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How Amazon Picked Which ‘Modern Love’ Essays to Translate to the Screen

Where to Stream:

• Modern Love

Amazon’s Modern Love is a cynic’s nightmare. Obscenely earnest, sweetly vulnerable, and unabashed in its optimism, the star-studded anthology series is out to prove there’s a whole lot of love in the world.

Each episode of Modern Love is a dramatization of one of the hundreds of essays that The New York Times editor Daniel Jones has selected for the popular column of the same name. “What makes a good column is a combination of vulnerability and intelligence. And those are kind of at odds in a way because when someone is really vulnerable it seems like they’re out of control and they’re not smart in a way,” Jones said to Decider following Modern Love ‘s panel at Summer TCA . “But being able to go through something that makes you vulnerable and come to an understanding and some sort of wisdom, that’s the tightrope you need to walk to do that kind of writing well.”

As the mastermind behind the column’s appeal, Jones was brought on as a consultant for Amazon’s adaptation of the column. He explained that he didn’t see much difference between an essay that worked well on the page and one that was perfect for adaptation, noting that’s how Modern Love ‘s producers approached their decisions. “They’re looking for stories that have real vulnerability, but it’s done in a smart way. It’s not simplified and it’s not exploited,” Jones said.

Shepherding Modern Love ‘s translation to the screen is showrunner John Carney. Jones praised Carney and said the Once and Sing Street director was “not afraid of being earnest.”

Cristin Milioti stars in the first episode of Modern Love , “When the Doorman is Your Main Man,” as a young woman who finds more solace in a friendship with her doorman than with her potential suitors. Milioti ironically starred in the Broadway adaptation of Carney’s Once , and she agreed with Jones’s take on why Carney was perfect for Modern Love.

“I think what I love about John [Carney] is that he’s really comfortable in the uncomfortable, and I think that’s where the best stories come from,” Milioti told Decider. “He wants to delve deep. He wants to be like, ‘Yeah, let’s get into the stuff that’s grey. Let’s get into the nuance. Let’s not just package it.'”

“I love the phone conversations I have with [Carney] when he talks about how he thinks about this on a deeper level and how a show like this can have a positive impact on a world that just feels meaner by the day,” Jones said. “How returning to this kind of basic human one-on-one relationship, the dignity of that, is a positive force in the world today.”

Actor Gary Carr plays a handsome man who falls in a flirtation with Anne Hathaway’s character in the third episode of Modern Love , “Take Me as I Am, Whoever I Am.” Carr admitted to being a huge fan of Hathaway’s going back to The Princess Diaries — “ I wasn’t going to say it ,” he joked. But he was also hyped to work on a project that amplified that spirit of “love.”

“I feel like there is a lot of love in the world. I see it everywhere, all the time. It’s just not reported all the time,” Carr said.

“Anything that makes people open their heart and feel less alone, or like makes them want to reach out and have a connection to someone regardless of outcome is incredible,” Milioti said.

Stream It Or Skip It: 'At The Moment' On Netflix, An Anthology Series About Love During The Pandemic

Woman crush wednesday: look out for lucy boynton in 'the pale blue eye', stream it or skip it: 'little america' season 2 on apple tv+, with more heartwarming stories about the immigrant experience in america, stream it or skip it: 'modern love: tokyo' on prime video, the tv show inspired by the new york times column goes to japan.

Jones teased that there have already been conversations about which essays have the potential to work for a Season Two, but right now he’s more focused on managing the massive inbox of submissions he gets for the column. And yes, he’s worried that Modern Love might cause a tsunami of submissions if it becomes ultra-successful.

“My main concern is volume, an increase in volume that’s unmanageable,” Jones said. “There’s always something about the column that people think, ‘I could do that,’ when in fact it’s really hard to do.”

Even if Jones is concerned that there might be too many submissions for Modern Love , Carr sees the silver lining in Jones’s problem. “That’s good,” Carr said. “That goes to show that the amount of essays he receives, that’s a great example on its own of how much love there is in the world.”

Modern Love premieres on Prime Video on Friday, October 18.

Where to stream Modern Love

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The 8 Best 'Modern Love' Essays

Isn't it a fantastic feeling when you stumble upon a column that makes you think, "I can't believe I survived without these stories in my life"? Ever since I read my first New York Times "Modern Love" essay, I was hooked by the series' concept of meditations on connection. The New York Times began publishing essays on the subject, written exclusively by NYT readers, in 2004. However, the series has experienced an upswing in popularity in recent months. This is mostly due to the excellently-produced Modern Love podcast (from WBUR) that's been around since January of this year. In each episode, a talented actor brings a favorite "Modern Love" article to life . Listening to an episode is a great way to freshen up your commute, or provide a soundtrack to your afternoon walk.

But with all these essays, podcasts, and even a Modern Love: 50 True and Extraordinary Tales book out there, I sometimes feel like there's an embarrassment of riches when it comes to "Modern Love." How on earth am I supposed to pick the best stories? Since I know I'm not the only one with this problem, I dug into the "Modern Love" archives from the past three years and picked eight of my favorite stories from 2014-2016. Whether you're a newcomer to the series or you've been a longtime fan, you'll enjoy this assortment of essays on all kinds of unlikely love.

1. Just One Last Swirl Around the Bowl

Dave Barry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author of the New York Times' "This Land" column , wrote this essay about his daughter's dying fish. One of the few Modern Love pieces that isn't about romantic love, the essay explores his memories of his parents' deaths, and how he tried to care for them as best as he knew how during their final days. While his daughter comes to terms with the fish's imminent death, Barry, too, reflects on what it means to watch someone you love die.

You can also listen to Jason Alexander read this on the Modern Love podcast , and he does a bang-up job.

2. All Twisted Up by Genderbending

Delacey Skinner doesn't know what to think when she discovers that her ex-boyfriend is dating a trans woman. This information causes Skinner to question her own identity as a woman. She's never felt particularly comfortable in her femininity, so what does it mean that her ex now has a relationship with someone who presents herself as far more traditionally feminine than Skinner herself ever has? Skinner's essay is a poignant and thought-provoking take on gender identity.

3. Putting Love to the Stress Test

What happens when you meet a person so scarily similar to yourself that you assume something has to go wrong? In this essay, Jasmine Jaksic signs up for OkCupid and finds a man who's answered almost every question on the site in the same way as her. Since she and her new beau are both software developers, they decide to implement a real-life version of the "stress test," which is the practice of testing a computer program to its limits. What Jaksic discovers during the four weeks of their stress test changes the way she thinks about the necessities of a relationship.

4. Sharing a Cab, and My Toes

After abandoning her life as an academic, Julia Anne Miller fulfills her decades-long dream of moving to New York City. While working as a writer for a test-prep company, she sets out to explore the city. Each of her coworkers nurses an artistic dream, and the test-prep job is only a way to pay the bills. Miller's dream: to perform. One night, she shares a cab ride home with a coworker, leading to a bizarre sexual experience. This forms the basis of her eloquent meditation on what it means to get what you want.

5. One Bouquet of Fleeting Beauty, Please

This stunning and lyrical essay will make you smell tulips and lilies as you're reading. Written by Alisha Gorder, it tells the story of Gorder's time at a floral shop, arranging and selling bouquets to people trying to communicate with their loved ones through flowers. People often send commonplace messages with their bouquets, such as "Happy Birthday" (H.B.), "Happy Anniversary" (H.A.), and "Thinking of You" (T.O.Y.). But sometimes, what they're trying to say isn't so simple. Gorder weaves those anecdotes into the fabric of her own life: when she was 18, her boyfriend of two years killed himself, and she was forced to learn an agonizing lesson about love.

6. One Thousand and One Nights of Laundry

Wendy Rasmussen, the author of this melancholy reflection on love and loss, married an Iraqi refugee and then divorced him. Her essay captures an episode of her life in which she went to his house with their sons to do laundry, since she didn't have a working laundry machine. One night, her drunk ex-husband told her a story about escaping from Iraq by crossing the Saudi Arabian deserts, and about the man he left behind in the sand. Rasmussen's essay is subtle, but evocative, and it's a read you won't forget.

7. Finding My Own Rescuer

Anna March brings us this story about the love of her life, a man disabled in a car accident when he was 16. Though he has to use a wheelchair, Adam is anything but helpless: he can cook, walk the dogs, and drive, and he helps keep March's life in order when they move in together. But their new house has more than one story, and while they're waiting for the proper ramps to be installed, the tables turn in their relationship. Now March is the one caring for him - and she doesn't know if she's up to the task.

8. No Labels, No Drama, Right?

This is the essay that made me start following "Modern Love" - mostly because I've seen the exact same story play out in my friends' lives so many times. The author, Jordana Narin, writes about the man who occupied the space between friend and boyfriend for so long that she hardly knew how to handle her relationship with him - especially because, as a Millennial and college student, she didn't know how to admit her feelings. If you've tried to navigate the muddy waters of hookup culture, this is an essay that will resonate with you.

Images: Caleb Ekeroth , Brenda Helen , Luis Llerena, Daria Sukhorukova , Kai Oberhäuser , freestocks.org /Unsplash; jill111 , Unsplash , ferobanjo /Pixabay

Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption

Daniel jones  ( editor ) , andrew rannells  ( contributor ) , ayelet waldman  ( contributor ) ...more.

304 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2019

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Bipolar Depression

'modern love’ shows what it's like when mood changes control your life.

The new series on Amazon Prime, “Modern Love,” is inspired by personal essays from The New York Times’ column of the same name. The third episode is based on Terri Cheney’s 2008 essay, “Take Me as I Am, Whoever I Am.” At the beginning of the story, Lexi (Anne Hathaway) is at the grocery store during a euphoric, manic high. Her mood is shown through her outfit (sequins, bright colors), constant smiling, upbeat narration and even dancing. The grocery store scenes are shot like a musical. She is instantly drawn to a man named Jeff (Gary Carr); even Jeff, a complete stranger, seems to notice that she’s “crazy energized” to a degree that isn’t normal. They go on a coffee date and plan to have a dinner date later in the week.

Later, at work, her coworker at the law firm says HR is concerned about her absences. Lexi creates excuses and it becomes clear to the audience that she did not tell HR about her mental illness . She appears to have an ultra-rapid cycling form of bipolar disorder , shifting from mania to depression within very short periods of time (e.g., every few days). For their dinner date, Jeff sees Lexi during a depressive episode. She appears completely different (outfit dark and plain, hair unkempt, expression flat, drained) and Jeff clearly notices the drastic change.

A morning following the disastrous date, she wakes up manic and calls up Jeff, once again super energized, excited and confident. However, by the time he appears that night at her door for the date, she once again has flipped, going from dancing around her apartment to sobbing uncontrollably on the bathroom floor. When Jeff walks away, she decides things need to change. She needs to start giving people a chance to know her. When she gets fired from work, she and her coworker (Quincy Tyler Bernstine) go out to lunch where she discloses her bipolar diagnosis. After that disclosure, she feels relieved. “Like an elephant’s taken one of its feet off my chest,” she says. This initial step allowed her to open up to more people from her past. By the end of the episode, a few years later, she is ready to be completely open with someone romantically, to meet the man who will accept her despite her condition.

As someone who has bipolar disorder , there are aspects of the portrayal I like and some I don’t. Given how much of this condition is happening internally, I was curious as to how they would show the complexity of mania and depression . I found the approach to mania pretty creative. The beginning was like a happy musical, with singing, dancing and a sequin outfit. Her other manic episode was filmed for a bit as if she was living in a title sequence of her own TV show. It was an interesting approach, and I think it showed  mania is far beyond just super happy.

What I did not like was how  mania was portrayed as purely positive (super productive periods, charming, attractive, energetic). Mania should not be romanticized . During mania , people lose their jobs, career, relationships, life savings, etc. Also, mania can feature dangerous activity. A common misconception is that mania is a joyful experience; however, it can feel like extreme irritability, agitation and/or hostility rather than euphoria. I understand that only so much can be portrayed within one episode, but I worry that the episode makes it seem like the only downside to mania is that it crashes into depression .

I related a bit too strongly to the scene during which Lexi collapses onto her bathroom floor as if the anxiety and depression are literally weighing her down . She appears to struggle to breathe as she starts to sob. Depression can feel incredibly intense, an overwhelming amount of sadness, hopelessness and despair. I think Hathaway’s acting during this scene truly helped to illustrate how depression can feel for some people.

Lexi’s character seems to have a form of bipolar disorder  with very little “baseline” or “euthymic” periods. She seems to have very brief mood episodes that change very suddenly from mania to depression and back with no stability. For many people with bipolar disorder , this is not the case. Mood episodes may last weeks, even months. To flip back and forth within a day is not the norm for those with bipolar disorder . Also, many people have much better control of their lives due to medication and other treatment approaches (e.g., CBT).

I appreciated the scene during which Lexi disclosed her bipolar disorder diagnosis for the first time. Her former coworker was incredibly supportive and kind. In fact, her coworker stated that she wished she had known sooner. I hope this creates real-life conversations that allow people to open up and seek help rather than put so much effort into hiding their conditions.

Have you watched this episode yet? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Anja is a blogger with a passion for mental health advocacy. She often writes about mania, depression, and anxiety, from a first-person perspective. Being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder (Type 1) in 2016 has given her insight into the struggles many face with finding the right diagnosis, treatment, and providers. She hopes that sharing her story will create more open, honest conversations about mental health, fighting the stigma one conversation at a time.

"Modern Love" Editor Daniel Jones Reads 9,000 Relationship Essays a Year

The beloved New York Times column is now the inspiration for a new star-studded Amazon series.

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Behind every Sunday's soul-gripping installment of the New York Times's "Modern Love" column is a man named Daniel Jones. It's Jones's job to comb through 9,000 submissions each year, all wrenching—and sometimes funny—musings on romance, death, and all other topics that fall under the "relationships" category.

Jones—who has been the arbiter of which matters of the heart we get to read each week since 2004—has now expanded the "Modern Love" empire into an Amazon series (out October 18), a podcast (don't skip Cecily Strong's oration of " When the Doorman Is Your Main Man "), and, of course books .

The column began as a sort of off-shoot to The Bastard on the Couch , a male companion piece Jones wrote in response to The Bitch in the House , a searingly raw series of women's essays about the difficulties of marriage, among other things, that his wife, Cathi Hanauer, edited. The husband and wife duo piqued the interest of then New York Times Styles editor Trip Gabriel, who proposed the idea for what would become "Modern Love." "And then my wife dropped out," Jones tells OprahMag.com.

"She was working on a novel at the time, and it wasn’t really a two person job. It would be too distracting to have both of us doing it part-time, and I was more eager to do it at that point than she was. I never thought it would last, and neither did the Style editor. We thought it would be something that would go on for a year or two, but I don’t know, it just kept going and it’s still going."

With a buzzy new star-studded Amazon series (Anne Hathaway, Tina Fey, Catherine Keener, to name a few) inspired by his work, Jones tells us what he's learned from 15 years at the helm of heartache, missed connections, and humor-filled loved lessons.

You've read nearly 120,000 "Modern Love" submissions. What's the biggest theme you've seen emerge?

The most constant is the idea that we don’t want to be vulnerable with another person. Mostly when we’re looking for love, but also after we’re already in it.

In a long term relationship, you want to find a way to be vulnerable with someone in equal amounts—but that’s really hard. Someone always has to put themselves out there first, and is then more prone to rejection and heartbreak. So what’s interesting to me over the years is how we always try to beat the system. And technology provides us with so many ways to try to avoid vulnerability. Or, ways to think we’re being vulnerable when we’re not, like pouring our hearts into texting, where you’re kind of safe and protected in a way. Where you feel like you can take risks and all of that...but you’re actually behind a shield.

The most common trend and endlessly fascinating subject to me is the way that we think we can do it better. Technology has made a lot of problems easier. We can get fast deliveries. We can talk to people on top of Mt. Everest, but along with that promise is that it will make love and vulnerability easier, and it just doesn’t.

Is there any relationship advice that's really resonated in your own life?

The essays that stick with me the most are the ones that are instructive about relationships in ways I haven’t heard before. A good example is Ann Leary’s Rallying to Keep the Game Alive (which is an episode in the Amazon series). It’s an essay about a marriage that’s in very typical midlife doldrums. Are we just together for the kids? It’s a marriage where you’re competitive with each other and the competition has infected their relationship—and in her case, they played tennis together as a way to connect.

But, instead they were playing to beat each other, and there’s this brilliant transition where they decide to get divorced, and a lot of their tension surprisingly releases. They can stop fighting finally, and then they start to reconnect surprisingly after that, and she works this metaphor where instead of trying to hit the ball where the person isn’t, they try to extend the game by hitting it to where the person is, so they can return it and go back and forth and enjoy the game—and the other person’s company.

That was such a fundamental lesson about relationships, especially long-term ones, that had never occurred to me. It’s always stunning to me when someone can identify that kind of metaphor and have it be a touchstone for so many people of a different way of approaching something or thinking about it. You just don’t think there are new ideas in the world anymore, and then there is one.

What about these stories inspires you the most?

I’m struck by how generous people are happy people, and how people who open their hearts again, despite loss of relationship or loss of a loved one dying, are so brave. I feel like a lot of these people are braver than I am, and I think they thought that a lot of people were braver than they were, and then they stepped up to the plate. I’m inspired by essays like that.

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Especially in these times, it seems like there’s a need for stories that are honest about problems but optimistic in terms of their spirit. Let’s talk about things that are real and that are important—and what’s more important than love? In that sense, the most important thing in anyone’s life is relationships. It’s just how it is. I wouldn’t say people overcome their problems in these essays, but they understand them better, and that’s the best kind of victory is just to understand yourself better and understand relationships better.

Often people will think a happy ending to a story is when things turn out well. For me, a happy ending to a story is when someone has a better understanding than they did before. And a sad story is when someone, regardless of the circumstance, doesn’t learn anything. That kind of revelation is just the goal.

You read a lot about loss. How do you disconnect from the sorrow?

The most common thing people write about is people dying and people dying of cancer, in particular, and that is still, for a column called Modern Love, the topic we get more essays about that then any other subject. That wears you down; there’s no way around it.

You can’t shake it. I suppose you can sort of harden yourself to it, but it’s sad every time it happens, and in most cases people are writing to try to... I don’t know, to try to feel better about it, or to try to eulogize someone or honor them, but it’s the same kind of downer as a lot of the news. I feel like I’ve been doing this too long to have it totally affect my day, but it’s sad nevertheless.

And what keeps you going?

Finding a new voice and a new perspective is always energizing and fun, and that’s kept me going. But these days, it's the ways that these stories are being told in new forms. Through the Modern Love podcast and now through the Amazon streaming series.

The podcast was really revelatory for me. It started four years ago, and when it was first produced, I just imagined people listening to essays being read and thought 'what would be appealing about that?' I wasn’t sold on the idea until I started to hear the actors, and then I was so blown away. I didn’t expect that reading into a microphone could be that effective. It’s those sorts of things, like getting to see how talented people in different mediums can make these stories new and fresh and more moving.

Modern Love, Revised and Updated: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption

When I’m reading submissions, even powerful emotional ones, I don't cry. But when I’m listening to the podcast, even if it’s a story I’m already familiar with, sitting in my cubicle at the Times , I do cry. It’s just a much more direct and sort of intimate experience. And that has proved to be true with the television show too. It’s a feeling of gratefulness and admiration of the talent to be able to convey our story in a new and powerful way.

How did you help to shape the Modern Love Amazon show?

I helped them decide what stories might work best, giving them batches of essays on themes. It’s not that I know the archives of 700 and some essays, but I can more easily than anyone else skim through them and see what’s what and remind myself of the different stories. And then I read the scripts and gave some feedback on that.

And I was on set as much as I could be. It was filmed in New York last fall, and each episode took six days. I tried to make it two days of each episode and I’ve never had more fun in my life. I was even an extra in two episodes which gave me an appreciation for how difficult that work is. I walked back and forth on city sidewalk with a little girl about 15 times. I don’t know how actors bring a new performance when it’s the same scene over and over.

Were you satisfied with the results?

Interestingly, when I saw the finished episodes, the parts that worked for me least were the parts that I saw filmed because I was too aware of what it really was. The magic was all the other parts, and I always felt like, how does the director approach any of this fresh when he’s so involved in shooting every moment of it?

For me, a happy ending to a story is when someone has a better understanding than they did before.

How long does it take before you know whether or not an essay has "it?"

I don’t always give it to the end. I’ll give it several chances. I’ll start to read and there are some things that are evident right off the bat—really lazy adjectives like ‘amazing' or 'incredible.’ If someone’s using words like that early on, you know it’s probably not going to get better. Or, if the voice is sort of self-congratulatory. You know, if you have a humble voice, then that’s more inviting than someone who is maybe more of a stylist and kind of showoff-y. If it doesn’t grab me, I’ll skip down and start to read; if it doesn’t grab me again I’ll skip down again. And I’ll sample essays to see if there’s something intelligent happening and sometimes there is.

The college essays are a really good case for that, because college students submitting to the contest will often do their worst writing at the beginning of their essay, until they figure out what they’re doing. Ending sentences are also really important. You don’t have to read the whole thing to see if the ending sentence is elevated in some sense, even if you don’t know what came before.

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Brie Schwartz is an editor, writer, and content strategist. She’s covered beauty, fashion, relationships, health, travel, Disney, decorating, DIYs, food, booze, and everything in between. She was most recently the deputy editor of Oprah Daily, where she helped bring the mission of guiding readers to live their best life to the (virtual) pages. Her writing has appeared in Good Housekeeping, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Delish, Country Living, Esquire, Elle, Marie Claire, Seventeen, The Spruce, Woman’s Day, Women’s Health, and Men’s Health. 

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Episode One: “When The Doorman is Your Main Man”

The first episode of the season follows book reviewer Maggie (played by Cristin Milioti) as she braves the New York dating scene and an unexpected pregnancy with the fierce support of what seems to be the only constant in her life: her doorman, Guzmin (real name Guzim). The story is based on the 2015 essay of writer Julie Margaret Hogben, who currently lives in Los Angeles with her twelve-year-old daughter, Isabel.

In a new interview with The New York Times , Hogben reveals that in actuality, the father of her child proposed to her after she revealed her pregnancy to him; she declined his proposal. She also explains that, unlike in the episode, she never debated whether or not to go through with the pregnancy.

Today, Hogben is still single, despite her daughter's earnest attempts to sign her up for dating apps. “She wants a distraction for me and she thinks I should get a life, which I should. So, yeah, I’ve got to get out there,” Hogben told The New York Times . She hasn’t been in a relationship since her daughter Isabel was born, which makes the closing scene of the episode, in which Guzim finally approves of the man Maggie brings from California to meet him, entirely fictional.

And yes, Guzim the doorman still holds his post on the Upper West Side, where Hogben pops in to visit him whenever she’s in town.

Episode Two: “When Cupid is a Prying Journalist”

Episode two recounts an interview that leads to both journalist Julie (played by Catherine Keener) and subject Joshua (Dev Patel) opening up about their romantic pasts, tracing not one but two gut-wrenching tales of lost love. The episode is based on author Deborah Copaken’s 2015 essay of the same name.

In reality, there was no job interview, whirlwind love-at-first-sight, or trip to the zoo for Joshua and his love interest. Nor was there an infidelity that caused their separation. The real Joshua, Hinge founder Justin McLeod, had actually met the love of his life, Kate, in college , where they dated off and on until graduation. Kate, however, was engaged to another man at the time of McLeod's interview with Copaken, and had not spoken to him in years.

The real-life Copaken was indeed heartbroken by the boy who never showed at her Paris flat, but their upstate rendezvous was imagined. It was Copaken who found him online by accident while doing research for a book she was writing, and they did meet up, albeit for lunch on a bench in Central Park. She in fact left her husband of 23 years while he stayed in his marriage, and the two still follow each other on social media, though they’re no longer in contact. Copaken is now in a happy relationship with a new man, who she met on Bumble, not Hinge, contrary to what her character reveals in the season finale.

However, Copaken's interview inspired McLeod to win Kate back in the wistful way the episode depicts. Kate left her fiance a month before their wedding (the invitations had been sent, the hall booked) after McLeod showed up on her doorstep in Zurich, eight years after they’d last seen each other. The two were married this year in Colorado, with Copaken in attendance.

Episode Three: “Take Me As I Am, Whoever I Am”

In Episode Three, Anne Hathaway dazzles as Lexi, an entertainment lawyer who’s been hiding her bipolar diagnosis from everyone in her life. This episode stays exceptionally true to many of the details in Terry Cheney’s 2008 essay , down to the trembling hand with which Lexi applies her mascara before her date. The only fictionalized aspect of the episode is the character of Lexi’s coworker, played by Quincy Tyler Bernstine, who becomes the first person to whom she discloses her diagnosis. In reality, Cheney never lost a job .

Today, Cheney is no longer practicing law. She has authored two books, including a New York Times -bestselling memoir entitled Manic , with another book slated to publish next fall. In terms of her love life, she says that the men she dates usually read her book first, as a sort of prerequisite. “I don’t know necessarily if I’m in a relationship. I do love. I am in love. So that’s great,” she told The New York Times .

Even though she still goes to the same grocery store, she never saw or heard from the real-life Jeff again.

Episode Four: “Rallying to Keep The Game Alive”

Tina Fey and John Slattery portray real-life couple Ann Leary and actor Denis Leary in episode four of the series, which follows their marriage as it teeters on the edge of divorce. The TV adaptation resembles Ann Leary’s 2013 essay quite closely; March of the Penguins is indeed the couple’s favorite movie .

What Leary didn’t mention in her piece, nor did the show explain, is that the couple’s therapist at the time didn’t think they had a bad marriage. “He pointed out that we would say things negative about each other, but if he said anything even slightly negative about either of us, we would jump to the other’s defense,” Leary told The New York Times in a new interview.

Ann and Denis Leary celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary this year, and they still play tennis.

Episode Five: “At The Hospital, An Interlude of Clarity”

In the fifth episode of Modern Love , Brian Gittis’s 2014 essay in which he severs a major blood vessel in his arm on a second date is brought to life by John Gallagher Jr. and Sofia Boutella.

Although the TV version leaves the fate of the lovers rather ambiguous as they doze off in the early morning light of the Elizabeth Street Garden, in Gittis’s essay, his date ends up back together with her ex-boyfriend about a month after their night in the E.R.

On the 2016 recording of the Modern Love podcast, Gittis says the woman featured in the piece really enjoyed the essay, and after it was published, they met up to talk about it over drinks. They ended up going on a few dates before their relationship fizzled out again.

Brian Gittis works in book publicity in New York, and he is now married with a one-year-old son.

Episode Six: “So He Looked Like Dad. It Was Just Dinner, Right?”

The sixth episode of the series features a young girl, Madeline (Julia Garner), who having lost her father goes searching for a paternal figure in an older coworker, Peter (Shea Whigman). He, on the other hand, is under the impression that their developing and ambiguous relationship is more than platonic.

The episode is based on writer Abby Sher’s 2006 essay , which features several specific details that the show did adapt, like the golf pattern on Peter’s socks and the creaminess of their shared risotto. However, Sher’s essay concludes after she goes over to the man’s house for dinner, as she realizes that the relationship isn’t going to give her what she needs. Amazon’s adaptation extends the tale (and the relationship) far beyond this night, shaping it into something more complicated and uncomfortable than what it is in Sher’s original piece. Sher, however, loved the episode, and feels that the fictionalized elements of the narrative were true to the sentiment of her experience.

“I am a huge fan of Audrey Wells and was so honored that she wrote the screenplay. I especially loved the MRI scene and I felt like Julia Garner and Shea Wigham completely understood and personified this complicated, yet really primal attraction,” she told Esquire in an email.

In actuality, Sher never saw the older man again outside of work after that first dinner. No stuffed seal at the Zoo, red coat, or sabbatical came of their initial date.

And as for how the piece has aged?

“I mean, I think daddy issues will always be a thing, right? I'm so grateful that Emmy Rossum directed this amazing cast so thoughtfully and stirred up so many emotions between the two main characters. There's no clear cut right or wrong in this scenario, as far as I can see,” Sher wrote.

Today, Sher is married to man whom she says is a wonderful father to their three children, and says she will always miss and adore her father.

Episode Seven: “Hers Was a World of One”

Episode seven is loosely adapted from author, sex columnist, and podcaster Dan Savage’s 2005 essay entitled “ DJ’s Homeless Mommy ,” in which he conveys the ups and downs of his and his husband’s open adoption experience. The episode is largely focused on the couple’s time hosting their future child’s homeless mother in their apartment, which was entirely imagined.

In the piece, Savage ruminates on the increasing difficulty of explaining to his small son, DJ, his mother’s complicated existence and long absences from his life, which we get a small sense of in the final bedtime story scene of the episode.

“The last time she visited, when DJ was 3, he wanted to know why his mother smelled so terrible. We were taken aback and answered without thinking it through. We explained that since she doesn’t have a home, she isn’t able to bathe often or wash her clothes. We realized we screwed up even before DJ started to freak. What could be more terrifying to a child than the idea of not having a home?” Savage writes in his essay.

The original piece is thought-provoking and in many ways more solemn than its TV adaptation. It details DJ’s mother’s battles with addiction and jail time, and it recounts Savage’s visceral fear that she was dead at various points over the years when she would drop out of contact.

While the episode draws inspiration from Savage’s piece, it also veers decisively away from his somber narrative. However, both the essay and the TV adaptation leave the fate of the adopted baby’s mother unknown.

“DJ's mom is alive and well. She's on her feet. She's housed. We talk on the phone occasionally. She and DJ speak on Mother's Day and on DJ's birthday. Things leveled out,” Savage told Gays With Kids in 2016.

Dan Savage and his husband Terry Miller live in Seattle, and their son DJ is now 21 years old.

Episode Eight: “The Race Grows Sweeter Near Its Final Lap”

Before it interweaves all the season’s characters together in a tacky montage of entirely implausible New York happenstance, the final episode of season one adapts author Eve Pell’s 2013 essay on the love she found later in life. Amazon’s version stays faithful to the real-life events of her relationship with her late husband, Sam, with whom she ran, traveled, and saw movies for the last several years of his life.

In an interview with NPR in early 2017, Pell explained that her distress after Sam’s passing led her to a bereavement group, where she met another man and fell in love again. However, Pell said she won’t be marrying again.

“I can't stand the idea of having four husbands. It's just too much,” she told NPR, laughing.

Modern Love is streaming now on Amazon Prime, and has officially been renewed for a Season Two coming in 2020.

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Searching For Meaning In 50,000 Essays About Modern Love

“This is not rehearsed,” Dan Jones says into a microphone.

He’s standing in front of packed crowd in a small auditorium at the Santa Monica Public Library in Los Angeles. The group of 100 or so –which looks to have no shortage of New Yorkers in addition to locals – sucks on Sweet Tart candies; we’ve all been gifted with a pack, along with a Valentine’s Day card, as we made our way through the doors.

Jones, 51, is here to talk about his book, Love Illuminated , which takes on the least rehearsable subject of all (love). He is something of an expert (if anyone can be) having read 50,000 essays on the topic as the editor of the popular New York Times Modern Love column. Yet even after a decade immersed in tales of the heart, Jones isn’t here to offer advice (or answers) about what he calls “life’s most mystifying subject.” He is here to add an editor’s touch — and a wry sense of humor — to other people’s stories.

The book, like the weekly column, is not about Jones. And so instead of talking about himself up on stage, he calls up 12 members of the audience. Each is a one-time Modern Love essayist, and each has prepared a flash reading.

Hope, a writing instructor, explains that the ancient Greeks had eight different words for eight different kinds of love. “So why do we, caretakers of the planet’s international language” she asks, “expect a single generic monosyllabic word to carry so much weight?”

“What I’ll never understand about love,” explains Liz, an architecture professor, “is just how much of my experience of it happens against my will.”

Each of these presenters has written for the popular series: about maternal love, about looking for signs, about marital finance, about a health scare that turned out to be a blessing, about dating (and remarrying) after a divorce. There are at least 20 others in the crowd who’ve also written essays.

“The book was an attempt to figure out what I knew,” says Jones. “I felt like I’d been doing this column for years and years, and it’s the kind of work that you get lost in. These essays are pouring in, you feel like you’re immersed in it, and I feel like I was more marinating in love than mastering it. I was sort of… stewing in it.”

The Modern Love column started ten years ago somewhat by accident. Jones is a novelist, as is his wife; the column was first offered to them as a couple, after essays each had written about their domestic lives caught the attention of an editor.

Nobody turns down an offer to create a column for the New York Times. And yet, “I can’t say we thought it was the best idea,” Jones says. Who was the audience? What would be too risqué? How did you fact check a column about love, anyway?

And yet the essays began piling up, submitted each week by the hundreds. In the beginning, Jones tried to save them all: clipping each published one out from the paper each week, and sliding it into a protective sleeve; he still has dusty stacks of them on a bookshelf by his side of the bed.

But overtime, the physical collection became too much. And, who needed it? The column had grown into a cultural phenomenon. The actress Maria Bello, who hosted Jones’ book party in Los Angeles, used the platform to come out about her female lover. Dennis Leary’s wife, the novelist Ann Leary, wrote about picking up tennis — and a rough patch in their marriage that lasted for years. There has been an attempt to make the column into a TV show (it lost out to a reality show about Sarah Palin’s daughter), albums inspired by it, and anthologies of essays published. And, of course, pouring out one’s heart onto the pages of the New York Times has become a kind of writer’s right of passage not just therapy on the page, but a launchpad for book deals, films, and even future relationships. (There have been at least 37 books spawned from the 465 essays that have run so far.)

Some of what Jones has learned isn’t all that surprising: People still find love by meeting in the flesh; some find it online. Some treat their search like a job, while others happen upon it by chance. Online matchmaking hasn’t made the quest for love any less fraught. And yes, those OK Cupid algorithms do sometimes suck. (He and his wife of 25 years signed up for a dating site to see if they’d get matched with each other. They didn’t.)

But there is a certain wisdom that comes from reading the essays of thousands of strangers. He’s observed how our notions of love have changed over time: there is less incentive to commit and marry than there used to be (especially for women); love has become more about romance than necessity. He notes that a huge number of us (73 percent, according to a 2011 Marist poll) still believe in destiny, and that many of us still go out of our way to look for meaning in otherwise clinical online interactions. He observes how technology – while making matchmaking more accessible – has also made us painstakingly detached. “Acting aloof,” he writes, “is so common these days that sincerity and vulnerability, for many, can start to feel disgusting and unnatural.” (The term “stalker,” he notes, has been watered down to the point where confessing that you really like someone might qualify.)

There are sections on “booty texting,” “sending d**k pix” and “hooking up.” He speaks about the changes to the column topics over time (transgender issues, gay marriage, hooking up), the stories that really touched him (a couple who stayed married after the husband underwent sexual reassignment surgery) and those that drew the most ire (a woman who admitted in print that she loved her husband more than her children).

He’s heard all sorts of “rules” for dating: when to make the big reveal about bisexuality, or an STD, or a divorce, or – in one guy’s case – a single testicle. While a subject like spanking, for example, may not have been suitable for the Grey Lady at the start, “any sense of taboo or self-censorship has vanished.”

As you might imagine, as an editor of a column about love, Jones is frequently asked what he’s learned. But he has no desire to play guru (or therapist). He doesn’t claim to have any particular wisdom, other than knowing a lot of intimate, absurd, funny, and poignant details about a lot of different people’s love lives.

At the Santa Monica library, he pulls out a stack of heart shaped red rubber bracelets – a gag gift he’ll hand out to his guests, for Valentine’s Day. He bends the rubber around his wrist and holds up his arm. “It actually looks not unlike a sunburnt ass on your wrist,” he laughs. But, he continues: “An overexposed private part is what the Modern Love column is all about.”

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Is Modern Love a True Story?

‘Modern Love’ is an anthology series that explores various facets of relationships and human connections — be it platonic, familial, sexual, or love for oneself. Each episode of the romantic series is a self-contained narrative that brings to light different characters. The heartwarming series is very special because each of these stories is so relatable. Is it because they are based on real-life events? If that is what you are wondering, you will be interested in what we have to share.

Is Modern Love Based on a True Story?

‘Modern Love’ is partially based on true stories. The series is inspired by The New York Times’ weekly column of the same name. Each episode is derived from the personal essays written by various people, but the show takes artistic liberties. For example, the very first episode of the series — titled ‘When the Doorman Is Your Main Man’ — is loosely based on the essay by Julie Margaret Hogben.

The episode follows a book reviewer who navigates the dating scene in New York and an unexpected pregnancy, all with the support of her doorman. However, the episode slightly strays away from what had actually happened. Unlike Maggie, Hogben never had second thoughts about her pregnancy. Moreover, it seems that the writer has not been in a relationship ever since the birth of her daughter, which makes the closing scene of the episode fictional.

The highlight of the second season is the episode called ‘How Do You Remember Me?’ Directed by actor Andrew Rannells, the episode is based on the events of a fateful night that eventually led up to his father’s death a few days later. It is inspired by the essay that Rannells wrote for The New York Times. Although the backbone of the story remains the same, the episode revisits the incident from a fresh perspective. In the episode, Ben and Robbie are on a date and go on to have sex. However, the main focus of the storyline is how the night takes a turn after Ben learns that the phone calls he ignored from his family members were to let him know that his father had collapsed at a family gathering.

Rannells has written the episode and directed it. But it is the fictional aspects of the events that allowed him to explore the experience further. For the episode, he decided to give more of a voice to Robbie, who is modeled after a person called Brad in his essay. The entire episode is about how the events of the particular night are perceived differently by the two characters — right from their date, the sex, to the reception of the painful news about Ben’s father. Ben feels annoyed that Robbie insists on being a pillar of support to him even though the two men barely know each other. On the other hand, Robbie’s perception is entirely different; he seems to have a good time on their date and feels a connection with Ben. Naturally, he wants to be there for the person he shares the night with.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the showrunner John Carney revealed how he selected the stories for the show. He said , “All I really thought to myself was, ‘Pick ones that you feel connected to; try to avoid the ones you think are cute, or maybe I could make a conventional TV show out of them — pick the ones that spoke to you because of something your mother once said to you or because of a theme that happened to you.’” Moreover, Carney explained that the actual writers of the essays were not a part of the creative process but were shown the final episode to get their approval. Additionally, they were paid for allowing their stories to feature in the series.

Other essays that have been adapted are ‘ On a Serpentine Road, With the Top Down ,’ ‘ A Life Plan for Two, Followed by One ,’ and ‘ The Night Girl Finds a Day Boy .’ The episode titled ‘Strangers on a (Dublin) Train’ is written by Carney, who developed it from a 100-word entry called ‘ Strangers on a Train ’ in the ‘Tiny Love Stories’ section of The New York Times. The original story revolves around two young people from France on a train from Paris to Barcelona. However, in the episode, the nationalities are different, and the characters are traveling from Galway to Dublin in Ireland. This confirms that the episodes are inspired by true stories but with elements of fiction.

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Modern Love Is a Corny Love Letter to the Prettiest Parts of New York

By Sonia Saraiya

Everything is a TV series now—current events, long-buried crimes, Tinder. Over the past year the New York Times has eagerly been making “the newspaper” part of that list: The Fourth Estate, a Showtime miniseries; The Weekly, an ongoing docuseries on FX that explores a print feature each episode; and now Modern Love, an anthology series debuting October 18 based on the popular Sunday Styles column edited by Daniel Jones. The series’ showrunner is John Carney, who wrote and directed Once and Sing Street.

Modern Love, the column, is one of the most high-profile venues for personal essay in the English language, a space that searches for the human commonalities amidst the unique and sometimes alienating details of our contemporary lives. Modern Love, the series, turns each adapted essay into a terribly schmaltzy ordeal of starry-eyed montage, which makes a survey of love in New York into a sightseeing tour of the city’s most affluent neighborhoods. The series’ shiny gloss is matched only by its cornball sentiment, which makes Modern Love feel like a commercial for a credit card company. Essays are round pegs, and episodes are square holes; few installments of Modern Love carry enough dramatic heft or character work to be worth the effort, and none retain what is so lovely and sharp-edged about the prose that inspired them. At times it seems as if the essay’s conceit limits the episode about it: Tina Fey and John Slattery play a married couple rekindling their spark through tennis—this makes two Mad Men –alum tennis partners for Liz Lemon —but the poetry of the tennis game doesn’t translate to the screen, and the viewer’s left wondering why the couple didn’t talk more at dinner.

It does not help that this contemporary collection of stories about New Yorkers in love is almost exclusively about the feelings of writers with very nice apartments. (An entire episode is about the relationship between a woman and her doorman.) The show is at its strongest when it moves away from the solipsism of personal essay and toward the tension of conflicting desires and fraught conversations—which it finds in its best episode, “Hers Was a World of One,” starring Olivia Cooke and Andrew Scott. And yet even then, it’s alarming what the show doesn’t do. In multiple episodes, the nonwhite characters serve as props for the white narrator’s journey—whether that’s the sympathetic coworker, the earnest therapist, the one-time fling, the caring roommate, or even the life partner of the lead. It was quite surprising to see that Brandon Kyle Goodman, who plays Scott’s husband in “Hers Was a World of One,” didn’t even merit mention in the opening credits, despite serving as the emotional foundation for the episode.

Modern Love is displaying a subtle marginalization that, in other arenas, I’d venture, the New York Times would criticize. But this is the trouble with branded content masquerading as television: Are these stories that really need to be retold—or does converting thorny prose into slippery, well-meaning episodes serve another purpose? It’s hard to shake the feeling that Modern Love exists to communicate a fantasy of this particular New York, experienced by these particular upper-class people, in order to sell something to someone. Maybe more Prime memberships, maybe more Times subscriptions. The show’s fantasy is a lifestyle fantasy; perhaps watching makes you slightly more likely to buy a chunky cable-knit sweater with free two-day shipping.

But really, I think, it’s just selling schmaltz. Corporations use “love” to sell diapers and Le Creusets alike, worming their products into our minor human dramas. This is not that different. Modern Love is an opportunity for both Amazon and the Times to produce something that feels like a Hallmark card, as a kind of bellwether against the bad things said about them by others (in the case of the former, labor organizers ; in the case of the latter, the president ). It’s a branding opportunity, carefully directed at the affluent viewership that commands the purchasing power of both Amazon and the Times, affirming their centrality in the world and the romance of their desires. Love in the city, with a couple of logos on it.

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Modern Love

• Sofia Boutella as Yasmine; Olivia Cooke as Karla; Tina Fey as Sarah; Julia Garner as Maddy; Anne Hathaway as Lexi; Catherine Keener as Julie; Cristin Milloti; Gary Carr as Jeff; John Gallagher Jr. as Rob; Dev Patel as Joshua; Laurentiu Possa as Guzmin; Andrew Scott as Tobin; John Slattery as Dennis; Shea Whigham as Peter; Quincy Tyler Bernstine as Sylvia; Brandon Kyle Goodman as Andy; Caitlin McGee as Emma; Andy Garcia as Michael; Jane Alexander as Margot; James Saito as Kenji

TV Series Review

We each have our own set of experiences that shape us into who we are. And, for better or for worse, those experiences are often molded by love in one of its many forms: romantic love, affectionate love, self-love, obsessive love and so on. Each form includes a connection of some sort. But that’s where things get messy. In the connection . We humans are quite complicated. Like, really complicated. We don’t always know what we want or who we want or how we want. And we often don’t truly know the people around us, let alone ourselves.

But, occasionally, we run across people who really get us. The ones that make a lasting impact on our lives. And when we meet them, we tend to hold on because, well, we all want a happy ending.

Or, at least, so this compellation series tells us.

For the Love

Based on a popular New York Times’ column of the same name (which itself was inspired by readers’ personal essays), Modern Love is an Amazon Prime original that explores, as the name suggests, love and human connection.

This anthology series holds eight episodes, each running about 30 minutes. And each episode takes a brief look into the personal lives of everyday, ordinary people. There’s a woman learning to live with her bi-polar disorder, a gay couple seeking to adopt, a married couple fighting to keep their flame alive and many more.

But if the shows are about ordinary people, the actors playing them are not. Each episode features big names like Anne Hathaway, Tina Fey, Olivia Cooke, Dev Patel and John Slattery, to name a few.

It’s an interesting collection, one that takes the time to remind viewers that we’re all human, we’re all flawed and we each have our own, unique stories to live and to tell.

But just as we humans have our dark sides, so does this show. Language can be pretty rough as plenty of f-words are scattered throughout. Sex is prevalent (though not too graphic), same-sex relationships and kisses are a part of the mix and the episodes function more as tiny character studies than they do as anything else.

Episode Reviews

Oct. 18, 2019: “when the doorman is your main man”.

Maggie can’t seem to hold down a relationship and none of the men she brings home are worthy of her, according to Guzmin, the doorman of her apartment complex. When Maggie finds out that she’s pregnant, Guzmin provides emotional support.

Maggie realizes she missed her period and purchases several pregnancy tests. We see her bare thighs as she sits on the toilet to take the test. Maggie contemplates abortion but decides to have her baby girl instead. Later, Maggie gives birth and we see the doctor guide Maggie’s hand (with her bloodied glove) to feel the baby’s head as she’s pushing the child out (Again, we only see Maggie’s hand being guided).

Maggie kisses a few men and sends sexually provocative text messages. Maggie wakes up one morning after having sex the night before (we don’t see anything, but the act itself is insinuated). Maggie wears a cleavage-baring top.

A woman makes a joke about needing a strong drink to get through a difficult conversation. Guzmin asks Maggie if she’d like an “Ambien.”

God’s name is misused six times and Jesus’ name once. The f-word is heard once and the s-word three times. “B–ch,” “b–tard,” “d–mit” and “h—” are all used frequently.

Kristin Smith

Kristin Smith joined the Plugged In team in 2017. Formerly a Spanish and English teacher, Kristin loves reading literature and eating authentic Mexican tacos. She and her husband, Eddy, love raising their children Judah and Selah. Kristin also has a deep affection for coffee, music, her dog (Cali) and cat (Aslan).

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Modern Love: everything you need to know about Anne Hathaway’s new Amazon series

Three Powerful Lessons About Love

28 feb · modern love.

When Daniel Jones started the Modern Love column in 2004, he opened the call for submissions and hoped the idea would catch on. Twenty years later, over a thousand Modern Love essays have been published in The New York Times, and the column is a trove of real-life love stories.

Dan has put so much of himself into editing the column over the years, but as he tells our host, Anna Martin, the column has influenced him, too. Today, Dan shares three Modern Love essays that have changed the way he thinks about love and relationships in his own life.

Also, Anna announces the beginning of a special series of episodes celebrating Modern Love’s 20th anniversary.

The Modern Love essays mentioned in this episode are: One Bouquet of Fleeting Beauty, Please Nursing a Wound in an Appropriate Setting My First Lesson in Motherhood

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¡Hola Papi!, Does My Grandmother Need to Know I’m Gay?

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John Paul Brammer writes the “¡Hola Papi!” advice column for The Cut at New York magazine, answering questions like, “Why am I dreaming about sex with a man when I’m a lesbian?” Or, “What if my partner judges me for writing smut?” This candor has given John Paul an intimate connection with his readers. However, as today’s episode reveals, he doesn’t think we necessarily need that level of openness with all of our loved ones.

Ahead of Mother’s Day, Brammer reads an essay about a recent college graduate who sets out to spend the summer exploring his sexuality, but whose plans are derailed by his duty to his grandmother. It’s called “Young, Gay and Single Among the Nuns and Widows” by Kevin Hershey. Brammer says it’s “bizarre” how much this essay resonates with his own life.

Emily Ratajkowski Can Take Care of Herself, but a Little Help Would Be Nice

Emily Ratajkowski is doing a balancing act many famously beautiful women have to perform. In her 2021 book “My Body,” she reflects on what it’s been like to build a career based on her public image, and her struggle to control that image in an industry largely run by men. Since getting divorced a few years ago, she’s been thinking a lot about gender dynamics and the type of agency she wants to have in dating, too.

Today, Ratajkowski reads “Why I Fell for an ‘I’m the Man’ Man,” by Susan Forray. Forray is also a successful, self-sufficient woman, dating after divorce. She’s surprised to find herself falling for a man with old-fashioned ideas about who does what in a relationship. (He pays for dinner, handles the finances and initiates sex). As a single mom who handles everything, Ratajkowski says, she can relate to the desire to be cared for once in a while. And that doesn’t have to mean playing into a sexist stereotype.

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Laufey, Gen Z’s Pop Jazz Icon, Sings for the Anxious Generation

Laufey, the 25-year-old singer-songwriter, has risen to prominence by taking the trials of today’s dating world — casual relationships, no labels and seemingly endless swiping on apps — and turning them into timeless love songs.

Today, Laufey reads Coco Mellors’s essay, “An Anxious Person Tries to Be Chill,” which is about a woman trying to work through her deep-seated relationship anxieties and attachment issues in an on-again, off-again situationship. Laufey says she, too, has been an anxious partner. While she thinks a toxic relationship, like the one in the essay, can make for a great love song, she now knows secure relationships can make beautiful music, too.

Why John Magaro of ‘Past Lives’ Could Never Love a Picky Eater

The actor John Magaro is picky about whom he goes to dinner with. Magaro is an adventurous eater. So whether he’s buying offal from the butcher, making stews from the 1800s or falling in love over a plate of rabbit, he says it’s important to him that the people he shares a meal with are willing to be curious. For Magaro, it’s about more than personal preferences. Sharing a meal and connecting with other people, he says, is the bedrock of society.

Magaro played Arthur in “Past Lives,” one of our favorite movies last year. His character is constantly working to understand his wife on a deeper level. And Magaro sees that quality in “My Dinners With Andrew,” by Sara Pepitone, a Modern Love essay about food as a love language, and a series of dinners that make, and break, two relationships.

Esther Perel on What the Other Woman Knows

Over the last two decades, Esther Perel has become a world-famous couples therapist by persistently advocating frank conversations about infidelity, sex and intimacy. Today, Perel reads one of the most provocative Modern Love essays ever published: “What Sleeping With Married Men Taught Me About Infidelity,” by Karin Jones.

In her 2018 essay, Jones wrote about her experience seeking out no-strings-attached flings with married men after her divorce. What she found, to her surprise, was how much the men missed having sex with their own wives, and how afraid they were to tell them.

Jones faced a heavy backlash after the essay was published. Perel reflects on why conversations around infidelity are still so difficult and why she thinks Jones deserves more credit.

Esther Perel is on tour in the U.S. Her show is called “An Evening With Esther Perel: The Future of Relationships, Love & Desire.” Check her website for more details.

The Second Best Way to Get Divorced, According to Maya Hawke

When Maya Hawke’s famous parents got divorced, she was just a little kid trying to navigate their newly separate worlds. Paparazzi aside, Maya’s experience of shuttling between two homes was still more common than the arrangement described in the essay Maya reads: “Our Kinder, Gentler, Nobody-Moves-Out Divorce,” by Jordana Jacobs.

By staying under one roof, Jacobs and her ex-husband spared their young son the distress of having to go back and forth. But this “dad upstairs, mom downstairs” arrangement also meant that Jacobs had to overhear her ex falling in love with his new partner.

Today, Hawke reflects on the bittersweet family portrait in Jacobs’s essay, and on divorce’s role in Hawke’s own upbringing.

Maya’s latest album, “Chaos Angel,” drops May 31.

How to Be Real With Your Kids

Penn Badgley has made a career out of playing deeply troubled characters. From his role as Joe Goldberg on the Netflix series “You” to Dan Humphrey on “Gossip Girl,” Badgley has shown many times over how obsession and delusion can destroy love.

In his personal life, though, Badgley says he’s not doing too much brooding. He’s a father and a stepfather, and he opens up about the importance of being vulnerable with his kids. Badgley reads “Watching Them Watching Me” by Dean E. Murphy, an essay about a father who can no longer hide his emotions from his sons after they all experience a devastating loss.

Why Samin Nosrat Is Now ‘Fully YOLO’

The chef Samin Nosrat lives by the idea that food is love. Her Netflix series, “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,” and the James Beard Award-winning cookbook that inspired it, were about using food to build community and forge connections. Since then, all of her creative projects and collaborations have focused on inspiring people to cook, and eat, with their friends and loved ones.

After the recent loss of her father, Samin has gained an even deeper understanding of what it means to savor a meal — or even an hour — with loved ones. This week, she reads an essay about exactly that: “You May Want to Marry My Husband” by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. It’s one of the most-read Modern Love essays ever.

Brittany Howard Sings Through the Pangs of New Love

Brittany Howard, the five-time Grammy Award-winning singer, makes vibrant, dynamic music about love.

As the frontwoman of the band Alabama Shakes, she was celebrated for the power and emotionality of her voice. When she began her solo career in 2019 with “Jaime,” an album named after and dedicated to her older sister, who died at 13, Howard revealed new dimensions of her songwriting and herself.

Her latest album, “What Now,” captures the intensity of processing the past and starting anew. Today, Howard reads a Modern Love essay about the courage it takes to fall back in love: “Was She Just Another Nicely Packaged Pain Delivery System?” by Judith Fetterley.

Novelist Celeste Ng on the Big Power of Little Things

Before Celeste Ng became a best-selling author, she had a side hustle selling miniatures on eBay — dollhouse-size recreations of food were her specialty. Even after the publication of “Little Fires Everywhere,” “Everything I Never Told You,” and, most recently, “Our Missing Hearts,” Celeste still makes tiny things — now, as a hobby. She’s come to realize the parallels between making small things and writing: Both give her a chance to look closely at the world.

Today, Celeste kicks off our special podcast series, which celebrates 20 years of the Modern Love column, by reading Betsy MacWhinney’s essay “Bringing a Daughter Back From the Brink With Poems.” She discusses her own deep-rooted relationship to poetry — and the lessons, large and small, that poems can offer parents and children in uncertain times.

Modern Love at the Movies: Our Favorite Oscar-Worthy Love Stories

The New York Times’s film critic Alissa Wilkinson has a theory about movies: They’re all about relationships. No matter how big the action, the suspense and tension we experience when watching a film is often really about the feelings between the characters.

But romantic relationships often fall back on old tropes, like the long-suffering wife of an ex-cop who can’t resist that one last, risky case. (We all know her; she leaves teary voice messages urging him to be safe.) Some of this year’s Oscar-nominated films give us fresher portraits of love. Alissa and our host, Anna Martin, discuss the relationships that defy convention or easy definition, and push us to reconsider how we think about human connection, in three of those movies: “Poor Things,” “Maestro” and “Past Lives.”

A Politics Reporter Walks Into a Singles Mixer

The New York Times political reporter Astead Herndon went speed dating in a swing state to ask daters fun questions like: How early do you tell a prospective date whether you lean red or blue? When do you talk about your stances on issues like abortion or gender equality? It’s hard enough to find someone you click with. Then add election-year tensions into the mix, and things get even more complicated.

Today: Our host Anna Martin speaks with Astead Herndon, host of the weekly politics podcast “The Run-Up" about the not-so-distant worlds of politics and dating.

Author Read: Un-Marry Me!

Dave Finch reads his Modern Love essay, “On the Path to Empathy, Some Forks in the Road."

To hear our conversation with Dave, listen to the episode: “Un-Marry Me!”

Un-Marry Me!

We’re kicking off our new season this Valentine’s Day with a story from a Modern Love veteran.

David Finch has written three Modern Love essays about how hard he has worked to be a good husband to his beloved wife, Kristen. As a man with autism who married a neurotypical woman, he found it especially challenging to navigate being a partner and father. To make things easier, Dave kept a running list of “best practices” to cover every situation that might come up in daily life. His method worked so well that he became a best-selling author and speaker on the topic.

But almost 11 years into their marriage Kristen suddenly told him she wanted to be "unmarried." Dave felt blindsided. He didn’t know what that meant, or if he could do it. But Dave wasn’t going to lose Kristen, so he had to give it a try.

Valentine’s Day Bonus: How does politics affect your love life? Hear Anna Martin discuss this tomorrow on “The Run-Up,” a weekly politics show from The New York Times. You can search for “The Run-Up” wherever you get your podcasts.

I Married My Subway Crush

Zoe Fishman couldn’t stop thinking about the man she called her “subway crush.” For years, she saw Ronen on the train and admired him from afar.

When they finally connected, it turned out Ronen felt the same, and they began a blissful life together. But when their story took a devastating turn, Zoe had to grapple with longing for Ronen at a distance again.

For the final episode of our season, we hear about the joy and loss that showed up in Zoe’s life, and the remarkable way she learned to live with both of them.

Zoe Fishman is the author of several novels, most recently “The Fun Widow’s Book Tour.”

Author Read: I Married My Subway Crush

Zoe Fishman reads her Modern Love essay, “The Subway Crush Who Crushed Me."

To hear our conversation with Zoe, listen to the episode: “I Married My Subway Crush.”

Author Read: Our 34-Year Age Gap Didn’t Matter, Until It Did

Sonja Falck reads her Modern Love essay, “Our 34-Year Age Gap Was Showing."

To hear our conversation with Sonja, listen to the episode: “Our 34-Year Age Gap Didn’t Matter, Until It Did.”

Our 34-Year Age Gap Didn’t Matter, Until It Did

Sonja Falck was immediately attracted to Colin, the professor who was renting her a room. He was intellectual and lively, with bright eyes that drew her in. It was only after they were already dating that Sonja found out Colin’s age: He was 34 years older than her.

Their age gap didn’t give them pause. Sonja and Colin got married, had kids and built a fulfilling life together. But when Colin reached his 80s, and Sonja was in her mid-40s, Sonja realized she was craving a level of physical intimacy that Colin could no longer provide.

So Sonja and Colin had to make a decision: Could they transform their relationship into something that gave both partners what they wanted? Or had their age gap finally caught up to them?

Author Read: Two Boys on Bikes, Falling in Love

Eric Darnell Pritchard reads their Modern Love essay, “Two Boys on Bicycles, Falling in Love."

To hear our conversation with Eric, listen to the episode: “Two Boys on Bicycles, Falling in Love.”

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Love Letter: The Modern Love TV Series is Here!

Forget your weekend plans and binge-watch “Modern Love. ”

By Charanna Alexander

This week in Love Letter, we want to help you plan your binge-watching weekend. If you’re looking for a new show to add to your queue that will make you laugh, cry and even want to call your parents, you’re in luck!

Modern Love the TV series , and all of its eight episodes, premiered today on Amazon Prime Video. The anthology series, inspired by the weekly New York Times column, brings the love stories that you know and love to life, featuring stars like Tina Fey, Andy Garcia, Anne Hathaway and more.

So, if you’re in for the weekend or looking for a reason to cancel the plans you’ve already made, you now have hours of raw love and relationship content to indulge in. You’re welcome!

Need more love? Sign up here to receive Love Letter in your inbox every Friday.

What’s Modern Love?

It’s a column. A podcast. And now, a television show.

Upcoming Events

Modern Love in LA

Are you in Los Angeles? Join Daniel Jones in Conversation with Terri Cheney on Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m., where they will discuss the ever-evolving forms of storytelling around the complications and beauty of love at the Mark Taper Auditorium — Central Library.

Modern Love In D.C.

Are you in Washington, D.C.? Join Modern Love editor Daniel Jones and writer Deborah Copaken on Oct. 27 for a screening of “When Cupid is a Prying Journalist,” an episode of the forthcoming Modern Love TV series (dropping next Friday!), inspired by Ms. Copaken’s essay. Afterward, they will discuss love, loss and seeing yourself played by an actor.

We want to hear your stories.

Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay or an Unhitched column . Don’t feel like writing more than two tweets, an Instagram caption or a Facebook post? Consider submitting to Tiny Love Stories , which are no more than 100 words. Getting married? Here’s how to submit a wedding announcement.

Email your thoughts and feedback to [email protected] .

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