‘Modern Love’: How to Fall (and Stay) in Love

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Daily – ‘Modern Love’: How to Fall (and Stay) in Love

Introduction

In the May 18, 2025 episode of The Daily, hosted by Michael Barbaro, The New York Times delves into the intricacies of falling and staying in love through the lens of the beloved Modern Love series. This episode intertwines listener-submitted love stories, expert insights from Daniel Jones, the editor of Modern Love, and a heartfelt update from Mandy Len Catron, author of the iconic essay “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This.”

---

Exploring Moments of Falling in Love

Timestamp: [00:25] – [09:31]

Michael and co-host Hannah introduce the collaboration with Modern Love, emphasizing the human quest for meaning in relationships beyond daily news coverage. They transition into sharing poignant listener stories that capture the myriad ways people recognize they are falling in love.

Highlighted Listener Stories:

1. Nick and Ebony – Instant Connection on a Date

   • Timestamp: [02:31]
   • Nick recounts walking home from a dinner and movie date, witnessing Ebony’s playful side as they “jumped into the freezing waves like absolute children” and shared hot chocolate under a starry sky. The culmination was a spontaneous kiss that left Nick feeling “in trouble” and irrevocably in love.
   • Quote: “I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I felt physically sick without him. I felt that there was no air for me to breathe.” ([03:37])

2. A Young Love Story

   • Timestamp: [05:11] – [08:50]
   • Listener 2 describes a series of romantic moments, from an all-you-can-eat cheese and chocolate buffet to serene walks at sunrise, culminating in the realization, “I felt like I was home.” These experiences underscore the blend of excitement and deep comfort that signifies true love.
   • Quote: “It feels good.” ([06:06])

3. Mature Love Across Decades

   • Timestamp: [41:21] – [51:30]
   • Listener 1 shares a tender story of falling in love in later life, highlighting profound moments that defy age and celebrate enduring love, such as connecting over shared interests and enduring tragedies together.
   • Quote: “I have never seen a single pair of those fucking scissors in my life. And in that moment, I saw how genuine he was.” ([47:35])

These narratives illustrate the diverse and universal experiences of love, from spontaneous connections to deep, enduring bonds.

---

Engaging with Modern Love Editor Daniel Jones

Timestamp: [12:23] – [20:18]

Michael welcomes Daniel Jones, the Modern Love editor, to discuss the nature of falling in love and the foundational moments that spark lasting relationships. Daniel shares personal anecdotes and insights into the evolution of love stories within the series.

Key Discussion Points:

• Personal Moments of Love:

  • Daniel recounts falling in love not through a moment with a person, but instantly with a dog he was fostering, illustrating that love can transcend human relationships.
  • Quote: “Like, no. Like, no, this is our dog.” ([12:40])

• The Impact of Mandy Len Catron’s Essay:

  • Daniel reflects on the widespread influence of Mandy’s essay “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This,” explaining how the 36 questions have become a global phenomenon aiding countless relationships.
  • Quote: “It changed millions of lives. And there's no downside to asking people these questions and answering them.” ([17:08])

• Understanding Love Through Questions:

  • The conversation delves into how the 36 questions facilitate vulnerability and deep connection, essential for meaningful relationships.
  • Quote: “It's those things, but it's a lot more than that. It takes you all over the place to all corners of yourself and the other person.” ([19:08])

---

Mandy Len Catron’s Journey: From Falling in Love to Lasting Commitment

Timestamp: [22:02] – [38:17]

Following the break, Mandy Len Catron joins the episode to revisit her renowned essay and provide an update on her decade-long relationship with Mark, the subject of her original piece.

Highlights of Mandy’s Story:

• Creation of the 36 Questions:

  • Mandy explains how she encountered Arthur Aron’s study and adapted the 36 questions to foster intimacy with Mark, leading to their deepening relationship.
  • Quote: “The study did give us a way into a relationship that feels deliberate.” ([15:42])

• Real-Life Impact and Global Resonance:

  • She shares how her essay inspired global audiences, resulting in marriages and long-term relationships formed through the 36 questions.
  • Quote: “Simple even, to generate trust and intimacy, the feelings love needs to thrive.” ([17:36])

• Personal Reflections and Marriage:

  • Mandy reveals her initial reservations about marriage and how proposing to Mark during challenging times solidified their commitment.
  • Quote: “Love didn't happen to us. We're in love because we each made the choice to be.” ([33:30])

• Enduring Commitment:

  • Reflecting on a decade together, Mandy underscores the strength and resilience of their relationship, emphasizing trust and open-heartedness.
  • Quote: “We're in love because we each made the choice to be.” ([20:03])

---

Additional Listener Stories: Diverse Paths to Love

Timestamp: [39:52] – [53:58]

The episode continues with a rich tapestry of listener-submitted stories, each unique in showcasing how individuals recognize and nurture love.

1. Love in the Face of Loss:

   • A listener shares falling in love after the loss of a loved one, highlighting how shared grief can deepen connections.
   • Quote: “I have great memories that a lot of other people don't.” ([41:17])

2. Immediate Connection:

   • Stories of instant attraction and deep bonds formed in unexpected settings, such as during a subway ride or at a workplace.
   • Quote: “It felt very romantic to me.” ([42:44])

3. Enduring Love Through Challenges:

   • Narratives of enduring love that weather personal and global challenges, reinforcing the theme of committed relationships.
   • Quote: “Life was going to be interesting.” ([47:54])

These stories collectively emphasize that love manifests in myriad forms, influenced by personal experiences and circumstances.

---

Conclusion: The Essence of Love

Timestamp: [44:00] – [53:58]

Michael wraps up the episode by reflecting on the shared stories and insights, reinforcing the notion that love is both an action and a choice. The culmination of listener stories, expert insights, and Mandy’s personal journey provides a comprehensive exploration of how love begins and endures.

Final Thoughts:

• Love as a Deliberate Choice:

  • The episode emphasizes that love is not merely a feeling but a series of intentional actions and choices that nurture and sustain relationships.
  • Quote: “We're in love because we each made the choice to be.” ([33:30])

• The Power of Vulnerability:

  • Opening up and embracing vulnerability are highlighted as essential components for deep and lasting connections.
  • Quote: “What it means to bother to know someone, which is really a story about what it Means to be known.” ([24:04])

• Celebrating Love’s Diversity:

  • By showcasing diverse love stories, the episode celebrates the universal yet unique nature of love, encouraging listeners to embrace their own paths to connection.

---

Closing Remarks

Michael Barbaro concludes the episode by inviting listeners to read Mandy’s full essay through the provided show notes and to continue engaging with Modern Love by sharing their own stories. The episode leaves listeners with a profound appreciation for the multifaceted nature of love and the beautiful unpredictability that accompanies it.

Notable Quotes:

• “Love is an action. It assumes that what matters to my partner matters to me.” ([33:22])
• “It really did feel like puzzle pieces falling into place.” ([08:59])
• “I saw how genuine he was.” ([47:35])

---

Production Credits

This episode of Modern Love was produced by Davis Land and Sarah Curtis, edited by Executive Producer Jen Poyant, with production management by Christina Josa. Theme music composed by Dan Powell, with original music by Daniel Ramirez and others. Special thanks to Mihima Chablani, Nell Galogly, Jeffrey Miranda, and Paula Schumann. For more information or to submit your own Modern Love story, refer to the show notes.

Transcript

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[Michael]

Hey, it's Michael.

[Hannah]

As you clearly know, here at the.

[Michael]

Daily, we cover the news and there's.

[Hannah]

A lot of it. But life is big and we know.

[Michael]

That you look for meaning in all parts of your lives, not just the news.

[Hannah]

Which is why for the next couple months, we're going to be sharing the work of some of our colleagues over at Modern Love. If you don't know that show, every.

[Michael]

Week, host Anna Martin and that team explores the world of our relationships.

[Hannah]

How we fall in love, how we fall out of love, how we care for each other, how we contend with.

[Michael]

The moment when relationships hit rough patches.

[Hannah]

How there's stories inspired by the long.

[Michael]

Running NYT column called Modern Love.

[Hannah]

And we think it helps make sense of this other essential part of our lives. So for the next few weeks, we hope you'll spend some time with these episodes on Sunday.

[Michael]

They are great. And then we'll see you right back here on Monday morning for the Daily.

[Hannah]

Take a listen.

[Listener 1]

Love now and did you fall in love last fella?

[Listener 2]

Love, but stronger than anything.

[Listener 1]

Can I love you more than anything? Anything there's to love.

[Listener 2]

Love.

[Michael]

From the New York Times. I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love.

[Listener 2]

Hi, Modern Love. Hello, Modern Love. Hello, Modern Love.

[Hannah]

Hi.

[Listener 2]

Hi.

[Michael]

My name is Nick.

[Listener 2]

My name's Ebony. I live in Austin, Texas. I live in Atlanta. I live in Athens, Georgia. Calling from Vancouver.

[Listener 1]

I live in Paris, France, New Zealand.

[Michael]

Philadelphia, Charlestown, West Virginia, Chicago, Oakland, California.

[Listener 2]

And I wanted to tell you about the moment that I knew I was falling in love.

[Michael]

We've been asking you about the moments you knew you were falling in love. And we heard from so many of you about moments that led to a lifetime of commitment, relationships that ended almost as soon as they started. Moments where your love was not returned. Stories from decades ago and others from very, very recently. Some of those moments were small and subtle, others straight out of a movie. They were all a huge pleasure to listen to.

[Listener 2]

So the moment that I knew I fell in love with my now husband was actually on our first date, believe it or not, we were walking back from a dinner date. We went to See a movie. We were watching the sunset, jumping into the freezing waves like absolute children.

[Michael]

We laid down on the grass in the cold and drinking our hot chocolate. And we were watching shooting stars.

[Listener 2]

I thought, in the movies this is.

[Michael]

When he would kiss me.

[Listener 2]

And as if he read my mind, he pulled me in and kissed me. And I thought, wow, I'm in trouble here. I just remember this moment of, oh, no, I love him. I remember I dropped him off and.

[Hannah]

I audibly said, oh, shit.

[Listener 2]

After he left my car, we got.

[Listener 3]

Into the cab and then I said out loud to myself, just be cool.

[Listener 2]

And he looked over at me and.

[Listener 3]

He said, what did you say? And I said, oh, you should probably kiss me.

[Listener 2]

I couldn't stop thinking about her.

[Listener 1]

I could not stand the thought of.

[Listener 2]

Being apart from her when I was not with her. I felt physically sick without him. I felt that there was no air for me to breathe. I looked at him and I could just feel like time slowed down. She was wearing a black and white houndstooth coat. The snow was swirling around her.

[Hannah]

She was struggling with her luggage. She had snow in her hair and cold on her cheeks. She looked up the staircase at me.

[Listener 2]

And I just remember she smiled and waved. I can still conjure that image like it was yesterday. I was working from home and he was trying to get some sleep in my bed. And I just look at him and thought, I love that man. My head was on his chest and.

[Listener 3]

I could hear his heart beating.

[Listener 2]

And I suddenly knew very, very surely that I needed to hear his heartbeat. My whole life, frankly, there are no words. We talked for four hours. Seemed like four minutes. That was the moment I knew I was falling in love.

[Michael]

Honestly, we got so many messages from you that we can't possibly play them all here. But we did listen to every single one. And they just. They felt like fantasies. I felt like I was there with you under the stars at dinner, watching the sunset listener. Let me tell you, romance is not dead.

[Listener 2]

He took me to an all you can eat cheese and chocolate buffet. Honestly, it was just the weight of my heart.

[Hannah]

The moment that I knew that I was in love with her. That this was the most love I'd ever felt. She, without telling me, ordered beef tartare. And at this restaurant, it's like a pound of raw beef. And she proceeded to eat the whole thing in front of me. And my heart opened in ways that I did not know were possible. And this was love like I had never felt before. And I knew that I had fell hard.

[Listener 2]

He was sitting on the couch and he was, like, dusting his feet off before putting socks on. And. Yeah, I just knew in that moment. For some reason, love can come in very unexpected times. But it's amazing.

[Listener 1]

It feels good.

[Listener 2]

The first time I saw them, I actually thought I was in love with them. So I always thought that love at first sight was a myth. And then I was at a concert alone. When she walked in. We made eye contact. Moonlight poured through windows. It was so. It was so strange. That night, my life split in two. Into before her and with her. And now I believe we spoke on the phone many times.

[Listener 1]

Because I was very, very reluctant and.

[Listener 2]

Very shy and not ready. So we had months and months of phone dates, and they were spectacular. We laughed. We had so much oxytocin flying through the air. It was just deliriously wonderful. And we fell in love. And we're getting married this summer in our backyard.

[Michael]

We decided to go for a walk in the neighborhood.

[Listener 2]

And before we knew it, the sun was coming up. And then we held each other. We didn't say much. We just stood there holding each other. Like what felt forever. It was so comforting and warm. It was just perfect. And at that moment, I knew he was the one. There was this comfort of home, but.

[Michael]

This feeling of feeling like my world just opened up.

[Listener 2]

I just looked at him and I just. I felt like I was home. After the date, when I entered my apartment, I was leaning against my wall. I couldn't move. I was asking myself the same question over and over again. What was happening with me and what am I feeling? And that was just amazing. This giddiness erupted in me that tickled my skin all over. It was like he split something in me. And the little girl inside me pressed herself all the way through.

[Michael]

I felt this really, like, warm rush in my body where I just wanted to go and hug him and just, like, tell him in front of everyone that, oh, my God, I love you, was so overwhelming.

[Hannah]

It was like a bolt had hit me.

[Michael]

So my stomach was just churning.

[Listener 2]

I felt like my heart was growing slightly. I felt this golden light burst and spread across my whole chest. It was like a drop of water in the desert.

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It was unbelievable.

[Michael]

Throughout all of it, I was having so many pinch me moments, like, is this real?

[Listener 2]

Is this happening to me?

[Listener 3]

I felt like I was floating.

[Listener 2]

I felt like I was floating. Feeling weightless, feeling like I was floating.

[Michael]

It really felt like puzzle pieces falling into place.

[Listener 3]

I wanted to bottle that feeling and save it forever.

[Listener 2]

It feels incredible to be loved and to love somebody so deeply and it's something that I will treasure.

[Michael]

I could listen to these all day. I mean it. And we're going to play some more of your messages later in today's episode at the end. But before we get to those, your messages, your stories, they got the whole Modern Love team thinking. What does it actually mean to fall in love, this feeling so many of you described, the puzzle pieces, the warmth and comfort and feeling at home. How do we get there? What makes us love each other? Today, we're going to spend some time on that exact question. Ten years ago, Modern Love published possibly the most iconic story of falling in love in the history of the column. It was in an essay called To Fall in Love with Anyone do this by Mandi Len Catron. In it, Mandy describes A list of 36 questions developed by a psychologist that are meant to help spark and deepen intimacy. What happened to Mandy after she used it reveals a lot about how we fall in love. So today we're going to talk to Modern Love editor Daniel Jones about how people fall in love and the power of those 36 questions. Then we'll hear the original essay from Mandy herself, and she'll tell us whether she's still in love with the same man she did the list with 10 years later. That's after the break. Stay with us.

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[Michael]

Daniel Jones, welcome to Modern Love.

[Hannah]

It's good to be here.

[Michael]

So, Dan, today we're talking all about those singular moments that lead to falling in love. And I wonder if I could turn that. Can you share a moment where you knew you were falling in love?

[Hannah]

You know, I have been in love many times in my life, but it has never been a moment. It's always been a gradual getting to know A person and all of that. But I did fall in love in a moment with a dog I was supposed to foster from. It was a Puerto Rican mutt, and I'd agreed to foster him, and he was so sweet. And this couple came to sort of take him for a visit to their house and, like, test drive him. And I just had this moment. I was like, no. Like, no, this is our dog.

[Listener 2]

Like, what are you doing?

[Hannah]

And so, yeah, that was 14 years ago. You still still have Rico. Sweetest dog ever.

[Michael]

Sweetest dog ever. Who you fell in love with in a moment. I love that. And, I mean, you've read and you've heard thousands of love stories, and because we're talking about sort of the beginning of love stories today, I'm wondering if you have any kind of theory about how those moments happen, how people fall in love.

[Hannah]

Yeah, because we fantasize about love. We have sort of a script in our mind about how it's gonna work out. And the real consistent sort of love stories where people fall in love sort of in a moment is something that goes against that fantasy often. There's an essay called Learning to Silence My Inner Editor.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

By Jessie Wren Marshall. And it's about this. This woman. She's a New Yorker. When all the guys she dates are, like, cynical, and she goes off to a wedding and meets a guy from North Carolina. This is a column we published. Who is just totally sincere and so sincere that she can't quite know what. Didn't know what to make of him. But because it goes so against what she sort of schooled herself to believe in. In what works in a relationship, she just sort of melts into that. I love that it's those sort of surprising, you know, not what you expected. Stories that, I don't know that would just really get you and say something about how we don't. We aren't able to predict our lives. Like, stop trying to predict your life and, like, live out some fantasy. Like, look at what's in front of you.

[Michael]

Okay, so, Dan, we wanted to have you on also to talk about what I think is fair to say is the most famous example of falling in love in the modern love column's history, which is Mandy Len Catron's 2015 essay, To Fall in Love with Anyone, do this. And it's based on a list of 36 questions that have become incredibly well known in their own right. They're questions you're supposed to do with a partner, and supposedly doing them will lead you to. To fall in love with Each other. This is an essay that people have come back to over and over again, even now, even a decade after the essay was published. Can you remind us of the story behind this essay?

[Hannah]

Yeah, yeah. So Mandy Len Catron was studying love. She was like a student of love in school, like wanting to figure out how it. And came across this sort of obscure, I think, study done by a psychologist named Arthur Aaron. And he'd come up with, and his team had come up with 36 questions that would sort of accelerate the process of falling in love. And she thought this was interesting and decided to do it not with a total stranger in the experiment, they'd done it with total strangers, but someone who was almost a stranger, who was someone who was at her climbing gym and who she already had sort of feelings for. They went out, you know, on their first date, went to a bar, started to ask each other these 36 questions, which are broken up into three sets of 12 questions. And they get increasingly deep and personal about your family, your worst childhood memory, your relationship with your mother. And they just, they talked for hours and got to know each other pretty well through that. And then at the end, you're supposed to stare into each other's eyes for four minutes. And at that point she wrote the essay and submitted it. And I read it not long after that and thought, well, that's interesting, but there's not really any ending.

[Michael]

They just stare into each other's eyes. And then it ended.

[Hannah]

Yeah, I was like, so, yeah, I was really interested by the study, but it didn't feel like a. It just felt like sort of an essay that was written too soon in a way. So I just sort of like flagged it as interesting but didn't respond. And then a few months later, I got another email in my inbox from Mandy, and she said, well, guess what, this essay has an ending now. We fell in love.

[Michael]

Wow. Her and the guy from the gym who she did the 36 question with, they fell in love.

[Hannah]

And they didn't fall in love in the moment, but it sort of set the framework for them falling in love over time. And they did. And so I said, okay, well, this is an essay now. I didn't quite anticipate what the impact of that would be, that essay. And we worked on it, published it along with the 36 questions as a sidebar. And almost immediately we started hearing stories of people trying these questions falling in love. Down the line we heard about marriages, marriage after marriage, long term relationship that was started with these questions. People did documentaries where they would set up, you know, in a warehouse and film the whole thing of people asking each other the questions. It just went on and on and on and went around the world and wow, it changed millions of lives. And there's no downside to asking people these questions and answering them. It sort of forces a vulnerability that can only be good, you know, that can only be good and can only get sort of deepen a relationship. You know, you don't have to fall in love. Just to get to know another human being more deeply is sort of what we need in this world.

[Michael]

You know, I'm curious, just personally, what have these 36 questions taught you about falling in love?

[Hannah]

Hmm. I don't know. I think about how it was constructed and the range of questions that it asks. And, you know, this popular conception of falling in love as sort of a floaty, light, sexy, romantic. And there is that part, and I think these questions can pull that part out. But I think the range of the question shows the range of what you need to reveal and feel to fall in love. That it's not just complementing each other. It's not just about how each other looks. It is those things, but it's a lot more than that. And it takes you all over the place to all corners of yourself and the other person and just keeps pushing and pushing and pushing. And that, I think, is what it reveals about what it takes to fall in love.

[Michael]

I really like that. Dan Jones, thank you so much for this conversation today. It is always a treat and an honor to have you on the show.

[Hannah]

Thank you, Hannah. It was really good to be here again.

[Michael]

As Dan told us, Mandi Lynn Catron spent a long time wrestling with all these questions about love. She was trying to understand how to find love and how she would know when she found it. That's what led her to the 36 questions. And we do know that it worked. She did fall in love after doing them, but it's been 10 years since her essay was published, so the question now is, did she stay in love? After the break, Mandy joins us to read her Modern love essay. And she tells us what happened in the decades since she wrote it.

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[Michael]

Mandi Len Catron welcome back to Modern Love.

[Listener 2]

Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

[Michael]

Mandy. On today's episode, we're talking all about the process of falling in love. How it happens, what it takes, takes what it feels like. And you, of course, probably have the most well known story of falling in love to ever appear in the Modern Love column. I wonder, when you first decided to do these 36 questions with the man you did know but you didn't know super well, a man named Mark, could you possibly have imagined what that moment was going to lead to in your life and in the world?

[Listener 2]

No.

[Michael]

Okay.

[Listener 2]

No. Not under any circumstances could I have possibly imagined any of it. Yeah. Really? I have heard from people all over the world since the article came out, especially in the first couple years. Like, I've gotten a significant number of emails from people who got married. Like, I've had people send me their wedding photos.

[Michael]

Oh, my God, my heart is kind.

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Of melting at that.

[Listener 2]

That's incredible. Yeah. I mean, and this was like, like Mark weren't married. And I thought, oh, wow, like, this is amazing. I don't know. I kind of think about it as something that exists apart from me. It came out at a time where a lot of people were dating online and there was this kind of craving for intimacy. I think online dating can feel really dehumanizing at times. Like we're going down the checklist, we're objectifying one another, and looking for somebody who meets these predetermined criteria. And it's kind of the opposite of that. And so I think it kind of struck a chord. It.

[Michael]

I mean, it really, really did. You know, Mandy, I have. I have so many more questions about the questions and about your own love story. But before we get too far into that, I would love to hear you read your essay.

[Listener 2]

Okay, sure. To fall in love with anyone. Do this. More than 20 years ago, the psychologist Arthur Aron succeeded in making two strangers fall in love in his laboratory. Last summer, I applied his technique in my own life, which is how I found myself standing on a bridge at midnight, staring into a man's eyes for exactly four minutes. Let me explain. Earlier in the evening, that man had said, I suspect, given a few commonalities, you could fall in love with anyone. If so, how do you choose someone? He was a university acquaintance I occasionally ran into at the climbing gym and had thought, what if I had gotten a glimpse into his days on Instagram? But this was the first time we had hung out, one on one. Actually, psychologists have tried making people fall in love, I said. It's fascinating. I've always wanted to try it. I first read about the study when I was in the midst of a breakup. Each time I thought of leaving, my heart overruled my brain. I felt stuck. So, like a good academic, I turned to science, hoping there was a way to love smarter. I explained the study to my university acquaintance. A heterosexual man and woman enter the lab through separate doors. They sit face to face and answer a series of increasingly personal questions. Then they stare silently into each other's eyes for four minutes. The most tantalizing detail. Six months later, two participants were married. They invited the entire lab to the ceremony. Let's try it, he said. Let me acknowledge the ways our experiment already fails to line up with the study. First, we were in a bar, not a lab. Second, we weren't strangers. Not only that, but I see now that one neither suggests nor agrees to try an experiment designed to create romantic love. If one isn't open to this happening, I googled Dr. Aaron's questions. There are 36. They begin innocuously, would you like to be famous? When did you last sing to yourself or to someone else? But they quickly become probing. In response to the prompt, name three things you and your partner appeared to have in common, he looked at me and said, I think we're both interested in each other. I grinned and gulped my beer as he listed two more commonalities I then promptly forgot. We exchanged stories about the last time. We each cried and confessed the one thing we'd like to ask a fortune teller. We explained our relationships with our mothers. The questions reminded me of the infamous boiling frog experiment, in which the frog doesn't feel the water getting hotter until it's too late with us. Because the level of vulnerability increased gradually, I didn't notice we had entered intimate territory until we were already there. I liked learning about myself through my answers, but I liked learning things about him even more. The bar, which was empty when we arrived, had filled up by the time we paused for a bathroom break. I sat alone at our table, aware of my surroundings for the first time in an hour, and wondered if anyone had been listening to our conversation. If they had, I hadn't noticed. And I did not notice as the crowd thinned and the night got late. We finished at midnight, taking far longer than the 90 minutes for the original study. Looking around the bar, I felt as if I had just woken up. That wasn't so bad, I said. Definitely less uncomfortable than the staring into each other's eyes part would be. He hesitated and asked, do you think we should do that too? Here? I looked around the bar. It seemed too weird, too public. We could stand on the bridge, he said, turning toward the window. The night was warm and I was wide awake. We walked to the highest point, then turned to face each other. I fumbled with my phone as I set the timer. Okay, I said, inhaling sharply. Okay, he said, smiling. I've skied steep slopes and hung from a rock face by a short length of rope. But staring into someone's eyes for four silent minutes was one of the more thrilling and terrifying experiences of my life. I spent the first couple of minutes just trying to breathe properly. There was a lot of nervous smiling until eventually we settled in. I know the eyes are the window to the soul or whatever, but the real crux of the moment was not just that I was really seeing someone, but that I was seeing someone really seeing me. Once I embraced the terror of this realization and gave it time to subside, I arrived somewhere unexpected. I felt brave and in a state of wonder. Part of that wonder was at my own vulnerability, and part of it was the weird kind of wonder you get from saying a word over and over until it loses its meaning and becomes what it actually is and an assemblage of sounds. When the timer buzzed, I was surprised and a little relieved, but also I felt a sense of loss. Already I was beginning to see our evening through the surreal and unreliable lens of retrospect. Most of us think about love as something that happens to us. We fall. We get crushed. But what I like about this study is how it assumes that love is an action. It assumes that what matters to my partner matters to me. Because we have at least three things in common, because we have close relationships with our mothers, and because he let me look at him, I wondered what would come of our interaction. If nothing else, I thought it would make a good story. But I see now that the story isn't about us. It's about what it means to bother to know someone, which is really a story about what it Means to be known. It's true. You can't choose who loves you, although I've spent years hoping otherwise. And you can't create romantic feelings based on convenience alone. Science tells us biology matters. Our pheromones and hormones do a lot of work behind the scenes. But despite all this, I've begun to think love is a more pliable thing than we make it out to be. Arthur Aaron's study taught me that it's possible. Simple even, to generate trust and intimacy, the feelings love needs to thrive. You're probably wondering if he and I fell in love. Well, we did. Although it's hard to credit the study entirely, it may have happened anyway. The study did give us a way into a relationship that feels deliberate. We spent weeks in the intimate space we created that night, waiting to see what it could become. Love didn't happen to us. We're in love because we each made the choice to be.

[Michael]

Beautifully done. Mandy, what's coming up for you? Just in the immediate aftermath of having read this piece. It's been 10 years since you wrote it.

[Listener 2]

Yeah. And it's probably been several years since I actually read it. I mean, much less read it aloud, but just read it at all. Yeah, it's really sweet.

[Michael]

It is. Yeah, it's sweet.

[Listener 2]

You know what? So Mark and I have been together for a little over 10 years. Wow. And back in August, I proposed to him. Oh, my gosh.

[Michael]

I would love to know about that.

[Listener 2]

Yeah. So an interesting side effect of writing and researching about romantic love is that it really kind of put me off marriage as an institution. Like, I'm not a huge fan for a variety of reasons that I won't get into here, but we had twins during the pandemic, so we have two three year olds. And after the pandemic, and then sort of being trapped at home with two newborns, which I found incredibly difficult and isolating and lonely. I really wanted to have a big party. Like, I just had this overwhelming desire to have everyone I know and love in the same room. And the only way I could think of to make that happen was to have a wedding. And it turned out that he did want to get legally married. And so I thought, you know, I think if this is gonna happen, I have to be the one to propose. And actually, that was great. That felt really good to both of us. And, yeah, I bought the ring. And then many weeks later, because we, you know, we have two toddlers. We, like, never go anywhere without them. And so we were. We had a babysitter and we were out to dinner at this nice restaurant, and I just sort of. You know, I'm a writer, so I wrote everything out in a card, and I handed it to him, and then I had the ring in my pocket, and I think, yeah, he was very surprised.

[Michael]

That's so wonderful, Mandy. Congratulations. I am wondering, though, I mean, you said that marriage is not something you're really that interested in as an institution, but it's clear that this wedding will be marking something for the two of you.

[Hannah]

You.

[Michael]

What do you think it says about your love or your commitment to one another?

[Listener 2]

Yeah, I mean, part of how I feel about and part of why rereading the article seems very sweet to me is that, like, we've been through a lot of kind of challenging things in our relationship. Like, we. We struggled to get pregnant for a long, long time. That was really hard. Then they were in the NICU for five weeks, and then we were kind of home with them alone because of the pandemic. It was just hard. Like, there were a lot of hard years. And I just have this desire to sort of celebrate where we are because things feel a little more stable. And I think you only get so many opportunities to celebrate in life.

[Michael]

I love that. I mean, thinking about the beginning of your and Mark's relationship being these 36 questions and those moments of intense connection you shared in the bar and on the bridge 10 years out, do you think that beginning shaped your relationship in some fundamental way?

[Listener 2]

Oh, yeah, I definitely think so. A lot of what I struggled with when I was dating was, like, anxiety over whether the person I was interested in was interested in me. And I felt, like, this need to kind of control what was happening, and it felt very much out of my control. And there was something about doing the 36 questions that I just didn't feel that way. Like, I really felt like I was excited to know this person. And if we became something more than friends, like, if we started a relationship, that would be cool. But if we just stayed friends, that would also be cool. I was just very open to possibility, which is not how I move through the world usually. I just trusted him, and I liked him. And I think it's so rare that a romantic relationship starts with that kind of. Of trust. And that has really carried us a long way, I would say.

[Michael]

Mandy, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing this update.

[Listener 2]

Thanks for having me.

[Michael]

If you want to read Mandy's essay in full, the link to it is in our show notes. And before we go, I did promise you at the top of the episode that we'd play more of your voice messages. Stay tuned for those after the credits. Like I said, we loved hearing from all of you. We quite literally listened to every single one. And it was such a treat. This episode of Modern Love was produced by Davis Land and Sarah Curtis. It was edited by our executive producer, Jen Poyant. Production management by Christina Josa. The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original music in this episode by Dan Powell and Marian Lozano. This episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez with studio support from Matty Masiello and Nick Pittman. Special thanks to Mihima Chablani, Nell Galogly, Jeffrey Miranda and Paula Schumann. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects. If you want to submit an essay or a tiny love story to the New York Times, we've got the instructions in our show notes. I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening and keep listening.

[Listener 1]

He was so into me, and he showed me how much he liked me. And he was holding nothing back. And I sat him down and I said, look, Angelus, I. I have to tell you, I think you need to slow down. You know, I mean, I just came from a long term relationship. It ended badly. I'm not sure what I want and I'm not sure how involved I want to get with somebody. And you're just too open and too vulnerable and giving too much of yourself. And I'm afraid that you might get hurt. I'm afraid you might like me more than I like you. And he turned to me and said, but I still have so much more to give you. Well, I mean, what do you say to that? At that moment, I felt. I really felt the walls that I had put up around my heart. My defense is starting to crumble. And I felt like, oh, my God, this is a guy I could spend the rest of my life with. Who is this guy who says these kinds of things, you know? Anyway, we had a great life together. I lost him this last September to cancer. But I'm okay, you know, I have great memories that a lot of other people don't. And the most important thing is that life gave me the chance to love someone greatly and to be greatly loved.

[Michael]

Back on the train ride back to.

[Listener 2]

Our dorm, I was swinging around the pole on the subway, being loud and being rowdy. And he was sitting on one of the seats, just staring at me in silence. And I remember thinking, we're gonna fall in love. And we did. When my wife and I met in 1976. It was because I had been hit by a car on my bicycle. And I walked my bicycle to a.

[Hannah]

Friend'S house where she was having a meal. The connection was that fast. It's hard to explain and impossible to.

[Listener 2]

Defend, but it truly happened that quickly. I was in the break room at my new job, and my new coworker came in holding an orange. It had these marks on it. And he started kind of rambling to me about whether the orange was still good to eat. He wasn't quite sure. He never knew. But I was just listening and loving it. I was thinking, like, here's a guy I could talk to about deli meat and whether it's gone bad in the fridge. I was like, I could have a life with this guy. This is the guy for me. I just. It felt very romantic to me.

[Hannah]

Living on an academic schedule, I was traveling for 11 weeks one summer on a Eurail pass in April. A friend of my mother, they had met at age 10 in Vienna, had introduced me to a young lady. She lived in New York, I in Springfield, Massachusetts. We had had three dates before I left for Europe. But halfway through the summer, a realization struck. I do not want to spend my life without her. I'd been writing to her every few days, signing my letters. Yours, comma, Stephen. This became your no, comma Stephen. Soon after my return to the United States, we met for a brief fourth date at the edge of Central Park. I invited her to meet my parents in Springfield. During that visit, we agreed to marry. We had 51 years together. I still have thoughts, which I want to tell Erica 13 years after she died.

[Listener 1]

I remember exactly when I knew I was falling in love with the guy who became my husband. It happened in the living room of our commune in the summer of 1976. I'd just been into town with another guy, someone who seemed so flashy at the the time. We came back, and there was Steve. Steve knew that the other guy wasn't so reliable and he was concerned. So he waited up for me. Steve had been up since early in the morning, tending to the avocado trees. The room was dimly lit and Steve's head drooped a bit. But he was awake, the other guy and I. And time stopped. Steve said I wanted to be here for my Sarah. He wasn't claiming ownership, just stating a level of connection that I didn't yet know we had. And that was it.

[Michael]

So I know that I was falling in love. Because growing up, phone conversations have always been about 10 minutes. You get on the Phone. You say what you need to say, and then you get off of the phone. So I knew that I was falling in love with my partner, John. When I wanted to talk to him for 15 minutes, and then that 15 minutes became 45 minutes, and sometimes an hour or hour and a half, and it felt like no time had passed. I kept wanting him to call so.

[Listener 2]

That we could talk.

[Listener 3]

When my husband and I met, we both smoked cigarettes. And he had a particular quirk where he would cut half of his cigarette filter off. And as such, he always had a pair of scissors in his pockets. And I, in my home, had a lot of scissors. I still do. I like to have scissors in the kitchen. I like to have scissors in the bedroom. I like to have scissors around my crafts. So I had multiple pairs of scissors. And slowly, in the weeks after my husband came to live with me, I noticed my scissors were disappearing. I would go to get the kitchen scissors. They wouldn't be there. I'd look in the bathroom, find a pair. Next time, they would be in the bathroom. Then they wouldn't be on the craft desk, and they wouldn't be at the phone. All these various places, the scissors slowly disappeared. Until one day, I had no scissors. And this really upset me, actually, because I felt like I'd wasted a lot of time looking for my scissors. And when I saw my husband next, I confronted him. And it was probably the first time I was actually angry at him. And I just said, look, you know, you've got this habit. You've got this thing. It's cool. I think you're quirky, but you don't get to take my scissors. Like, you're coming into my space, and it feels disrespectful, yada, yada. And I kind of let him have it. And a day or so goes by, and I was at the house, and my husband came home, and he said, you know, I want to tell you that I really took to heart what you said the other day. You're really correct. I have no right to just take your things. And I dug around my car, I dug around my bag, and I want you to know I gathered up your scissors, and I have them all here for you. And he reached into his pockets, and he pulled out what must have been like seven or eight pairs of scissors. And he held them out, and I looked down in his hands, and I was like, I have never seen a single pair of those fucking scissors in my life. And in that moment, I. I saw how genuine he was.

[Listener 2]

But I also was like, where did.

[Listener 3]

You get all of these scissors? And, you know, I just. I knew then that I loved him and that life was going to be interesting.

[Listener 2]

There was a moment on our fourth date where we were in my car driving to dinner, and we had parked my car, and we were talking about everything from, you know, wanting our kids, speaking both Spanish and Vietnamese, to wanting friends to be very present in our lives and how important they are to our dreams and our desires in life and our careers. And things were settling down and the rain was drizzling against the car. And I think I love you again by Aaron Taylor starts playing on the radio. And I look up and we make eye contact, and I couldn't look away. And I pull them in, and it was. It felt like the world was melting away. We were at his place taking a shower together, but not a sexy shower, but when I looked up and I saw his face soaked, his beard with little water pearls here and there, his brown eyes so deeply into my brown eyes. And I thought, he's unbearably handsome right now. So that's how I knew I was sliding into love at fantastic speeds. Somewhere around date number five, she invited me to her apartment in Brooklyn to have dinner with her and her brother. From the living room, I could hear Katie and her brother in the kitchen, cooking and laughing. Katie's music was on shuffle, and the man in Me by Bob Dylan came on.

[Hannah]

Now, I'd heard that song hundreds of times before, and I'd really never given.

[Listener 2]

It a second thought.

[Hannah]

But now, as Bob sang, it takes.

[Listener 2]

A woman like you to get through to the man in me, I realized I was going to MARRY Katie. It's 17 years later and I'm still married to Katie.

[Hannah]

And I'm happy to report that, as.

[Listener 2]

Usual, Bob was right.

[Listener 1]

So I first fell in love with my girlfriend when we were web chatting and I saw her punch a cockroach with her bare fist.

[Hannah]

Yeah, I thought that was pretty gnarly.

[Listener 2]

And as to what I felt.

[Listener 1]

I felt like she calls them pterodactyls. Like huge butterflies in my stomach. It was a year ago on a Wednesday, the night we play poker, and coincidentally, Valentine's Day, that we had invited this new guy to dinner, hoping to recruit him to play with us. He was charming, and I liked his looks. But after so many moons on Earth and 10 since my husband had died, I had made peace and was content living alone at the senior retirement home. After dinner, I went to the poker room to set up. And to my surprise, I saw him standing There in the dark because I hadn't yet turned on the lights.

[Hannah]

But.

[Listener 1]

And I have absolutely no idea what happened, what was said, or how I instantly morphed from a 90 year old woman into a sexy teenager. Heart beating like crazy, juices pumping, overwhelmed with astonishment. Don't let anyone tell you that 80 and 90 is too old to fall crazy in love.

[Michael]

It was a November morning in Juneau.

[Listener 2]

Alaska when I realized I was falling in love. My name is Noah, and the person.

[Michael]

That I was seeing had just been in my car the night before. And that morning I was driving to work and I noticed that on the passenger side, his green olive beanie was sitting there. And so as I was driving, I saw the beanie.

[Listener 2]

And then the thought creeped in my.

[Michael]

Head, what if I smelled the hat? And then without my brain really telling my body to do it, my hand reached to the hat and I began smelling it. And it smelled.

[Listener 2]

Lovely.

[Michael]

And I kept driving and minutes passed and I noticed that my right hand.

[Listener 2]

Was still clutching the beanie near my.

[Michael]

Heart as my left hand was driving. And I was like, girl, like, you smelled the hat, you can put down the beanie. And my body wasn't ready to do.

[Listener 2]

That, so I kept holding on to.

[Michael]

That beanie just in pure joy.

[Listener 2]

I knew I was falling in love with David, my now husband of six months, by how he reacted to my college pet's tragic death. An African snow leopard tortoise named Slim Shady, named of course after the global rap phenomenon we love Marshall Mathers, AKA Eminem. We had tickets to a hip hop music festival that evening, but I was hysterical over our loss and debating whether I could even make it to the show. David ever so sweetly put his six five hands on my five two shoulders, looked me in my big brown eyes and said, look, if you had one shot or one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted, one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip? Yo, this is what Slim would have wanted as a tribute to him. You have to go to this show. I melted. We went to the concert and 10 years later, on 8 hours, 24 minutes and 24 seconds, we got married. I love him.

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