From the New York Times, this is Modern Love, I'm Anna Martin, and today we've got something

special for you.

It's the full Modern Love essay from our recent episode with Nell Stevens about being dumped

by the man she thought she was going to marry, and what happened when she decided to go

on their honeymoon anyway.

Here's Nell, reading her essay called, How I Lost the Fiancé, but Won the Honeymoon.

My email junk folder is a glimpse into a fantastical world where rebands are free and Michael

Cours is always having a sale.

Typically I click, delete all, but that day one caught my eye.

Congratulations Nell Stevens, you have won a luxury honeymoon to India.

I felt a doubt of excitement followed by instant dismissal, but I found myself returning

to that email, rereading, showing friends, because the thing was maybe I had entered a competition

to win a honeymoon.

In the preceding months I had been in a fateful state of being both bored and in love.

I was completing my PhD in London while the man I was going to marry worked in Boston.

In the rare books weeding room at the British Library where I went to write, I spent a lot

of time entering online contests, filling out form after form in the hope of winning vacations,

designer clothes and theatre tickets.

I didn't care what.

All I wanted was distraction and to indulge the fantasy that my life was about to change

with little effort from me.

I was so indiscriminate and prolific that I lost track of what I'd entered, but in my

...