Modern Love publishes reader-submitted microstories including 'I’m 23. He’s 40.'

The New York Times’s Modern Love column on Jan. 14, 2026, published a set of reader-submitted microstories under the banner Modern Love in miniature, featuring pieces of no more than 100 words.

The installment includes four short vignettes: Deborah Carter’s “One Good Cookie,” in which the narrator finds an obituary for her first boyfriend; Luise Bolleber’s “A New Ache,” about feeling a sudden longing after her stepdaughter gives birth; Vito Gesia’s “Metal vs. Rubber,” about a 23-year-old who dated a 40-year-old met on Grindr and later leaves a small vintage toy fish in a park; and Juliette Green’s “Well Played, Grandma,” in which a granddaughter inherits her late grandmother’s last painting of a unicorn.

The column ran with an image credited to Brian Rea and presents these pieces as compact, reader-submitted snapshots. Each story is self-contained and limited to the 100-word format stated by the feature.

The publication does not provide follow-up details about the authors or the later outcomes of the relationships and moments described; the vignettes stand as brief, unresolved impressions submitted by readers.

Key Topics

Culture, Modern Love, Grindr, Vito Gesia, Deborah Carter, Luise Bolleber