Love Beyond Size: A Humorous Romance

When Andie Marsh met Ben Stoker at a trivia night hosted in the back room of a vegan pizza joint, she was nursing a bruised ego from a disastrous date with a guy who’d argued that Die Hard wasn’t a Christmas movie and still lived with his ex “for economic reasons.” Ben was a revelation: charming in a disheveled, Paul-Rudd-meets-English-teacher kind of way, with kind eyes, a quick wit, and—by date three—excellent hands.

She liked him immediately.

But nothing could have prepared her for what he was... packing.

It’s not that she’d never seen anything impressive. She had her fair share of experiences—some passionate, some weird, one requiring a chiropractor the next day—but this? This was… architectural. Structural. Practically mythological.

The first time they slept together, she thought, This is either going to ruin sex forever or change it completely.

The truth was somewhere in between.

At brunch the next morning, Andie sat across from her best friend, Mara, who listened wide-eyed as Andie drew a ruler with her knife through the spilled sugar on the table.

“How big are we talking?” Mara whispered. “Like… baker’s rolling pin or traffic cone?”

“I’m afraid if I answer honestly, I’ll summon it like Bloody Mary.”

“Okay, but was it… good?”

Andie took a long sip of her mimosa. “Yes. Also no. My body was confused. Like, wow, this is new—what do we do now? Also, please evacuate.”

Mara grinned. “Girl, I’ve seen you survive a juice cleanse, a triathlon, and your parents’ 40th anniversary party. You can do this.”

“But should I?” Andie asked. “What if I can’t ever go back? What if everything else feels… underwhelming after this? What if I break?”

“Maybe you need to tell him,” Mara said, sobering a little. “He’s not a kitchen appliance. He’s a person.”

“I know. And I like him. Which is why I don’t want to say the wrong thing and turn this into a weird, ego-bruising situation.”

Mara shrugged. “Then make it a not-weird, ego-affirming situation. He likes you back, right?”

Andie nodded, suddenly very still. “He really does.”

Ben, for his part, had noticed the hesitations.

He wasn’t oblivious.

That night, as they lay in bed watching a rerun of Great British Bake Off, he turned to her and asked, “Is everything okay with us?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” she replied, a little too fast.

“Well, every time we get close, you kind of… stiffen up. Literally. Like I’ve startled you with a bazooka.”

She laughed, then winced. “That’s… not entirely inaccurate.”

Ben sat up, rubbing the back of his neck. “Listen, I know I’ve heard comments before. In past relationships. I know it’s a lot.”

“It’s not bad,” Andie said quickly. “It’s just… a lot.”

Ben looked down, sheepish. “I mean, I can’t exactly do much about it.”

“I know! And I don’t want you to,” she added, touching his arm. “But I need us to figure out how to navigate this… respectfully. Gently. At a pace where I’m not auditioning for Cirque du Soleil.”

He laughed, relieved. “We can absolutely do that.”

“And maybe avoid any positions that require core strength I only dream about.”

“Deal.”

As weeks passed, things settled into a rhythm—affectionate, funny, honest.

They made adjustments. They communicated. They turned awkward moments into inside jokes, learning each other’s bodies like new languages. They also started doing crossword puzzles on Saturday mornings and made pancakes that looked like rude emojis. It turned out Ben wasn’t just generous in anatomy, but generous in heart.

One night, after dinner and two bottles of Rioja, Andie confessed, “When I first realized how… prodigiously gifted you were, I worried I’d never measure up.”

He leaned in, resting his forehead against hers. “You always measure up, Andie. I’m the one who feels lucky you stuck around.”

In the end, it wasn’t about size at all. Not really.

It was about grace, about learning, about allowing a relationship to stretch the heart without tearing anything irreparably. It was about letting go of fear and letting someone in—carefully, joyfully, without a ruler in sight.

Postscript: Months later, Mara started dating a guy who could only be described as “fun-sized.” Andie told her, “I hope you’re happy and that he’s proportionally generous in other ways.”

Mara grinned and said, “Honey, it’s not the size of the boat—it’s the way you steer it. Also, he bakes. Like, from scratch.”

And that, as they say, was the biggest win of all.