Separating stalkers from spouses

Obsession is the fine line between chick flick and stalker.
To wit: When John Cusack wistfully holds a boom box over his head outside Ione Skye’s bedroom window in the movie, “Say Anything,” we see a real romantic — not a serious pervert.
Same when we hear in our heads the lyrics from the Maroon 5 song, “She Will Be Loved:”
“I don’t mind spending everyday
Out on your corner in the pouring rain.”
Of course, the rest of the song is a tad creepy:
“I know where you hide
Alone in your car
Know all of the things that make you who you are.”
But you get my point. We all appreciate a romantic obsession — certainly I do.
And we’ve all had them. Some of us have even been lucky enough to be the object of someone else’s fanaticism. (Again, we’re not talking the terror of being the object of someone else’s restraining order.) An obsession is invigorating, inspiring, and it really gets the heart pumping. It gives us a reason for living — something new to put on our to-do lists, something interesting to add to the calendar. (Text. Call. Visit. Try not to stalk.)
The most pronounced obsession I’ve had was with, fortunately, the woman who would eventually marry me and with whom I am celebrating our 23rd wedding anniversary this weekend. I was 18 when we met, and embarking upon my second semester of college. To this day I can still see perfectly in my mind the way she would stand when we were chatting together, her lips slightly parted — a mannerism that is natural among women who are both attractive and emit (often unconsciously, especially at the age of 18) an erotic charge. There is something wanton and lubricious about lips like that.
Just for the record, men who are obsessed love words like lubricious. It’s that sibilant S sound.
Women who are obsessed, even (and here I am conjecturing) diaper-clad female astronauts, are significantly less comfortable with the sibilant S.
In any case, my wife and I met at a party in western Massachusetts, where we both went to school, and we would date for two weeks before she began to fear I was getting a little. . .obsessed. It wasn’t the roses. It wasn’t even the frequency of the roses. Nor was it the phoning, or the fact that I stood outside her dorm room window with a stereo and extension cord long before John Cusack would try out that maneuver. It was the urgency of all our encounters, and the way I was suddenly dropping the L-word (the one with four letters, not seven) into conversation so cavalierly.
And so one afternoon she went home to Manhattan for the express purpose of getting some distance from me over a long weekend. And I, in turn, did the only sensible thing that someone obsessed could do given her evident desire to get away from me: I hitchhiked to New York City and showed up unexpectedly at her family’s apartment.
Her mother, a woman who has always appreciated the teachings of Judith Martin — a.k.a., Miss Manners — invited me in for coffee instead of calling the police. My wife and I have been together ever since.
This is the sort of story that is lovely for us to recall now on our anniversary. It’s not merely that it has a happy ending. It’s a reminder of the wondrous ways a healthy little obsession can sometimes make us feel alive — and, yes, separate out the stalkers from the spouses.
Happy Anniversary, my dear.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on October 14.)