Lean in. Lean on. Lean Away.

That's what little love stories are made of.

Jan 17, 2025

Hey lovers,

It’s me, Meg Oolders, award-winning author, bona fide super-romantic, and your gregarious guide o’er the wild, wuthering hillocks of romantic storytelling. Whether you’re writing love stories, reading them, watching them, living/dreaming them, or secretly despising their existence, this is the mountaintop villa for you.

So far, on our maiden voyage (looks like we’re in a boat metaphor now), we’ve visited romantic works from the early 70s and the late 80s. Today’s mid-90s era issue leans personal.

I hope you’ll pardon the indulgence. It’s my 45th birthday today, and I’m feeling rather ~~old~~ nostalgic. 💕

two grey spoons — Photo by Marcin Skalij on Unsplash

Lean in. Lean on. Lean away.

If there was one year in high school I was at my most me, it was year three. That’s when I found my friend family. The people who embraced my weird, wacky, would-be wild, staunchly straight-edge, demure-dramatic style. That year, there was always a barn party, or a beach wall hangout, or a late-morning bagel breakfast I could walk into confidently, knowing someone there would be happy to see me. And someone I’d be very happy to see.

This was a co-ed crew, so not surprisingly, there was one guy in the group I always hoped would turn up in those spaces. I liked him. At the time, he was my “type” – short, slight, pretty eyes, good hair, funny. He also drove a vintage convertible and could fly an airplane, but those things were just icing on the crush cake.

What set him apart from my countless other high school crushes was pretty simple.

He liked me back.1

We never said we “liked” each other. I can’t remember if I told anyone else I “liked” him or if he told anyone else he “liked” me. But something was there. The signs weren’t exactly subtle.

We never dated.

We never kissed.

We never said, “I want to be more than friends.”

We just spooned.

We spooned … constantly.

If we showed up in the same place, and there was a space to get horizontal, we occupied it.

It wasn’t sexual. We were fully clothed. And always in front of other people. It was just … our thing. If it gave anyone a reason to gossip about us, I never heard about it. And I never felt anything other than happy and comfy and sure of myself in those brazenly affectionate moments.

But all that changed when we moved our spooning arrangement to a vertical position.

And set it to music.

woman raising her hands — Photo by Todd Trapani on Unsplash

My spoon was a senior, so while he wasn’t first on my list of prom date candidates, he was not far behind. And I was turned down a few times before his number came up.

SHOCKING, I know. 😏

We were in the school library when I asked him.

And I’ll never forget his response.

It was a “no,” followed by an anguished display of groaning, face clutching, and saying my name, over and over again.

Turns out, he’d already been asked by someone else, and had accepted. Otherwise, his reaction assured me, the “no” would have been a “yes.”

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I ended up taking a co-worker/classmate to the prom. We got along fine but weren’t exactly earning top marks in Chemistry.

Not that it mattered who you showed up at the prom with. It mattered who you danced with. And to what song. Because if you were lucky, the song and the dance partner would become permanently fused together, so that one could no longer exist in your memory without the other.

Our prom song was Satellite by Dave Matthews Band.2

An odd choice apart from it being roughly five minutes long, which is too long for a slow dance with the wrong person, but dream length for a slow dance with the right person.

My spoon and I paired up for that dance, and while it should have felt right, it didn’t. Not completely.

I don’t know if it was the fact that, for once, we were upright and face-to-face, or that he was suddenly a half an inch shorter than me (thanks to my one-inch heels, his cheek rested on my shoulder so that mine was touching the top of his head), or that he was clinging to me in a way he never had before. In a way that felt … kinda desperate.😬

I started to panic. I needed air and I wasn’t getting enough. I found myself tensing up in his arms. Pulling away, like I wanted to escape. And I didn’t know why.

I liked him, after all. And he liked me.3

For months we’d been comfortable knowing this, without actually knowing it. We’d been close to each other, but always with a buffer of mutual understanding in between.

But then he leaned in, through the buffer, across the invisible threshold that kept us happy and comfy and sure of ourselves.

He leaned in.🔥

And I leaned away.❄️

What does this awkward moment from my would-be wild past have to do with love stories, you ask?

Only everything.

Face it, friends.

We don’t read, write, watch, or ride out romance for the happy ending.

We expect it. We want it. We won’t be satisfied without it. But it’s not why we show up.

We show up for the spark. The banter. The push and pull. The slow burn. The will they, won’t they. The two steps forward, one step back.

We show up for spooning, angst, and slow dances.

For chemistry, comfort, confusion, and chaos.

One beautifully awkward moment at a time, a hundred times over, and over and over and over again.

The unremitting trifecta of warm-hot-cool is at the foundation of every romantic story.

Lovers lean in … take chances … make moves … confess their feelings ...
Lovers lean on each other … build trust and intimacy … make commitments … and sacrifices …
Lovers lean away … get cold feet … feel trapped … test boundaries … break each other’s hearts …

And back to one.

I invite you to test this theory on your favorite love story.

Consider the full romantic journey of your lovers, and try to spot how many times they tumble through the cycle of in, on, and away before their story “ends.”

I guarantee it’s more than once. 💕

As for me and my spoon, we rebounded “back to one” fairly quickly. No pain. But no gain either. We went back to safely spooning, and eventually, new adult life pulled us in different directions.

Some years later, I had a job as a banquet server at a hotel. I worked his wedding. He was happy to see me, and I was very happy to see him.4

I’m not sure “endings” get much “happier” than that. 😊

And we’ll always have our song/soul fusion in Satellite.

🎵 Winter's cold spring erases
And the calm away by the storm is chasing
Everything good needs replacing
Look up, look down
All around
Hey, satellite 🎵

You’ve been reading The Romantic! Did you have a good time? If so, please share this post with everyone you’ve ever slow danced with. Or maybe just the one person that matters. 💕

Let’s trip the light nostalgic in the comments section!