When Lisa Phillips was thirty years old, she fell passionately in love with an unavailable man. Her crush began as a hopeful mental diversion, but quickly escalated into a kind of madness. At one point, she found herself standing outside the man’s door, knocking so loudly and insistently that when he finally opened it he was holding a baseball bat and threatening to call the police. (more…)

When Lea Thau was 38, her fiancé broke up with her while she was pregnant with their child. She subsequently became single for the first time in her adult life.

“I went from being engaged to be married and pregnant and looking for houses every Sunday to being eight months pregnant, alone in an apartment, discarded and devastated,” said Thau, in her astonishingly beautiful and raw podcast series Love Hurts.
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We all know that Valentine’s Day is a contrivance of greeting-card companies and florists. We all know that even those who have nice relationships aren’t really enjoying February 14, as there is nothing particularly romantic about eating overpriced heart-shaped ravioli in a restaurant full of unhappy couples on the coldest night of the year.

And yet, the holiday still manages to make many people like shit. (more…)

Can you make a decision to fall in love? Writer Mandy Len Catron wanted to find out. As Catron writes in a wildly popular New York Times Modern Love column, she told an acquaintance about a technique, developed by psychologist Arthur Aron, in which two strangers ask each other 36 questions of increasing intimacy and then stare into each other’s eyes for four minutes straight. When Aron conducted his study more than two decades ago, two participants fell in love in his lab and later married.
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One year ago today, I published my first book, It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single.

The book is based on a Modern Love column I published in 2011 about meeting my husband at 39, after spending the previous twenty years wondering what was “wrong” with me that I couldn’t find a partner (and which I recently learned is of the most popular Modern Loves in the column’s ten-year history). In the book, I take on all of the annoying reasons people tell singles they’re alone–from “you’re too needy” to “you’re too independent.”

Before my book came out, I was cranky about the idea of self-promotion–for all the usual reasons; it seemed icky and uncool. Plus, I knew there was a good chance I’d annoy people. But then I heard a smart artist named Ann Rea address this on a podcast. “Too bad,” she said. “You think your local dentist wants to market himself? He wants to be filling teeth. Same with your lawyer. She wants to be working on cases, not advertising herself. This is just what you have to do if you’re a professional.”*

Chastened, I decided to learn as much as I could about how a person can effectively market their own book without being too irritating (though I’ll let others be the judge of that last part).  Here’s some of what what I’ve learned.

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If you’re having a quiet evening at home tonight, or anytime this weekend, Lea Thau’s Love Hurts series on Strangers is a perfect listen. I gushed about this series before, and quite frankly didn’t think I could love it more. But Lea just did a follow up and it’s frickin’ great.

Couples often like to say that their New Year’s Eve plans are really boring — a quiet dinner for two, a movie night with the kids. When you’re single, boring isn’t really an option. Especially if you’re looking for love, watching Netflix in your pajamas feels like a serious negation of the most critical single-person obligation: Getting out there. (more…)

I’m having a very nice morning.

The New York Times just published a list of the 10 Most Popular Modern Loves of All Time and my first Modern Love, Sometimes It’s Not You — Or The Math, is Number 6!

The Times has also posted a list of The Styles Sections Most Popular Articles of the Year, and my second Modern Love, The Hard-Won Lessons of the Solitary Years. Is on that list, too!

So I’m feeling kind of groovy.

I’m also really happy to see that Daniel Jones, the Modern Love editor, made both lists too for his terrific essay Good Enough? That’s Great.

This year Dan published a really smart and insightful book about his ten years as the Modern Love editor called Love Illuminated: Exploring Life’s Most Mystifying Subject (with the Help of 50,000 Strangers). The book is funny, wise and very kind. Although Dan claims to not be an expert, he clearly knows much more about love than most of the so-called experts telling us that we need to change and shape-shift in order to find love. So if you liked my book, check out Love Illuminated!

Oh, and if you are new to this page and like my essays, there’s a lot more in my book It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single.

Happy Saturday!