Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. By the way, coming up at noon on All Of It with Alison Stewart, actor, singer and songwriter, Anthony Ramos discusses his starring role in In the Heights and his new album Love and Lies. That's exciting. The star of In the Heights coming up with Alison at noon here on WNYC. Now to your relationship situations and Renato in Manhasset, you're on WNYC. Hi, Renato. Thank you for calling in. Do we have Renato? Renato [unintelligible 00:00:46]

Renato: Oh, sorry. There you go. Sorry about that, Brian. Do you hear me now?

Brian: Yes. We got you.

Renato: Sorry about that. Thanks for taking my call. My situation is maybe a little different. We had met before COVID. She's a diplomat. She gets stationed overseas and travels a lot. We were apart more than we were together, which was challenging for me. Then COVID hit and wow, all my dreams came true. We were together all the time and I appreciated it, but I think psychologically, I became used to the fact that it was the new normal. Now that we're getting out of COVID, she's looking to have to find another overseas post which I unprepared myself for. It's going to be challenging.

Brian: Talk about a long distance relationship. It's hard enough when you're in New York and she's in Boston. You're going to be in New York and she might be in Ukraine or somewhere.

Renato: Right. Exactly. COVID didn't help that. It actually made it worse.

Brian: Would you move to another country to be with her?

Renato: I would eventually. Right now I have two daughters that I'm raising by myself so I can't, but once they move on and go to college I probably would.

Brian: Renato, I hope it works out. Thank you very much. I wonder if as a diplomat, she starts this conversation by saying, "Renato, I really appreciate our relationship and I hope we continue to have very good relations over the long term, but I got to leave the country." Ryan on the Upper West Side, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ryan.

Ryan: Hi, Brian. Wow. Long time, first time. My boyfriend and I, we got together maybe six months into the pandemic and then spent all of our time together and we broke up in April. As vaccination rates were rising and the world was opening up, we just needed to see what else was out there, testing the waters. Then we actually just got back together a couple of weeks ago. Which was [inaudible 00:03:01]

Brian: Which was? Did we lose you? Oh, I see. Wait a minute. I think I just accidentally clicked on another call. Can we get Ryan back up there? Ryan you're back. I apologize. That was my fault. I think you were just getting to the good part of the story too.

Ryan: Yes. Which was, a couple of weeks ago, we got back together after about a month and a half apart. Both vaccinated, dating in the world, just missed each other enough to try to see if we can meet each other within our new full lives again. It's been going well so far, I think.

Brian: Good. What do you think the moral of that story is, having been through the pandemic and inspecting yourself and your life and your priorities in the ways that it made you?

Ryan: I thought, I guess I really needed that companionship during the pandemic. Also I live alone and it was really hard not having anyone else around. He was a really useful support for me, but now other supports are coming back into my life and for myself, I can't live my life just with one person. It's important to be connected to the broader network of independence, and I didn't really realize that at the time. I thought one person had to be my whole world, but one person could be within my world, which is really nice too.

Brian: How is your partner taking it?

Ryan: I think pretty well. Both of us, we both work in the theater industry. It was a rough period for us both, but now that things are starting up again and each of us are also able to be working and we have our full days and then we can come back together in the evenings, it's nice. We get to meet each other in the way that we want to, instead of mediated through really difficult conditions, which I feel very lucky about.

Brian: Ryan, thank you so much for checking in with us. We really appreciate it. Good luck to both of you. Kate in Bushwick, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kate.

Kate: Hi, Brian. Also first time caller, long time listener. I am a musician and music teacher. My partner Nick has been going back to school for his degree and was in the midst of school and we were both working and doing the New York hustle. He was also working at Whole Foods during the time when the pandemic hit and continued to work at Whole Foods during the pandemic and doing online school.

While he was doing online school, I was teaching music lessons from home and we were both home most of the time, all the time together. He just graduated his college, which amazingly he was able to make it work from home. Now also, luckily he's gotten a new job working in Jersey city. He's doing a Brooklyn to Jersey commute five days a week. I am starting to gig again and do rehearsals mostly in the evening.

He's gone from the early hours of the morning and he gets back at 7:00 or 8:00 in the evening, and by the time he's back, I'm gone. It's been like ships passing and we don't get to see each other. It's like a night and day situation going from almost the renewed honeymoon phase of being together all the time and now we're barely seeing each other. It's been a bit of an adjustment going back to "post pandemic life", I would say.

Brian: I guess in normal times, especially if one is a night shift worker, it is so normal to have those kinds of things, and in a way you got spoiled by the pandemic, it sounds like.

Kate: Absolutely. Also, we take a lot of comfort in our home activities. We love cooking together and doing projects at home. He actually set up a little wood shop in the basement and we were able to do a lot of things together that before when we were doing the New York hustle life, we weren't really able to spend that much time together doing those kinds of things.

Brian: Does it make one or both of you-- Sorry. I did it again. I wasn't meaning to click you off. Annu, hang on, we're going to get to you next. I didn't mean to go to you that quickly. Kate, just as a follow up question, does it make you or your partner want to actually change your careers so you can be on similar schedules?

Kate: I suppose one of the things that we've been thinking of is maybe even moving out of the city to make our time together. His commute right now is really what's making it so difficult. Being able to maximize the home time, if that means shortening a commute, making a drastic change like that, but everything's so new right now that to make a big leap like that, it's a little difficult at this time.

Brian: Good luck to you both. It sounds like you're a really happy couple anyway. It's always great to hear that. Now we'll go to Annu in Brooklyn. Annu, you're on WNYC.

Annu: Hi.

Brian: Hi.

Annu: Hi. Good morning. Longtime listener, first time caller. My fiancé [unintelligible 00:08:42] and I met in February, 2020 through Lex, the queer dating app. We once shutdown-- we'd been dating through that time and things were going really well and it felt really special. We decided that we did not want to be quarantined away from each other. I invited him to quarantine at my place. Our philosophy through quarantine was it works as long as it works and if it doesn't work, we'll figure it out and do what we need to do. In October, he officially moved in and then in March of this year, we got engaged.

Brian: That's a happy ending. A quarantine, well, we'll take it a day at a time story, and it worked out.

Annu: It so has worked out. I think we both just realized that not only were we surviving, but thriving with each other during a crisis time and really learned how to rely on each other. Now as things are continuing to open up, like during the pandemic pre vaccination point, we've met our closest people, but now we're starting to merge our circles together and experiencing things like actually going out on dates. I think our joke has been that we've had the longest 11th date in history. We're now navigating--

Brian: It's almost like you got married before you went on a date.

Annu: Yes.

Brian: Annu, thank you so much. It's so great to hear a happy ending story like that. Congratulations to both of you on the engagement. I think we're going to hear something of the opposite from Kevin in Brooklyn. Kevin, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Kevin: Hey, Brian. How are you doing?

Brian: Good. How are you?

Kevin: I have a horror story, but it started off like a dream. I met this woman, she was a curator. I'm an artist and a painter and she had found my work through another artist friend of mine and really wanted to show it in the show. We met, fell in love, head over heels. This was about a month before the pandemic and her apartment caught on fire and burned down so I offered her to stay with me. I just bought a home in New Jersey and she stayed with me for a couple of weeks.

Then somewhere around April, the pandemic started, which we just got stuck together in the house and from there on it was like a tale of no boundaries and maybe not the best match. It lasted for about six, seven months, but it was a spiral downward the entire time. It makes you wonder, if it hadn't been in that pressure cooker, how it would have turned out.

Brian: It's exactly the opposite of the previous caller who shacked up with her new partner because of the COVID emergency and it worked out so well that now they got engaged. For you, you lived together because of the COVID emergency and her house burning down and not so good. You learn through that experience, right? You live and you learn and you go on to hopefully a next better relationship.

Speaker 1: That's the hope.

Brian: Kevin, thank you and good luck and Arnold in Astoria you on WNYC. Hi, Arnold.

Arnold: Hello, Brian Lehrer. What am I? A long time listener, a hundredth time caller and my second time talking to you. I just want to add into the conversation that you are such a part of our relationships in the WNYC world. My partner and I have been together 23 years, we got married three years ago on our 20th anniversary and the next morning I hit the radio button at 10:00 AM. It was the morning after our wedding. He was like, "No." I said I'm sorry. He said, "No, I knew when I married you that meant for the rest of my life I'd wake up to three men and this bed, you, me and Brian Lehrer."

The thing is, through this pandemic and not just the COVID pandemic, but also trumpism and the election and the big lie and the insurrection, all that has gone on, you are such a steadying and empathetic and caring voice and you bring the world view. You bring the world into our world and in this case, during the quarantine and during the pandemic, it's a 600 square foot apartment with two people. You just start our day in a way that we're able to see the world and face the world with empathy and with caring in a way that my morning meditation today from my Anthony DeMello book said when they asked the master, how do we make our love last forever?

The master said, "Love others together." You're just such a great teacher of that because we can really take in things that it would be impossible to take in because they're too horrible. You do it in a way that is with such empathy and with such caring that the world becomes a part of our world and we're not isolated and we're not in 600 square feet. We're living our lives fully.

Speaker 2: I'm embarrassed, I'm blushing, but I'm so grateful for those words. Thank you very much. As we run out of time in the show, I'll just say that I don't do triads, but I am very happy to be the disembodied voice third person in your bed. Thank you very much. I'm honored.

Arnold: We would have no one else.

Speaker 2: I'm honored by your call. Thank you so much. Thanks to all of you who called with your easing of the pandemic relationship stories. You know who else deserves all the credit in the world? The producers of the show, Lisa Allison, MaryEileen Croke, Zoe Azulay, Amina Srna and Regina [unintelligible 00:14:41] Zach Gottehrer-Cohen who works on our daily podcast and the hero who's coming in and working the board every day from in the station during the pandemic, Juliana Funder. Have a great weekend.

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