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

by Daniel Jones

Vulnerability is the animating quality of all love stories, and it can take many forms. In every case, though, vulnerability means exposing ourselves to the possibility of loss, but also—crucially!—to the possibility of connection. You can’t have one without the other.

love, at its best, is more of a wheelbarrow than a rose: gritty and messy but also durable. Yet still hard to put into words.

If I were Spock from Star Trek, I would explain that human love is a combination of three emotions or impulses: desire, vulnerability, and bravery. Desire makes one feel vulnerable, which then requires one to be brave.

“We get so fixated on the job we want or the person we’re dating because we don’t think there will be another. But there’s always another.”

To win the person (or the job, for that matter), we think we have to be the most perfect version of ourselves. When our hearts are on the line, vulnerability can feel impossible.

First: denial. It was entirely possible he hadn’t seen the text. He could have been in a deep sleep. He could have dropped his phone in the toilet. He could have died! Any of these options were comforting.

They didn’t say what I wanted to hear. That deep down, they weren’t sure if they were likable. That they were so irresponsible, they couldn’t imagine being mothers. They didn’t say they craved attention but had trouble giving it to others. They didn’t say how cruel they could be.

but the great thing about depression is that it’s not one size fits all, but rather comes tailor-made to suit one’s particular personality.

He had grinned and said, “I’ll see you later,” but he never saw me again. I have since learned that later means the same thing it did when I was a child and wanted to do something extravagant: It means I don’t want to or If I feel like it.

“What did you expect, Gab?” my friend said. “You can’t form a connection with somebody that fast.” I shrugged. “I didn’t mean to. This felt different.”

He said, “I’m never mean to girls.” I smiled. “So you’re a self-proclaimed nice guy?” “Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

They say they would love to date me and then wonder why, the next day, I think they want to date me.

It’s okay to fall deeply for one loser after another.

Making a fool of yourself for love is ultimately about you, about how much you have to give and the distances you will travel to keep your heart wide open when everything around you makes you feel like slamming it shut and soldering it closed.

Soon could mean two days or two weeks or two months. I learned early on that love meant never having to follow through on your promises.

This article suggested that if you knew you were going to meet the love of your life in one year, you would really enjoy this year. This seemed reasonable.

He is in every way the best boyfriend I’ve ever had. No one ever told me that a really great marriage can make up for two decades of horrible dating.

In Jess, I saw the love Jesus preached, one unconstrained by conditions and extended to everyone, especially the forgotten, the stranger. Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. His cosmology was not studded with creeds, crimes, and contempt; its essence was loving the marginalized. Every fiber of Jess’s being reflected this. She embodied the attributes Jesus was most passionate about: compassion, kindness, justice. How could loving someone who loved so well be wrong?

She put the silver band on my finger and gave me a matching ring to place on hers. Then she asked if I remembered the homeless man we met that morning after brunch. I laughed. “Of course! Why?” “I figured out what to do with those quarters. They were melted into our rings. Fifty cents each.”

I will tell them that I wish for them a love like I have for their father. I will tell them that they are my children, and they deserve both to love and be loved like that. I will tell them to settle for nothing less than what they saw when they looked at me, looking at him.

We were too young and inexperienced to know that people don’t change who they are, only how they play and work with others.

How do you grieve for someone you’ve lost but who is still there?

But a relationship that doesn’t work out isn’t a waste. There is no exact science or crystal ball. Profiling is a surface art; real love isn’t. As Hemingway once said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” Likewise, the best way to know if you are meant to be with someone is to be with him.