Modern love the pad cast supported by produced by the island at W B war, Boston. Oh, the from the New York Times and WB. You are Boston. This is modern the stories of love loss and redemption. I'm your host magnetron puberty, the! What if you had to pretend your partner was a stranger for a day

If today were day one of your relationship, how would you act? How would they respond? Would you fall in love again, TIM Kreider and his girlfriend tried to find out. He writes about their experiment in his essay just for tonight and you don't know me, his essay is read by actor and comedian Nick Kroll, he stars in the film Olympic dreams in select. Theaters now are like many couples. My girlfriend- and I agree that Valentine's day, is a commercial holiday last year. Neither of us wanted to do anything traditionally. Romantic like go out for a fancy dinner. We wanted instead to do something scandalous,

He had a wish list of activities. We been gradually checking off and talked over a few possibilities. We settled on one of my suggestions. We would go to a bar that neither of us frequented pretend to be strangers, and I would try to pick her up. We ve been dating for eight months long enough to get comfortable with each other. Getting comfortable is one of the pleasures of being in a long term, relationship not having to put up a first date front, getting take out and watching tv being, warring together, it's a relief to not have to be on to feel free to be in an unattractive mood or display. One of your weird neuroses without worrying the other person will finally realize the truth about you. but this is also a hazard of relationships. You can take your partner for granted and quit trying to impress couples forget how to fly

or that there are tracked it to any one else and get bored with each other in themselves until the data merges that one of them has a whole secret life in a fair order, Roderick Correspondence, a hidden kink in acts of some unexpected. Hyper gender. Neither of us was practiced at role playing we're not into a labyrinth, schoolgirl professor applicant employer princess hot scenarios. We are going to pretend to be other people. We. going to be ourselves in a pear reality in which we haven't met. We both word, we might just feel safe. they want to quit. There was some last minute waffling. She was here, a bad day and I told her we could postpone if she wasn't in the mood, but she does to rally. We establish some cold words one is a warning and another to call the whole thing off walking to the bar.

That night to meet my own girlfriend. I was enormous I freaked out over what to wear choosing a bar stool filters. Brought with possibilities and drawbacks as an opening chess move. In the end settled on a stool to away from a guy at the end of the bar leaving my girlfriend choice to sit beside either him or me. I took out the book I had brought Nabokov's pale fire whose narrators also pretending to be someone else and waited, When she arrived, she wounded me by taking the stool. Next to the other guy, I couldn't take the one next to you. She later said that would have been too easy: She said she had even considered sitting on the other side of the bar from me making eyes at me from there no idea how to pick someone up on the other side of a barn would certainly have failed and disgrace myself.

relevant to mention here that my girlfriend is voluptuous. She tie long ago, men staring at her cleavage and now dresses in severe black clothing with high necklace. An austere, copper accessories that look like machine parts or totemic objects. when she slid onto her stool in a tight sleeveless shirt that clung to her breasts and bared her mid drift. It had, I the same. Warm disorienting effect on me of a half a dilaudid chewed, her skirt when angled hemline that showed off her thighs. Only added to the feeling she took a book out of her purse and opened it also pale fire. We are reading a others, winner winter project, the other guy, was also reading a book. It's the end of the bar, book club, I said, is an opening gambit, hey other guy said: did you You two are reading the same book. We both feign, surprise

listen? The three of us got a new conversation. Other guys book was collection of essays. That sounded pretty good Alarmingly, he turned out to be smart and well read because, of course, New York is full of smart. Well, read people vying with their formidable education's and charm for mates. He was lawyer, and not even a boring lawyer, but one who did something interesting and cool It seemed to me that my girlfriend was talking with him more than me. It began to seem, as if other guy might doing better with her than I was by no means a foregone conclusion that I would win her. I had begun to both like and feel sorry for this guy, since he no idea he was a supporting player in our private game and I hoped had no actual chance with her, but also hate him and want to best him in combat

My girlfriend I had one seemed to mail: Canada Geese fighting over a female goose, squawking furiously and beating the water with their wings and grappling. each other snaking throats with their bills, because no offense all geese look pretty much alike it was hard to say which goose one the attacker or the defender, but I knew that I wanted to be the goose that ended up with the girl, not the one who flew out haunting and ignominious defeat, thank God the guy's wife. Eventually showed up with a colleague of hers. They were both writers for a it, We show they assured us. We had never seen who got together every two They need to watch the new episode. They were all interest people we like them, but also we couldn't break character. We had felt

self, conscious and uncertain about this plan to start out with, but now that our private game had become an uncontrolled experiment involving other people. We were committed, it had gone real, having to maintain our pose of being strangers in front of a third party. Also forced us to reintroduce ourselves to ask each other so What do you do when? Oh, what neighborhood do you live in and we to try an answer without being boring until listen to each other's answers and new. My girlfriend said late that she was sure that we would have dropped the act. Fifteen minutes in, if not for the presence of these strangers, it also kept our roleplay tethered to reality She was forced to be more realistically flirtatious, treating me like a stranger at a bar with some weariness and respectability instead of inviting me back to her place after one drink or having sex with me in the bathroom just before

our three new friends left the lawyer gave us each cardan said I'm here region. Today. If you want to keep her book club going, I thought he gave me lijo guy look of good luck or congratulations, after they left. I asked my girlfriend if she would let me pay for our drinks. I was as just asking and is thrilled when she accepted, as I would have been had I been meeting her for the first time. Let us draw the curtain of discretion over the evenings conclusion except to say that it is a singular experience to have awkward drunken hookup sex with your own girlfriend. This wasn't about spicing up a relationship gone stale, I'm not necessarily recommending this particular game to others. What I would recommend is what it did for us it reminded us that, despite the allure, familiarity. Our months together may have fostered my girlfriend, and I are still strange to each other

telling each other stories about our romantic and sexual pass has something of the same effect. reminding me that she is a whole person of whom I only know a recent and narrow sample with a long history of relationships, flings and fantasies a whole speck. From of desire, much of which may be invisible to me. This is I but also exciting, it's easy to get caught, sent an imagine that the narrow band your partner, allows you to see, or the only one you're comfortable looking at is all there is in the end, our game was not just an aphrodisiac, but also a tonic. a reminder that she could, if she wanted go home, with someone else any night she wants. Although I trust her and believe that she loves me, I still have to win her once in a while, maybe it'll be a tradition for us, a ritual reminder of a perennial truth

assuming we get to do it again, but No one is guaranteed another Valentine's day That's Nick Kroll, beating TIM craters essay just for tonight, pretend you don't know me, will catch up with him after Bryn. The if you're hired

and 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 deck chide free today at zero cruder, dot com, slash, and why t that Sippar cruder dot com slash and why T zip recruiter the smartest way to hire? I love felling, my boyfriend and I often play stalling me together by together, I mean sitting next to each other of playing individually and not cheating. Sometimes, when I open up scowling d, I see that you have completed a few words on your own. I feel a little betrayed in ferry

It may have happened again today. I have one friend 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 like that was my dad. It was like the first time together and I was out. I think I got to see 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 writers essay was published in twenty eighteen. He didn't want to update us on the relationship he writes about because TIM wanted to protect their privacy, but when we caught up with him to merge two other couples to get out of their comfort,

and what that I say ultimately was about was finding a way to make your partner strange and new to you again, because it is a problem inherent in all relation ships that familiarity breeds, I won't say contempt or even indifference, but familiarity, isn't exciting and Paradox relationships right. We want someone thrillingly a new and different, but we also want someone with whom we can be a blob, hadn't

at home, it'd be boring and watch tv and eat potato chips right out of the bag. Also, you you can't get lazy. I mean it's nice that people accept you for the horrible person you really are, but you do have to keep trying. You can't assume, there's nothing. You could ever do to alienate them and, of course, you know people are much nastier to their partners than they would be to most other people in the world because, unfortunately, you've earned the intimacy of behaving badly with each one.

I wouldn't specifically recommend doing this thing unless it sounds fun to both of you, but I would recommend for finding ways of accomplishing the same hand of reminding yourself not to take each other for granted. It's nice. When you learn something about someone that surprise, you meant not that hard to find those things. Really you just stop asking each other probing questions after your first few dates. You forget that you don't know nineties percent of what there is to know about this person and we asked him. Did he and his girlfriend ever tried this experiment again, I think to make that particular activity, a tradition, would maybe defeat the purpose. It's something. That's inherently spontaneous unpredictable

the whole idea is to keep yourself off balance. No, we never made that a tradition I remember what we did last Valentine's day: that's TIM Kreider He's a writer and author of two collections of essays: we learn nothing and I wrote this book because I love you. more from Nick, Cruel and Daniel Jones. After the break. I love spelling bee my boyfriend and I often play spelling bee together by together I mean sitting next to each other playing 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. Sorry.

It may have happened again. I have one friend 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 like that was my dad was the first time together and I was out. I think I got it, see it J C K, p o t Jack, yeah yeah nice. I'm same is risky the digital positive for the New York Times. You can try spelling bee and all our games at an why times that come slash games, here's Daniel Joe and editor of the modern love column for the New York Times. It's kind of a profound question: can you fake unfamiliarity? That's one question that TIM's essay. asks, and the answer is complex They do sort of fake

unfamiliarity? But I think the more interesting point that TIM makes. Is that familiarity itself? Is the illusion that thinking that know someone and know everything about them, just because you spend a lot of time together that that is the illusion. I'd. Never really, quite you know, heard that idea expressed in that way before and it stuck with me. You know, like don't be so presumptuous that you think you know this person that they don't have mysteries of it. They don't have things they keep from you that day, might one day really surprise you with aspects of their personality. And here's actor and comedian Nick Kroll I think we all know what it's like to both be attracted to and

of the comfort that you feel inside of a relationship and I'm in Stood in what couples do to figure out how to navigate that comfort, I think a lot of people I can relate to this kind of story of being in a relationship with someone they love and feel comfortable with, and also trying to figure out how to keep that really. winship, interesting and exciting. Thanks again to Nick for reading this week's piece, his new film dreams is in select theaters and on digital platforms. Now modern love is the production of the New York Times and W B you are Boston, NPR station, its produced, directed and edited by Caitlin, O Keefe, original scoring and sound design by Matt Reed Iris, as our executive producer, Daniel Jones is the

it or of modern love for the New York Times an adviser to the show. The here for the modern World POD cast was conceived by these a Tobin special thanks to Julia Simon on your streamline and merely at the New York Times additional music courtesy of appeal. If you like this leave us a rating or a review on Apple podcasts. It helps new listeners, find us, I'm making chunk Roberti, see you next week.