Even if our lives are basically okay, it's human nature to imagine how they might be better.

We might covet someone else's happiness or possessions. But would your life be better or worse

if a friend decides to explode the perfect long-distance relationship?

On this week's selected shorts, we encounter that tricky concept better in two very different types of relationships.

I'm Meg Wallitzer. Stay with me. You're listening to Selected Shorts

where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time.

Humans are aspirational by nature.

We reach upward, outward, and sometimes inward, chasing ideals that

often contradict each other. We want companionship, the warmth of being seen and understood,

yet we also crave solitude, a kind that's quiet enough to hear ourselves think. We seek status,

the validation that we matter in the eyes of others. We want love, yes,

but love on our terms, not messy, not inconvenient, not something that asks too much of us

until we discover that the real thing always does. And even when we do get what we thought we

wanted, when the job comes through, the relationship

holds, the plan goes right, why does it so rarely feel like the dream we imagined? When social media

first arrived on the scene, we all had a chance to see what had become of the people we hadn't

seen in years or even decades, which also meant we had

a chance to compare ourselves with them, the way we lived versus the way they did, our success or

lack of it versus theirs, and maybe nostalgia clicked in and we considered renewing the relationship,

taking the leap and getting together in real life, or even just starting a meaningful conversation,

just like the old days. And that could sometimes beg a deeper question. Could we still matter

in each other's lives? Or was it way too late for that? And all that was left was to like a picture

...