True love stories...

The things I've done for love... 🫢

Friends, February is a wild ride for romance writers. Events and occasions, promotions and classes. Themes aplenty… You can hardly pop onto social media without seeing hearts and pink and red and, and, and...

I’ve been busy as heck this month and yet one thing I never tire of is reading and writing romance. In the spirit of the event, holiday, observance (what exactly IS Valentine’s Day, exactly?) I want to share some unbelievable but true love stories with you.

Whether you’re single or steadfast in NOT partaking of the heart-shaped holiday, here are three of the most ridiculous and completely true stories from my love life. Enjoy this terrifying, hilarious, and often unbelievable (and yet, I promise these are true!) love stories from the Callie Chase archives.

The dumbest thing I ever did to get a date AKA my real-life meet-cute

Let me start by saying I can’t believe I’m sharing this. But here we are.

So, for context, I was never a “cool” girl. And I was a late bloomer. When my high school best friend got a “reputation” for having sex with her boyfriend after Prom, I defended her until the end of the year because I sincerely did not believe anyone in high school was having sex, and certainly not my best friend. I was THAT late blooming kid.

So fast forward to my early college years. I became aware of just how wrong about high school I’d been, and while I was still carrying my V-card locked down in my wallet deep inside a padlocked purse, I was actually dating. Not much, but I did have a few dates in my late teens, and I was, I believe 19 when I was crushing hard on my younger brother’s baseball coach.

Let’s call him “Coach Mike.” So Coach Mike was literally the opposite of a romance novel hero. He was short and round like a baseball. Honestly, people, the guy was cuddly boy next door material, and what appealed to me most was how great he was with my brother and the other eight-year-old kids.

After a season pining from the bleachers at every game, I knew that Coach Mike knew who I was. He did, after all, chat me up every time I went to the local convenience store to buy my brother cheap donuts and milk. (I don’t know why but our hometown convenience store had really awesome donuts!)

So one day I decide that I have to know if Coach is reciprocating any of the pine-y feelings, and I concocted what seemed like a romance-novel worthy plan to ask him out. I was a shy gal back then (still am… I’m a better as a wingwoman than on center stage) so I did the thing that I thought would be clever and cute, and which wouldn’t immediately make me feel like a loser even if he didn’t want to go out with me.

I bought a perfectly clean new baseball, took a Sharpie, and wrote my number on it with a message that read, “Call if you’d like to go out sometime.” I put the baseball in a brown paper bag and dropped it off (wordlessly, with furious blushing) during one of my weekly donut runs.

Well, dear friends, Coach Mike did call. I answered. Banter took place. A date was planned. And he picked me up for one glorious, blissful date. (It was neither glorious nor blissful, friends.) We got to the pizza place and he ordered a beer. But I was only 19. Which, as a mature 22-year-old, he had not even thought to ask. As I ordered an iced tea and admitted I was underage, I could literally see every ounce of interest seep out of his face like a deflated baseball.

It was a first date, a last date, and a lesson in humiliation all rolled into one. Age gaps matter, friends. Thankfully, only one baseball and my pride were harmed in the making of that disaster.

The Turkey Made Me Do It

I learned very young that my sexual orientation was a twisty path rather than a straight road. I happened to be out at a bar with a girl I really liked (I was legal drinking age by then!) when I ran into someone I knew from grade school. That guy invited me and all the friends I was out with to a party. When the bar closed, we found said party. But the “party” turned out to be two guys hosting a small get-together in their apartment. When I knocked on the door, the massive, very, very, very attractive guy who answered the door asked who we were and what we wanted.

I explained that we’d been invited by (let’s call him Bob), and he told us Bob wasn’t there. My group of friends was embarrassed that we’d basically crashed a non-party, but the gorgeous guy at the door invited us in as long as we “promised not to steal anything.” (A direct quote as well as a gentle threat!) We were an honest group, so in we went.

Several adult beverages later, I found the name of our host on the Honor Roll certificate hanging on the fridge. The host met me at the fridge and asked basically what the hell I was doing—probably concerned that I’d steal the only evidence that he’d been on the Honor Roll.

My girl friend (not girlfriend) was having a hilarious puppet show in the kitchen with a couple of hot mitts and a guy she thought was cute, so I struck up a conversation with the host around a massive turkey that he was marinating for a cookout he was having the next day.

I had never met a guy our age who was gorgeous, smart (did I mention he was one on the honor roll in college!), who could also cook. I was mostly smitten by his name (it’s romance novel material, friends, it was one of THOSE names) but the turkey put me over the edge. What college boy brines a turkey in his apartment?

That turkey led to one of the most important relationships of my adult life. I’m not still with Mr. Turkey, but all these years later, we are still dear friends and I love seeing him when I go home to Chicago to visit. He is still gorgeous. And he is still an amazing cook.

I lived with the woman who ruined her life

It’s a stereotype in the LGBTQ community that all the lesbians know each other, but in this case, it was hilariously true. After a brief but overly dramatic relationship, an ex-girlfriend and I decided to rent a house as friends. We got along great, enjoyed the same TV shows, and figured we could share the rent on a nicer place than either of us could afford alone.

She was dating someone and I was “dating” here and there and tried a few of the lesbian dating apps. I’m pretty cautious and honestly have had a few awful experiences with online dating, but I arranged to meet a woman for happy hour.

She was a single mom and seemed great. Down to earth. (Like me.) Owned her own business. (Like me.) Worked a ton. (Like me.) You might be surprised how hard it is to date when you own your own business. My work has always been #1 in my life, so finding someone who has their own stuff going on, who won’t feel resentful or second best in your life is really tricky. On paper, this seemed like a promising first meeting.

Photo Credit: Adam Bouska, NOH8 Project

So we get to the place and the conversation is easy. Great sign. We talk about our work. No red flags there. Until we get to the point where we talk about the job she was forced to leave before she started her own business.

Turns out, my roommate (my friend, the ex) used to work with this woman. Found out about something the woman did. Ratted her out to management. And GOT THIS WOMAN FIRED.

As she’s telling me the story, the details are hauntingly familiar. Because of course, I’d heard the story from my roommate, but I never knew the name of the person who she got fired. Now, there is obviously a lot more to the story than I can share here. But this is a dating confessional, and here, friends, is where the date ended. As soon as I told her I thought we might know someone in common… Yeah. Let’s just say I was thankful I didn’t end that night with a drink being dumped in my lap…

You know what they say about truth being stranger than fiction…

Whether you’re celebrating by yourself, with friends, by swiping or with your favorite book boyfriend/girlfriend, I hope you have a heart-shaped, love-filled Valentine’s Day!