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slash setup welcome to the Moth podcast I'm Jody Powell a director at the Moth and your

host for this episode.

There's something magical about storytelling. But you know what else is magical? Actual magic.

Well, perhaps not actual magic. We're not talking about Gandalf or Dr. Strange here,

but there's something special about stage magic, about card tricks and pulling rabbits

out of hats, an astounding an entire audience. This episode, we're going to be playing two stories

that touch on magic in different ways. Don't worry, no tricks get revealed. First up, we've got

Michaela Bly. She told this story at a 2016 New York

StorySlam where the theme of the night was romance. Here's Michaela, live at the Moire.

Oh, hi. So in high school, I had not had any boyfriends whatsoever at all, whatsoever, even a little.

And the closest I came was I had platonic male best friends who people would think we were dating

for like a second before I had to be like, no, we're not.

But my favorite moment was between when they thought we were dating and I had to say, no, we're not. But my favorite moment was between when they thought we were dating, and I had to say,

no, we're not, because that was the closest thing I had to a boyfriend.

And so I get to freshman year of college, and I'm sort of thinking, this is where I will meet

the nerdy man of my dreams, and it will be so real.

And freshman year, first party, there's this guy. He's in sort of a

...