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

Stories of Love, loss and redemption.

I'm your host, Megna Chakrabardi.

When Victor Ladotto moved to Ashland, Oregon,

he expected to spend his days writing alone in his sublet apartment.

But when he met his new neighbor, he was drawn into a friendship that was as deep and abiding as a love story.

Actor Ali Fuzzle reads for us this week.

He stars in the new movie Victoria and Abdul, and he reads Victor Ladotto's essay,

when your greatest romance is a friendship.

Is this your grandson?

People sometimes ask us, and when she's out with me.

I love watching her vanity prick up the way she tilts her small white head and brings out her southern accent to correct them.

No, honey, he's my friend.

At this point, folks usually smile tightly and turn away.

Perhaps, what if there's more than friendship going on between the old lady and the younger man seated at the bar or strolling through the supermarket, giggling like teenagers?

Why were giggling? I couldn't tell you.

Often our moth seems fueled by some deep delight at being together.

Friendship, like its flashier cousin, love can be wildly chemical, and, like love, can happen in an instant.

When I met Austin, I was not looking for a friend.

I'd come alone to this small town to finish a book, so when a bony, blue-eyed stranger knocked on my door, introducing herself as the lady from across the way and wondering if I might like to come over and see her garden, maybe have a gin and tonic, I politely declined.

Watching her walk away though, in her velvet slip-ons and wrinkled blouse, I felt a strange bang, a slope pin of sadness that I suppose could best be described as loneliness.

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