Something o’clock

To me, distance—the right amount of it—suggests a kind of sensual friction; if your partner is not in the next room, you have to work a bit to get to them.Take a couple of subway trains, walk some city blocks, wait for them outside their apartment. Anticipation builds along the way.

The space between two partners isn’t just a reservoir where loving feelings might accumulate. To me, it is love itself: permission for each other to explore different interests, meet different people, become distinct individuals. Besides: going out into the world on one’s own makes it more exciting to come home to a significant other. We return with small treasures—good gossip, funny stories, new insights—and give them to our partners as tokens of affection. We say, “I saw something that made me think of you.” The gossip and stories and insights are remade when we convey them to someone we love, tailored to their interests, reassembled to make them laugh.