20 Years After She Unplugged For MTV, Shakira Taught Me To See Myself

A year ago, my first real relationship came to an end. On what would have been my first Valentine's Day alone in years, I decided to stop moping and take myself to the newly opened Hattie B's Hot Chicken, a Nashville chain whose business had spread to Georgia. For support, I asked an old friend to come along.

Lizzie and I grew up together in a suburb outside Atlanta: She lived down the street from my cousins and we went to the same middle and high school. We'd drifted apart shortly before college, but now we were both looking to reconnect. She'd just moved downtown and didn't have many friends in the area, and my social calendar was suddenly wide open. Sitting across from her, a giant plate of mac and cheese and chicken tenders between us, I told her my big news. She joked, "So ... I'm your boyfriend now."

Soon, we were together every day. While I finished my last semester as a journalism major, I became an unofficial roommatechanged in one important way, one we'd never had the language to describe before.