I started working on this back in 2018 because Kat included a When Harry Met Sally reference in one of her stories and I forced her to be my friend and help me write my first kissing scene. Hundreds of thousands of words later, she still makes me laugh every day. She’s a brilliant writer, trusted confidante, and the best sounding board I could ask for. I knew the way you know about a good melon.
I was a fan of Selina before I forced her to be my friend. （Are you sensing a pattern yet?） Not only does she create gorgeous art, she’s an amazing writer who devises the best and angstiest plot ideas. Your talent blows me away. We’ll always have Snalps.
Kate, I’m convinced that we sat across from each other on the N train many times. You are a kindred spirit. Aisling, you are one of the funniest, most insightful people I know and you wrote the fic of my heart. Your encouragement, support, advice, and humor have been invaluable. I will always want both of your metaphorical wagon wheel coffee tables.
Ali, thank God you answered my frazzled DM years ago, explaining publishing to me. Thank you for tolerating me as a fake Italian. Forever grateful for your blurb and your absurdly hilarious prose but even more grateful for you as a human. Julie, you are my writing hero and you were with me every arduous step of the way through the publishing process. Is there anything you can’t do? I will have what both of you are having.
Everyone should have a support system of fellow writers like Words Are Hard （Celia, Victoria, Sarah, Rebecca, and Jen）。 I literally have no idea what I would have done without you. Katie, Tam, Lucy, Claire, thank you so much for reading various drafts of this beast when it was half-formed, yet twenty thousand words too long. Thank you for the encouragement: Nat, Amy, both Kats, Julia, Elizabeth, Court, Sit, Terestrial, Kay, castles_and_crowns, Berit, Kayurka, Jen, and every person who left a comment on a very weird fanfic by a first-time writer. You’ll never know what it meant to me. This book is an outgrowth of an amazing fandom community and our patron saint, Rian Johnson.
Josh, did I manifest you and your matzo ball soup? Tell me I’ll never have to be out there again.
Thank you, Bhavi and Viv, for being the people I would love to have had brunch cocktails with at the Central Park Boathouse in 1989. （I’d bring my Rolodex.） Griffin and David of Blank Check, your Nora Ephron miniseries came along at exactly the right time during my revisions. Thank you for championing kissing movies. Skytalkers, thank you for being my soundtrack for most of 2018.
I got very lucky to have my mom and dad as parents. They are the smartest people I know and hopefully I got some of that through genetics or osmosis. My mom had lots of Harry Connick Jr. cassette tapes and I believe that’s a big reason why this book exists. Someone is staring at you in Personal Growth and it’s me.
Jeremy, the first time we met, I left your apartment to attend a Twilight release party for “anthropological research reasons.” The second time we met, I cried on your couch and refused your hug. The third time we met, you ordered us a plate of bacon and kissed me before I got on the downtown 6 and we fell in love. Thank you for being the person I never get sick of. Thank you for loving me even when I’m difficult （challenging）。 When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone…well, you know the rest.
A Note from the Author: I’ll Have What Nora’s Having
IN YOU, AGAIN, TWO PEOPLE with an acrimonious history form an unlikely friendship as they help each other endure breakups. It’s a romantic comedy that explores the boundaries （or lack thereof） between friendship and romance in the modern dating landscape. It’s also me—a person with a background in film history and theory—trying to have a dialogue of sorts with a movie that was incredibly formative for me.
I grew up steeped in Nora Ephron’s When Harry Met Sally because of my parents. （My mom wore out the Harry Connick Jr. soundtrack on cassette.） This idea solidified in my impressionable brain: “witty banter = grown-up romance.”
Reader, this film set my expectations for banter so high, it ruined me for years of dating.
The movie depicts the evolution of a relationship over a series of conversations. There are no external conflicts. No screwball elements. The two characters barely seem to have careers. There is absolutely no explanation for why these two people can’t be together except for their own hangups and neuroses.
To me, that’s the genius of Nora Ephron. Watching two people who so clearly love each other finally move past those internal obstacles has to be one of the most satisfying resolutions in any romcom. That’s why it’s number one.