When I say I have a crush on you, what I’m saying is that I’m in love with the distance between us. I’m not in love with you: I don’t even know you. I’m in love with the escape that fantasizing about you promises. Poisoned, stung, bitten and bridled. The promise of being ground down until I disappear.
Love, loss, and growing up in the Utah desert
For Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe, the work is just getting started.
Carried away by love—for risk and for each other—two of the world’s best freedivers went to the limits of their sport. Only one came back.
A couple, a caregiver, and a promise.
She wanted to escape her marriage. He wanted to escape his life sentence.
Cultures clash when a man bonds with his boyfriend's mother.
The summer of a teenage werewolf.
A friend's party brings up sad memories and introspection.
A woman suspects her new boyfriend is less than human.
A young woman in a dead-end job searches for direction.
A flight attendant caught between various loves and worlds.
A gay Costa Rican shopowner navigates family turmoil and political upheaval.
An unlikely Army wife tries to come to terms with her husband’s calling.
A student navigates unexpected connections and the threat of terrorism.
People who are short on relatives can hire a husband, a mother, a grandson. The resulting relationships can be more real than you’d expect.
This article, which was #1 on Longform’s top articles of 2018 list, just won the National Magazine Award for feature writing. Hear Batuman discuss it on the Longform Podcast.
He has seduced and swindled young women for millions and is a fugitive from justice in several countries.
Everything seemed routine. The technician finished up and left the room. The soundtrack of our baby’s heartbeat played an upbeat tempo in the background. A few minutes went by and the technician came back, letting us know she would take a few more pictures of his head for a clearer look. That sounded reasonable. She left again, this time for longer, and when she returned a doctor wearing a white lab coat walked in behind her looking very serious and shut the door.
How words kept the author’s grandparents connected during the Second World War.
A European vacation, a quietly crumbling marriage.
A botched tattoo; alternative therapy.
An adopted woman's brushes with fortunes and family ties.
The intersection of climate change and reality TV.
A life in objects.
Small town loneliness, memories, and mistakes.
