacos al pastor? All check. Okay, so he never really knew how to dress. So he peed with the door open, never paid for dinner, and forgot to tell you when he was going up to Vermont for a week. Sometimes people actually do meet in bookstores, and sometimes amazing things come of it. Sometimes it ends quietly, and you're relieved that it's over, but you're also glad you had it in the first place.

(Image via The Mid Wasteland)