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Mr. Lee
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Modern Love Essay Collection
In 2008, New York Times held a personal essay contest that asked college students to tell them
the truth about love in this day and age. Over 1,200 essays were submitted (and in true college
form, more than half of them arrived on the last day, over 400 in the last hour). Below are the
winning essay and two runner ups. Please read them and be prepared to discuss how the ideas
and “truths” reflected in these essays may or may not overlap with the ideas and “truths” reflected
in Eleanor and Park. Remember our big question:
Does Eleanor and Park qualify as a modern love story?
New York Times Essay Contest: Modern Love
Want to Be My Boyfriend? Please Define
By MARGUERITE FIELDS
Published: May 4, 2008
RECENTLY my mother asked me to clarify what I meant when I said I was dating someone,
versus when I was hooking up with someone, versus when I was seeing someone. And I had
trouble answering her because the many options overlap and blur in my mind. But at one point,
four years ago, I had a boyfriend. And I know he was my boyfriend because he said, “I want you
to be my girlfriend,” and I said, “O.K.”
He and I dated for over a year, and when we broke up I thought my angsty heart was going to spit
itself right up out of my sore throat. Afterward, I moved out of my mother’s house in Brooklyn and
into an apartment in the East Village, and from there it becomes confusing.
So, a few days after the chat with my mom, when I found myself downtown drinking tea with my
friend Steven, I asked him what he thought about dating. He has a long-term girlfriend, and I was
curious how he viewed their relationship.
“The main thing,” he said, “is I don’t mind if she sleeps with other people. I mean, she’s not my
property, right? I’m just glad I get to hang out with her. Spend time with her. Because that’s all we
really have, you know? I don’t want her to be mine, and I don’t want to be anybody’s.”
I sucked my teeth and looked over at the next table, where two men sat opposite each other. One
looked over his shoulder and gave me a closed-mouth grin.
Steven explained that it’s not a question of faithfulness but of expectation. He can’t be expected
not to want to sleep with other people, so he can’t expect her to think differently. They are both
young and living in New York, and as everyone in New York knows, there’s the possibility of
meeting anyone, everywhere, all the time.
For the sake of brevity and clarity, I’ll say I’ve dated a lot of guys. It’s not that I’ve gone out
anywhere with a lot of these guys, or been physical with most of them, or even seen them more
than once. But there have been many, many encounters.
I’ve met guys in the park, at the deli, at galleries, at parties and on the Internet. The Internet idea
came from thinking that if I could sift through people’s profiles, like applications, I could eliminate
the obvious lunatics.
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And that didn’t work out very well. One leaned across the table an hour into dinner and screamed:
“You love me! I know you do!” Another stood outside my apartment with one finger on the buzzer
and another covering the peephole, occasionally banging his fist, until he finally exhausted
himself and left.
As for the guys I first met in person, there was the construction worker I ran into on the train twice
before saying anything, kissed the third time, kissed the fourth time, got stood up by the fifth time
and never saw again. Then there was the guy with tattooed knuckles, the young Republican, the
Irishman on vacation and the guy who stole $300 from me to buy drugs. There was the activist,
the actor, the librarian, the waiter and the bond trader.
So when my friends and I started having a conversation about the nature of monogamy, I thought
I knew something about monogamy. Because, despite the fleeting nature of most of my
encounters, and despite my own role in their short duration, I think what I have been seeking in
some form from all of these men is permanence.
Sometimes I don’t like them, or am scared of them, and a lot of times I’m just bored by them. But
my fear or dislike or boredom never seems to diminish my underlying desire for a guy to stay, or
at least to say he is going to stay, for a very long time.
And even when I don’t want him to stay — even when he and I find each other as strangers and
remain strangers until we stop doing whatever it is we are doing — I still want to believe that two
people can meet and like each other well enough to stay together exclusively, without the
introduction of some 1960s rhetoric about free love or other noncommittal slogans.
But noncommittal is what we’re all about.
There was the guy with red hair and big steaklike hands that walked with me arm in arm through
Washington Square Park, kissed me on the stoop of my mother’s brownstone and said he wanted
to be my boyfriend. Until our next walk, when he kept his hands to himself and said he meant
boyfriend “in the theoretical sense of the word.”
Then there was the installer of soy insulation who cooked soggy pasta and made me watch
football and whimpered and kicked in his sleep. In the spring there was the guy 12 years older
than me who shared an apartment overlooking Tompkins Square Park with an antediluvian man
who walked around in graying long underwear.
There was the guy who wore more makeup than I did, and the one who waxed his eyebrows
clean off his face. And the one who slept with a guy when he was drunk, then with another when
he was sober. (But he insisted he wasn’t gay, just curious, and since when was I so uptight
anyway?)
Over the summer there was the Jesuit taking a break from the seminary who stopped calling after
I said I wouldn’t sleep with him on our third date. In the fall, back at school, there was the banjo
player from the woods of New England who took me home to meet his family, then moved away
and told me to wait for him. And I did, for months, until he called to say he was falling in love with
me, and oh, man, I had to come see him right away (“Buy your ticket tonight!”), before he called
again to say it was moving too fast and he wasn’t ready.
And on, and on, and on.
Then this winter I met a guy while waiting to have my computer fixed. He had big blue eyes and a
wide red mouth and delicate hands and greasy brown hair. He sat down and asked what I was
reading and did I have a boyfriend because he was asking me out. He smelled like incense and
clean linen, and I was overwhelmingly and instantaneously smitten. Among other things, I liked
his indifference, confidence and knowledge of foreign film directors.
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On our first date he explained his theory of exclusive relationships, which was that they shouldn’t
exist. We talked about our (and all of our friends’) divorced parents, about how marriage was
nothing but a pragmatic financial venture, and about the last time we cheated on someone. He
said that his disregard for monogamy wasn’t a chauvinistic throwback, but quite the opposite: the
ultimate nod to feminism.
On our second date we watched coverage of the Iowa caucus, and later, after listening to jazz at
his apartment, he crawled onto his bed, leaned against the headboard and said he didn’t burn
artificial light after dark. I sighed and edged into bed next to him.
During the night he kicked and snored, grabbing greedily at me with his well-moisturized hands
like a child snatching at free candy.
We overslept. In the morning I watched him dress frantically, the way a drifter would (gray pants
and shirt tucked in and tie and vest and brown wingtip shoes and gray sweater and red scarf and
jacket: it was lovely). He looked up occasionally from his scrambling to give a big toothy smile. I
made the bed and drank the orange juice he bought for me the night before. We left his
apartment and tried to find a cab.
As we crossed Hudson Street, we waded through a passing stream of preschool children walking
in pairs, holding hands. I watched their teachers — one at the front of the line, one in the middle,
one at the back — while he hailed a taxi.
A week passed before I saw him again. I was about to go back to school in Vermont, and he was
headed to Jamaica on vacation. When I entered the restaurant, he said: “The nice part about
having a shoddy memory is I forget how pretty some people are. You look beautiful.”
As we ate, we theorized about the effects of pornography on romantic relationships. Dinner
ended; he had to go pack for his trip. I asked casually when I was going to see him again.
He sighed. “That’s a loaded question.”
I asked what he meant, because I thought the question was fairly straightforward.
Then it came. The story. The long, boring, aggravatingly rehearsed and condescending story. It
spewed, overflowed and dripped off our table and onto the floor and underneath the shoes of the
other patrons and into the street.
He said he had just gotten out of a long relationship, and now he was single and didn’t really
know how this whole dating thing works, but he was seeing a lot of other people, and he liked me;
he thought I was special. Cross my heart, he actually called me special.
WHEN he was done, he asked: “That’s what you were talking about, right? Seeing me again and
the nature of our relationship? Like, what are we to each other?”
I said I just meant to ask when we were going to see each other again, because I thought that
was the polite thing to do after a few dates, and I wondered if he wanted to make time for me to
come back to New York to see him. And he said no, that was “too much, too soon,” but if I’m ever
in town I should call him. He would love to see me.
We left. It was raining, he hailed a cab for me, and we hugged without looking at each other. I got
into the cab and rode away.
And tried to process it. And tried to remind myself that when we first met I thought he was an
arrogant, presumptuous little man. I tried to think about my conversation with Steven. I tried to
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remember that I was actively seeking to practice some Zenlike form of nonattachment. I tried to
remember that no one is my property and neither am I theirs, and so I should just enjoy the time
we spend together, because in the end it’s our collected experiences that add up to a rich and
fulfilling life. I tried to tell myself that I’m young, that this is the time to be casual, careless,
lighthearted and fun; don’t ruin it.
Marguerite Fields is a junior at Marlboro College in Vermont.
New York Times Essay Contest: Modern Love
Let’s Not Get to Know Each Other Better
By JOEL WALKOWSKI
Published: June 8, 2008
A FEW months ago I liked a girl — a fairly common occurrence. But being slightly ambitious and
drunk, I decided to ask her out on a date.
This was a weird choice, as I’m not sure I know anyone who has ever had a real date. Most elect
to hang out, hook up, or Skype long-distance relations. The idea of a date (asking in advance,
spending rent money on dinner and dealing with the initial awkwardness) is far too concrete and
unnecessary. As the adage goes: Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Why pay
for dinner if you can sit around watching TV? If you stay at home, you hardly even need to stand
up, let alone put on a nice shirt.
Despite misgivings, this particular foray felt legitimate, a coming-of-age moment straight out of a
John Hughes movie. I had always wanted to go on a real date: flowers, dinner and all that. I
thought that maybe in doing so I would feel more like an adult and less like a dumb little boy.
So I called this girl, feeling a little sleazy as I searched for the right words: “Hey, um, this is Joel.
Do you want to, like, go out? On a date?”
“O.K.,” she said uncertainly, no doubt suspicious the whole thing was a joke.
Her positive response did nothing to calm my jitters. Give me a party, a front porch gathering, or a
random encounter, and I’m comfortable talking to anyone. But this kind of formal planning
unnerved me. Riding my bike home, I realized I didn’t even know what a real date was, beyond
some vague Hollywood notion.
In my 21 years, I have had my share of trysts and one-night stands. I’ve been in love. I know it
was love because I shamelessly clung to her. I have had my share of ups and downs but have no
idea if I’m doing the whole love thing right or wrong. We don’t tend to define it that way.
In this age of cyberselves, with hookups just a Craigslist ad away, the game has evolved to the
point of no rules. It’s not the ’50s where I can ask some lucky girl to wear my pin and take a ride
in daddy’s car. This change probably benefits me in the end, as I’m sure an offer of a ride in my
dad’s Sable would be swiftly rejected.
For my generation, friendship often morphs into a sexual encounter and then reverts to friendship
the next day. And it’s easy as long as you don’t put yourself on the line or try too hard. Don’t have
a prospect? Check Facebook. Afraid to call? Text.
With so many avenues for communication, one might expect an onslaught of romantic soliloquies,
but that isn’t the case. Casual is sexy. Caring is creepy. You don’t want to show your hand, and
you certainly don’t want to fall in love. At least until you do, and by then it’s too late.
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Planned romance is viewed as nothing more than ambition, so it’s important that things be
allowed to happen naturally. Sex is great, and so are some relationships, but not to the point that
they should be actively pursued.
It’s hard to even flirt with a girl without feeling obvious and embarrassed, since the greatest
displays of cheesiness come from the pursuit, making it disgusting: “Oh, you drive a Volvo?
What’s that like?” Realizing I’m flirting, I cringe and do my best to restrain myself. An encounter is
best when unsullied by intentions, leaving lust or boredom to take over.
The typical sequence goes like this: Friends meet up at some sort of bonfire or impromptu game
of night volleyball. Maybe that girl from your history class is there, and you start to talk. Neither of
you has expectations. But just hanging out and swapping stories, laughing a little, creates a spark
and the attraction builds, eventually leading to the big wet kiss that changes everything and
nothing.
This is the perfect hookup, a pressure-free surprise. With a stranger, everything is new and
acceptable. Her quirks are automatically endearing. This first encounter is the perfect place, but
where does it lead?
In the best case, nowhere at all. The next time you see her in class, you act the same as you did
before, and so does she, except for the knowledge you share that what happened last week
might happen again.
If it continues, you have an understanding, physical chemistry and great conversations. You meet
two or three times a week for no-strings sex and long-winded philosophical talks.
Most importantly, you aren’t lonely. Maybe deep in the recesses of your mind you think about
possibly loving this person. What’s the standard response? Nothing. If she asks, “How do you feel
about me?” you answer from the heart: “I see you as an unexpected treat from the heavens. I
don’t know how I deserve this.”
Your relationship is good. Your relationship is strong. But it isn’t a relationship, and that’s the key.
You aren’t hoping she will become your girlfriend, and ideally she is not looking for anything
more, either.
A friend of mine, a normal girl who is neither especially social nor aloof, engages in hookups
unabashedly — she’s just doing what she wants and doesn’t regret or overthink it. Except for one
time when she woke up in some guy’s embrace, got out of bed and noticed his bookshelf.
I’m not sure what it was about the contents that impressed or moved her; maybe the books
suggested a gentle soul. All I know is what she told me: “I only felt bad after seeing his books.”
The books had made him a real person, I guess, one she liked. Or pitied. Because then it was on
to the next.
I might not be a typical youth, and maybe my friends aren’t typical, either, but hardly anyone I
know aspires to be “that guy” or “that girl,” those once-dynamic individuals who “found someone”
and suddenly weren’t so cool. On some level, we envy the scope of their feelings, but we
certainly don’t want to become them.
But staying out of relationships can be just as much work as maintaining one. After hooking up
with the same person several times I’m sometimes haunted by the “Relationship Status” question
on Facebook, and I’ll linger over the button, wondering whether to make the leap from fun to
obligation. I envision holding hands, meeting her parents and getting matching ankle tattoos.
Then I come to my senses and close the window.
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Sometimes, though, it’s not up to me. I work at one of the campus libraries, and for some obscure
reason my bosses, who are mostly middle-aged and female, decided to hold a Library Prom. I
had to take someone, so I asked a girl, one of the truly rare fish worth catching (or being caught
by).
That didn’t stop me from introducing her as “my friend.”
Which didn’t stop one of my bosses from asking, “Are you two dating?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Um, we are?”
“Well, this is a date, isn’t it?”
She had me trapped. I nodded blankly. With one word, she had changed everything. Now I’m
asked about her at work, even though she is currently hooking up with a friend of mine.
I wish I could explain this to the librarians. They’re sympathetic to my other complaints: about
studying, about having my license suspended, about taking care of my pet chicken, and so on. “I
was there once,” they tell me. “You’ll be fine.”
But when it comes to love, all they can say is, “How’s that girlfriend of yours?”
Maybe this disconnect has always existed. As one of my classmates, a genteel 60-year-old, said
to me, “Every generation thinks they discovered sex.” Which might be true, but I’m not sure any
previous generation has our plethora of options and utter lack of protocol. This may reflect how
our media obsession has desensitized and hypersexualized us.
But I think it goes beyond that. Our short attention spans tend to be measured in nanoseconds.
We float from room to room watching TV, surfing the Internet, playing Frisbee and finding
satisfaction around every corner, if only for a moment.
Out of fear, we shrink ourselves. There have been many times I should have cried but stifled the
tears. Instances where I should have said, “I love you” but made a joke instead. Once, a girl
dumped me and it nearly ruined me. How bad was it? I ate nothing but Wendy’s for an entire
week.
I’m fairly certain I could have saved the entire endeavor with a soul-baring soliloquy of what was
true and what mattered to me, but I couldn’t muster the courage. I don’t know many who can.
We’ve grown up in an age of rampant divorce and the accompanying tumult. The idea that two
people can be happy together, maturing alongside each other, seems as false as a fairy tale. So
when a relationship ends, it isn’t seen as bad. It’s held as evidence that the relationship was
never any good to begin with.
MAYBE it’s just that we have learned nothing can compare to the perfect moment of the
unexpected hookup — wet lips on the beach, lying in the sand — and so we aim to accumulate
as many as possible. Or maybe we’re simply too immature to commit. That has been the rap
against guys forever, but now women think the same way. With the world (and the world of sex)
at our fingertips, it’s difficult to choose, to settle, to compromise.
But I do occasionally wonder: If we can’t get past ourselves and learn to sacrifice to be with
another, then what is in store? A generation of selfish go-getters fueled by nothing more than our
own egos, forever seeking that rare dose of self-esteem? An era of loneliness filled with
commercial wants and mate selection based on the shallowest of criteria?
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As a staunch proponent of my generation, I believe that, despite what it may seem, we appreciate
the ways of love and affection but are simply waiting for them to take over. We might dally in the
land of easy sex and stilted text-message flirtation, but deep down we crave the warm embrace of
all-consuming love.
I do, anyway. What else could have been behind my crazy idea to ask a girl out on a date? Alas,
she and I ended up going to Chili’s and never went out again. Welcome to adulthood.
Joel Walkowski, a runner-up in the Modern Love College Essay Contest, is a senior at the
University of Southern California.
New York Times Essay Contest: Modern Love
My Dropout Boyfriend Kept Dropping In
By LEE CONELL
Published: June 1, 2008
IN April of my freshman year, my boyfriend, Terry, decided he wanted to be homeless. Among
the decisions I expected a college-age boyfriend to make (changing cellphone plans, or maybe
going vegan), homelessness was not one of them.
Still, I took the situation calmly. I had known Terry since high school and had watched him pass
through various phases: Goth, punk, anarchist, Marxist and Zen. When he explained that he was
giving up his room to live on the farms and in the woods surrounding our Hudson Valley college
town, I did not make a scene. I told myself this, too, would pass and politely asked him why he did
not want to live in a house.
“I want to try to exist as free from material stuff as possible,” he said.
I squinted at him. “But I like your apartment. It’s in a great location.”
Terry looked straight into my eyes. “This is just something I have to do for myself.”
I didn’t say anything. It’s hard to argue with that personal power stuff.
Over dinner that evening, I told a girl who lived in my dorm about Terry’s plan. “I’m really worried
about it,” I said.
A matter-of-fact business major from Brooklyn, she blurted, “He’s crazy!” She plunged her fork
into a pile of rice, and then offered a thinly veiled criticism of me: “I would never put up with that.”
“He’s not so crazy,” I told her. “He’s going to be saving a lot of money. And I can understand
wanting to feel close to nature.”
“No,” she said. “He’s definitely crazy.”
My roommate was equally nonplused. Where would he keep his stuff or brush his teeth? Could a
city kid like him really transition into the life of an ascetic?
I had no answers. How would I explain his decision to others? Shouldn’t I have seen this coming?
Several months earlier, Terry had given me the book “Into the Wild” for Valentine’s Day (because
nothing says “I love you” like the story of a young man starving to death in the Alaskan
wilderness). That should have been a clue.
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Luckily, Terry wouldn’t have to worry about starvation in his own foray: he had a girlfriend with a
college meal plan. I pictured myself sneaking cookies out of the dining hall and heading into the
woods. People would think I was harboring an escaped convict.
An Oprah-esque voice in my head said: It doesn’t matter what people think as long as he feels
fulfilled. But another voice in my head, the one that avoided self-help books and talk shows, was
less convinced. That voice told me times had changed, and we weren’t in high school anymore.
Back then, before we started dating, Terry’s acts of rebellion had impressed and attracted me.
Just standing next to him, a boy who wore eyeliner and a safety pin through his eyebrow, was an
easy and efficient way for me to act out. But I hadn’t been Terry’s friend only for rebellion’s sake.
At heart, I understood and agreed with many of his ideas. I just expressed my agreement quietly.
His Zen phase, for example, occurred at the same time as mine, in sophomore year of high
school. But while I meditated alone in my bedroom, Terry would meditate publicly: in our high
school hallway, on the subway and even, as a photograph I have demonstrates, under a fountain
at the Cloisters in New York City (his lined eyelids shut serenely, legs crossed in lotus, bemused
museum visitors stopping to stare).
In another photograph from the same day, I also sit under that fountain, but my eyes are wide
open and I’m smiling sheepishly, aware of how I stick out, a teenager crouched on the ground,
surrounded by medieval art.
We were attending separate colleges when Terry and I started dating in our freshman year, but
after several months Terry, unhappy with school, dropped out.
This I defended to friends who gaped at the news by telling them that he was acting against the
system, against the overplanned life of studying, choosing our majors, plotting out our meek life
goals. What Terry was doing, I told them, was courageous, and I supported his decision even as I
spent my nights in the library working wholly within the system to plot out my very own meek life
goals.
When he rented a room in my college town and took a job as a taxi dispatcher, I was glad to have
him nearby. Still, with the outdoors experiment beginning, I wasn’t sure how his roof-free life
would mesh with my own. I had thought the enormous buildup to college — APs, SATs, and other
nefarious acronyms — was supposed to pave the way to middle-class normalcy, which didn’t
involve having to deal with decisions like Terry’s.
Sure, you might get involved in the occasional good-natured protest, but over all once you
attended college, you were on the straight-and-narrow path. Or at least, if the economy didn’t
sink, you were on the non-homeless path.
If Terry began to spend his free time lost in the woods finding himself, meditating next to a
squirrel, in a state of perpetual nirvana, where would that leave me? Laboring away under
fluorescent lighting? Of course, that was what I had chosen, just as I had chosen to smile for the
camera under the fountain at the Cloisters while Terry sought the meaning of life in the same
spot.
It was growing dark. I had an essay to start, a test coming up. Then there would be laundry to do,
followed by several halfhearted attempts at matching socks and cleaning my side of the room. I
took a deep breath and looked out my window. As I watched the light change, I thought of Terry
underneath that sky.
Then I realized that I was jealous.
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What sort of lessons would I learn if I fell asleep each night under the stars? What would happen
if I left school and followed Terry’s footsteps? I knew I wouldn’t do it, being overly fond of my
books, my room’s four walls and the Internet. Still, I couldn’t stop one image from transposing
itself onto my textbooks: me, lying by a brook at night, listening to its babbling, knowing I was
going down my own wide-open path.
But once the experiment was under way, I realized that even when you are fully committed to
treading that unbeaten path, it’s not so easy to lose yourself in the woods, particularly if you’re
from Queens and scared of the dark. On one of his first nights outdoors, around midnight, Terry
called me at my dorm. In a small voice he asked, “Can I come over?”
He had been trying to sleep in an apple orchard. As darkness enveloped him, the apple trees
began to look less like trees and more like zombies with skeleton hands. Terry was frightened by
the scuttling sounds in the bushes, and just as frightened when the sounds stopped.
“It’s really dark,” he said in a hollow, frightened voice. “I’m worried the farmer might find me and
shoot me.”
So I told him to come by. And I made the same offer again and again over the following weeks,
when around midnight my phone would ring, and Terry would ask me for shelter. He would say it
was too cold for him to sleep outdoors, or that he thought he heard rabid dogs, or that the night
seemed particularly dark.
Although he did manage to spend a bunch of full nights out there somewhere, he only became
edgier as the experiment continued. Whenever I saw him early in the day, if he wasn’t cranky
from sleep deprivation, he would be twitchy with anxiety, watching the sky for the looming dark,
for a sign that the time of terror approached. Conversation centered on where his sleeping spot
for the night would be, and how cold Weather.Com said it would become.
I couldn’t help but entertain the ways I would have done things differently if I were in his shoes,
taking advantage of the peace in a way he seemed unable to do: sitting serenely in the
wilderness, studying the movements of the stars, composing poetry about humanity’s unbalanced
relationship with the natural world and communing with the Disney-eyed wildlife around me. I
would certainly not be scared of the dark and a few barking dogs.
Deep down, though, I knew I would be just as scared, or even more scared. And so I felt a little
triumphant every time Terry’s experiment went south, which happened often enough.
ONE night, bedded down by a river, he fell asleep with pepper spray in his grasp. Later he
brushed his face with the back of his hand and immediately his eyes began to burn. Pepper spray
had gotten onto his skin. Eyes smarting and sleep impossible, he walked out of the wooded area
and into town, where he spent a few hours sleeping at a coin laundry before being awakened by
the police. They threatened to arrest him, but let him go because they were impressed he had a
legitimate day job.
That dispatcher job would prove handy during Terry’s time outdoors, as it provided him with a
bathroom for tooth brushing and face washing, two activities that became difficult in the
wilderness. Dorms were useful for showering. The grungier Terry looked, the easier it was for him
to pass as a college student, so it wasn’t difficult for him to sneak into campus bathrooms.
Still, amid the run-in with the police, sleep deprivation and treks to showers, the ideology behind
his experiment began to melt away. This became clear to me after I told him that the hunger and
homelessness group on campus was doing a “sleep out.” Students would spend one night
sleeping outside a campus building to raise awareness about homelessness.
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“Oh!” Terry exclaimed happily. “Maybe I’ll do it with them. It’d be less scary if I could sleep near
other people.”
Not long after, he began spending most nights on the foldout couch outside my dorm room. In
June he rented a room, at which point the experiment was declared over.
“Terry’s living indoors now!” I bragged to friends.
Terry and I are still seeing each other, and he continues to live under a roof.
But my happiness at the experiment’s failure had a darker side. In truth I had enjoyed watching
his forays into the wilderness fail night after night because each retreat made me feel better, even
superior, about my own safe choices: roof, college, stability. And Terry’s final surrender only
drove home the point.
This was hardly something to celebrate, and the dreamer in me knew it.
Lee Conell, a runner-up in the Modern Love college essay contest, recently completed her junior
year at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
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