I will forever love Jennifer Lopez for many reasons, and one of those reasons is that she is consistently one of the most dumb-in-love women in the world. There’s a shamelessness to her dumb-in-love thing at this point, like we know her relationship is going to implode and it’s going to be shambolic and harsh and most people would feel embarrassment about how they behaved and how love-drunk they were. But J.Lo is never really ashamed, which is how she gets away with it (and why she keeps making the same mistakes over and over). All of which to say, J.Lo and her boyfriend of eight months are now doing Vanity Fair covers together. They sat there and did the cover interview together too, because they are love-drunk and incapable of NOT being extra. Still, there’s joy to be found, if you’re in the right mood. You can read the full cover story here. Some highlights:

Meeting each other again: It was last winter as she was having lunch in Beverly Hills that she saw Rodriguez walk by. “I almost yelled out ‘Alex,’ but I am the shyest person when it comes to things like that,” she says. When she went outside, he was still there, facing away from her. “I could literally just have walked away,” she says. “But I walk over and tap him on the shoulder and say ‘Hey.’ I had just come from a promo for my show, Shades of Blue [in which she plays N.Y.P.D. detective Harlee Santos], so I’m dressed like my character, like a boy—Timberlands, jeans, curly short hair. He looks at me. I say, ‘It’s Jennifer.’ He says, ‘You look so beautiful.’ ”

Their first date: We talk about their first date, when they met for dinner at the Hotel Bel Air. “He was sitting there in his white shirt, very confident and manly, but then he was just so talkative!” she says. “I think he thought I was going to be this loud person, but I’m not. I just listen. So he’s talking, talking about his plans, about how he had just retired from baseball, about how he saw himself getting married again, all these things you wouldn’t normally talk about on a first date. I don’t know if he thought it was a date. I thought it was a date. Then I knew he was nervous because he asked me if I wanted a drink. I said, ‘No, I don’t drink,’ and he asked if I minded if he had one. He was nervous, and it was really cute.”

His take on their first date: “I didn’t know if it was a date,” Rodriguez says. “Maybe we were seeing each other at night because of her work schedule. I went in uneasy, not knowing her situation. It would be incredibly productive for me to sit with one of the smartest, greatest women in the world, especially for a guy like me who is coming through tough times, rehabbing himself, re-establishing himself to folks out there. I thought it would be a win-win no matter what. She told me around the third or fourth inning that she was single. I had to get up and go re-adjust my thoughts. I went to the bathroom and got enough courage to send her a text.”

THEY ARE STILL TALKING ABOUT THEIR FIRST DATE: “So I’m sitting there and he’s walking back, and I get a text,” Lopez continues. “It says . . . ” She looks significantly at Rodriguez. “You can tell her!” he says. “ ‘You look sexy AF,’ ” she tells me. They both laugh. “And then it took a turn,” Lopez says. “The fire alarm went off, and we had to evacuate.” I laugh, thinking she’s being metaphorical. “No, really,” she says. “The fire alarm went off!”

[From Vanity Fair]

Come on, it’s J.Lo. Of course she’s going to sit there with her boyfriend and tell every intimate story about their dates and romance and love. Of course she’s going to make it sound like this is the first time she’s ever felt this way! She actually made a reference to Ben Affleck too, talking about the Gigli Era of her life and how she felt “eviscerated…I lost my sense of self, questioned if I belonged in this business, thought maybe I did suck at everything. And my relationship [with Affleck] self-destructed in front of the entire world. It was a two-year thing for me until I picked myself up again.” Except that she married Marc Anthony like two seconds after she split with Affleck, but whatever! And I remember when Affleck and J.Lo did their joint interviews too and it was just as glorious. Chica never learns.

I’ll give her this though – A-Rod seems just as blissed-out and love-drunk as Jennifer. He’s crazy-obsessed with her. They’re totally getting married. Maybe this one will last (SPOILER: IT WILL NOT LAST).

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Cover courtesy of Vanity Fair, additional photo courtesy of Getty.