Modern Love

OKCupid nos calificó como “altamente compatibles”. Solo que él era ateo y yo musulmana practicante.

Which made me angry at him — and then at myself.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

I deserved an Oscar for my performances as best supporting wife and mother. After my divorce, I could no longer pretend to be someone I’m not.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

My doctor asked a routine question that led to a marital crisis.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

My daughter and I looked at a book together, posed for a picture, and then she left. Forever.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

I knew I had to hold onto what I needed — even if that meant using a lawyer to get custody (of a dog).

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

While I was with our new baby, my husband was with another woman.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Our long-distance marriage was hard to sustain — and hard to end.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Among the staged photos and silly prompts of online dating, I get one sentence where I get to be my true self.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

When an Italian stranger approached me, I listened to my intuition, and it changed my life forever.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

When technology offered me the chance to celebrate my dead husband’s 27th birthday, I took it.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

The grief of miscarriage is largely invisible. And with each loss, the longing multiplies.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Perhaps what’s making me sick is not the lack of love I have received but the love I have ceased to give.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Learning to love two women at once — one living with Alzheimer’s — is a challenge and a blessing.

How did your relationship go from “hey” to heartfelt? We want to see the messages that started it all — and hear about what happened next.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Our 19-year age gap feels treacherous and gossip inducing — and is also the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Divorce left me with a surprising realization about who was the love of my life.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

My boyfriend instilled in me a passion for movies. To heal, that’s where I go.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

A physical relationship is nearly impossible for a hard-working Bangladeshi taxi driver and his wife, who longed for each other.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

I have no moral objection to infidelity. For me, sex is just sex.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Korea was my parents’ country. They wouldn’t need me there as they did in Canada … right?

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

After losing my husband, I just wanted to feel alive. Then I wanted more.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

When I abandoned “grayspeak” — talking to elders as if they are toddlers — my conversations with my grandmother finally began.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Readers share how money affected their relationships

My father’s decision to cut me out of his will shocked me. Could the damage ever be repaired?

I didn’t see the point of investing in candlelit dinners or surprise gifts. Then I met Nicki, who taught me that romance is not an extravagance.

What would you do if you won the lottery? How do we stop having this same fight about money? And much more.

The common denominator between the two relationships had not been gender or sexual orientation. It had been me.

My disability means I’ll need long-term care. If I pay for more now, will my boyfriend care for me later?

Divorce was a shock that led me to a new vow: financial independence.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

If that’s how our friends saw us, I couldn’t bear it.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Lessons in letting go and embracing a lighter life.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Small gestures can build relationships — and also tear them down.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

We only had a few weeks together. Why did that allow us to fall so hard so fast?

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

My husband and I haven’t spoken in more than a year. It can’t go on like this, but it will.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Single again in midlife, I am learning how to embrace reality over fantasy in a new relationship.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Why was my boyfriend asking Google how to break up with someone?

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

She shared my name. How could we not become friends? And how could I not have gone to see her when it mattered most?

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

I may be unable to have children, and I am relieved.

At 50, divorced and suffering from delusions, I experienced the greatest love I had ever known. If only it were real.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

When my husband, turning 80, agreed I could see a younger man, we couldn’t predict the surprising way our lives together would unfold.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

I thought being sexually bold was a game I was allowed to play. I had no idea of the punishment that awaited me — or the surprising healing to come.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

As a married gay man and an emergency pediatrician, I continue to wrestle with expectations of having a ‘traditional’ family life.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Tired of being deferential to men in my relationships, I decided to create my own drag king persona.

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

As my friends left college for exciting jobs and law school, I went to Mexico for a guy.

To celebrate this bittersweet eighth month, we present eight of our favorite summer-themed Tiny Love Stories from our archive.

My Jamaican mother’s hopes for life in America did not include my being gay. So how would I ever bloom?

If you do, he may never be able to leave you.

I was warned not to marry outside my faith, but when Jillian was asleep in my bed, I would cry, unable to imagine a world without her.

Auditioning for romance, friendship and acting roles has a lot in common — especially when it comes to hearing “no.”