Modern love the pad cast supported by car MAX, gives you the freedom to shop. However, you, like you, can shop for a car on mine and on the lot once you find the right car you can buy. However, you want by a man, and get home delivery in select markets or buy online entries express pickup at Carmax and no matter how You buy your car comes with a thirty day. Money back guarantee up to fifteen hundred miles, learn more and start shopping at Carmax DOT, COM, Carmax car buying, reimagined produced by the I lab at W B. U R Boston.

from the New York Times and W B were Boston. This is modern stories of love, loss and redemption. I'm your host. We talk about it, you might love Valentine's day. Or like me, sometimes you might want to resist the Valentine's day card and flower industrial complex. Well. However, you feel about this day. We wanted to drop into your feeds and say thank you for listening to this podcast about love in all its forms, and we wanted to leave you a valid.

made up of stories submitted to the modern love column by readers from around the world. These stories are drawn from the tiny love stories project which model I love debuted in two thousand and eighteen, where readers tell a love story in no more than one hundred words. So here are some of our favorites read by the people who wrote them Happy Valentine's day. We met a military October, first I'd, say the day I arrived a handsome stranger exiting the train station. That night we met it's on a dating app but didn't connect the next day and a mass of beer drinkers dressed in traditional german clothes. I spotted him above the crowd, giving a toast to top of bench we were wearing identical later, Jose pointed at him slightly drunk and said: hey you get down here as he jumped down. He said you fell, me, I didn't even know I was looking for him.

three years later. I still have them huddled several kilometers at Mount Fuji on a journey harder than we anticipated Jeff, looked into my eyes, which were blurry from crying and said

I wonder how many American Express points it would take to have helicopter pick us up both of us exploded in laughter and tears. I dusted off my body as he extended his hand and pulled me up. We continue up and down our mountain daily in darkness and lay taking turns being the hand held out and the hand that needs lifting to keep moving forward. How to meet you one exploit tinder to do with your fidgety fingers to make plans to meet in central park, but to send your location,

let's play hide and seek black dress. Three withhold your outrage when he gives up and says to look for him. Instead for spending frustrated circles until we spot him on top of Iraq, five five instantly overcome your fear of heights. To to him, ex over the next three hours succumb to much different, but scarier kind gravity, seven deletes hinder. the sound of the garage door pulled us apart signaling that his parents were home early. Why

I'd and stammering, he gathered my things and heaved them and me out the back door. I redressed and tiptoed around the house stopping beneath his parent window, just as their life lived on the small shaft of light. Finding me like a spotlight

one of the escaped prisoner. If only they had opened the blinds, they would have seen the boy who left their son in secret, but they never did and we never met and the light turned off the night you were discharged from the clinic where we had been both patient and prisoner. You tried to throw yourself into blinding headlights days later. I visited you in a new white room. You showed me a list of things you wanted to do. It was long and I was relieved you had written kiss Greta and I looked at you surprised. That's when you checked off the first thing on that list, and I thought of time how ousted in

sector to produce an unpredictable bond and happiness that we have missed the so long. I was Odin transgender, but not now I was searching the world through the dark, with a small flashlight flying God alone, smartphone in hand thinking what am I doing. I downloaded an app and began writing the setting one when Time Trans woman before Diane and Ipad in person. She said I thought, maybe I'd need a friend. I didn't think I'd find love. We found love, we dated we married, I transition to live as my true self and we started a new life in the light. As I waited for my

and to pay the bill. An elderly gentleman said. Excuse me, I want you to know you make a lovely couple, my wife past recently, some one said this to us when we re dating I'm passing it on to you. We weren't dating back just thirty minutes earlier. My friend had suggested we consider doing so. I wasn't sure, fearful of losing the friendship, I am forever grateful to that beautiful man who touched my heart. That day, my friend who became my husband recently died. I am looking to pass the message on the more tiny love stories after the break the.

The. I love spelling bee my boyfriend and I often play spelling bee together by together I mean sitting next to each other playing into 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. 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 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, yeah. It was Valentine's day and I was his first. Girlfriend he nervously asked me if I wanted flowers, ig when we said I'd rather have bacon. When I return from class, he came bearing a bacon and chicken nugget bouquet. Hmm, I fell in love with a boy when I was only eighteen. Both of us were raised in conservative christian household

and I said I do at twenty twelve years and two children later we're still in love, but I kept falling in love with other people too. So now we're polyamorous. I have a boyfriend he has a girlfriend and we share a relationship with another woman. I enjoy it, but what I think I like most is watching. Other people fall in love with the same boy. I fell four years ago. It's like yeah you

in writing the we have been married. Just a few weeks. I used up the last of the milk one morning and left for work, while my husband was still in the shower. I returned that evening to find an art installation on the table. Labeled a neat handwriting and a folded over notecard, a breakfast betrayed: nineteen, ninety, three wheat and ceramic next to it was the bowl of cereal and my husband had poured for himself sitting milk lists for more than twenty five years we have New to treat domestic annoyances with humor, our love has lasted, but even better so has the fun we ve been married for five years and have to children. We rarely argue by. If we get into an argument in public locking

trade or in a restaurant all will dropped won. Me take my hand in his look up at me lovingly and ask. Will you please forgive me cars begin honking people stare and the waitress starts ordering a dessert on the house to my absolute horror reminded why suggest to him. In the first place I say the Massachusetts if you're divorcing and have children under eighteen, you must complete a parenting program for five Wednesday nights. My friend and I were into the local middle school, where we sat at small desks among the other newly single parents, crying London, Scrubs, the angry landscaper, the excited executive, I brought gin and an orange now Jean Bottle he hadn't eaten for days. On the night I saw my son's geography project propped up in the classroom radiator

We kissed behind the clothing donation Bin and I thought I would die of grief and hope the It was Christmas Eve in the intensive care unit. My and was unresponsive. I put my head on his bed and dozed off when I awoke it was two a am Christmas morning. Death was coming and I was afraid, I correct his hand and talk to him. I don't want to drive home alone in the dark and cold. Can you wait until dawn to pass on? I got in bed with him.

Our souls met peace. The sun came up and my husband took his last breath. His final gift to me was the gift of light I didn't think I'd be dating in my eight, my guy. Pushing, ninety is even older than me Saturday nights consist of burgers and beers. SNL and a shared bed. When we're not together we're on the phone worried when one of us sick, more worried than we were when we were young and immortal, he called me his girlfriend. I call him my boyfriend we have no plans to marry live together I have house have a baby, we don't think about the future except to home,

will be here tomorrow. It's now Well that matters, that's all hi I'm merely, I work on the modern love column- and I read Smith the main modern love essay column and, among other things I select and edit tiny love stories we get thousands and thousands of submissions to the modern love inbox. So it's clear that we there are many people with stories to share, but we can only publish so many of them. So we wanted to and you have stories in order to share more stories, and we were also looking for a new format and Dan was really influenced by Social media and how stories

shared in such a simple way via Instagram, captions or tweets of or while I think I thinking of calling tiny love stories, tweeted love and have the stories be as short as a tweet or two. That proved to be a little too short. So now the word lemon is a hundred words. That's been proven prevent be just the right size. I think that the hundred word limit it encourages writers and encourages us as editors to choose words very carefully and very thoughtfully. The remind me of poetry in a way because they can either zero in on a very particular instant, very particular moment or interaction. Bore. Sometimes they encompass an entire relationship or entire lifetime. So it's hard to say what exactly makes a good tiny love story. I think

stories that are surprising that aren't just standard. We met x years ago she made me laugh and x years later, we're still laughing. That formula, I think, is good to avoid If there is something that's really strike into you or that you just remember from a particular relationship or instant in your life. If it's compelling to you, it probably is compelling to others. so, I want to encourage. Although podcast listeners tease met to time of stories and we're looking for work missions from writers of color to both tiny, stories and the main modern love column. So please

spread the word and please submit thanks so much to all of the authors at the tiny love stories that we heard today include Ryan Leach, Carrie, Ferguson, Lynn, Huynh Topher, Daniel Rediker GS, Sanchez, Kathy Caruso, Michelle Huang Jennifer, Martin, Mary Janovic, Loren Gray, Bethany, Grothe, Giroux, Kathy Lickteig, Michalski and Phyllis Ray feel. Modern love is a 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 read the tiny love stories project is headed by yeah, we at the New York time and special thanks to MIA from making this episode possible. Iris Adler. Is our executive producer additional help this week from Katherine Brewer.

DOW Jones is the editor of modern love for the New York Times, an adviser to the show the idea for the modern love podcast was conceived by LISA Tobin, special It's also to Julia Simon and honest Romanian at the New York Times additional music, courtesy of a p dot m I make provided by my other job, is hosting an NPR show called on point check it out in your podcast feed. Happy Valentine's day. We'll see you next week.