A High School Reunion Reignites a 50-Year Crush

If you don't know me, you'll quickly learn that I'm sappy, sentimental, and a hopeless romantic. I'll always pause what I'm doing to read a story like this and will probably have a tear in my eye by the time I'm done.

“I had a special place in my heart for my first crush that I kept my whole life,” Ms. Hall said. “I often wondered, was he happy? Did he have a good life? But I had no idea.”

Read on to find out what happened next.

How Long Does It Take to Fix a Marriage? Give the Gottmans 7 Days.

Maintaining a strong relationship requires a lot of thoughtful and concerted effort. John and Julie Gottman are world-renowned marriage researchers and, unsurprisingly, are married to each other. They advocate for seven simple daily exercises to build the connection needed to cultivate an enduring relationship — practices that are easy to try yet go a long way in fostering love between partners.

“Turning toward” is the Gottmans’ No. 1 relationship hack. When one partner (in this case, Ben) makes an earnest “bid for connection,” the other partner has three choices: They can ignore the outreach (turn away); they can respond negatively (turn against); or they can acknowledge the bid positively (turn toward).

“Let’s say I say to John, ‘Wow, look at that beautiful bird out the window!’” Julie offered as an example during a recent Zoom call. “John can totally ignore me. He can say ‘Would you stop trying to interrupt me? I’m reading.’ Or he can say, ‘Wow, yeah!’”

A nod, a touch, even a “hmm” all count as turning toward.

Nicomanchean Ethics

I read a letter from Justin Duke, the founder of Buttondown (the service powering this newsletter!), addressed to his friend Jasdev years ago, and it's stayed with me ever since. Aristotle defines three types of friendship: friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure, and friendships of virtue.

Friendships of virtue emerge from the shared desire of both individuals becoming more virtuous. These friendships can transcend physical distance and time. They involve both parties encouraging one another and striving to become the best version of themselves.

We typically associate spouses and partners with love, but to me, this description sounds a lot like love.

There have been three philosophers that I’ve really spent time reading, and all of them have been not from a grand desire to Understand The World but because people recommended them to me:

• Seneca is boring, and I hate him, and Stoicism is a much more coherent ethos when your dad is the wealthiest equestrian in Rome.

• Augustine of Hippo is glorious and a wonderful writer, and even as a non-religious person made me think deeply about mercy and redemption.

• Aristotle, though, wrote about friendship and partnership and pleasure in a way that felt not just prescriptive but useful: he describes moral virtue not in academic terms but as a framework to improve yourself in the world.