Finding love is never simple, which is why there are so many songs, epics, novels, and movies about it. The past year of fear and separation has hardly helped. Some accounts of emotional life during this period have been funny, some deeply moving.
Sign up for Classics, a twice-weekly newsletter featuring notable pieces from the past.
This week, we’re bringing you a selection of pieces about the search for love in all its varieties. In “Work It,” Alexandra Schwartz explores the intriguing history of courtship and its attendant social customs. In “The Love Business,” Evan Osnos profiles Gong Haiyan, the influential founder of China’s largest Internet matchmaking service. In “Looking for Someone,” Nick Paumgarten writes about shifting trends in online dating. (“It’s senseless, at least in the absence of divine agency, to declare that any two people were made for each other, yet we say it all the time.”) In “The Love App,” Lauren Collins considers the ascent of Between, an app for couples that is popular with young people in South Korea. Finally, in “Sima Taparia’s Matchmaking Business Booms in Lockdown,” Sheila Marikar examines the quest for romance—aided by a Netflix reality star—during the pandemic. Taken together, these pieces highlight the foibles, the strengths, and, yes, even the humor of our search for love in increasingly challenging times.
—David Remnick
