I don’t like soy lattes. And I don’t think I could ever date someone who drank soy lattes. Right away that makes me think there’s some kind of lactose intolerance or vegan agenda. (Maybe they have an infection?)

I wanted someone who was tolerant; and while I applaud vegans in their steadfast agenda, I don’t want to eat a hamburger in the company of a woman who makes frowny-faces and goes “moo!” A few years ago I thought I had found one such woman: a woman who was beautiful and intelligent. A woman with a Lady Godiva-like brazenness and lust for life; a woman who loved to drink milk (albeit with vodka and Kahlua). Oh, she was beautiful… she acted like summer and she walked like rain. And, although she wasn’t into Tae Bo, she was, um, “a dancer,” so she was very fit. Plus she managed to stomach my awkward, puerile bullshit from the moment I first encountered her.

“Uh, wow, I’ve never met an Ashley before…”

Somehow, we hit it off. And I moved from New York to be with her in Florida. Yet, despite the sheer bliss of being with someone special, nothing is perfect. I wanted the promise of romance and tranquility, a sidewalk cafe in a Parisian watercolor. Instead I got a long-form infomercial for the Bedazzler.

As her “career” took off, she went out on the road quite a bit. Sometimes she’d be gone for three or four weeks, and I floundered without her. I was miserable in Florida and when we were together, the strain began to wear on both of us. The longer she was away, the more frustrated I became. Why had I moved down there? The more frustrated I became, the longer she stayed on the road.

Around the beginning of 2001, the band Train released the song “Drops of Jupiter.” The lyrics about a girl searching for herself, evidently in outer space, held some resonance for both of us. We both took to the song for different reasons, and although I was embarrassed about liking it, really it only upset me.

And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?

I never understood bands like Train or Dave Matthews or Maroon 5. They don’t ROCK. Whenever I hear songs by bands like Dave Matthews or Maroon 5 or Train, I’ve always pictured one of those commercials where a giggly bunch of girls are sitting around their college dorm room extolling the virtues of tampons with easy-glide applicators.

When she was home she played that song. A lot. I wondered if she still loved me any more. And so as the relationship began to unravel, somehow the nonsense words came to mean something.

Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken?

I could hear the heartache throughout the song, which at the time echoed my frustrations. Here was a guy who was isolating all the little things he adored about his girl… nothing specific that I could relate to, but everything that I could understand as my relationship came apart like a cartoon sweater.

Because it was the little things with my girl, the Sunday mornings lounging around in bed reading the paper, drinking expensive Swiss coffee. I would ask her, “Do you know who the most beautiful girl in the world is?” She’d flutter her eyes and ask, “Is it me?” I would smile and say, “It IS you.” Those moments, once so frequent, had become memories when I picked her up at the Tampa airport some time later. A week-long business trip became a three-week junket and there was a lot to talk about on the ride back. She put in her Train CD and said, “I don’t know if I’m in love with you any more.”

I tried to make a last stand to salvage our relationship. Since she was a Southern girl, I decided to show my love and resolved to make her a traditional southern meal: fried chicken, collard greens. Although I had never cooked before, I hoped my boundless enthusiasm would make up for what I lacked in knowledge and skill.

I set us a table and printed up a little menu card for her, cribbing the lyrics from “Drops of Jupiter.” It was just a little card that read, “Entree: Deep Fried Chicken. Dessert: Your Best Friend Always Sticking Up For You.”

She wasn’t coming home until that evening, but I set about shopping and preparing dinner. While I was trying to figure out how to put breadcrumbs on the chicken, I went to the stove and set the back left burner to high. Then I poured about four inches of oil into a four-inch deep frying pan. Later, the fire marshal would tell me what a lucky young man I was. The fire damage had been contained to the kitchen and part of the living room. He reassured me that I was lucky to be alive.

When she returned that evening, my girlfriend was decidedly less encouraging. Though I tried to plead my case, she wouldn’t listen. I pointed to the table, which was covered in smoke and soot. She looked at my handmade menu card, smirked, and ripped it in half.

Three days later I no longer had a girlfriend and was on my way back to New York. As the days passed into weeks I mourned the loss of our love. Of “us.” And that fucking Train song stayed on the charts for 53 weeks, reaching number one and earning TWO Grammys, including Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group, which is despicable.

Then about two years later Train rewrote the song as “Calling All Angels,” and when that song reached number one I decided that Pat Monahan, Train’s singer, would forevermore be my arch-enemy. Mercifully, time has a way of healing… and though I try to think of the better times, that fucking Train song still hurts to hear.

There is one thing that makes me smile all these years later. It is juvenile and passive-aggressive but ultimately satisfying: the last Train record came out in 2006, all gooey and full of Massengill Flower-Fresh ballads.

And it tanked.