Modern love. The pod cast is made possible with support from living proof before the work messages begin to pour in, let's gift ourselves a good morning, a good morning as a moment to pause and ease into the day. It's meant to run and chased the sunrise or its gently settlement The routine a good morning as a moment to be present to find clarity and be grounded for the day had good days start with good mornings and good mornings start with Yogi T Yogi T tease made to do more than just tastes. Good living proof strike amp, who is so We're good at actually cleaning hair that you can take a spin class and not wash your hair after use, the code love at living proof, dot, com for a free travel sized dry shampoo, with your twenty dollar order. We are the science, you are the living proof and by Squarespace providing tools that help people showcase their passions with a custom

eyes, landing page website or online store, also offering domains hosting and twenty four seven support. Get your free trial at square space, dot, com, slash, modern love. You should. square space from the New York Times and W B or Boston. This is modern love stories of love, loss and redemption. I'm your host Meghna Chakrabarti think about the most embarrassing awful cataclysmic bad date ever been did it end in the emergency room? No okay, good! Well, then, it probably

at least a little better than the date Brian Guinness wrote about in his modern love column and who better to bring us a story of a romantic mishap. Then Judd Apatow director of films like train wreck, the forty! old virgin and knocked up here's his reading of Brian Well he titled at the hospital an interlude of clarity, there's never a good time to fall off your couch onto a martini glass, Nick, a major blood vessel and begin losing it this amount of blood, but having this happen in the middle of a promising date is an especially bad time stated this last spring, while on my fourth date with a brazilian women so beautiful, I was almost afraid of her after dinner and a homey italian restaurant, we walk back to the apartment I had just moved into in Brooklyn living in the city. For the first time without roommates, I was eager to take advantage of my new found privacy And things are going well, there's something romantic about drinking from fancy glasses in an unfurnished room, full of unpack boxes miles

This is in a silent way spot on the record player. I was amazed to have gotten as far as my friends, sick of hearing. It made no sense to me that a gorgeous woman in her early twenties, who spoke four languages that had lived on three continents, was spending her saturdays with me, a thirty one year old, bookish type from Pittsburgh. Each outing felt as if I were sneaking into an exclusive club and at the end of the night I feared. I would be discovered and asked to leave. I realise that meeting someone wonderful is the whole point of dating, but actually being with someone wonderful can be too stressful for me to enjoy. This dress is typical for me I've been on ethics idee medication for about ten years and on daytime consistently asking myself was at the wrong thing to say: do I seem nervous? Will obsessing about being nervous? Make me appear more nervous. unusual questions, to ask yourself when meeting new people, but for me they can be paralyzing, even if the

goes well. I often appreciated only later and from a distance as if it had happened to someone else like dating in the third person. So far, my success with this particular women had been an exercise in ignoring the reality of it, which apparently also let me ignore the reality of my surroundings. In general,. And she unravelled herself from our embrace on the couch to use the bathroom I fell into the after dinner dress. She had left on the floor, the glass slicing into the soft underside of my up her arm. When I looked down, I glimpsed may exposed try sects and more blood than had ever seen in my life. The cut had gone merely to the bone. This is not the first time a date ended with me in the emergency room. I seem to have a knack for my car

Girlfriend once served undercooked chicken that gave me hallucinations in a fever of one hundred and four years later, my attempt to cook breakfast for another woman ended in second degree burns after I managed to set fire to a paper towel. But the severity of this injury is unfortunate timing and the fact that I was naked all broke new ground in the ambulance, the emergency medical workers held together my arm, but there are questions threatened to unravel my subterfuge as an acceptable mate to this accomplished, young woman. How old are you one asked which put our substantial age difference, something we had not yet talked about suddenly under a spotlight? Are you on any medication, antidepressants and klonopin? I reluctantly answered then, to her. You see your boyfriend, your friend, long pause, boyfriend.

Loaded uncomfortably, then an instant later friend, even though I was riding an ambulance, a surgery that one still stung. the entertainment of the hospitals over I said I was still half naked. When I arrive, my date had managed to get pants on me. While we wait for the ambulance As I haven't been able to let go of my arm at the time, I shirt would go on only half way being wheeled into Sergio like this. Alongside a woman in a sexy dress, pretty much screamed sex injury. The next hour was a chaotic blur of x rays. Questions I struggled not to panic about. Why does this waiver format for my religious preference. When I asked I'm advocate lose my arm am I the answer was a troubling. I don't think so physical humiliation was next on the agenda. Before the operation. I did got to watch a nurse move. My pasty fluorescent lit body out of my bloody jeans and into a hospital.

Well, I pictured her sitting at dinner a week from now. This unflattering snapshot of me hovering between us. As I pointed out what I wanted on the menu to the waiter with my hook arm, then it was time I remember, that the lights in the operating room were very bright and I remember being told they were about to start the anesthesia and suddenly oblivion. I woke in a is my arm and my date we're both still with me. The operation had gone well, but protocol required me to stay in the emergency room for six more hours. This registered briefly as a terrifying amount of time for a woman in me to be left alone, with no dim lighting, no alcohol, no movie to watch or appetizers to eat and no escape hatch in the event of,

goodness I'll, never know of my com, a psychological, a cocktail of adrenalin morphine and utter relief or physiological after six hours of unbroken embarrassment fear I was simply to exhausted whatever the reason I felt fine. My dates, I stared into mine with an uncomplicated tenderness and made my head swim. This, I thought, is what it's like to be with this one, Neither of us had changed, but I was in a different world. Those six hours sailed by gloriously, we traded hospital stories and endless jokes about martini glasses. We talked about books and our families. We came up with an absurd screenplay idea, a horror movie set in the hospital I was talking and laughing and effortlessly connecting with one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. a woman I was truly falling for

but I was finally released, are midmorning cab ride. Back to my neighbour, it felt like a lucid dream we ate eggs had which is in the park and returned to find the familiar surroundings of my living room splattered with blood Through a haze of sleep deprivation, a residual morphine, I felt like a ghost returning to the scene of my own murder as we stood there mopping up bloody footprints with our swiftness surrounded by wanted a pink paper towels, I thought either. You will never see this woman again, or she will stick around a long time and neither happened to be able to say my story ends in an epiphany with the end of my anxiety and the beginning of an enduring relationship.

but the reality is. She left me about a month later, not because she found me repulsive in the fluorescent light at the hospital, but for a more conventional reason. She missed her ex boyfriend. Sometimes when a guy really likes a girl, he gets a tattoo on his arm. I got this prominent scar instead, but there are times when I finger it's deep, groove, the six beautiful hours in the emergency room flicker in my head that I am reminded how close I am to an alternate world in which I am happy world that occupies the same space as this one, but is somehow distinct from it. and while that better world may be difficult to find, it is as close to me as the air in front, Thanks director and producer Judd Apatow reading

and get us is modern love, peace at the hospital. I love felling, my boyfriend and I often play stalling, be together by together. I mean sitting next to each other individually and not cheating. Sometimes when I open up spelling bee- and I see that you have completed a few words on your own, I feel a little betrayed. They may have happened again to I. Have one friend who I will send screenshots from spelling bee of inappropriate words. Then I was get nervous. I sent it to my parents or something like that. Me and my dad. We like to play spy together, and I wish her out. I it J see K, P, o t yeah right nice.

I'm same as earth's sky. The digital puzzles editor for the New York Times. You can try spelling bee and all our games at N Y Times, dot com, slash games and interlude of Claire so was bright, Brian any closer. Today. To that alternate happy reality, he longed for in his peace will find out after the break.

I'm Katy Living Proof and we get love letters all the time like this one dear living proof, I used to think my hair was to find to hold a style, but now everyone tells me how thick and beautiful lux all my life. I struggled with an hated my hair. Now I love it and I'm proud of it. Thanks to you at this point, you'd have to pry your prime style extends from my cold dead, hands, love Samantha. You can use the code, love for a free travel size, dry shampoo, with your twenty

our order living proof, dot, com, we're back. This is modern love. The pod cast a magnet shocker body and joining me now is the author of that peace, Brian Guinness Brian thanks for joining us, thanks for having also with us, of course, is Daniel Jones Editor of the modern love column for the New York Times hide in high. So brain of my first question that just I have to ask you is You you make yourself pretty vulnerable in this column here, verging on admitting to some humility, and maybe what made you? But we would you want to share it with all of those readers of the New York Times. Most of the time that I was working on,

I didn't think about anyone reading it at all a friend kind of gave me the idea to write it, but I think when he suggested he was half joking and I was kind of half jokingly, writing it. I didn't, I honestly didn't think it was going to get picked. So I didn't have a lot of time to think about what it would be like to have lots and lots and lots of people read it so Dan. In that case, why did you pick it? Well, it's funny, because I you know I like when I hear that someone says I wrote it thinking. No one would read it because that's the sign of someone, who is some- is going deep and tell him the truth and not trying to hide. I guess and then what I what I loved about this piece. It speaks to its so many people go through on a first date trying to get to know somebody- and you know you want to put foot forward and you want to not be vulnerable and that just runs counter to what getting to know so

one is all about. You have to be vulnerable, but what's funny about Brian's peace is he is forced into that vault. in the way falling onto a flats. I being whisked to the hospital. There was something about the way that you ended, the the column. Brian, that's really stuck with me because, like there, you are talking about this alternative existence where you could feel happiness. That is not quite there with you all the time, but it, but it's there just in front of your face mean. Do you still feel that way? Yeah sometimes I mean I don't think it wasn't an experience that sort of magically fixed all the problems I have with anxiety and that sort of thing I mean that's, that's kind of an ongoing struggle, but it is sort of touchstone. I guess I can refer back to now as a point of reference. Like a a cycle, logical and even spiritual point of reference. You know now you know what's possible in a way. It's not that you have to cut open your arm every

I am from hiccup, but this sense that it is there and that sort of deep connection or just being real with someone and vulnerable with someone is their close, and I I like that term so realization. the n, you know Brian Judd, Appetito narrated, your story for us, and we actually also asked him why he chose this one and here's what he said. I think I was attracted to this s aid, because this is how I felt and dates. I really did think that every day was going to say they had to go to the bathroom women climb out the window and everything that happened to me other than almost slicing open, an artery, but that there is still time for that have been fully.

have and do that's great yeah, so I mean there. There is a universality and in feeling vulnerable, and it's almost a rock bottom scenario. In this room, what could be worse, that'll, be naked, completely naked and about you know, on death's door with your blood loss, I mean. Actually, I'm curious did the woman in the story did she know that her experience with you in the emergency room was going to in the New York Times. I know I mean not not until was in the New York Times. She actually really liked the piece a lot, and then we ended up meeting up for a drink, just to talk about it and then weirdly. We sort of ended up going on a couple more dates and then it kind of fizzled out again for good now, given that you were talking about how that date wasn't the first time you'd ended up in the emergency room has had it has it happened since then too,

We are actually actually I am. I met someone. I've been seeing about six months and we actually ended up in the EU are about three weeks ago I was gonna cook dinner for her in my apartment and I had just been grocery shopping and somehow, as I was taking the bag of groceries off my shoulder, I managed to dislocate my right thumb so much less life threatening so another bonding experience. Yet this was that this was a very positive one and, let's hope that you stay out of the EU are as as you progress for Hunter through life. I believe me I'll do my best while Brien get us. Is the author of this week story titled at the hospital and interlude of clarity

he's also the assistant director of publicity at a Manhattan book, publisher, Brian, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Thank you and Dan Jones. Editor of the modern love column for the New York Times is also author of love, illuminated exploring life's most mystifying subject with the help of fifty thousand strangers Dan. Thank you. It's pleasure special thanks to Judd Apatow, who read this week's essay, his new column The series is simply called love and it premieres February Nineteen on Netflix and the fifth season of girls starts on February twenty first, Next week on modern love, Dakota Fanning brings us the story of falling off a cliff and falling in love. I explained in my drug speech that he didn't have to come to the hospital or hang out with a broken girl, some

no guilt I'd call him when I was healed and back to normal. He stayed with me until the nurse kicked him out. Modern love is a production of New York Times and Wbur Boston, NPR station it's produced, directed and edited by Jessica, Alpert, John Perotti and Emery's said. The idea for the modern love podcast was conceived by LISA, told him Iris Adler is our executive producer, Daniel Jones, as the editor of modern love for the New York Times and adviser to the show music for the podcast, courtesy Pierre subscribe to modern love on your favorite podcast app and write us a review of this week's episode. You can also share your thoughts at Facebook, dot, com, slash, modern love and on Twitter. At Magna W B. You are that m e g h and a w b you are, and Dan is at Dan Jones and weighty

still hoping you'll, send us voice, memos or emails telling us your favorite quotation about love. Here's one Leah, singer men. It comes from one of her favorite tv shows how I met your mother loved us and make sense. You can't logic your way into or out of it. Love is totally nonsensical, but we have to keep doing it or else were lost and love his dad and humanity should just pack it in because love is the best thing we do what we want more quotations, we're going to try to do something really special with them, so send your favorites to modern love, at W B. U r dot org and please make sure to tell us where you're from and how to pronounce your name, because we do like to get that stuff right

that's a modern love. All one word: at W B, you are not a word, a magnet Accra body, thanks for listening.