Love Letter: When roommates fall in love

Love is a funny thing

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story February 7, 2020

By Charanna Alexander

Finding an apartment in New York is no easy feat, so when Phoebe Stonebraker saw an ad on Craigslist that read “3 Comedians Looking for A Roommate,” she found herself on the doorstep of James McCarthy’s Brooklyn apartment (which he shared with two friends). After she moved in, what started as playful flirtation between two roommates quickly turned into an attraction neither could deny.

An Rong Xu for The New York Times   Vows There Was Something Funny About Them James McCarthy placed an ad on Craigslist: 3 Comedians Looking for a Roommate. Phoebe Stonebraker knocked on the door. By Vincent M. Mallozzi

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In this week’s Modern Love essay, Lauren Covalucci shares her struggle to overcome an eating disorder while learning to love herself unconditionally.

And, if you’re open to love but fear losing yourself, here’s a little art therapy to help you let go and let love flow.

MODERN LOVE “I am coming to terms with the fact that this is the body I am genetically meant to have.” Brian Rea   Modern Love The Unhealthy Math of Skinny + Pretty = Good A young woman struggling with an eating disorder tries to shift from self-loathing to self-loving. By Lauren Covalucci David Chelsea   Modern Love Podcast: Terry Crews Reads ‘Dedicated to Two Women, Only One of Them Alive’ The “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” actor reads an essay about loving two people at the same time. Brian Rea   Modern Love Tiny Love Stories: ‘I Worried About Telling Him My Age’ Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

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SOLID AS A ROCK A love unmoved, even when the Sheldon Boothe   A Wedding Day That Left Them Shook Hours after the morning wedding of Lauren Schneider and Lawrence Moss, the couple found themselves on very shaky ground as a 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit Jamaica. By Vincent M. Mallozzi

ASK THE EXPERTS “If there’s no risk of grief — how can you ever really feel anything?” Emile Friant’s “Cast Shadows” (1891) © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY   How Can I Open Myself Up to New Romantic Relationships? “You should not be able to walk away unscathed, which is to say, unchanged,” writes one of our advice columnists. By Ligaya Mishan Christoph Niemann   SOCIAL Q’S You Seriously Want Me to Go Out With Her? A reader has no interest in double dating with her stepdaughter and her married girlfriend. By Philip Galanes Marne Grahlman   Field Notes Wedding Insurance 101 Want to protect yourself in the event of a wedding mishap, severe weather conditions or a vendor incident? Here’s what to consider before getting wedding insurance. By Daniel Bortz

LOVE IN THE NEWS Plus:bonding over cooking in the buff. Jason Henry for The New York Times   The Joy of Cooking Naked Despite the occasional splatter burn, nudists say their relationship to eating, at home or in restaurants, is better and healthier without all the clothing. By Priya Krishna Associated Press   Nonfiction She Found Carson McCullers’s Love Letters. They Taught Her Something About Herself. In “My Autobiography of Carson McCullers,” Jenn Shapland describes how studying the novelist, who died in 1967, helped her reckon with her own identity. By Megan O’Grady Lino Mirgeler/DPA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images   Sheryl Sandberg Is Engaged to Tom Bernthal “You are my everything. I could not love you more,” Ms. Sandberg said in a Facebook post. By Mariel Padilla

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