Some People Wanna Fill The World With Silly Love Songs
Bonnie Goldstein
Woman Up Editor
Posted:
06/8/09
I knew we were kindred nerds, Jill. Along with the so-called "women's sports pages," also known as Sunday's NYT wedding announcements, I also read both dysfunctional relationship columns religiously (usually judging the subjects mercilessly and almost always having my own ideas how to redeem their sorry misunderstandings), and I'd hate to see either the Times' Modern Love or Washington Post's Date Lab go away.
I merely suggested a temporary bump of Modern Love since I was writing about finding a suitable place in the New York paper for fiction and figured ML was the closest thing to it. I mean, we don't believe those self-portraits are strictly accurate do we? Should we? I've always thought the personal essay nature of the column was to tell entertaining parables and cautionary tales with at least a spoonful of fanciful romance to keep us all engaged. Maybe I'm too cynical about my romances, but, if I thought the weekly stories of love and other hazards were absolutely, verifiable, 100% reportage, I'd expect the wives, boyfriends, one night stands and many, many, exes exposed every week to be contacted and asked for their version. How dull and disappointing it would be when they each responded with a variation of "that's not quite how I remember it."