Modern Love

In the movie “His Three Daughters,” Carrie Coon’s character, Katie, has rigid ideas about who her sisters are and what they’re capable of. When the women reunite to care for their dying father, those ideas become a barrier to true connection and care for each other. In this episode, Coon reads the Modern Love essay “A Family Label, Ungarbled [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/fashion/28love.html]” by Harriet Brown. Growing up, the author was never sure she could feel real love. It took breaking out of her mother’s ideas of her, and the birth of her daughter, to learn what love meant. Coon relates the essay to her own experience, describing her early dating life as tumultuous and recalling relationships she continued out of pity rather than love. Until one day, Coon got a letter from her grandmother that changed everything. Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-submit-a-modern-love-essay.html] Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/style/modern-love-tiny-love-stories.html?pgtype=Article&action=click&module=RelatedLinks] Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://nytimes.com/podcasts] or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

For Kelsey McKinney, the author of the new book [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/style/kelsey-mckinney-normal-gossip-book.html], “You Didn’t Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip,” spreading a good story occupied a morally gray zone throughout her childhood. McKinney, who is also the former host of the podcast, “Normal Gossip [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/normal-gossip/id1597761181],” talks with Modern Love’s Anna Martin about navigating the ups and downs of gossiping in her own life. McKinney also reads the Modern Love essay “We Were a Party of Two, but Never Quite Alone [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/fashion/we-were-a-party-of-two-but-never-quite-alone.html]” by Linda Button, who tells the story of how gossiping with her rich suitor’s exes brought the euphoria of her relationship back down to earth. While reading Button’s essay, McKinney fields questions from Martin so they can do some gossiping of their own. How to submit a Modern Love Essay to The New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-submit-a-modern-love-essay.html]. How to submit a Tiny Love Story [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/style/modern-love-tiny-love-stories.html?pgtype=Article&action=click&module=RelatedLinks]. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://nytimes.com/podcasts] or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The Modern Love team asked you to share with us the moment you knew you were falling in love, and you delivered. Your stories took us to so many places — dinner dates, subway rides, sunsets, concerts — and showed us the many shapes of love. There were so many that we could not list them all. In this episode, we listen back to your voice messages. Then, Daniel Jones, the editor of Modern Love, joins us to discuss the “36 Questions That Lead to Love [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/style/no-37-big-wedding-or-small.html]” and what they reveal about how we fall in love. And Mandy Len Catron, the writer who popularized the 36 questions in her Modern Love essay, “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/style/modern-love-to-fall-in-love-with-anyone-do-this.html],” reads her essay and tells us whether she’s still in love with the same man 10 years later. Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-submit-a-modern-love-essay.html]. Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/style/modern-love-tiny-love-stories.html?pgtype=Article&action=click&module=RelatedLinks]. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://nytimes.com/podcasts] or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

When Jacob Hoff and Samantha Greenstone met, they became instant best friends. Then, even though Jacob was gay, they realized that their feelings for each other were evolving beyond the platonic, and they decided to give romance a try. On this episode, Hoff and Greenstone tell Anna Martin, host of “Modern Love,” how their love gave him the courage to come out to his conservative family. They also explain that when they decided to get married, they realized they’d have to get used to clarifying their commitment again and again. You can read Jacob and Samantha’s Mini-Vows profile [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/style/samantha-greenstone-jacob-hoff-wedding.html] in the Styles section. How to submit a Modern Love Essay to The New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-submit-a-modern-love-essay.html] How to submit a Tiny Love Story [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/style/modern-love-tiny-love-stories.html?pgtype=Article&action=click&module=RelatedLinks] Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://nytimes.com/podcasts] or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

When Robin Eileen Bernstein’s almost-ex-husband, Mark, died of a heart attack, she suddenly found herself comforting her husband’s grieving girlfriend. Robin and Mark had been living apart for two years, but legally she was still the wife, so it was up to her to make the burial arrangements. Would offering to buy the girlfriend an adjoining plot make her feel less alone? On this episode of “Modern Love,” Robin explains how she ended up buying her soon-to-be-ex’s girlfriend a burial plot — and who might actually end up being buried there. Robin Eileen Bernstein’s Modern Love essay, “Here Lie the Bickersons, Side-by-Side for All Eternity,” can be found here [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/17/style/modern-love-here-lie-the-bickersons-side-by-side-for-all-eternity.html]. Listener alert: For our upcoming Valentine’s Day episode, the “Modern Love” team wants to know about a moment when you knew you were falling for someone. Whether it happened all at once or it was a gradual process, we want to know how it happened for you. Where were you? What did it feel like? What did you do next? (You can tell us about a relationship you’re currently in, a past love or something happening to you right now.) The deadline is Feb. 5. Submission instructions are here [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/podcasts/falling-in-love-stories-modern-love.html]. How to submit a Modern Love Essay to The New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-submit-a-modern-love-essay.html] How to submit a Tiny Love Story [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/style/modern-love-tiny-love-stories.html?pgtype=Article&action=click&module=RelatedLinks] Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://nytimes.com/podcasts] or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.