Finding the Magic, Just in Time

Olandria Carthen and Nic Vansteenberghe spent a lot of this past season on “Love Island USA” coupled up with other people, but in a last-minute twist they wound up together. Fans were divided. They read into body language, smirks, eye contact and passing comments to try to piece together whether Nic and Olandria got together out of convenience or their love was a genuine slow burn. Despite all that sleuthing, the two think viewers didn’t get the full story. In this episode of “Modern Love,” Nic and Olandria tell our host, Anna Martin, what their experience on the show was really like and what’s next for them.

Stories of romantic love are everywhere, but the actor, singer and comedian Bridget Everett says that friendships deserve our attention, too. Onscreen and in everyday life. Last Fall, Everett appeared on Modern Love to talk about her HBO Original series “Somebody Somewhere,” which centers on a close friendship. Now she’s nominated for an Emmy Award for writing the show, along with Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen. In “Somebody Somewhere,” Everett stars as Sam, a woman struggling with grief and self-doubt after losing her sister. As Sam grows closer to her friend Joel — played by Jeff Hiller, an Outstanding Supporting Actor nominee — the future starts to look more bearable. In this episode of Modern Love, Everett tells Anna Martin why she’s looking for a friendship like the one Sam and Joel have on the show. She also reads a Modern Love essay called “When Your Greatest Romance Is a Friendship,” by Victor Lodato. Lodato was in his 40s when he fell into a platonic life partnership with an artist in her 80s, who lived across the street. In April 2024, Lodato published “Honey,” a novel inspired by Austin Brayfield, the friend he wrote about in his essay. How to submit a Modern Love Essay to The New York Times How to submit a Tiny Love Story

Sam Graham-Felsen never imagined being lonely. Throughout his childhood and as a young man his life revolved around his friends. But when Sam got married and then had kids, going out with his friends almost felt like a luxury. After years of focusing on everything in his life except friendship, Sam began to realize he was missing something essential, and he decided to get his friends back. On this episode of “Modern Love,” Mr. Graham-Felsen describes how he went from being a boy with a wealth of deep friendships to finding himself feeling lonely as an adult, and what he did to bring friendship back into his life. Read his essay “Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone?” in The New York Times Magazine. Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times. Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

For her entire life, Grace Hussar has been an overthinker. No matter how much she wanted to be in the moment, she always felt as if she was just outside it. But when she took up endurance running, she realized something: Extreme pain turned her thoughts off. She wanted more of that feeling — more pain and less overthinking. As a mother of two with a happy partnership and a career in finance, what she explored next surprised her. On this week’s episode of “Modern Love,” Hussar talks about her essay, “The Kind of Pain I Wanted.” Hussar shares the story of how she discovered that rope play and kink were the keys to newfound presence and pleasure in her life. Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times. Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

Therapist and author Meg Josephson on how she stopped people pleasing.