So crazy in love {thanks, stock.xchng}

Good, bad, hilarious, heart breaking, embarrassing.

Everyone has a love story … and we want to hear yours.

Tell us your tales of REAL love.

Leave us your story in the comments or e-mail me at marissa@bthesite.com.

Maybe I’ll tell you one or two of my own …

We’re friends, right? So we can talk about sex and relationships honestly. b readers sound off on this week’s Bang Q&A. This week’s particpants are Jen Gaffney (Charles Village), Antonieo Barnes (Pigtown), Lindsay Wailes (Westminster) and Sarah Barnes (Pigtown).

After the jump, check out the questions and the readers’ answers.

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{thanks, istockphoto}

Over the two years that Erica Jacobson has dated boyfriend Cameron Chesnik, theirs has been a happy relationship. But when it came time to bring him home for the holidays, Jacobson was a bundle of nerves.

“He has this wholesome, sweet family,” says the 26-year-old paralegal, who lives in Owings Mills and juggles work and classes at the Community College of Baltimore County. “But my mother and aunt are kinda wacky. I love them, but I’m always worrying about what they are going to say or do. Sometimes they can be pretty off the wall.”

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An AIDS symbol is lit in red next to the Salvador del Mundo monument to observe World AIDS Day in San Salvador on Dec. 1 {thanks, AP}

Required reading of the week: CNN.com’s “Love in the time of HIV/AIDS,” an intriguing, inspirational and lovely tale of a couple who actually came together — and are devoted to making it work — in spite of the disease.

In the story, we meet Shawn Decker and Gwenn Barringer, a so-called serodiscordant couple (Decker is HIV positive, while Barringer is not).

Barringer, an HIV/AIDS educator, says she never imagined she’d fall in love with a man who had AIDS. Now, the couple have been married for five years and travel to college campuses to tell their story.

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Letterman controversy prompts discussions of workplace relationships {Thanks, AP}

David Letterman’s candid discussion of an extortion attempt, due to sexual relationships with female staffers, will certainly prompt discussions about workplace relationships. This issue reminded me of a recent conversation I had with one of my best friends. It was about not getting too close to the people you work with.

It all began when I admitted I have a work spouse.

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thanks, stock.xchng

What is a strange trait you find attractive in a person?

Justin Yonowitz, of College Park, Ryan Daniels, of Ellicott City, Mary Nachimson, of Owings Mills, and Eric Sharoky, of Reisterstown, join us in the weekly Bang Q&A. If  you’d like to be part of an upcoming Bang Q&A, please e-mail alisia@bthesite.com.

Is it the size of the bat, or how it’s swung?
Justin: Doesn’t matter really, as long as you get a home run
Ryan: How you swing it
Mary: Could go either way
Eric: It’s all about the follow through
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Shannon Lowe (left) and Suzanne Lindsay, who married at a Towson church in 2006, with their 10-month-old daughter, Lily {Brian Krista, b}

They are married. But they aren’t.

Suzanne Lindsay, 36, and Shannon Lowe, 31, live together in Parkville. They have a 10-month-old daughter, Lily. They speak softly, lovingly in response to each other, often completing each other’s sentences. They were married at United Church of Christ in Towson in 2006. They call their wedding “as traditional as it gets.”

Yet each year they have to divide everything evenly — even offerings made at church — for their taxes. They worry about whether a bank will let them open a joint account. When their daughter was born, thanks to an anonymous sperm donor, Lowe worried whether hospital workers would let her into her wife’s room (they did). She also had to petition to put her name on the birth certificate.

That took three months.

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Get to know our readers and staff — maybe more than you wanted to. No topics are off limits, basically because we have NO shame. Tell us the questions or topics you’d like us to discuss. Or, if you want to be part of the Bang Q&A e-mail alisia@bthesite.com.

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What do you consider to be a deal breaker in a relationship?