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Bring back yearning!

Is romance a lost art? Some might say it is. Many people find dating apps to be an impersonal nightmare, and meeting up in-person is not always much better. Still, love connections do happen every day despite the odds! But is there courtship? Is there chivalry? Has everything gone to complete hell since the invention of social media?

Some experts say that romance isn't dead, just different, and that's a good way of looking at it. But there's definitely something nostalgic about the old-fashioned ways of our parents and grandparents. When you met each other in real life, dated properly, took each other to a sock hop, and couldn't instantly go find someone else the second you got bored.

One woman recently shared a fascinating and nostalgic document she received from her grandpa: He had documented every single date with his wife for over 60 years.

people on a date in the 60sIf he wanted to, he would. Giphy

The caption, shared by the granddaughter, Kayla, read: "When girls can barely get a good morning text but my grandpa documented every memory and date he ever had w my grandma for 60 years."

What follows is an extremely well-organized log of every date or key memory between the pair. A couple of things stand out from the early years of Jim and Kay's love story:

  • The title of the document is "The Beginning of a Wonderful Relationship." Pure romance.
  • They met on December 5, 1969 at a collegiate dance.
  • They hung out A LOT in the early days. In the first month of dating, they went on around 15 dates!
  • Jim refers to himself in the document as "Jim," which took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out. I kept wondering, who's this Jim guy?!
  • There are no NSFW details—that's not how that generation rolls — but you can read between the lines. "Kay came over to Jim's place before she went to work." Alright, I see you, Grandpa and Grandma.
  • It is pages and pages and pages long. No memory was too minute to leave out. In the video, just the year 1970 goes on for over five pages.
  • In June of 1970, Jim proposes, and the story is pure gold:

"Jim picked up Kay after work and went to the 'Den of Times' for drinks. There, Jim proposed to Kay asking if she 'wanted to marry him.' She said she had 'wanted' to marry him for some time but that he needed to ask another question. When he said 'will you marry me? she accepted!"

Watch Kayla's touching video here:


@kaylastipsits1

my grandma is one lucky gal #fyp #foryou #dating #love #relationship #stl #silversprings #stlouis #missouri

Commenters swooned, sobbed, and in some cases, were super jealous of the love on display in this document.

Over 8 million people have viewed the video on TikTok and we're all in agreement: The bar has been raised.

"may this love ATTACK me," wrote one user.

"Now I'm mad at my husband"

“Made spaghetti, went grocery shopping” SOBBING

"MAY THIS LOVE FIND ME"

"They just don’t make them like this anymore"

"We get caught up in so many modern day dating rules….'don’t make yourself too available'. Notice how they spent almost every day together immediately after meeting for the first time [When you know you know]"

The most beautiful part of the journal, to me, is the pure mundanity of it. So many dates involved them going shopping for groceries, cooking dinner at home, or watching TV. The fact that it was all done together over the course of many decades, and Jim considered every instance worthy of writing down, speaks volumes about their love.

Reading through what's visible of the document, I didn't see any instances of "picnic in a rowboat on a lake at sunset" or "candlelit dinner at the top of a skyscraper." It's just all so normal and ordinary. And I think it paints an amazing picture of what love really is: Finding a person to live life with.

I'd love to see how the pages of this journal evolved over the decades. In any case, not only is this journal an amazing testament to true love, it's an incredible thing for Kayla to inherit. It's the entire story of her Grandpa and Grandma, from the very beginning, without a single detail left out. And it's a good blueprint for her to keep if and when she tries to find her own life partner.

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This is an adorable problem to have.

When we get married, we understand that we're signing up for a lifelong commitment. We understand that the love we have for our partner will change and grow and evolve over time. The frantic, can't-keep-our-hands-off-each-other passion we feel in the beginning is bound to fade into something more closely resembling compassionate love, which is a love of devotion and care and kindness. That's why we ideally choose someone we can see ourselves growing old with, someone we genuinely like, a best friend.

Except, it turns out, that isn't always the case! Not if you take some people's word for it, anyway. And when you're expecting a "cozy but bland" marriage and suddenly find yourself in the opposite, well, it can be alarming.

An unnamed social media user recently posted a frantic message asking for help: "Why am I too attracted to my wife?"

gif of a man counting on his fingers surrounded by floating calculationsIt it sounds weird, it is kinda weird. Giphy

"I know this sounds weird," the poster wrote. "But I have been with my wife for about 10 years, 8 years dating and almost 2 married. I have always found her beautiful and super hot, but lately these last few months I’m obsessing over her. I feel like she’s way too hot, I can’t stop staring at her when we’re in the same room.

"Is this normal? Do I need to do something? I tried looking online for help, but there isn’t anything out there. I have no friends or family to ask about this."

Poor guy probably thought he was going through a hormone imbalance or some kind of mental break, when the truth is much more wholesome: Dude is just really in love with his wife.

Comments poured in. Apparently, OP isn't the only one with this 'problem'

Users on r/mademesmile had a lot to say about the man's adorable obliviousness:

gif of woman saying, 'Who woulda thought?"The weird truth is also pretty wholesome.Giphy

"No need to worry. I’ve done the same thing over my 26 year marriage. Some years it’s there. Some years it’s normal attraction."

"You do need to do something. Count your blessings."

"You can't be TOO attracted to your wife. ... I've been married to mine for 21 years, and I still look at her in the way you have just described"

"I definitely haven't been with my wife as long, but I still do this. She is a goddess to me. I would die for her. I would kill for her. Either way, what bliss."

"I hope my partner looks at me the same way you look at your wife after 10 years. It's a big fear for a lot of young women my age, getting older and having age show. Give her a big ol' smooch and make it known you see her this way if you haven't already."

"My husband and I have been together 16 1/2 years. I still get butterflies in my stomach when he kisses me. Sometimes I catch him watching me with, what I call, 'googley eyes'"

"I feel the same way! We’re 18 years married, 20 years together. Sometimes I catch him looking a certain way, or in a certain light, and I’m like DAMN you SO FINE."

"You're just really in love with your wife and it's wholesome AF"

So, are all these couples just embellishing to make their relationships look good? Or can you really still get the 'butterflies' after decades together?

Studies show that it is possible, and even common, for married couples to be "madly in love" after decades of marriage. That should give us all hope.

A 2011 study out of Stony Brook University found that dopamine activity levels in the brains of newly-in-love couples were similar to couples who had been together for an average of 21 years. Dopamine, as a reminder, is the excitement neurotransmitter that signals reward and pleasure to your brain.

“A state-of-the-art investigation of love has confirmed for the very first time that people are not lying when they say that after 10 to 30 years of marriage they are still madly in love with their partners,” an expert told Harvard Medical School.

gif of Bug Bunny with heart eyesAh, love. Giphy

How does that work when the 'newness' and initial uncertainty has worn off? Fascinatingly, the things we learn and discover about our partners, even many years down the line, can influence our physical attraction to them. Leila Levison, a couples counselor, writes: "Discovering that someone is arrogant or intractable or selfish might greatly lessen our initial impression of their being handsome or beautiful. Conversely, as we come to know someone’s humility or quiet brilliance, what had seemed to be ordinary features become beautiful."

So, a sudden rush of love and physical attraction to your partner could mean many things, one of them being that you've reached new heights of connection and intimacy. It could mean that you're appreciating them as a human being more than ever. These feelings can be cyclical, coming in waves, ebbing and flowing in different years. That's all totally normal.

If you're not feeling those same sparks in your own relationship, experts recommend starting with more physical touch. Doubling the amount of time you spend kissing, hugging, or holding hands can encourage your body to release oxytocin, one of the main hormones that floods your brain when you're falling in love. In way, you can almost trick the sparks to come back.

Hey, all is fair in love and war!

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They crashed into love, you could say.

If you think it's hard meeting people these days, maybe you're just not thinking outside of the box. Dating apps, speed dating, and blind set ups by friends are old news. If you want to make a stronger connection, maybe it's time you looked in some more unexpected places. Do you have a hot dentist? Fight through the numbness in your tongue and tell them how you feel. Ever swapped numbers with a political canvasser that came knocking on your door? At least you already know whether you agree on politics.

All kidding aside, it is tough to find love in 2025. But, as cliche as it sounds, you really do sometimes find it in the last place you'd ever expect.

A wild story out of China is proving that love can be found in the strangest of places.

A 36-year-old man named Li was in a hurry one day in late 2023. Reports say he was dealing with an emergency, which may have distracted him while driving. And then the worst happened. He struck a woman who was riding an electric bicycle, sending her hurtling to the ground injured. Li scrambled out of his car to check on the woman and apologize. Now he had two emergencies to deal with.

Her response, as she lay there in agony with what would later be determined to be a broken collar bone: "No worries."

gif of someone in a hospital bed saying "no worries"No worries!Giphy

Her kindness and forgiveness (and maybe a little bit of millennial people-pleasing) opened the door for the two to stay in touch after the accident. Li visited the woman in the hospital every day as she recovered, where they struck up a friendship. That friendship quickly turned into more. After just a few weeks, it was actually the woman—broken collarbone and all—who confessed her feelings to Li first. They had really hit it off during those visits. Li was hesitant due to their age gap and, well, the extreme weirdness of how they met, but eventually he gave it a chance, realizing it was kind of rude to turn her down for a date after hitting her with his car and putting her in the hospital.

Less than a year later, she was pregnant, and the couple just tied the knot in February of 2025, bringing their unbelievable love story full circle.

If it sounds like the plot of a movie, it kind of is. A similar premise is at the heart of the 2024 film We Live In Time with Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh. Who says you can't find a Hollywood ending in real life?


The story was shared far and wide on social media where it raised a few eyebrows, and inspired more than a few jokes.

Clever Reddit users were quick to point out that Li may have taken the idea of "hitting on someone" a little too literally.

One user shared that Li's story was similar to one of her own: "This is similar to how my grandparents met. My grandfather was just in the US on vacation. on his way to go back to his country he got into a car accident. He stayed to make sure the woman in the other car was ok. The rest is history."

I think it gives people hope to hear these bizarre and unexpected love stories. The world has been different since COVID. In person connections with other people are more rare. And people are burnt out on dating apps, with usage dipping drastically over the last year or two. I can imagine it feels impossible to find someone if you've tried all the usual avenues and come up empty. So maybe you don't want to go out intentionally running over attractive pedestrians, but if we can take anything away from Li's story, it's that staying open-minded and optimistic can actually pay off sometimes when it comes to love. Congrats to the happy couple! Though, for safety reasons, it's probably best if Li lets his wife drive from now on.

Roe Ethridge

For fans of Selena Gomez and her fiancé (record producer, songwriter) Benny Blanco, it was a treat that they sat down for their first joint interview with Interview magazine's Mel Ottenberg for the piece, Benny and Selena Against the World.They got as candid as two people can get, but it's not surprising. Their vulnerability as individuals is part of what makes them both such talented artists.

It was their behind-the-scenes TikTok video at the interview that grabbed a lot of people's attention. It was there that Benny admitted he gets "death realizations" in the shower. Let me back up. First, he asks Selena, "Have you ever cried in the shower? It's incredible." After she laughs, he gets more serious. "Sometimes you just have to have a good cry. I always get death realizations in the shower. Like, I realize I'm gonna die, but it's in the shower. And then I cry about it a little bit, and then it goes away. And then I feel great because I'm (he gestures) the warm water."

@interviewmag

We love a good shower cry 🚿 @Selena Gomez and @benny blanco answer a few questions about each other behind the scenes of our March issue cover shoot. #selenagomez #bennyblanco

This leads to Selena reading a prepared question: "Who cries the most?" They both agree that it's Selena. Benny touchingly explains, "She cries if she sees any video early in the morning that's like— a dog, a child." Selena adds, "A grandparent." Benny concurs. "A grandparent. Some hybrid of all three that we've never even seen before. She cries."

The printed interview reveals so much about their relationship.

ON THEIR INITIAL FRIENDSHIP

Benny Blanco and Selena GomezPhoto by: Roe Ethridge www.interviewmagazine.com

They met when Selena was about 16 or 17 and still with Disney Records, after her mom set up a meeting. Benny admits, "That's right when I became big and she wasn't a singer yet."

He was drawn to her music, calling her "the original sad girl." But it was their underlying friendship that sealed their fate. Ottenberg asks when they "knew" they were into each other. Selena confesses, "It was really simple. We got in the studio to work on a song, and we just talked; that’s how easy it was for me. I liked him before he liked me."

Benny had no idea. But on their second hangout, he got it. "Our second date, I was like, 'Wait, does she like me?' I was clueless. From then on, it was easy. You know when you think you met the right person, you’re like, 'Oh my god.' But it feels so different. The second we started hanging out, I was like, 'This is my wife.' I was telling my mom, 'This is the girl I’m going to marry.'"

ON MUTUAL RESPECT

selena gomez GIF by Interscope RecordsGiphy

When it comes to her music, Selena is incredibly humble and admits she has had trouble in the past asking for what she wants on an album. Of Benny, she says, "Sometimes it’s difficult for me to speak up. Most of my anxiety right now is wanting him to speak because I feel like he’s more talented than I am in this field. It’s like working with a great filmmaker. Whether we were together or not, I think he still would’ve listened to everything that I had to say, and he was able to almost transcribe it into music, into what the feeling of what I was talking about should be. And I really found that to be helpful because this album definitely feels just as much mine as I’m sure it does his."

Benny is in awe of Selena's talent. "The thing that Selena does that not a lot of artists do is she’s never afraid to tell the truth, even if it might not be the most popular thing. Sometimes she’s sad, sometimes she hasn’t figured out love, but she always says it in the realest way that so many people can connect with. So many pop stars are unattainable, but somehow she’s the largest person in the room and makes each person feel like she’s exactly like them."

ON HOW TO MAKE IT WORK

Selena Gomez and Benny BlancoPhoto by: Roe Ethridge www.interviewmagazine.com

Benny makes this one simple. "Happy wife, happy life. Shut the f up and listen to your partner." Selena cuts to the chase too. "Find your best friend and don't settle."