What is Freudenfreude? And How to Cultivate It.
The joy we derive from others’ success comes with many benefits.
A Slow Dance Toward a ‘Beautifully Intoxicating’ Romance
Days after Unity Sickles Phelan became an apprentice at the New York City Ballet in December 2012, she met Cameron William Dieck in an elevator at Lincoln Center, where the ballet rehearses and performs. Ms. Phelan, then 17, wasn’t sure where to pick up her pointe shoes. Mr. Dieck, a 23-year-old corps member, told her…
In Praise of the 10-Percent Wrong Relationship
At his apartment, he sat down at the piano and started playing. I watched from the couch, pinballing between anticipation and terror. The day’s conversations had convinced me of our compatibility — we both wanted lives of travel with adventurous children underfoot — but I knew that within seconds our fantasies of each other would…
After Nearly Four Decades, a Reunion With a Camp Crush Leads to Love
Many sleepaway camp loyalists maintain that the camp experience continues to provide benefits throughout life, and for Lisa Jane Hart and Kenneth Neil Steuer, one of those was a later-in-life romance. The two met in August 1973 at Farm Camp Lowy in Windsor, N.Y., a small camp that drew mostly children from New York and…
Love and Basketball, Sometimes Continents Apart
Andrea LeGrace Mingo and Danielle Robinson have known each other since 2004, when they were 15 and competing in the trials for the under-16 U.S.A. National Team in women’s basketball in Colorado Springs. Ms. Mingo was friendly with everyone. Ms. Robinson was all business. “She was there to make the team and go home,” said…
A Match Made by Persistent Friends
The way Cameron Girard Keady and Taylor John Toth eventually found each other and fell in love was about a decade in the making. And it probably wouldn’t have happened without the help of their college friends. Mr. Keady, 33, met Alexandra Burns at Skidmore College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature…
Could I Survive the ‘Quietest Place on Earth’?
The day of my record attempt, Orfield crossed the room’s threshold, and his voice immediately sounded far away, as the wedges absorbed his sound waves. After I followed him inside, the sound became intimate. I had been warned that anyone speaking to me inside an anechoic chamber would sound as if they were standing just…
What Are ‘Dabloons,’ the Imaginary Currency of TikTok?
It started with a picture of a cat’s paw. It became a game of wins and losses, a warped mirror of capitalist reality and, importantly, a giant inside joke. In case you hadn’t heard: There is a rapidly growing trend where people on TikTok are spending, collecting, gaining and losing a form of fictional money…
The Science of Comfort Food
Much of the joy we get from our favorite dishes stems from the memories we associate with them.
Everything Is Going to Be All Right
Good morning. There’s only one thing you really need to know as Thanksgiving gets underway, and it applies whether you’re cooking or filling a seat, whether you’re a guest or a host, whether you’re working a shift or stuck in an airport. It’s this: Everything is going to be all right. Everything’s going to be…