Love Letters

A peek at what real people write when they're falling in love

Excerpted from Other People's Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See , edited by Bill Shapiro

His girlfriend was always the photographer. But not this time

In a Hollywood romance, you can always tell when someone's tumbling into love: the music builds, the camera closes in, and the beautiful people get a beautiful look in their eyes.

Up here in the cheap seats, it rarely happens that way. Who, after all, can pinpoint the precise moment when love begins? For most of us, love builds subtly over time, on a foundation of shared laughs, intimate moments and, often, love letters. And not necessarily swooping fountain-pen declarations of adoration either. More likely it's a few words scratched out on a Post-it, a postcard or a While You Were...

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