Modern love. The podcast is supported by 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 chase the sunrise or its gently settle in routine a good morning. is a moment to be present to find clarity and be grounded for the day ahead. Good days start with good mornings and good mornings start with Yogi Tea Yogi Tea, T's mate. More than just taste good from the New York Times and W, B or Boston. This is modern stories of love loss.

adoption, I'm your host, Meghna Chakrabarti. Possible in the run up to her wedding reality, the is full of brides it. But at Craig Bridgers wedding the tables were turned. Here's John Joe, he plays Hickory Sue in the most recent STAR Trek Reboot reading Craigs S, a man

I don't care about weddings, groom, Zilla is hurt, I'm not the type of guy who would want to plan a wedding. I would rather play Xbox than watch say yes to the dress. I dunno. If I'm a fall or summer, I decorated our bathroom with a framed Batman, comic book, but I found myself engaged to a wonderful woman who is so overbooked and so chronically late that she has her own time zone. We call it Tara time. I knew I had to step up if I wanted to make it down the aisle and when I did something unrecognizable began to stir inside me, everyone knows about bride, Zilla

The tooth creature, in a wedding dress, whose apocalyptic melt down sent bystanders running for cover, but I'm here to tell you there is a far more terrible beast lurking in the matrimony jungle- fear him for he is among us. His name is Groom Zilla and at my wedding he was me It all started with a tidal him. I can see that now

I wonder if grooms ill could have been stopped, then if I could have killed him in the shell as Brutus propose to do to Caesar. Had I only known listen, I do not wear ties unless I need one for an audition, I'm an actor and a writer. What I'm trying to say is bar tender, so I have never thought much about ties. I have never notice them in stores or unex, but not long, after my fiance and I finally settled on a date. Ties began to haunt me I started to see them in my sleep when I slept, which I did

Because I was always lying awake thinking about ties as it turns out. New York is a city teeming with ties and none of them looked right from my wedding terror logging. Twelve hour days, teaching and studying pilates had no time for my sartorial crisis. I had nothing but a skinny swatch from her champagne, colored sash and my own waffling sense of fashion to guide me. So I did the only sensible thing I bought every champagne tie I liked everywhere and took them all home. I bought ties from Bloomingdale's Macy's Barney's banana.

If the public and one from Paul Stewart that cost almost as much as my wedding band at home, I held them up to my throat, fanned them out on the table like a silken royal flush and wondered just What was happening to me. But my obsession went beyond ties. They came to writing the invitations, the wedding programmes and those little save the date cards. Vanity didn't get me into trouble. Ego did Tara played my ego like a well tuned kazoo baby you're such a good writer. She would tell me, via cell phone on a breathless break between clients in class you're, so good with words.

And suddenly, I would be back at the computer birthing tumescent phrases like under the setting, sun, terror and Craig will at last be wet. I agonized Or whether to quote a midsummer night's dream or Romeo and Juliet on the response card, and then I agonized over whether to use a semi, colon or comma in said quote, because frankly many Shakespeare authorities decide we on that. I hadn't asked for the job but now that it was mine, I was determined to write pure wedding poetry, and I settled into a pattern- I would tease. doubt a brilliant idea and she would come home and veto it, which would only feed my blooming hysteria.

True, she often had a point, for instance, maybe a was tacky to format the invitation like a movie poster and right that our wedding was produced by God almighty. But still she didn't have to tell me that the creative process is a delicate thing and when she would critique my genius I would immediately grow resentful. Why was I stuck riding the movie gooey stuff, I'm a dude It insulted my dignity, like training, a cat to wear a mouse on its head, and I never received credit from my labours anyway after I read it in a mail account for our wedding and sent out a custom made and, I might add, fabulous, save the date a card. I was flooded with replies praising Tara, who was in England with her mother for the delightful message

right up to the wedding. Some guests continue to respond to my email messages by writing to tear, even though I signed them all Craig people just couldn't fathom groom not the bride might be leading our frantic March two I do when we were first engaged. I was advised by friends to nod and stay out of Tara's way By the fact that more and more grooms are now very involved in wedding planning, the treaties No wisdom remains that a groom, a child should be seen and not heard real man. The logic goes, don't care about weddings and that hurts groom. Zilla

It makes him cry, but only on the inside he doesn't want to streak his self tanning lotion months after the ceremony in my desperate search for answers, I called Dr Kathleen Gerson a sociology professor. At new year University and asked her why some of the wedding chores made me feel immaculate. It add on like that term. She told me immaculate imply Is that there's only one way to be a man? Oh, I didn't tell her that being swiftly corrected, when trying to use big words like emasculated, also makes me feel emasculated. I felt better, though, when I asked her if she thought I was a wimp, you are absolutely not a wimp. She said you're, the opposite of a wimp.

European year as more like id pining ear of frontiersmen in an unmet gender wilderness, I wish I had known doktor gruesome before the law, then again imagining myself as a rugged adventurer, wouldn't have crossed anything off my towering to do list. It wouldn't have lowered my blood pressure over stressed and under appreciated. I staggered toward my way.

week, end like well in over grown lizard swatting buildings in planes from his furious path, terror, and I fought whenever someone said the word wedding. I resented her busy schedule in her care free attitude. She resented my acting like a jerk. I sculpt around our apartment, dragging my tail across the wooden floor. Bellowing about everything, from gift registries, to whether the groomsmen should ask or the bridesmaids down the aisle. But when I sounded my reptilian roar at my soon to be sister in law, I had gone too far. I can make excuses. I might mention that I had scram.

Together, the wedding licence, the rings, the programmes, the music and the gifts for the bridle party. I could point that I had played tour guide on a bus that my father charter to take the out of town guests from New York City to Chappaqua. Where Tara and I are arrived too late for our scheduled with the minister and after all, that would minutes to go before we had to be it the rehearsal I just want to go to the bathroom, but there they were terror and Natalie. my fiance and her sister in law standing in the bathroom doorway chatty. I stood on one foot and then the other I waited for them to notice me and then I lost it. How where'd you get out of the way and shut the door

can have a little bright as a I shouted. How about that. When I saw the disgust on Natalie face, I realized what I'd done moments later in the bathroom mirror the ugly truth, grimaced back at me, scales, claws. The thick lidded eyes of a beast. In a way, my shameful outburst saved me- I didn't want to be that thrashing tense creature. At my own wedding, I started to breathe. Things were gonna, be perfect And with my bride anyway, they weren't going to happen on time. Just acknowledging this fact helped exercise grooms ill.

Sometime in the night he turned his gnarled back to the world, And lumbered out to sea leaving me neurotic nervous, butthole, big day, even though I had to wait an hour for Tara standing in the sun in my sharp black suit, while The target for took some pre ceremony pictures. I felt untasted, someone handed me a glass of wine. I looked at my mom and dad the arriving guests,

but I love and when my bride appeared in the doorway, everything else stress, tantrums, petty details, the shock price tag, melted away- I was getting married. It has three months now and Groomzilla is just an embarrassing memory. A lot of people told me, our wedding was the best they had ever been to is that just something you're supposed to say like telling your aunt Clara, that was the best liver, I've ever tasted. I dunno it certainly was the best day of my life, but sometimes late at night. I'm still plagued with doubt. Maybe I should have gone with Paul Stewart.

Joe show reading Craig Bridgers essay men don't care about weddings, room Zilla is hurt, we'll hear from Craig. After the break The.

If your hiring you know can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. You just hope the rate Canada comes along, but not when you use the procurator zipper. Critters technology finds qualified candidates, for you then actively invites them to apply. In fact, four out of five employers who posted zip recruiter, get a qualified candidates within the first day, chide free today at zero cruder, dot com, slash, and why t that super cruder, dot com. slash and wide t zip recruiter the smartest way, the higher I love felling, my boyfriend and I often play spelling bee together by together I mean sitting next to each other playing intervention. 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. I have one and who I will send screenshots from spelling bee of inappropriate words, then I was getting nervous. I sent it to my parents or something

me and my dad. We likes this funny together and I wish Heather out it J C K, P, o g. Jackpot panic, yeah nice, I'm same as ascii. The digital puzzles editor for the New York Times. You can try spelling bee and all our games at annoying times not come flash games, we're back its model the pod cast, I'm magneto body when we set out with Craig Bridger

immediately wanted to know what was it like when he first told the world he was a groom Zilla. I was an actor at the time and I was in rehearsals for a production of measure for measure, and this was probably about two weeks after the story was published. We were on a break from rehearsal and I just was chatting with my friend Carter and Carter mentioned that he was recently engaged. We were just getting to know each other as the early stages of rehearsal- and I said, oh yeah- I got I got married until long ago and we were commiserating the stresses of the wedding planning- and I mentioned that I had taken on a lot of the wedding planning myself, and he said. Oh man, you have to read this story. A friend of mine just forwarded me this you're going to love this. This guy wrote this whole story about how he had to plan his own wedding and swear to turn them into a groomzilla, and I said, yeah I wrote that Craig says there were lots of weird moments like this one. and then there were the agents and a book deal and

call from Hollywood, but it's been a long time since I wrote that story. It's it's been a long time since I got divorced. So I don't think about that time. Much anymore and those Phones have mostly healed it's comfortably in the past at this point. Let's put it that way and when are Purdue

Jessica, Alpert called Craig. He almost didn't go through with his interview, because, frankly, it's a it's a little embarrassing and, of course it was embarrassing to be the groom Zilla to begin with and write that story, and that was kind of the point of it. You know I don't mind a little bit of self deprecating humor and it was ridiculous, but I think what redeems the story for me or what redeemed at the time was that you know at the end of the day I got married and you know it's a happily ever after sort of ending- and I think what I jumped to is this fear that someone who doesn't know me is going to read the story or or hear the podcast and think. Well, of course, you know type a jerk who tries to plant his way Of course that didn't work out, but when I thought more about it, you know what rose to the top for me was that this was a really important event in my life, not just the I mean the wedding, of course, and and the marriage and will always be.

my history, but also the platform. The modern love gave me and the opportunity to write that story and share it with people, and it is still funny- and it is still something I'm proud of separate from you know what happened a few years down the line despite Ben Emotional Detour, life's good for Craig. He recently moved back to LOS Angeles after spending fifteen years New York. He says it feels good to be back home on the West Coast and today my love life consists of, like everyone else alive thus wiping left and swiping right out here now. I there is this this false idea that these apps give us, especially if you're in a big city, that you have an infinite number of people, and why would you even bother to start to invest? in one when there's this infinite potential waiting for you at home. As soon as you get the phone out again and I think that's really insidious and I think it works on you even in an unconscious way. I just remember

You know it's a longer that if you met somebody at a party here at a bar, wherever in something kind of collected a year, you'd be soaked cited that you can have spark with somebody that you would definitely follow that. But now you go oh, that was cool. I wonder, what's going on with you know these five hundred other matters that I can swipe through. tonight. I'm not sure what it's doing to our mating rituals, but it can't be good, so we're all collecting baseball cards of each other on Craig Bridger. His book is Vivier Grooms Ill, a brides guide. He works for a scotch whisky, air and lives in LOS Angeles in a moment. we'll hear from Daniel Jones editor of modern love for the New York Times. Joe has some thoughts to stick around the whoa.

I love spelling bee my boyfriend and I often play spelling bee together by together. I mean sitting next to each other. Playing individual 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. Are you? I have one for and who I will send screenshots from spelling bee of inappropriate words that I always get nervous that I sent it to my parents or something me and my dad we liked the first together and I wish her out. I it J C K, P, o Jack, jackpot panic. Yeah 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, Daniel Jones,

editor of the modern love column for the New York Times, he says it's pretty difficult write. A modern love essay. That's truly funny. A lot of readers. I've discovered with that kind of essay, really fear for the you know of they go overboard with their concern and instead of finding it funny, Think the person you know is verging on mental illness. It's really really hard to pull off a modern love essay. That's that's just comic and Craig Bridger does that it's one of the purest funny essays that we've ever run in the column, Dan Jones editor of modern love for the New York Times. We asked actor John Cho why he chose to read this piece,

Yes, I could relate to it, I'm turning into a bit of a dandy as I get older. Maybe it's a profession I'm in, but it was very well observed and inward look and it was a moment of gender self doubt as your entering the most gender affirming thing there is thanks and to John Cho. For reading this week's essay, his next film Columbus premieres at Sundance this weekend next week on the podcast actor Michael T, Williams brings us the story of a father. Trying to connect with his autistic son, threw himself on the sand was warm and fine and listened to the sound of the surf. It was as if he had finally found someone who spoke his language

The Pacific ocean. You may recognize that voice from the new filmed fences we recorded a Facebook live event when Michael Tea was in the studio. We to that at W B. U r DOT, org, slash modern love, modern, the production of the New York Times and W B. You are Boston, NPR station, its produced, directed and edited by Jessica Airport, John Parity and Emory seabirds in extra help. This week from producer Catherine Brewer, the idea for the modern Lompoc cast was conceived by LISA, told him.

Iris Adler, as our executive producer. Daniel Jones, is the editor of modern love for the New York Times and adviser to the show music for the pot cast courtesy of AP. Am I making trucker body see you next week.