Sloan was the first musical discovery I could call my own. The Canadian power-pop Trojan horse was a natural transition between my early Beatles obsession and a slightly more contemporary taste, no doubt spurred by the notion that bespectacled guys could rock out unabashedly.

I idolized the lads from Halifax the same way they probably worshipped KISS back in the ’70s. There were magazine cut-outs taped to my bedroom walls and endless B-side hunting trips. I even had two Sloan trading cards tacked to my bulletin board – I had received them with my purchase of 1999’s Between the Bridges. I was the only person I knew who enjoyed Sloan to the point of obsession.

During my freshman year in college, Sloan held a more complicated place in my heart. They had released a very uneven album that had divided their fans. At the same time they’d won over a new fan base with a helplessly emo song (“The Other Man”) that was receiving the kind of radio airplay they haven’t seen since 1992. I might have written them off for good if it weren’t for her.

J. was the archetype of what all college crushes should be: cute, fun, always smiling, with taste in music that didn’t seem to have progressed past 1998. Those first months of college left me feeling so alone and inadequate that I might have fallen for anyone with a Sloan patch on her backpack, but I was lucky that it ended up being her. J. was the essential Sloan fan. She was in love with lead singer Chris Murphy, owned every piece of Sloan merchandise ever made, and was a concert soldier who had close to twenty Sloan shows under her belt.

Small talk was eventually struck up, but I soon discovered a) she had a long-term boyfriend and b) she was the ruthlessly flirtatious type, the kind who put me at the bottom of the pile below every other classmate who was older, more attractive, and better experienced. Aside from the odd chitchat about music, I put her in the massive “out of my league” catalogue in my mind. She would have been too perfect for my first serious girlfriend, and it simply couldn’t happen for a guy so well acquainted with fleeting love and unrequited crushes.

Through the powers that be, that winter led to J. and her long-term lover’s breakup. She was left vulnerable, probably a little too fragile, which might explain how I managed to slip into her life. It began with some bumbling attempts at conversation, leaning on the flirtatious side, all underscored by our mutual understanding of the under-appreciated Sloan. Maybe she thought I was just a fleeting Sloan fan who had managed to download a few songs as a way to her heart, or maybe the music never even mattered to her. Regardless, she could sing a few lines of “Junior Panthers” and I could sing along. She was intensely heartbroken over her recent breakup, and yours truly was there to console her through the pain and (hopefully) right into my arms.

She burned me a copy of Sloan’s import-only Party Album with certain songs marked to indicate her current state of depression. In return, I made her a handcrafted birthday card with cartoon members of Sloan smiling daftly at her, mirroring my own need for her approval. As a reward for my sympathetic ear, I had the luxury of holding her hand, long late-night phone calls, and glorious mix CDs that allowed me to sneak in the odd Sloan song with not-so-subtle messages that she surely recognized. By combining the music I held dearest with my most heart-felt relationship to date I created a ticking time bomb that could never be defused.

After what must have been the umpteenth anxiety attack I had in front of her, she saw the light: she was single for the first time in almost five years, so why would she want to be stuck with an awkward, depressed guy who spent his time reading Bukowski and listening to a Walkman? Suddenly e-mail messages and phone calls went unanswered. My only consolation came from old Sloan CDs and the unhealthy optimism that she would return.

Instead, she opted to enjoy her college life with all the boys she flirted with but could never have. We held on to that awkward “let’s just be friends” connection that I mistook for permission to “continue giving me mix CDs that disclose too much about your frankly desperate attempts to win me back.” What finally ended it for me was her fling with another classmate who seduced her with, of all things, a Dashboard Confessional album.

In the end she went back to her ex-boyfriend, but she managed to bookend our short relationship with one last mix CD that featured unreleased Sloan songs. These were accompanied by a handwritten note that the songs were definitely NOT about me, a preliminary caution she must have felt was necessary. After some beastly exchanges of words and equally horrible mix CDs (Bob Dylan songs are like the nuclear bombs of relationships), I still had a hard time moving on.

That summer Sloan released Action Pact, which sounded hollow and akin to a complete commercial sell-out, and which bitterly reminded me of J. Even my music had deserted me. I never did listen much to Sloan after that, packing away those loaded mix CDs along with other memories out of sight. On a footnote, on the eve of Sloan’s re-energizing release of Never Hear The End Of It, J. extended the hand of friendship from out of nowhere, after three years of silence. We had some friendly catch-up and even discussed how good the new album was. I love Never Hear the End of It, but I’m still reluctant to journey back to Sloan’s back catalogue, which is full of mixed emotions, sweaty hand-holding, and shared singalongs about traveling bands covered in Coke fizz.