Modern Love presents four miniature reader-submitted stories

The New York Times' Modern Love column published four reader-submitted miniature stories on Jan. 7, 2026, presenting snapshots of friendship, marriage, professional rupture and adolescent ritual. The series is billed as Modern Love in miniature, featuring pieces of no more than 100 words.

In “Our Swan Song,” Earl Langit recalls a college friendship with a composer when both men discovered and disclosed their gay identities; during a Europe trip the friend slid a note under his door reading, “I will always care about you, and I will miss you.” Kate Nelson’s “Thankfully, the Former” describes a chance meeting with Jim — sparked by a “jumbo shrimp” joke — that revealed he had moved into her ex-husband’s recently vacated apartment and, she writes, became either “a good omen or a nightmare.” She says they will celebrate 42 years of marriage in March.

Valerie Ong’s “A Postponed, Then Broken, Promise” recounts a professional partnership she called rare, in which a promised fix was postponed and then, after a letter saying he still wanted to fight for their future on a Friday, collapsed by Monday with “no conversation, only a decision,” a betrayal she calls “shattering.” Amelia Burns’ “Teen Aperitivo” remembers a middle-school ritual with a friend, Emmalyn, of sitting for hours over fried rice and green tea as latchkey kids, and later reconnecting at 29 in their hometown of Moorestown, N.J.

Key Topics

Culture, Modern Love, Earl Langit, Kate Nelson, Valerie Ong, Amelia Burns