My Life in Heavy Metal -- Steve Almond

This collection of short stories, Almond's first, is similar to B.B. Chow in that it is also predominantly about life and love and sex and relationships.  But the tone is different.  At least, it felt different to me.  Harsher, for the most part. 

The stand-out story for me was "Geek Player, Love Player", closely followed by "Among the Ik" and "How to Love a Republican".  "GP, LP" involved a thirty-something woman on the editoral staff at a newspaper (magazine?) that develops a crush on Lance the Computer Guy, an extremely physically attractive young man with the maturity/mentality of a fourteen-year-old:

A response so lame that I'm sort of rooting for him to not be speaking English anymore.  And it dawns on me, falls on me actually, as bricks fall upon the naive from a great height:  Lancey lives with his parents.  A twenty-seven--year-old dependent.  His hulking Computer Boy bod cramped onto a single bed, Cheryl Tiegs tacked to the wall, Rubik's cube on the dresser, mom bustling into his room with his underwear washed and folded into little squares, making him macaroni and cheese, dad yelling at him to take out the garbage.  Only the great sadness of his realization rescues me from the competing desire to start chewing his lips, which, thank god, before I can do this Marcie knifes her way over, all miffed and studded, and I peel off to the bathroom before anything catty can happen and sit and listen to my bladder empty of tonic and wonder why Brisby couldn't have stuck around long enough to save me from myself.

Brisby would be her officemate.  Who's really really cool.  And engaged.  If the right person did it, the story could be expanded into a great movie.  But only if the right person did it--because if some lame-o did it, it could just turn into a generic romantic comedy.  Which the story is not.  It's wonderful.