Be in high school and be waiting for it. Tell your friends, tell your diary, and even tell your parents that you want somebody to love. Everyone will nod and understand. Listen to mopey music and mope until it happens.

Meet someone in the courtyard at school. He is beautiful and seventeen and might just work out. Your stomach will ache when you see him, just like the books and the songs said it would, and this elation will wash over you like a warm cloud. Run and tell your friends about it. Listen to happy songs and be happy.

Ask him out online. Be very nervous and think about the possibility of getting rejected. You don’t feel cute enough to be loved so you would understand if he said no way, Jose, and stopped talking to you. Luckily, this doesn’t happen and after a three-hour conversation on AIM, you have somebody to be in a relationship with on Facebook.

In the beginning, hang out together in big groups and make-out in movie theatres and the backseats of cars. Go to second base underneath a blanket on a car ride to Santa Barbara. Your body vibrates from his touch and you’ve never wanted someone this badly before.

Get to know each other. Talk to him about issues with your parents and going away to college and maybe cry. Feel like you’re opening up and the connection is deepening. Your relationship appears to be right on schedule.

Lose your virginity when your parents are at work and it’s 3 P.M. and the sun is shining in through your bedroom window. Your body will shake a little bit and he’ll calm you down. Once it’s over, have sex again. And again. And again. Treat each other’s bodies like newfound treasure. When you have the house to yourself, spend hours in bed getting lost in each other’s genitalia, chests, backs. Feel obligated to do crappy sexual positions like “69” and to buy a sex toy.

Start to make mental notes of his habits. He always drinks Dr. Pepper with lunch, hates olives and he uses chapstick excessively. Treat these things as if they’re important clues in figuring out who he really is.

Gain ten pounds. Go to California Pizza Kitchen together and order the spinach-artichoke dip. He doesn’t care. You don’t care. It’s fine.

Start to become possessed by this bizarre unfamiliar emotion called, Jealousy. It takes hold of you and makes you do things like hack into your boyfriend’s e-mail and you wonder when it’ll go away.

Become co-dependent and piss off your friends. Turn into a total flake and bail on dinners, birthday parties, and concerts. Feel guilty about ignoring your friends but not enough to stop going over to your boyfriend’s house everyday to have sex and watch The Office.

Believe in everything he tells you. Plan your future together even though you know it’s unrealistic. Relate to songs by The Carpenters or Ashlee Simpson. Every love song you hear on the radio is about your relationship. Begin to feel clued in about how the world really works.

Never love this blindly and openly again. This is the first and last time it will ever be like this. When this is over, you’ll be different and love will be different.