0:00

Love now and always.

0:03

Love is stronger than anything.

0:06

And I love you more than

0:08

anything. There's still love. From

0:12

the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.

0:15

This is

0:15

Modern Love.

0:18

Today's story starts on a first date.

0:21

A really good one. Jessica

0:23

Slice was living in the Bay Area

0:25

in California when she met a guy on OKCupid

0:27

named Tom. And a guy on OKCupid

0:29

named David. David

0:32

suggested they meet in the Berkeley Rose Garden for their

0:34

first date. Take notes, people.

0:36

That is a good first date spot. It doesn't always have

0:38

to be a bar. When

0:41

Jessica showed up to the garden, David had brought a bag of books

0:44

based on things they'd been

0:45

messaging about online. Jessica had brought something

0:48

too. Something a little

0:51

less romantic. I had actually brought a strategy

0:55

tile game with

0:58

pictures of different bugs on it. Wow.

1:00

OK. The

1:03

truth is I often brought it on dates hoping that they would want

1:05

to play it with me that even if the date didn't work out, I

1:09

might at

1:10

least get to play a few rounds of Hive. Oh,

1:12

I love Hive. I love Hive. Wait,

1:15

you do? Yeah, I do. I'm really

1:17

bad at it. I find it to be like literally the hardest

1:19

game in the world. I can't believe you know

1:21

Hive. It's

1:24

like portable. It's like you're totally able to just throw

1:26

it in your purse. I mean, what a dorky

1:28

move.

1:28

OK, dorky maybe,

1:31

but I really admire it. Was

1:34

David up for playing?

1:35

Yeah. I asked if

1:38

he liked games. And he said, I

1:42

kind of do. I played chess a little

1:44

bit as a kid and then we kept talking about

1:46

other things. And I found

1:48

out about a month later that David

1:52

was the number two chess

1:54

player in the country under the age of 13 when

1:56

he was still playing.

1:59

said then. Oh, he's

2:03

a genius. Yeah, it

2:05

actually took Googling him to find out. No

2:07

way. So I think about that these

2:10

indicators of what a good person

2:12

he is like showed up even then. Because

2:15

if I had been the number two chess player in the

2:17

country, I would have just worn a t shirt.

2:19

Absolutely. And

2:20

definitely, I mean, it would be like the

2:23

second thing I said after I introduced myself like

2:25

I am this is my name and I was the,

2:27

you know, kid chess champion. You

2:30

write more about this first

2:32

date with

2:33

David in your essay. Can you read

2:35

that for me? Sure.

2:37

David said he knew I was interested

2:39

because

2:39

of my body language.

2:41

I had turned to face him on the small wooden

2:43

bench, tucking my feet under me and

2:46

resting my arm on the backrest. But

2:48

he had misread my body language.

2:52

I was not trying to show I was interested.

2:54

The truth is benches

2:56

hurt my body and turning to the side

2:58

was the only way to make sitting there

3:01

tolerable. Leaning

3:03

straight back against the wooden slats with David

3:05

that day had nudged my ribs out of

3:07

place. They ached. My

3:09

bruised pelvis throbbed on the

3:11

firm surface. Turning to the side

3:14

allowed me to adjust my weight onto

3:16

the meatier part of my bottom. I

3:19

could use my arm to prep myself away

3:21

from the wood. So

3:25

you're clearly struggling physically.

3:27

You're struggling with pain on this

3:30

first date. What was happening to

3:32

you at the time?

3:34

So I have

3:36

something called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome,

3:39

which is a connective tissue disorder. And

3:42

I also have POTS, which is

3:44

a neurological condition that can

3:47

make it very difficult for me to stand up

3:49

or even sit up for long periods of time,

3:52

impacts my ability to

3:54

tolerate different temperatures and digestion.

3:57

So all that made you quite uncomfortable.

5:53

to

6:00

a concert in San

6:02

Francisco. And I had a

6:04

situation on Bart on the way back

6:08

that had become sort

6:10

of more and more

6:12

ridiculous in my mind. And

6:15

so I thought I would tell him this anecdote

6:17

and entertain him. I

6:19

was sitting on a seat and a

6:22

man came and sat next to me and

6:24

he

6:24

was bleeding and got in my

6:26

face

6:27

and

6:29

started yelling at me and sort of spitting on

6:31

me. And he

6:34

didn't move and so I couldn't get off at

6:36

my stop. And

6:38

as I was telling David the story, I said,

6:41

well, the whole thing was probably my fault

6:44

because I sat on the window seat leaving

6:47

space for a person to get in my face

6:50

on Bart. And David

6:52

stopped me there and got serious

6:55

and said, I don't know what happened next,

6:58

but whatever it was, it was not

6:59

your fault.

7:03

And

7:05

something in that, like it had

7:07

shifted my experience of

7:11

the date a bit because he

7:14

was not being entertained by me. He

7:16

was really caring about my

7:19

experience in the world. He

7:22

cared about my emotions and my safety. He

7:24

wasn't just seeing me

7:27

as someone to accept or

7:29

reject that I had already become

7:31

a full person in his mind. You

7:35

said that it sort of marked a shift

7:37

for you. And I wanna understand why his taking

7:41

you seriously in this moment caused

7:44

that shift. Yeah, I

7:46

mean, it was the first time he started

7:48

to feel unsafe and unfamiliar

7:51

because he was caring about me because

7:54

kindness or reliability felt

7:56

wrong.

7:59

And I texted my

8:02

sister after and said, oh,

8:04

he's the greatest, but I doubt

8:07

I go out with him again. Can

8:09

you explain that to me a bit more? Why

8:12

did David being so

8:14

kind and caring to you

8:17

feel so wrong in the moment? I

8:20

did not think of dating as a chance

8:23

to find a person I

8:25

was compatible with who would be a partner

8:28

for me. I

8:30

think I thought of dating as a way

8:33

for me to find out, am

8:36

I lovable? Am I good? Am I interesting?

8:39

Am I a person worth dating

8:42

or worth knowing? And

8:44

I think that the

8:47

natural extension of that was that if someone

8:49

was easy to win over,

8:55

then their admiration

8:57

didn't mean as much. But if someone

9:00

was unreliable

9:02

or didn't show up when they said they would show

9:04

up or didn't call, that

9:08

to me meant like, okay, this is a higher

9:10

level in this video game and if I can

9:12

beat that, then I am

9:15

super lovable. So

9:20

the harder

9:22

you had to work

9:23

to get someone's affection or admiration

9:26

or time, that hard work

9:29

meant it was worth it. Yeah.

9:32

Did your disability play into your

9:34

feeling of being unlovable? I don't

9:36

know that that played as

9:38

big of a role as you would think.

9:42

And I think part of becoming disabled

9:44

at 28 means that

9:47

I carry with me the entitlement

9:50

of being non-disabled for so many years. And

9:54

so, you know, I had these insecurities

9:56

about if I was lovable, but I didn't have

9:58

a disability. many insecurities about

10:02

being sick or disabled. I

10:05

don't know. I just kind of felt deserving

10:07

in my body. I

10:11

had about a half

10:13

year before meeting David had

10:15

a long term relationship. And

10:17

and it was he said

10:20

it was because I was too sick, that

10:23

he wanted a life that involved

10:25

things that I couldn't do. He

10:27

wanted to be able to bike

10:30

around remote Swedish

10:32

islands together. He wanted to stay up late at

10:34

house parties. He had some very specific

10:37

visions for his life, and

10:39

they were things that my body just simply couldn't

10:43

do. But

10:46

I just loved him so much.

10:49

And I think part of the reason I loved

10:51

him so much is like I I always

10:53

knew I was going to have to work extra hard to convince

10:56

him I was good enough. And

10:58

even though he broke up with me because of my

11:00

disability, the thing I worried

11:03

about with him wasn't my disability. I

11:05

sort of thought if I was lovable

11:08

enough or interesting enough, he would stay.

11:11

It was like the thing that

11:13

I want is to convince the hardest person

11:15

to convince that I am lovable.

11:19

So then how did you handle guys like David,

11:21

who weren't hard to convince,

11:24

who immediately showed you that they cared?

11:26

Did you end up just losing interest in them? Definitely.

11:30

I had. I remember

11:32

the first time it happened, I was

11:34

in high school and.

11:37

I told a guy that

11:39

I was dating that I was really craving peanut

11:41

butter and jelly. And

11:43

he he lived four miles

11:46

away. OK. And he was on

11:48

the track team and he made me

11:50

a toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich and ran

11:53

it to my house. Oh, my gosh.

11:56

And so I broke up with him.

11:58

OK, so even. And in high

12:00

school, you're having this

12:03

aversion to guys who show

12:05

you that they like

12:06

you.

12:07

How about as you got older, did you

12:10

continue to do this to guys

12:12

as an adult? Yeah, I thought it might take

12:14

me a while to think of someone,

12:15

but I did. Oh my God,

12:17

that was immediate. Yeah. Yeah.

12:21

I went out with

12:22

a guy

12:24

who was very handsome. He

12:27

was a professor. Funny

12:30

and interesting. I could tell

12:32

he was really into me.

12:33

And

12:36

oh, I had a sick family member and he drove me to

12:38

the hospital to visit them. And

12:41

I thought, well, I'll never see this guy again.

12:43

Did you understand why

12:45

you were reacting in that way? No,

12:48

I did not have that self-awareness at the time.

12:51

Sure. I thought, oh, actually, as it turns

12:53

out, this guy has an annoying voice. I just never realized

12:56

it before. That

12:58

happened to coincide with the peanut butter

13:00

and jelly sandwich, right? Or

13:02

this guy makes a weird facial expression,

13:04

but that happened to be right after the hospital.

13:07

So at the time, the way I would

13:10

justify it to myself is by

13:13

finding a few annoying

13:15

things about them. So the

13:17

way he would talk or the way

13:20

they would move or wear

13:22

certain clothes or the shape of a hand

13:25

or anything, I would zero in on a

13:27

thing

13:28

and think, well, that is just intolerable.

13:33

You were searching for reasons

13:36

to end things. Yeah,

13:38

I don't think we are aware of the

13:41

protective mechanisms we have in

13:43

place. Otherwise, we wouldn't do them. But

13:46

David made it clear from

13:48

the beginning that he found you lovable, right? That he

13:50

was interested in you, that he wanted to spend time

13:53

with you. And that's so

13:55

not what you want, but you

13:57

went out with David again. Why?

14:01

Well, I

14:02

was in therapy

14:04

and my therapist was encouraging

14:07

me to reconsider my approach

14:10

to dating. I

14:14

was living on Social

14:17

Security Disability Insurance, so

14:19

I was not working. My illness was

14:21

taking up most of my energy.

14:26

So I had a lot of time, and so

14:29

I was journaling a lot. I was reading

14:31

poetry for maybe

14:33

an hour every morning. My

14:36

life allowed for

14:38

a great deal of self-reflection. And

14:41

so I think I just was in

14:43

a place where I could override my

14:46

natural instincts, which would be

14:48

to never go out with David again, and think,

14:50

oh, maybe

14:52

one more time.

14:53

You actually go out with David

14:56

more than once. You start dating him.

14:58

You start seeing him very consistently.

15:02

And I know that you said your disability was not

15:05

the central reason for your hang-ups about dating

15:07

or why you felt unlovable, but

15:10

it was still something that you needed to tell

15:12

David at some point. Can

15:14

you talk about how that conversation went? It

15:18

was one of our early dates, and

15:20

we were eating tacos

15:23

on Telegraph Street in Berkeley.

15:26

And we were just sitting there, and I told him

15:29

the whole thing. I told him about when I got

15:31

sick, how hard it was to get a diagnosis,

15:34

how much had changed for me. I

15:36

think that was the one thing that was so different

15:40

is I could tell he wasn't

15:42

doing a calculation about how this would

15:44

impact his life. He

15:46

was hearing my story about how

15:48

it had impacted my life.

15:51

What did that mean

15:52

to you that he wasn't making it about himself?

15:55

At once, it

15:57

made me feel incredibly seen. loved

16:00

and then it also made me think

16:03

that something was probably very wrong with

16:05

him.

16:05

It

16:08

felt like he was just constantly

16:10

attuned to me and to my needs.

16:14

But

16:16

Jessica, you don't like that.

16:19

No. When someone's caring

16:21

or kind to you, that's

16:23

been your cue to run. So

16:26

Doubt, I'm sure, was starting to creep in with him, right?

16:29

Yes, it was getting stronger and stronger.

16:31

The nicer he was,

16:33

the more I just

16:36

wanted to immediately break up with him. But

16:39

you didn't. You went on another date,

16:41

this time to the movies. Can

16:43

you read that part of your essay?

16:45

Sure.

16:47

He was standing outside a movie theater.

16:50

He was wearing his cardigan, backpack,

16:52

and boat shoes, and I couldn't

16:54

take it a minute longer. His

16:57

earnest love had become repulsive.

17:00

Imagining the way he wanted to care for

17:02

me, the inevitable loyalty

17:05

and acceptance and protection filled

17:07

my throat with bile.

17:11

Filled your throat

17:13

with what, Jessica? With what?

17:16

With bile. I felt

17:17

disgusted at seeing him standing

17:19

there waiting at the movies. Can

17:21

you, that is such a strong reaction.

17:24

Was that like an exaggeration

17:26

or truly did you feel like bile

17:29

rising in your throat? I truly

17:31

felt it. I felt nauseated seeing

17:33

him.

17:34

So

17:36

when you saw him

17:38

in line at the movie

17:40

theater for that date with

17:43

his boat shoes, as you write,

17:45

and his earnest love, and you feel that

17:47

bile rise in your throat, that's

17:49

the result of the buildup

17:52

of all of these doubts you've been having

17:54

about him. Right. It felt like I

17:56

had been fighting myself to stay with

17:59

him, and I couldn't.

17:59

do it.

18:01

The urge to leave I couldn't handle

18:04

it another day.

18:10

We'll be right back. So,

18:13

Jessica, did you break up with David at the movies? We saw the movie and then

18:28

immediately

18:34

after the movie I said I had to go home and then I

18:36

emailed and broke up with him. And I

18:39

did break up with him over email.

18:42

Do you remember what you said? No,

18:44

and I couldn't bear to look it up before

18:46

talking to you either. But

18:51

I did read text messages with friends

18:53

talking about the email. And

18:56

I think it was just really to the point I said I

18:58

can't continue dating you. You're wonderful.

19:00

I wish you all the best.

19:04

After you

19:07

ended things with David, how

19:10

were you doing? What were the days like that followed? Before

19:13

talking to you I went through my camera roll

19:15

from that time. And it's

19:17

so funny to see because the first

19:20

day I met

19:22

up with my friend Ellie and we drove

19:24

along the coast to

19:27

I think to Blynes but somewhere in Marin.

19:29

And I remember saying,

19:32

oh, thank goodness I'm free.

19:34

When you know you know and just these trite, he's just not

19:37

the one for me. Totally.

19:42

Better off without him. Yeah. What

19:45

was the second day like after breaking up with David?

19:49

Well, there was this house

19:52

in Berkeley at the time where you could go

19:54

and take off all your

19:57

clothes and lie in the backyard.

19:59

I just got to pop in and say that is

20:02

so Berkeley. I

20:04

love it. I'm jealous.

20:07

And so I was lying naked

20:10

under the redwood trees in this backyard.

20:12

And I remember thinking, I hope

20:14

he's not too sad. I wish I could

20:17

check on him.

20:20

On the way from the house,

20:23

I picked up some new wool

20:25

for crocheting. And the next

20:27

day I really started to make a

20:29

blanket. And as I was crocheting,

20:32

I just started to think more and

20:34

more about David. What

20:39

were you thinking about when you thought of him? What

20:42

image came to mind? Scenes

20:45

from those months together and thinking about

20:47

all the things I liked about him.

20:51

When someone was nice to me, I would

20:54

just start picking out all the things I didn't

20:56

like about them. But

20:58

when once I had broken up

21:00

with David, it's like all his wonderful qualities

21:03

bubbled up to the surface. So

21:05

as I was crocheting, I was like, Oh God, he's so smart.

21:08

And oh, he's so funny.

21:11

And great thing we did

21:13

together. And I wonder what he thinks

21:15

about this movie that's coming out. He

21:18

started to be in my mind in a really

21:20

positive way.

21:25

And

21:26

this sense

21:28

that I wanted to see him

21:30

again, and that maybe I

21:33

actually loved him, started

21:35

to emerge from inside me.

21:43

But wait,

21:45

that's big, Jessica. You'd

21:47

just, you know, a week earlier,

21:49

you'd had bile in your throat

21:53

at the sight of him. And now you're thinking that

21:55

you might be falling in love,

21:57

you might be in love with him. Yeah,

22:00

and it felt like it was coming from

22:02

a different part of me. It

22:05

wasn't this frantic, reactive

22:08

fear. It was something

22:11

deeper and something that felt true

22:14

and a little quieter. Since

22:18

that time, I've done so much thinking

22:20

about intuition versus

22:23

anxiety. And I think the

22:25

feeling of repulsion I had with

22:28

people I went out with who were kind was a

22:30

real feeling of sort of frantic

22:33

anxiety, like flight or fight. And

22:36

the feeling that I wanted

22:39

to be with him again was coming

22:41

from something much more stable

22:44

than that. It wasn't the frantic,

22:47

like, get me out of here. It was something

22:50

deeper in me and something a little more

22:52

still. It's

22:55

like a different center

22:57

of certainty. And

23:00

one feels like flailing on

23:02

the outside or nausea, and the other

23:04

one feels, I don't

23:07

know, feels like a little quieter. And

23:10

I think at that point with David, I was

23:13

beginning to sense the

23:15

difference between those two parts of myself.

23:19

And I think when I broke up with him, maybe

23:21

the loud child who was throwing a temper tantrum

23:24

quieted down enough,

23:27

and I had started to sense that I loved him.

23:32

What did you do with that feeling? I

23:35

waited. I made the

23:37

blanket, which took me a while. And

23:41

I saw my therapist, and

23:44

I talked to friends, and I journaled.

23:48

And then I finally reached out to him, I think

23:50

maybe nine days later

23:53

after breaking up with him and

23:56

asked if we could meet up. And I had

23:58

a blanket I wanted to give him. What

24:01

did he say? He said yes. He

24:03

was standoffish. I could tell, but he said

24:05

okay. And so we

24:07

met on the side of like Merritt near

24:10

where he was living at the time. I

24:13

told him I was sorry. And

24:17

he said, yeah, that

24:19

email was not kind.

24:21

The email breaking up with him. Yeah.

24:23

He deserves more. And I think

24:26

when I talk about David, sometimes it might

24:28

sound like he's a pushover and because he's not.

24:31

He has incredible integrity and

24:33

he said that

24:35

was not okay. But

24:38

he wanted to hear what I had to say. And

24:42

I tried my best to tell

24:44

him what I was observing, which

24:46

was that the

24:48

nicer people were to me romantically,

24:51

the more I

24:53

wanted to run away and that I

24:55

wanted to try to do it a

24:57

little differently.

25:00

And that's when he said, yeah, I

25:02

thought that might be what was happening. And

25:06

he had bought a book

25:08

that he had heard about on a podcast and

25:10

the book was called The Fantasy Bond.

25:14

And he read that

25:17

book and learned that there's a

25:19

theory in psychology that

25:22

whatever happens to us in our earlier

25:24

years, whatever those relationships look like,

25:27

we try to replicate them as adults.

25:30

And so if something was unhealthy

25:32

when we were young, we try

25:35

to find a relationship that will

25:37

mimic that. It

25:39

just perpetuates unhealthy cycles

25:42

and that he suspected that

25:45

what was happening is that I was just

25:47

trying to repeat

25:50

patterns

25:51

and that he had a lot of empathy

25:54

for that. What

25:56

were those patterns that he'd noticed that he

25:58

thought you were replicating?

25:59

you

26:00

believed you were replicating. I

26:02

mean, in my situation, it was a combination

26:05

of things. I think there was some early

26:08

childhood experiences that had impacted

26:11

me. And then there

26:13

was some loss and

26:15

inconsistency in my childhood

26:18

that then I like was trying to replicate

26:21

or that felt the most safe for

26:23

me. I mean, did you explain

26:25

to him directly that with previous

26:27

partners, you'd run from stability

26:30

and affection? Did you explain that all directly

26:32

to him? I did explain that to him.

26:35

He's like, yeah, that tracks. And

26:38

I'm going to be consistent and you need to find a

26:40

way to not run. And

26:43

he said, you can't do that to me again.

26:46

I

26:48

can't just sit around while

26:50

you're inconsistent. I

26:52

mean, honestly, props

26:55

to David for being so explicit with what

26:57

he needs from you and what he wants out of your

27:00

relationship. I want to know, have you

27:02

found a way not to run?

27:04

Are you and David still together? We

27:06

are. It's been eight years and we

27:09

are very, very happy. I

27:13

don't know. I'm in

27:16

our home and I look at

27:18

it from an outside perspective.

27:22

And I just think what a lucky couple. We

27:27

laugh so much. We are so

27:29

consistently generous and

27:31

kind to each other. It's

27:34

a safer and happier relationship

27:37

than I could have

27:38

imagined.

27:40

When you met David, you told

27:43

me that you saw dating as a way

27:45

to gauge how lovable

27:47

you were. You felt like a relationship

27:50

was only worth it if you had to work extremely

27:53

hard and convince the other person

27:55

to give you their care and

27:58

affection. And now

28:00

at this point, you know, eight years

28:03

into your relationship with David, do you

28:06

feel lovable, even though you didn't

28:08

have to convince him of your

28:10

worth? Yeah,

28:12

I'm pausing because I want to just make sure I tell

28:14

the truth. I...

28:20

Yeah, I really feel lovable.

28:23

I feel that way on my own.

28:26

I don't feel

28:29

that David loving me is evidence of

28:31

it. I feel that

28:33

as a person, I'm

28:36

good and loved,

28:39

and that I'm lucky enough to be

28:41

with him.

28:45

Jessica, thank you so much for talking with me today.

28:48

Oh, thank you so much. This was really wonderful

28:51

to think

28:51

back through. Thank

28:56

you.

29:01

Modern Love is produced by Julia Botero,

29:04

Christina Joseph, and Reba Goldberg. It's

29:07

edited by our executive producer, Jen Poiant,

29:09

and Annabelle Bacon. This

29:12

episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez. Our

29:14

show is recorded by Maddie Maciello. The

29:17

Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original

29:20

music by Carol Saburo, Pat McCusker,

29:22

and Diane Wong. Original

29:24

production by Mahima Chablani and Nell

29:27

Gologli. The Modern

29:29

Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. Mia

29:31

Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects.

29:34

I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.