#1: Thank you, Oxytocin
It was a humid Monday in August, 2012.
My girlfriend, Jen, my little brother, and I decided to take a road trip from Montreal —where we had been attending a music festival all weekend—to New York City.
Our goal for the week was nothing extraordinary; we just planned to wander around the big concrete jungle, and check out all of the typical tourist landmarks: The New York Public Library, Washington Square Park, The Empire State Building, Central Park, Grand Central Terminal, The Natural History Museum, Times Square, et cetera.
But the trip took an unexpected detour on day three in New York.
On that morning, we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, and walked down to Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is right on the East River and provides a nice view of the buildings in lower Manhattan.
We had lunch at a cafe in the park, found ice cream over at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, then Jen and I looked for a bench to rest on and eat our ice cream alone, while my brother wandered off to look at the water.
That’s when it happened.
When she was done her ice cream, I pulled a book out of my bag. Confused, Jen asked, “Are you going to read?”
And I said, “No, you are.” Then I handed it to her.
The title of the book was Thank you, Oxytocin. I wrote it. It tells, “the true story about two humans permanently altered at the unforgiving hands of oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin,” and the narrative follows all of the first text messages, Facebook messages, and emails that they sent to each other when they first started dating.
However, on Page 10, she found out that it was also a Choose Your Own Adventure story that can only continue with the help of the Reader. This is when Jen realized what was happening.
It said, “Oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin are also known to encourage human beings to make certain choices in their relationships with other human beings. For example, those chemicals have been known to help people purchase rings. In some human cultures, the ring symbolizes — in an apparent physical way — the unbelievable chemical and hormonal bond between two humans. Essentially, it is what many humans have classified as “love.””
Then it gave her two options: If she wanted the woman in the story to accept the engagement ring, she had to turn to Page 100. But if she wanted the woman in the story to reject the engagement ring, she had to turn to Page 50. Thankfully, she turned to Page 100, so I reached into my bag and pulled out a ring, which I had been carrying around Manhattan, hidden in a pill container, for the entire week.
One year and one day later, with the assistance of oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin, we got married in a museum.
