From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. Today, DNFA reads her full

Modern Love essay. It's about falling in love with the type of guy she swore she'd never

end up with and how she finally learned to trust their connection. Here's DNFA reading

her essay to keep but not be kept.

One ball me evening in Shanghai, my boyfriend and I were strolling home from dinner when

two boozy blonde men called to us. We stopped, expecting a plea for directions. The men

leared at me and grinned at my boyfriend. Where's the party they asked Jovily? You know,

Chinese girls. Where can we get one of these? They meant me. My boyfriend cursed at them.

He held me close as we crossed the street, but I dropped his hand.

For the six months we'd been together, we had endured more than our share of stairs

from locals and westerners and everyone in between. Some of those stairs had been curious,

some smug, and others hostile. But nothing had been as flagrant as this. I felt as if

those men had seen the truth. While what we knew of ourselves was a sham, he was no longer

the boyfriend whose home I shared. The journalist whose dedication and drive kept me inspired.

The man who scratched my back through entire seasons of the sopranos. In that moment,

he was just a lawy. Another foreigner in China taking home an Asian woman like a souvenir.

And I was no longer the girlfriend he loved. The native New Yorker like him. The Chinese

American who had moved to Shanghai on a fulbright to research a novel. The woman who challenged

him on a daily, he'd say hourly basis. I was just another local naive. Maybe a gold

digger, possibly a prostitute. My boyfriend tried to reason with me. Those men were

bumbling tourists. The truth of our relationship was in the life we shared. He said, all we

can do is be who we are. But that was part of the problem. He was a successful white man

...