Victoria Alfred-Levow ● February 14, 2017

Most Valentine’s Day movies are predictable. Guy meets girl. Guy makes some crazy advances on girl and gets her immediately. They have a flirty date at a nice restaurant, and a smoldering, perfect kiss transitions into a super-fast and effortless sex scene. Girl and guy break up for extremely dramatic reasons, but they resolve this right away. Happily (and heteronormatively) ever after!

The four Northwestern students whose stories you are about to experience don’t have that kind of narrative. These brave people opened up to NBN about their most embarrassing and unexpected relationship tales.

Click on the big hearts below to hear their stories.



In the first of this series, Drake Wilson said, “It was probably the worst day to go on a hike I could have ever chosen.” Luckily, his date didn’t mind: Drake and his boyfriend Jared have been together ever since.

Drake Wilson First Date Story from North by Northwestern on Vimeo.

Filming and editing by Alejandra Fernandez.

Nat Hoopes and his girlfriend Morgan hopefully had a better first date. It took them three years to get together from the moment they met, and they’ve been dating for the past two and a half. Their story is found not on a rainy hike but under the lights of the stage.

Nat from North by Northwestern on Vimeo.

Filming and editing by Alejandra Fernandez.

A Weinberg and Bienen sophomore who chose to remain anonymous for privacy reasons, recounts the embarrassing incidents (yes, plural) that occurred when he and his girlfriend tried to have sex for the first time. Interviewer questions have been removed and some answers added in where appropriate. Overall, this story has been condensed for clarity. You’ve got to read it to believe it.



“So, it was the summer before senior year. I went to camp that year, and it was gonna last about seven weeks. So we [my girlfriend and I] decided that we were going to try to have sex for the first time the week before I left. Neither of us had done it before.

Night 1.

So we went to the store. They didn't have any of the normal condoms. They just had weird [ribbed] ones. Then we went to a park that was kind of near my school, because we lived in different towns and I went to a school that wasn't in my town (we wanted to be far from home in case we got caught in the act somehow). My car was a little small, so we were trying to, like, put the condom on in the back of the car. We were having a little trouble. So I suggested going outside because that might help. We went outside bare naked.

So we got out of the car, and the door just kind of locked. This was when I remembered my small car also has auto-lock.

And, it's like 11:30 at this point, and we're four or five miles from town, naked. All of our clothes, our phones, are locked inside the car. Honestly, in the moment, it felt like something that would happen in a movie, and I was like, ‘are you kidding me?’ Because we heard the click of the lock, and then we pulled on the door, and my heart just sank. And I'm like, ‘This is not good.’

So we kind of freak out for a little. Then, like 20 minutes later, I'm like, ‘Nothing's going to change, I mean, we can't call anybody. We're not walking to town just naked.’ So I decided to take a rock and break the driver’s side window of my car. But I caught my hand a little bit, and it bled.

When I went to drop her off at her house, her dad was just baffled and said, ‘What's going on with your window? And your hand?’ I'm like, ‘You know, it's, like, stuff.’ And he didn't really believe me, but that was okay. So we kind of called it a night there, and I drove away. We thought, ‘We'll try again the next night.’

Night 2.

So, we didn't want to go back to a park [after that experience], so we went to her town. And we went to this parking lot, which was pretty secluded, but we didn't realize it was also on the edge of a park, and apparently it's illegal to be in a park after dark. So we got the condom on this time, at least -and sex is about to happen when a cop car pulls up. And I think, again, ‘this is really not good.’

A cop came to the window, so I kind of motioned, like, ‘I'm gonna put some pants on!’ So I put on my boxers and my shorts and I got out. He's like, ‘Okay.’ So I kind of like stood up against the back of my car for a few minutes, and a minute or two later, another cop car pulls up. And I was a little confused - I was like, why do you need four police officers to reprimand two naked teenagers?

Well, [the cops] just asked, ‘Were you aware it's illegal to be in a park after night?’ and then they went back to their car and I'm just terrified. My parents are going to kill me. And then, like ten minutes later, the guy comes back. He's like, ‘Yeah, I think we've embarrassed you enough. You can leave.’ At this point I just think, ‘Thank God!’ So we left.

As we drove away, I figured, “Okay, third time's the charm.”

Night 3.

The next night, it was a perfect plan. We went to a field. Not a park, not illegal. And there was supposed to be a festival in her town that night that we told her parents we were going to. So we went and had sex in the field, while her parents were distracted. And it happens! So after we have sex, when we were about to leave to go back to this festival, her mom calls. And she's like, "Where are you guys? We're at the festival, we can't find you, we've been looking everywhere!" There was this moment of panic, like, "Oh, no, we're there. You can't see us?" And then she said, "Are you having sex?" I think, “Oh my God.”

I was like, that's not how normal logic works - but I mean, she was not wrong. Both her parents were pretty strict, and I don't think they liked the idea that she would have sex, so they were always pretty cautious about that.

And then [the girlfriend]'s like, ‘No, no, of course not!’ Meanwhile this was like five minutes after we did it. But they never found out about that, which was good.

A few days later…

And then the next night was the night right before I left for camp. So actually, her parents were like, you know, ‘He can stay over for the night," you know, "You guys aren't going to see each other for a while.’ So I stay over, and we're in her living room. We start doing ‘stuff,’ and it's fine. But then she's pauses and says, ‘Wait a second. There's cameras.’

And I'm like, ‘What?’ Like, what the f***? Her dad is actually insane. Then I notice there's a blinking blue light in the corner. So on record, there is a video on his iPad of his daughter giving me a blowjob in his living room.

The next morning.

It really felt like he watched it because the next morning, there's a very, very uncomfortable interaction with him. We had a casual chat. He was like, ‘Hi, how was your night?’ I was like, ‘It was good. I slept well.’ He's briskly like, ‘Yeah, you should probably go,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah. Yeah.’ And then I left. I was fairly confident he had seen it because she texted me and she was like, ‘Yeah, I was on his iPad, and I saw the video there.’

And that relationship did not last very long after that. We broke up before college. Her parents didn't really like me for a while after that. But since I was gone for a while [before they saw me again], they kind of calmed down. In the end, we eventually broke up because she cheated on me. It was unrelated [to the blowjob incident].

Not my favorite relationship.”

You might be asking yourself after reading that saga, “Is true love dead?” Nope, it’s alive and well and perhaps personified best in the relationship of Helena Scholz-Carlson and Allison Lewis Towbes. Although it took them a while, they realized their onstage chemistry wasn’t just a result of their acting skills. This adorable couple described their Romeo-and-Juliet love in this final story.

Helena and Allison from North by Northwestern on Vimeo.

Filming and editing by Jesus Campos.