Joel and Kate were both working in a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. They both like each other, and she tries to impress him by always wearing her favorite pair of jeans.

NPR reporter David Kestenbaum tells host Ira Glass about the time, when he was doing graduate work in physics, he and his other single friends decided to figure out the mathematical probability that they'd find girlfriends. They wanted to know what the chances were that there was more than one person in the world for them.

We meet Russell, 19, the best mobile phone salesman in the mall — and possibly anywhere. His talent for sales is matched only by those of his girlfriend, Chandler, 18, a waitress.

Musician David Berkeley has gotten a lot of requests in his life, but none quite like the offer his agent got last year. A fan wanted Berkeley to come to his house and help save his relationship by serenading the troubled couple with a personal concert.

Richard Klein of Cornell University explains that the way we view love really began with love poems in the 13th century—an illusion.

Miriam and her husband were development workers in Afghanistan. They'd hada whirlwind romance themselves, so when they heard that their driver wasin love, but didn't have enough money to propose to the girl, they made agrand romantic gesture: They gave him $10,000 to pay for the dowry and thewedding.

Host Ira Glass talks with Lauren Waterman, who's in the middle of a break-up right now and grappling with totally contradictory feelings. She wants her boyfriend to call, but also—maybe a little bit—doesn't want him to call.

Writer Larry Doyle on a love that will not die, no matter how dead it is.

Host Ira Glass talks to Chicago Tribune newspaper columnist Amy Dickinson ("Ask Amy"), the heir to Ann Landers, as she reads letters from those readers who don't yet know their love is doomed.

Host Ira Glass talks to film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader about an anonymous love letter that turned out to be very different than it seemed.

Aimee Bender reads her story "The Rememberer," about a woman whose lover is undergoing reverse evolution. One day he's a man, the next, a salamander.

We hear Billie Holliday, Keely Smith and Leo Reisman (with Anita Boyer) asking the musical question, "What Is This Thing Called Love?" And, reporter Sean Cole talks about love with Joe and Helen Garland, who fell in love during World War II, but married other people. Thirty years later they met again, felt the same love they felt when they were young, divorced their respective spouses, and finally married each other.

Susan Burton tells the story of how she used a clever scheme to get over a broken heart.