Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Romance is depicted in all kinds of ways in the media. Wuthering Heights presents one version of a love story. Heated Rivalry represents another image of romance. I'm going to the cottage. But we wanted to know, what does romance look like in your life? How do you define it? We talked about it in our meeting a few weeks ago for a good long while. The team at Modern Love from The New York Times have been wondering the same thing.

Yesterday, they released a podcast episode called The Secret to True Romance. The episode features submissions from Modern Love listeners about the most romantic thing they've ever experienced. Like this story from Eva in San Francisco.

Eva: I have this thing that's really embarrassing. I am superstitious, and I have to knock on wood before bed. I've been doing it since I was a little girl for as long as I can remember. When I moved in with my boyfriend, John, I was nervous he would catch me, and so I would have to slightly reach out to tap on the windowsill, feigning a yawn, pretending I was just stretching. One day, he did catch me.

He listened as I told him about how it's hard when we go camping, or I am traveling for work, and there is no wood to knock on nearby. He lay silently for a while and then said, "Can I make you a knocking block so you can take it with you anywhere?"

Alison Stewart: That story was submitted to the Modern Love podcast, hosted by my next guest, Anna Martin. Hi, Anna.

Anna Martin: Hey, happy to be here.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, help us keep this celebration of romance going. What is the most romantic thing anyone has done for you? Call in and share your stories. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC, or tell us how do you define romance. What does it mean to you? Our number is 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Anna, where did your earliest ideas about romance come from?

Anna Martin: Oh my gosh, that's a great question. I think they're listening, so shout out to my mom and dad. It comes from them. I remember walking behind them. We'd just be at the park or the mall or whatever, and I'd watch them hold hands. I think that that image is seared into my brain. It's very every day. They wouldn't hold hands for very long. They could let go because they had to chase after three girls, myself included. Just that image sticks in my mind as my first idea of romance.

Alison Stewart: That's so interesting. That reminded me of my parents. After my dad passed away, I was going to go do grocery shopping for my mom. I said, "Mom, you want blueberries?" She said, "No, I don't like blueberries." I was like, "Daddy loved blueberries. They were in the house all the time." She's like, "Yes, I know. He loved blueberries. I hate blueberries."

Anna Martin: It's the blueberries.

Alison Stewart: It's the blueberries. She did that for 40 years. She bought blueberries for him. I thought that was such a romantic gesture.

Anna Martin: It is romantic.

Alison Stewart: How do you think media shapes the way people-- what they expect in a romantic relationship?

Anna Martin: Totally. When I think of romance as shaped by rom-coms, songs, I think of the grand gestures. I think of running through the airport, shouting, "Stop the plane." I think about boombox under the windowsill. I think about skywriting. These types of things. Exceptional, huge, often very costly. Like I said, my first image of romance, holding hands, that is free. That's totally free. It's these types of things that we heard from our listeners, these everyday things, these small gestures that, to me, are so much more part of the fabric of our lives. That's how romance shows up, I feel, in the everyday.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Nancy from Greenwich, Connecticut. Hi, Nancy. Thanks for making the time to call All Of It.

Nancy: Hi. My husband passed away a while ago, and soon after, maybe two years after, my daughter says, "You have to sign up on one of those dating sites," and I did. A man had responded and blah, blah, blah. The first date, he took me out to dinner, and I didn't know if he was really for me. Right after dinner, before we were to leave, he leaned back in his chair and he said, "Next week is Valentine's Day. Would you like to be my valentine?" We've been together for 13 years.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's a good story, Nancy.

Anna Martin: That's a great story. Thank you. It's a good reminder to your first impression might not always be correct. You said you didn't know if he was for you at first.

Alison Stewart: Let's go talk to Lucy in Westchester. Hi, Lucy. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Lucy: Oh, thanks. Thanks for having me. My husband and I met in college many years ago. I left for a semester to study art history in Florence. He just missed me so much. It was really sad. Then on Valentine's Day, the head office said, "Oh, Lucia, you have a package here. A delivery." I go downstairs, and there is this ginormous bouquet of 100 roses that I-- It's kind of amazing because it was booked before computers that he figured out how to get me 100 roses in Florence. I had to carry them home through the streets of Florence. It was just so sweet. It was like, "Ah, San Valentino. Bella, bella."

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Love that story. This is a good one. This is a good text. "I knew my guy was the one when I broke my arm cycling. I was rehabbing after surgery with my arm in a brace and feeling sad because I missed cycling. He told me to drive to his house because he had a surprise. When I arrived, he had a tandem waiting. I always carried my helmet and shoes in my car, so all I had to do was climb aboard and hold on. It was the most exhilarating ride, and I felt so free. I still tear up when I think about it today." That's from Kat calling from Mount Tabor, New Jersey.

Anna Martin: That is so wonderful.

Alison Stewart: That's just wonderful. How has your definition of romance changed, Anna, since you've been hosting Modern Love?

Anna Martin: It's a good question. I said, I talked about how media shapes our understandings of romance. Even despite growing up with that model, the holding hands, my parents, of what love looks like, I think too, I sort of saw romance as a bit of like a-- it was a matter of scale. It was the bigger the romantic gesture, the more meaningful it was. In hosting the show now, going on a few years, having conversations about the way that love shows up, like I said, in our everyday, I've really become convinced that romance is woven into the fabric of our lives. It's all around us.

If we open our eyes to it, if we're ready to receive it. I think when we talk about big gestures or small, small might imply less impactful, but for me, it absolutely doesn't. It just means that it might be more present, which to me is a total gift.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Wendy in Springfield, New Jersey. Hi, Wendy, thanks for calling All Of It today.

Wendy: Yes. When my partner and I started seeing each other in 1985. In 1986, when we'd been seeing each other for a year, he asked me if it was okay if he made me a birthday dinner, which he did for me, my friends, and my mother. Now, we are heading to our 38th anniversary.

Alison Stewart: Love that. Congratulations, Wendy. I'm speaking to Anna Martin, host of the Modern Love podcast from The New York Times, and we are taking your calls. What is the most romantic thing anyone has done for you? Call in and share your stories, or you can tell us how do you define romance. What does it mean to you? Our number is 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Anna, you were looking through story submissions. What were you and your team looking for, for this episode?

Anna Martin: We were looking for-- first of all, all of the submissions, I wish we could play all of them. It would be way too long of an episode, but it's just a total delight to hear stories from our listeners, to hear the stories that we're listening to together right now. It's so heartening. It's so hopeful, which I feel is sorely needed. What we were looking for is really these-- we kind of like submissions that are a little bit weird, that you wouldn't think about. I say weird in the most positive way possible.

That knocking block clip that you played, I mean, it's just totally-- It's so specific to this person. This is a thing, a private superstition that she held. It sounds like she might have been a little bit nervous to share it with her boyfriend. Once she did, the boyfriend reached out and met her, and offered this knocking block. This kind of specificity, this weirdness again with this totally positive valence, that's what we're looking for. These stories that are so individual.

Alison Stewart: Well, let's start with one. This first story we're going to highlight comes from an episode with a woman named Caroline. Tell us about a little bit about Caroline and set up the story a bit.

Anna Martin: Caroline. Now, you're going to need to remind me which one we're talking about.

Alison Stewart: This is the one--

Anna Martin: Oh, I know. I see it now.

Alison Stewart: Had little dots all over.

Anna Martin: Oh, wonderful. Yes, yes, yes.

Alison Stewart: Got freckles all over herself.

Anna Martin: Yes, freckles all over. That's Caroline. She of the freckles. This one is a really-- it's a tender one. This is a moment of romance that happens earlier on in her life. She talks about how-- she'd never sort of been intimately involved with someone and was a bit embarrassed to show herself literally, metaphorically. I don't know exactly where you're going to cut in, but the moment that she decides to trust this new boyfriend is a moment of really pure acceptance and connection.

Alison Stewart: The name of this episode is He Saw the Stars in Me. Let's listen.

Caroline: A long time ago, I had my first boyfriend. I had never been naked in front of a man. The first couple of times I went over to his rooming house and stayed, I was nervous. I am a speckled person with freckles on my nose and cheeks, and dark, larger freckles sprinkled widely across my arms, legs, and back. One afternoon as I sat on his mattress on the floor, I drew my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, and explained that I felt self-conscious about all the spots.

He was quiet as he kneeled on the floor beside me. He slowly traced the dark freckles on my legs with his finger. "Maybe if we connected the dots," he said, "eventually we could find all the constellations."

Alison Stewart: That story is so interesting because it's about her first boyfriend, Anna. She's 68 now. She says this was a long time ago. What do you think it says about romance? That this is from an early relationship when she's no longer in, but she still remembers it.

Anna Martin: I think romance is so sticky, right? It sticks in the brain. I keep referencing my mom and dad. I really do hope they're listening. They're getting a lot of shout-outs during this segment. [chuckles] That was one of my earliest memories. I still remember it. It's like these moments where we feel truly seen, where we let someone in, where we embrace the vulnerability of wanting, of being wanted. I think those things stick. I'm talking about how romance is in the everyday, but still, it feels rare. These moments of pure connection.

I think it makes total sense that this formative experience would still stick with her. What a treasure, what a gift to be able to return to this moment. I don't know if she's still with this boyfriend. I don't know. Really, the fact that romance can exist even beyond the course of a relationship, I think is a, like I said, a treasure and a gift we give each other and ourselves.

Alison Stewart: Here's one that kicks it old school. "When I was a senior in high school, I had mono, which left me fairly isolated from my then-boyfriend, my first real love. On Valentine's Day, my doorbell rang, and I discovered that he had dropped off a cassette tape that just had The Rolling Stones Wild Horses on it. Sigh."

[laughter]

Anna Martin: That's so sweet. That's wonderful. We talk about acts of service. To me, it's like these things are, they're gestures that are not because you have to, but because you want to. It's purely just because you want to do something gets out of your own volition, your own will. I think it's really beautiful.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to, I believe it's Lyran, who's calling from Long Island City. Hi.

Lyran: Hello. Hi.

Alison Stewart: Hi.

Lyran: Thanks for taking my call. Love your show. The romantic gesture that I think is the thing to measure everything against is in a relationship I had before, where the person went and collected stories and sentiments from really close friends and from my daughter. My daughter scored a song that was all a birthday celebration. That was just an incredible way to touch my heart.

Alison Stewart: Thanks for calling in. We really appreciate it. We are talking about romance with the host of the Modern Love podcast from The New York Times, Anna Martin. When we come back, a member of team All Of It made it to the podcast and didn't even know about it. We'll hear about it. That's next. You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. I'm speaking to Anna Martin, host of the Modern Love podcast from The New York Times, and we are taking your calls. What is the most romantic thing that anyone has ever done for you?

Call in, and share your stories or tell us how you define romance. Our number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. We wanted to say that, Anna, you have a podcast. It's all about this. It just dropped yesterday. This is one clip that was on that podcast. It's from a woman named Hannah, and she lives in Queens. Let's listen.

Hannah: Our first date was at a jazz bar. We each ordered a drink. Sometime into the date, I made a second order of a Maamool, which is a date cookie. It's one of my favorite cookies, and I was on a big Maamool kick at the time. It was just one of the many things that we talked about as we closed out the bar that night on our first date. On our second date, we meet up and he pulls something out of his pocket and says he has a surprise for me. In his palm is a wrapped Mambool cookie because he remembered that I said that I liked it on our first date.

I thought it was really, really sweet and really special and quite romantic for a second date. On our third date, the same thing happened. He pulled out a Maamool cookie out of his jacket pocket. Also, very sweet, also very cute. Then so on and so forth. On our fourth date, our fifth date, our sixth date, he continued to have Maamool cookies that he bought in bulk and made sure to always have one to give me every time we started our date.

Alison Stewart: Anna, what struck you about that story?

Anna Martin: Like I said, just the specificity. She mentions that she likes this cookie, and then without being asked, this guy shows up with a cookie again and again and again and again. To me, it's listening, it's being open. I just thought it was a really beautiful way of reaching out to someone.

Alison Stewart: That guy--

Anna Martin: I loved it.

Alison Stewart: That guy is a producer on our show.

Anna Martin: I know. I'm freaking out. When I found out about this, I could not believe it. The cookie man himself.

Alison Stewart: We invited you on the show, we talked about this. We invited you on the show, and then this episode dropped. Then we realized that, "Wait a minute, that's Simon that Hannah is talking about."

Anna Martin: It's incredible.

Alison Stewart: Simon is in studio with us right now.

Simon: Hello. [chuckles]

Anna Martin: Hello.

Alison Stewart: Simon.

Simon: Hi, Anna.

Anna Martin: You are basically a celebrity to me. You are the cookie man. I cannot believe I get to talk to you in person. Hello.

Simon: Hello, Anna. I'm glad to talk to you, too.

Alison Stewart: Anna, what did you want to ask Simon?

Anna Martin: Well, I want to ask, are you still giving your girlfriend cookies every time you see her?

Simon: No. We decided together that there might be-- there was a natural endpoint to that because it started to get a little too, like Pavlovian maybe.

[laughter]

Simon: I wanted her to still enjoy Maamool for herself and not too much. Occasionally, there are still little treats like that. Maybe this weekend, some surprise-related gifts, which I should just say really quickly, Hannah doesn't know that I'm on the radio right now. I told her that we're talking about our story, but when she asked if I was going to be on, I said, "No, I'm a producer. I don't go on air." She's listening right now.

Anna Martin: Hi, Hannah. This is just what? It's surprise after surprise. I have more cookie questions. Is that okay?

Simon: Yes, sure.

Alison Stewart: I'm just relaxed. I'm having a cup of coffee.

Anna Martin: Wonderful. Yes. Take some time off. Simon, what gave you this idea? What sparked it?

Simon: Well, actually, I should say that the inspiration, besides just listening on our first date and hearing that Hannah enjoyed the cookie, and that being one of the few things I knew about her, was there's a little bit of a story behind it, which is that Hannah gets the timeline just a little bit wrong in how she tells this story. The cookie ritual actually started on our third date, and it was inspired by something that Hannah did on our second date. She and I went to the movie theater to see the Oscar-nominated animated shorts for our second date.

We sit down in our seats. We're sort of awkwardly starting small talk, getting ready for the movie. She says, "Do you like movie snacks?" I said, "Yes, of course, I like movie snacks." Then she proceeds to pull out a thermos filled with hot peppermint tea and two little paper cups, which already I was like, "Oh my God, she's perfect."

Anna Martin: She brought the cups.

Simon: Totally. She brought the cups, and then she followed it up with a little bag of sugar-free Swedish fish, because she remembered from our first date that I am diabetic. That was so sweet to me. Then on the third date, I think I already had some idea, but I--

Alison Stewart: You, too. You guys.

Anna Martin: Really, actually, Simon, this idea is not original at all?

Simon: Not original at all. Actually, I don't deserve any of the romance credit.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: I wanted to find out. How did you find out you were a part of the podcast?

Anna Martin: Yes.

Simon: Yes. At the beginning of last week, so Monday of last week, Hannah says to me, "Hey, can we see each other Wednesday? I have a surprise for you." She didn't give me any more information. We just knew that we needed to be together sometime on Wednesday. Then on Tuesday, as you said, Alison, we had this pitch meeting, and we were talking about this idea of a call-in about romance. I think I coincidentally was like, "We should have Modern Love on. That would be a good fit for this conversation about romance."

I didn't even that you guys were dropping this specific episode about the most romantic thing that's ever happened to you. We book you, Anna. That's Tuesday. Then on Wednesday morning, Hannah and I are getting ready for the day, and she is sneakily playing-- We wake up with a podcast every morning. She starts playing up first, maybe, and then it moves into another podcast. We're talking, and it's playing. Then I hear the word Maamool, and I freeze. Then I realize it's Hannah's voice. Then Hannah's basically like, "Surprise." Then I get to surprise her in turn and say, "Oh my gosh, we have Anna Martin on the show tomorrow."

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Our Slack is hilarious. "Oh my God. Really? He's the king of Valentine's Day." This goes on and on the Slack channel.

Anna Martin: It feels so destined. It feels like fate. It really does. Do we have time for me to ask one more question?

Alison Stewart: Absolutely.

Anna Martin: Okay, wonderful. There's just a lot to dig into here, and I really mean that. Of course, it's the Swedish fish, the two paper cups, the Maamool cookies. These are all wonderful, delicious things. It's not really about the Swedish fish, right? It's not really about the cookies. What were you trying to say with those cookies to Hannah?

Simon: I think I wanted her to know that I had listened to her on the first date, and I wanted to pay attention to things that she liked and cared about.

Anna Martin: It is kind of about the cookies, though, because they look really good.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] They seem really good.

Anna Martin: Simon, thanks for sharing your story. I want to get to some more of your tape.

Alison Stewart: You pull this good tape.

Simon: We got so many calls.

Alison Stewart: We got so many calls.

Anna Martin: Thank you, Simon.

Simon: Thank you. It's so nice to talk to you.

Anna Martin: So good to meet you.

Simon: Thanks, Alison.

Alison Stewart: Oh my gosh. Let's talk to Lisa from Long Island. Hi, Lisa. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Lisa: Hi. How are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing okay.

Lisa: As soon as I heard the topic of this, I said, "Oh, I have a story." He's my husband now. This was about 27 years ago, I think. When we were graduate students-- when I first met him, when I first saw him, like laid eyes on him, I literally heard angels singing. I was like, "Oh, who's that?" Then I started seeing him around campus sometimes. Eventually, we got an apartment together. He's from Turkey. He went back for the summer. His family found out. I mean, cultural differences. His family found out.

I thought, "Uh-oh, that's it. I'm never going to see him again." It was awful. It was terrible. Looking back now, I see this could be a movie script, a rom-com, horror. Parts of it were horror. Anyway, a few months later, about October, he went home for the summer. In the fall, all of a sudden, I came home-- I was in Boston visiting my sister. He called, and he's like, "I'm home." I'm like, "What do you mean, you're home?" He told me that he was in our apartment. I sped all the way home. [chuckles] I got my first speeding ticket.

[laughter]

Lisa: I saw him there, and it was like, "All right. I tried so hard to get mad. This guy is no good for me. Give me a break. Forget it." As soon as I saw him again, that was it. I could not be mad ever again. 30 years later, and two kids and-- it's a beautiful story.

Alison Stewart: The whole thing. Thanks for calling. Let's talk to Kate in Sayville. Hey, Kate.

Kate: Hi. How are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing okay.

Kate: I'm going to be 80 this month. This story goes back 55 years, when I was engaged to my husband. We were engaged, and we were talking to some friends. I brought up. I said, "Oh, we were at a Christmas." I said to my friend, "Oh, I was at your Christmas party last year." My then-fiancé said, "Oh, I was at that party." I said, "You were not at that party." He said, "Yes, I was." I said, "Well, why didn't I see you?" He said, well, he had just gotten back from Vietnam, and he was quiet. He actually said, "Oh, I was sitting under the Christmas tree." I said, "Well, you weren't there."

He said, "Kate, you came into the room, you had your hair in a French twist. You were wearing Christmas balls for earrings. You had on a green dress, and you had green shoes with black buckles. You spent most of the night in the kitchen talking to your friend, Blanche." I said, "Oh, my." We were already engaged, and he had never told me that story. I would say that was really the most romantic day of my life.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's a good story. Thank you so much for calling. Anna, you know what? I'm hearing these stories. I'm hearing people noticing small differences, small things about the person they're with, and remembering them and bringing them back up to them.

Anna Martin: Absolutely. I mean, I think that's love. It's the type of close observation we afford to those we really want to get to know. We really want to get to know. I do think here, too. Like I'm saying, it's these everyday things. There are some grand gestures sprinkled throughout. I do think love is worth a speeding ticket in a lot of ways, but I think that this really is-- it's allowing yourself to be known, and it's deeply knowing someone else.

Alison Stewart: Let's hear another story from your podcast, The Secret to True Romance. The best seat in the house. It's from Jack in Cambridge. Could you set it up?

Anna Martin: Absolutely. This is another instance of really paying attention to what your partner needs. Jack-- I love this because at the end of what we're about to hear, Jack is sort of like, "I don't always realize that my partner is doing this, and then I realize, it's an act of love." Yes, I think that sets it up.

Alison Stewart: It's really a good story. Let's listen.

Jack: Mine's not very grand. It's on the pretty small side of things, but I am partially deaf in my left ear. This results in a lot of scenarios that you could imagine. If someone's sitting on my left side or to the left of me, I can barely make out what they're saying unless they're speaking very clearly and loudly. If I'm in a space with a lot of noise, like a restaurant or a concert, I can barely hear a thing. That can lead me to feeling quite isolated, frustrated, alone, and separate from where I am.

Well, my partner, who I've been with for about four years now, anytime we're out somewhere, anytime we're sitting at a table, maybe the restaurant, he is the first one to the table. He always makes sure that I have a seat at the place where I could best hear the entirety of the group. He does this without me asking him to. Oftentimes, I'll find myself forgetting and not understanding why he's doing what he's doing. Then I put two and two together that he's trying to make sure that I can be as comfortable and a part of wherever we are as possible. That just makes me smile every time he does it.

Alison Stewart: That's a story you can hear on The Secret to True Romance, the Modern Love podcast from The New York Times. I want to get this in. The second half of that episode is about a man named Lonnie Anderson, which by the way, is the name of someone else on our team.

Anna Martin: Oh my gosh.

[laughter]

Anna Martin: What's happening with us, Alison? Wow. Amazing.

Alison Stewart: Why is Lonnie the king of Valentine's Day?

Anna Martin: For the past 30 years, Lonnie Anderson, who lives in New Mexico and Albuquerque, has been doing these massive, over-the-top, grand gesture valentines for his wife, Anne Bolger Witherspoon. This has been picked up by local news, by radio stations there. We're talking big. We're talking like a crop circle with Anne's name in it, writing a poem in rocks that can only be seen from the sky, moving a carousel into their front yard. We've been talking about smaller, everyday gestures. This is the other end of the scale.

What's really beautiful about this is that people have joined in. They pitch in, they help Lonnie pull off these feats, these Valentine surprises. In that way, one person's love, these individual acts become collective. They become a part of sort of a community love story, love between all of us. I really, really love talking to him and Anne.

Alison Stewart: Does his wife think it's romantic?

Anna Martin: [laughs] It's a really good question. I mean, I'll point you to our episode. It's nuanced, right? She's like, "I'm a private person," and these things are certainly not private. The thing I really love about talking to Anne is that, I realized through the course of our conversation, it's her act of love back to Lonnie to accept these valentines, to sort of revel in the surprise of it. Even in the very public nature of it, it's something that she can give back to Lonnie. It's very reciprocal what they have going. I cannot wait to see Anne's reaction to her valentine in two days. I know what it is. Anne does not know, but I know, and it's beautiful.

Alison Stewart: The podcast episode is called The Secret to True Romance. It's from Modern Love from The New York Times. My guest has been Anna Martin, its host. Anna, thank you so much for joining us.

Anna Martin: Thank you so much. Happy Valentine's Day.

Alison Stewart: Happy Valentine's Day to you, too.