Bruktaweit Addis and Tif Slama were feeling pretty good about their second date, after having met on the dating app Bumble in March 2016. They had spent their first date chatting about Ms. Addis’s fear of earthquakes and Mr. Slama’s love of Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. the Rock, and were planning to spend their second date…
Semuteh Freeman and Dr. Uchechukwu Eke have had a very eventful year. A completion of medical training, a new job, a move halfway across the country, a marriage, an unexpected addition to the family and, of course, the coronavirus pandemic. “It was definitely challenging,” Ms. Freeman said. The two were initially drawn to each other…
Mary Beth Taylor bought Emma Hutchinson a hot dog on the night they met, in 2018, at a Knicks game in Madison Square Garden. The two had gone to the basketball game with a larger group and spent the whole game chatting with each other over someone else’s lap. They learned that they each shared…
Within five minutes, Andrew Stewart Heyman knew that he wanted to date Meredith Stacey Ganzman, and within 20 minutes he knew that he wanted to marry her. ”We knew the other was the one,” said Ms. Ganzman, who met him in New York in early November 2015 at Bar 6 in Greenwich Village. That date…
A Black youth lays bare-chested in a field of wildflowers. Three others play double Dutch, framed from below, the blues of their jeans and tees fuzzing into the sky overhead. A woman sits on a placid beach, the sand-caked skin between her scoop-back swimsuit beating in the sun. This world that Tyler Mitchell conjures in…
I am an extreme planner. But I’ll admit that the task of planning a cross-country move during a pandemic with a suppressed immune system (and a sassy cat named Brünnhilde) was a daunting one. It was a plan born of necessity; I have Crohn’s disease, an autoimmune disease that affects the intestinal tract, as well…
Send questions about the office, money, careers and work-life balance to workfriend@nytimes.com. Include your name and location, or a request to remain anonymous. Letters may be edited. Free Labor Boundaries A few weeks ago, I started a part-time internship. The work is remote and unpaid, and my supervisor and I are working across time zones.…
Juan Morel, a 38-year-old professional bodybuilder, has several nicknames. One is “Diesel,” for his resemblance to the similarly smooth-headed and muscled actor Vin. Another, “King of New York,” he earned for winning his second New York Pro competition last May. “And now,” Mr. Morel said recently over FaceTime from his Long Island home, “the ‘Cookie…
I am in the Catskills in a charming, tucked-away treehouse of an inn. My room, walking distance to hiking trails, overlooks a waterfall. Morning coffee and evening vodka-tonic are taken on the deck where the temperature clocks in at a marvelous 75 degrees. Owls hoot. Birds chirrup. Wind tickles my legs. During the coronavirus lockdown…
A few years ago, I received a handwritten letter in the mail from a person I didn’t know. The writer was the executive director of a summer camp. He had read my father’s obituary in the local newspaper. My dad wasn’t famous, but he’d led a remarkable life. Born to a Scottish maid and Irish…