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“Dude, you can sit here and look stupid, or grow a pair and go talk to her,” I told him. “She’s no better than you.”

Each night at the gym, I took my best stab at being Mark’s relationship coach. At one time I’d been just like him, shy and afraid to talk to girls I liked. It had finally dawned on me that if I was waiting for the girls to come flocking to me for my looks, I’d be waiting a long time, so I’d quickly learned that holding a conversation and scoring some laughs went a long way with the girls.

After I’d done my best to get Mark feeling confident enough to go ask this girl out, he finally found his balls and made his way across the street to sweep his damsel’s feet right off that fast-food joint’s floor.

A few minutes later, he walked back.

“How’d it go?” I asked.

“It was good. We talked,” Mark said, busying himself at the gym counter, “but she likes you.”

“She likes me? She doesn’t even know me.”

“Yeah, she says she saw you run across the street and thinks you run good.”

Run good? I tried to think of all the times I’d sprinted across the street to Del Taco. I’d gone over a few times to get their chicken taco salad, but of all the things to notice, my swagger wasn’t one of them.

Mark watched me contemplate the situation. “Do you want me to go tell her anything?” he finally asked, resigning to his new role in the matter.

“Yeah, tell her I like the way she walks,” I said. I was being a complete smart-ass, but I couldn’t help myself.

I think Mark got the picture pretty quickly. He never talked about Elaine again.

If you ask Elaine, she’ll tell you I started going over to see her, but she actually made her way to the gym more, even if she won’t admit it.

It was attraction at first sight. Elaine reminded me of Princess Diana, except she was far cuter with her short, blonde bob to complement her tall, thin body. She lied and told me she was eighteen years old. I was nineteen at the time, and it didn’t take me long to figure out she was really sixteen. For our first date, I took her to dinner and a walk in the sand in Newport Beach.

Elaine was nice and sweet, but I actually broke up with her after two months. One night, I was supposed to pick her up for a date and just didn’t show. I stopped calling. I know it was wrong and cowardly, but it just seemed like the easiest way.

Generally speaking, at times I wasn’t a good boyfriend for any girl. I’d treat them fine while we were going out, but there would come a time when I’d get bored and stop calling. I would basically disappear. Right after I turned twenty, I did it to Elaine.

Imagine my surprise when Elaine walked into Samson’s Gym about four months later. She’d thought I’d left the gym because I’d traded in my car, a 1966 Ford Econoline surfer van with a 302 V-8 engine and jacked-up Cragar rims, for a black Pontiac Trans Am. When she didn’t see the van parked outside the gym, she assumed I’d moved away.

When she ran into one of my gym buddies, though, he told her I was still around, so she decided to pay me a visit. Shockingly, she wasn’t all that mad. We talked a bit and ended up going on another date. Elaine was tenacious, I’ll give her that.

When did I know Elaine was the one? It was when she played the theme to the film Ice Castles, “Through the Eyes of Love.” I know it sounds crazy, but she played the piano so beautifully and looked so pretty in that moment that I told myself, I’d better not screw this up again.

Elaine proved to be my match in every way. In the past, I’d always gotten tired of being around girls, but after that I never got tired of Elaine. Okay, I’ll admit I did get tired of talking to her on the phone—the girl could go on for hours—but our time together was fun.

Elaine became my best friend. She took a great interest in me and everything I was into, like my lifting, motorcycles, and suped-up cars. She never tried to change me but allowed me to be who I was, for better or worse.

I’ll admit that couldn’t have been an easy thing for her to do sometimes. Did I mention I have