This is gonna be tough to say. Whew! Okay, give me a second here…

I’m sure you’ve noticed me around the halls. I know you’re curious. I am, too. You’re funny, and charming, and you’re smart (which is how I know we’ll really click). You have a lot of fantastic qualities you could bring, if you were interested, to someone like me: Fiction Fanatix, the MSU bimonthly student book club.

You’ve been involved with other clubs before—maybe you were president of your high school chess team, or you’ve experimented a bit with the debating union—but then someone told you about me—Fiction Fanatix—or maybe you saw me arguing with myself at a local café, acting silly, and for some reason you couldn’t stop thinking about me. For some reason, you kept picturing us doing things together, and maybe you even wondered what it would be like to be in me.

I just want you to know that the feeling is mutual.

I guess what I’ve been trying to get up the courage to ask is: Will you go to this week’s meeting with me? I know, I know, it’s a lot to consider, and I understand if you want to take a moment to think about whether you feel the same way about me as I do about you, and have for a while, now.

At the meeting, we can discuss themes of socioeconomic inequality and class warfare in Dickens, or just talk about stuff, you know. We usually meet at the Starbucks on Harrison Street. Or we could go somewhere else, if you like. But not see a movie. The discussion will be led by our president, Claire. You don’t need to feel threatened by her. She’s already a part of me. You could be, too.

It doesn’t have to be a big deal! Promise! It can be super casual, not a date-date, just a really chill Sunday afternoon. Not romantic partners per se, but just one group of literary-minded university students and one six-month-old social club. Unless you want it to be more than that.

I have to be honest: I do love my current partner, a shifting mass of eleven college students of several sexes, ages, and ethnicities whom I’ve been seeing for a long time. But I can’t deny that things have been stagnating. I can’t help but wonder if who I was really meant for, my true soulmate, is twelve college students. And you know what? I want to find out.

You don’t have to worry about me bothering you more if you’re not interested. But if your answer is yes, meet me in the lobby of the university library this Saturday at two o’clock in the afternoon. I’ll be wearing a red carnation and also be an incorporeal social organization that exists mainly as a Facebook page.

Sincerely,

Fiction Fanatix

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Daniel Galef’s humor writing has appeared in The American Bystander, Kugelmass, Clever Magazine, The Weekly Humorist, and The Journal of Irreproducible Results. He has also published fiction, poetry, song parodies, sketch comedy, crossword puzzles, science columns, academic papers, microfiction, book reviews, comic strips, and a musical play. Current status: kinda tired.