(I work regular office hours, while my boyfriend has a lot of night and weekend shifts. Sometimes the only contact we have is an occasional text message. We start a text conversation after not seen each other for four days.)

Boyfriend: “I’m itchy, sore, and tireded out.”

Me: “That sucks.”

Boyfriend: “Can has story?”

(Even though I’m busy, I do my best to cheer him up.)

Me: “Once upon a time there was a bear who stumbled, fell off a cliff, and died. The end!”

Boyfriend: “Thanks! …what was the bear called?”

Me: “Roy.”

(My boyfriend doesn’t text any more that night. The next day I’m feeling lonely.)

Me: “I miss you. Can I have a story?”

Boyfriend: “Not many people knew it, but Roy didn’t die that day he tripped. After being rescued by F. A. R. T (flattened animal rescue team), they managed to rebuild him, better, faster, stronger than before. A new bear for a new age. He fell off a boat though, and sank because he was so heavy.”

Me: “Down in the ocean, Roy was rescued again by the fairy sea horse. He built head quarters on the ocean floor, and because he’d always had a weak spot for Christina Aguilera, he re-mastered a bunch of her songs.”

Me: “As the music boomed out, Roy put on a face mask and flung himself up, up in the air, to begin his new secret life as a hero. This is when his career abruptly ended due to a nasty collision with a Boeing 747.”

Boyfriend: “Epic. Simply epic.”

(My giant face has recently gone up on a billboard for a local credit union. I was stopped on the street and asked for my autograph the day afterwards. I post on social media about it, thinking it is a funny story. Someone I’ve recently begun dating sees the post, and initiates an online chat.)

Him: “Your famous-autographing-person status actually made me laugh out loud.”

Me: “I laughed at it myself. You saw my face on a billboard, and you want my signature; are they serious?”

Him: “I guess some people have very low thresholds for fame.”

Me: “YOU LOOK LIKE YOU COULD BE FAMOUS! CAN I HAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH? WILL YOU TOUCH ME?”

Him: “I think you should touch me. Just to make sure you are—in fact—starlet material.”

Me: “Do starlets feel differently than non-starlets? When one becomes a starlet, do they obtain a +5 to tactility?”

Him: “I hadn’t thought about the class bonuses.”

Me: “Glamour, sure, that’s fairly obvious. But what about the actual skin itself?”

Him: “There’s only one way to find out. I’m going to have to get a whole lot more familiar with the feel of your skin; then I can do some comparisons.”

Me: “Ah, but the best comparison would have been to feel me up before I gained these bonuses, and then after.”

Him: “The data sample being what it is, we will have to modify the experimental procedures to compensate”

Me: “Oooh, talk nerdy to me. That’s hot!”

Him: “It’s clear that a one-to-one comparison won’t yield usable results. For the aforementioned reasons, I believe the best strategy is a longitudinal study in which data will be collected from a willing subject over time, and then examined for trends.”

Me: “There’s a thought… do the bonuses gained degrade over time? Or once a starlet, always a starlet?”

Him: “We are going to have to find out. A study of this type will require some intensive analysis, as well as repeated, careful recording of experimental data.”

Me: “SCIENCE!”

Him: “Yes.”

Me: “Yes.”

Him: “Yes! Yes!”

Me: “YES!!!!!”

Him: “Don’t stop!”

(My boyfriend and I are messaging online before I have to clock in at work. My phone autocorrects “cuteness” to “acuteness”.)

Me: “30% of my acuteness comes from a little dot on my face.”

Boyfriend: “Stop being obtuse.”

Me: “Isosceles what you did there.”

(There is a pause.)

Me: “Was that too much of a stretch?”

Boyfriend: “There is an equilateral amount of silliness in both of our puns.”

Me: “…crap, I’m out of geometric puns.”

Boyfriend: “Yeah, they really are square.”

(I am at work in New York, while my boyfriend is at a Magic tournament in Pennsylvania. We’re texting back and forth.)

Me: “I want cuddles right… MEOW!”

Boyfriend: “I’m sending you cuddles.”

(I type him a text in a storytelling format that he would be familiar with in his tournament.)

Me: ““Real cuddles,” she demanded. Her hero leaped through his phone, dematerialized into electromagnetic radiation, and suddenly leaped forth from her phone in a blaze of sparkling electronic glory. “As you wish,” he said, taking her into his powerful arms. He squeezed her so hard that she pooped. And they lived happily ever after.”

Boyfriend: “I like that story. Especially the end.”

Me: “With the poop?”

Boyfriend: “Exactly!”

Me: “In the sequel—spoiler alert—he poops too!”

Boyfriend: “Well of course he does.”

Me: “In the third and final installment, the evil Count Poopulon gives everyone constipation! Will our heroes stop him before everyone undergoes poopsplosion?!”

Boyfriend: “Certainly! With Fibe-o-Prune, the only slurry guaranteed to evacuate your entire skeleton, or your money back!”

(My husband and I are texting about how his day at work is.)

Husband: “Ugh! I’m sick! It’s draining my motivation.”

Me: “Baby, I’m sorry. I love you, you can do this!”

Husband: “I love you, too. I know I will do this, but d*** am I drained!”

Me: “I wish I could give you all my energy. Like you’re a parasite, only I know about you, and I let you do it, and have sex with you.”

Husband: “That made me laugh so hard I choked on phlegm.”