Conscious Choice: Modern Love

February 2008 | From the Editor

Modern Love

By Ritzy Ryciak

I have been a devoted reader of the New York Time’s Modern Love column for about two years now. The column, along with a leisurely brunch and strong coffee, is a Sunday staple for me. I relish it., carve out a quiet window of time when I will not be disturbed and read each messy, humorous and candid tale from start to finish. Each week brings a different author, a different drama (there is always some sort of drama) and characters, but the theme — love — remains the same.

Pretty consistently, the stories (whether they be about two men, three women, or your average boy-girl couple) will in some way address a drama swirling around in my own life and I’ll end up walking away from someone else’s love story armed with a new perspective on my own.

This is why I read: to make connections, to feel a sense of camaraderie, to be touched. And hopefully, to encounter that perfect string of words (that you didn’t even know you needed until they crossed your page) that stay with you for a week, a month or a year and help you understand your own situation just a little bit better.

Obviously, as an editor, it is my hope that the stories we bring readers serve a similar purpose. This month, in honor of red-hot February we tackled the provocative and lesson-rich human experience of love and relationships in a number of our features. In Love Big we took a closer look at polyamory in the hopes that just asking questions or breaking out of the monogamy mold (if only for a second and if only from our armchairs) would spark some healthy new perspectives.

“The popular notion of romantic love as a tango between two, deeply programmed in our modern psyche, complicates any biological urge to seek multiple partners,” writes Love Big author, Andy Isaacson. “It also violates a central belief of those who favor polyamory: that we have the capacity to love intimately more than one person (and with solid communication and fewer nights free, we can even pull it off).”

Maybe most of us are not cut out to actively love two people at once, but how many of us have ever been torn between two lovers? What if you hadn’t had to choose? I’m not cheerleading for polyamory here, but I will admit that hearing from real polyamorous people (love that alliteration) and getting a glimpse into their lives challenged some deeply ingrained beliefs about what love looks and feels like for me. While many of us won’t end up opting for a triad, widening (or even just honing) our definitions of love can be an eye-opening and ultimately beneficial exercise.

The same can be said for gender. In our feature on gender reconciliation, see What’s Sex Got to Do with It?, author Amelia Glynn is asked (during article research) what she likes most about being a woman. Glynn lands on high heels (and I’m right there with her) and an immediate realization of the “power of gender — and its ability to both unite and divide us.”

It wasn’t our initial intention, but this month, I hope our stories move you just a little bit out of your comfort zone and get you thinking about love, relationships and sex in new ways. This is why we read right?

Ritzy

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