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From the New York Times and WBUR Boston, this is Modern Love.

Stories of Love, Laws, and Redemption.

I'm your host, Megna Chakrabardi.

Absence does make the heart grow fonder.

So fond that sometimes it can cast a shadow over everything else, as it did for David Vessie.

Griffin Dunn of the Amazon series I Love Dick reads David's essay, Before the Web, Hearts grew silent.

Sometimes when I'm watching old movies, I can't help dwelling on the crucial plot devices that have been lost to, well, devices.

The Miss Phone Call, which today rings in her pockets, the wrong turned on a dark road, easily avoided with GPS.

The long lost love, who now lives forever in our Twitter feed.

Consider the ending of Dr. Chabago, when a chance sighting of Laura on a city street, lead Jury's heart to rupture as she disappears before he can reach her.

Had the internet been around during the Bolshevik Revolution, Jury and Laura would never have lost each other.

They would have been Facebook comrades, boring each other to death with snapshots of food,

Borched, and ironic observations of proletariat struggle.

Consider the plot twist in her own lives, moments that hinged on uncertainty.

When communication was tenuous, and all information was not laid out before us.

Modern technology has made our world smaller and our lives easier, but perhaps it also has diminished life's mysteries, and with them some sense of romance.

In the summer of 1991, without social networks to tether us, I felt such heart-bursting longing for a woman I loved that I traveled across two countries and in ocean to make sure she would not wander out of my life.

It was only in her absence, in a total vacuum away from her, that I was able to appreciate the depth of love I felt.

We met in March while I was still in college. She had recently graduated and was knocking around Peoria, Illinois, her hometown, figuring out her next step.

After two chance meetings, we began going out. Before long, we were rarely apart.

This was the old-fashioned way of falling in love. All our attentions were on each other.

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