9. Clement

This is Clement. You were dragged to a lecture at the ornithological society by that guy from work who never even tried to hide that he had a thing for you ("It's not a date," you insisted when you agreed to go, but he still brought flowers and told you how beautiful you looked), and there he was at the podium. Afterward, during the white wine mingle, you started talking to him just to get away from the workplace skeeze. But then something about the way he answered your empty questions lit a fire in you, and you started buying your own ruse. If he's that passionate about Petrochelidon pyrrhonota, you thought, just imagine how worked up he could get about a real live human. It turned out, not so much. He left on a tracking expedition to Venezuela a few days later, and you didn't even say goodbye.

(Image: Beams)

8. Torvald

This is Torvald. You thought he was too pretty. "No guys who have better hair than I do," you said to yourself at the deli, watching him place his sandwich order. (BLT, rye, toasted, no mayo. Not that you were paying attention.) "Definitely no guys who wear pants that cost more than mine," you said as he stepped away from the crush of lunch-eaters and you could get a look below the neck. "Excuse me?" he said, because you hadn't even realized you were talking out loud. It turned out his pants weren't actually that fancy — they ripped when you were tearing them off later that night — but, yes, the bathroom had not one but two flatirons. The next month was surreal: he wrote a song for your cat, made you eggs when you slept over, listened sympathetically when you complained about, well, whatever it was you were complaining about those days. (Your mother? Your roommate?)

One night when you were making out on the futon a key turned in the front door and in spilled a man and a woman and a tumble of suitcases. Turns out this wasn't actually, his apartment — he was just crashing here while his friend was in Europe. Turns out he didn't actually have a job — but he knew a guy who was going to get him into a studio and make something happen. Turns out one of the flatirons in the bathroom wasn't his. Thank god for that, at least.

(Image: Landon Pigg, via)

7. Miles

This is Miles. You were always so sure he was using you, but you were never actually quite clear about what it was you brought to the table. Not that you weren't at the peak of your confidence then — the new job and the great haircut and for once having a quick answer when the bartender asks what you're drinking — but he just never seemed to need anything you could provide. Silence more than conversation, space more than intimacy. For two weeks it was twenty-two hours a day of steely distance, an hour at the bistro where you tried to crack his reserve(meeting with little more than two-syllable answers, red wine stains, and a lingering sense that the part in your hair could be better), and then an hour of the most sullen, angry sex you've ever had. And right in the middle, or right at the beginning, or right at the end, these lightning flashes of the most crushing, vulnerable tenderness that made everything — you, him, the stupid bistro, your stupid hair — completely worth it.

(Image: ELC Clothing)