Modern Love

Stories of love, loss, and redemption

I enjoy well-written stories that reflect the lives of real people, and I find superb storytelling delivery to be fascinating. Throughout the years, reading the Modern Love columns that were published every Tuesday and Thursday late-night became a small habit and treat for me, I cried while watching the TV series (don't watch Season 2, it is cringy and too woke), and listen to every new podcast episode as soon as it drops. Despite the fact that recent submissions have lower quality, I'll compile a list of my loved ones.

It makes me cry

• She Put Her Unspent Love in a Cardboard Box
  And for more than two decades, her daughter has been taking it out. Listen

• When a Dating Dare Leads to Months of Soul Searching
  When we’re young, we believe there will be many people we’ll connect with, and how only when we’re older do we realize it happens only a few times. Listen

• He Married a Sociopath: Me
  As a wife and a mother, I have learned how to tell the truth. Which is why I always know when my husband is lying.

• Rallying to Keep the Game Alive
  We rallied, not with the adrenaline-pumping determination to win at all costs, but with the patience and control that came with not wanting it to be over: not the summer, not our son’s childhood, not this game, ever. Listen, or watch (S1E4)

• The Night Girl Finds a Day Boy
  I'm a vampire, basically — going to bed around 8 or 9 a.m. and waking around 4 or 5 p.m. First dates usually go OK because they’re in the evening, but complications quickly arise. Watch (S2E2)

• Years Ago, My Sister Vanished. I See Her Whenever I Want.
  The winner of this year’s Modern Love college essay contest explores the comforts and limits of online connection. Listen

• How the ‘Dining Dead’ Got Talking Again
  What do you do when you look at the person you've promised to spend the rest of your life with ... and realize, you don't really talk anymore? Listen

• Take Me as I Am, Whoever I Am
  A woman goes public with her bipolar disorder, and assesses how it shaped her love life. Watch (S1E3)

• When the Doorman Is Your Main Man
  For a single woman in New York and the guy who stands watch in her building, their special bond proves lasting. Watch (S1E1)

• The Wedding Toast I’ll Never Give
  A few of the things my newly married friends can look forward to: blame, rage and a desire to be home alone. And yet.

I want to read it again

• He Couldn’t Remember That We Broke Up
  When my ex injured his brain in a fall and thought we were still together, I had to fill in the gaps.

• Goodbye, My Fantasy Man
  I wasn’t willing to settle for less than kismet. But chasing a romantic illusion nearly kept me from finding love.

• Please, Lord, Let Him Be 27
  Yes, I actually prayed that he not be too young for me. Listen

• He Couldn’t Remember That We Broke Up
  When my ex injured his brain in a fall and thought we were still together, I had to fill in the gaps.

• The One Thing We Couldn’t Talk About
  When the bad news finally arrived, neither one of us — dear friends for 60 years — knew what to say.

• He’s Never Going to Put Away That Shirt
  Sometimes it’s the uneventful stretches of marriage that can be the real stress test.

• Could I Forgive Him One Last Time?
  His ex-wife needs to decide if she'll let him. Honestly, this essay, it broke my heart, and it filled it right back up at the exact same time. Listen

Good reads

• My Best Friend Is Gone, and Nothing Feels Right
  If grief is the price of love, I am unable to pay.

• Auditioning for the Role of Boyfriend
  When you have been strung along and ghosted by guys who play it cool, how do you handle a man who is adoring and sincere?

• As He Cut My Hair, I Wept
  We barely spoke. He didn’t charge me. I’ll never forget it.

• The End of the Long-Distance Marriage
  They liked their separate homes in separate cities until the choice became all-in or all-out.

• Nursing a Wound in an Appropriate Setting
  A doctor whose patients help him heal.

• Where I Find Romance in Marriage
  It took my mother’s short-term amnesia to make me realize what long-term love is all about.

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Fleabag Season 2 Finale, speech by the priest (played by Andrew Scott)

Love is awful. It’s awful. It’s painful. It’s frightening. It makes you doubt yourself, judge yourself, distance yourself from the other people in your life. It makes you selfish. It makes you creepy, makes you obsessed with your hair, makes you cruel, makes you say and do things you never thought you would do. It’s all any of us want, and it’s hell when we get there. So no wonder it’s something we don’t want to do on our own.

I was taught if we’re born with love then life is about choosing the right place to put it. People talk about that a lot, feeling right, when it feels right it’s easy. But I’m not sure that’s true. It takes strength to know what’s right. And love isn’t something that weak people do.

Being a romantic takes a hell of a lot of hope. I think what they mean is, when you find somebody that you love, it feels like hope.