It's not this kind of love story

I'm mulling the idea of writing a novel. Something funny, contemporary, not too experimental. About love. But let’s get one thing straight: It’s not the kind of love story in which:

· Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back.

· Boy meets girl, boy and girl are separated by their feuding families, boy and girl consummate their love before dying tragically.

· Boy meets girl, girl realizes he’s below her station and marries Baron von Schmaltz, boy marries gamekeeper’s daughter and takes out his disappointment on her by making her sleep with the pigeons.

· Boy meets girl, girl leaves boring, patronizing husband for boy, girl throws herself under train.

. Boy meets girl, goes off to war and loses girl, shell-shocked boy spends rest of 1920s wearing far too much rouge in Berlin cabaret.

· Boy meets girl, boy suffers ambivalent feelings about girl, boy loses girl and with the help of Zelga, his chilly lesbian shrink, spends the rest of his life trying to win girl back.

· Boy meets girl, boy realizes he’s homosexual, girl becomes irrelevant, boy meets boy, loses boy, who cares it’s rainin’ men.

· Married boy meets girl and promises to divorce wife for her, married boy dumps girl, girl learns nothing and spends the rest of her life meeting other married boys.

· Boy meets girl after girl after girl in desperate attempt to a) avoid growing up; b) avoid working out conflicts with mother; c) win approval of fraternity-like peer group, boy ends up meeting no one in a desolate hovel in which he spends the rest of his life making insistent calls to sports radio jocks about his fantasy league draft.

· Girl meets boy, girl realizes boy won’t make enough money to indulge her in high-end luxury-branded goods for which the author receives product placement fees, girl callously dumps boy.

. Boy meets girl, girl leaves boring, patronizing husband for boy, girl throws herself under the Internet.·

. Girl meets girl, girl meets boy, boy meets boy meets gerbil who’s only an urban legend…reader can’t tell players without a scorecard.