It’s time for another edition of SE(N)O, an essay series on A+ for personal stories we wish we could tell on the accessible-to-our-employers-and-everyone-we’ve-ever-known mainsite, but can’t for personal and professional reasons.

This is a guide to falling in love for hopeless fools who can’t read maps.

These are step-by-step instructions for logistically impossible and emotionally devastating affairs that are never quite relationships but always far more than the flings they were supposed to be when they started. I lived in Nicaragua for two and a half years and had three relationships with beautiful weirdos who didn’t live there. I never meant to — each time, I just wanted the rush of a fling with no consequences. The spontaneou...