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T O D A Y

Drama Queen candidates:
The strangest declarations of love

Contestant No. 1
Contestant No. 2
Contestant No. 3

Vote now!

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This Month's Drama Queen Candidates:
The strangest declarations of love
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If you think ballpark proposals are weird, wait until you find out what "I love you to pieces" really means.

Love does strange things to the mind. It provokes insane highs, crazed fantasies and reality-defying leaps of faith in hope of capturing its ephemeral emotional (and chemical) substance. In honor of St. Valentine -- a pretty strange character himself -- this month we invited you to tell us the strangest declarations of love you've ever encountered. A bizarre string of compliments has since flooded the Drama Queen mailbox. Take, for instance, the boy on the make at a party who told one young lady, "You did a really nice job shaving your legs." Or the loving (now ex-) husband who told his wife she was "really interesting looking." Some of the declarations of love or lust sound more like verbal assaults -- such as the one from an anxious man who said to his classmate, "I love you, you bitch." And when their aggressive advances didn't work, a few suitors wanted other types of consolation. The revved-up neighbor of a Peace Corps volunteer, crushed that she would not sleep with him, insisted, "At least give me some money to go buy a beer!"

A handful of these unconventional declarations of devotion seemed strangely charming. One woman was finally won over by her future husband when he apologized for his infidelity by writing, "I love you" with the beloved's own hair on the mildewed shower wall. Another reader roped his true love into matrimony by hiding a ring inside one of a box of glass jars, along with a note reading, "I love you to little pieces (chopped up in Mason jars and kept in the basement behind the preserves)." Well, what is "normal" anyway? We salute all of these relentless suitors -- OK, most of them -- for channeling the mysterious force of Eros.

Vote for your object of affection by Feb. 19. And as always, keep the love alive.
SALON | Feb. 12, 1999

Contestant No. 1 | Contestant No. 2 | Contestant No. 3 | Vote now!

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ILLUSTRATION BY KATHERINE STREETER