To hear this episode (and 80+ other archival episodes, plus brand new episodes of our 2019/20 season) join us on Patreon for just $1 per month.

April is the cruellest month. At least it can be. If you are depressed or heartbroken, there is nothing worse than the thaw and the blossoms and the girls in short dresses and the lovers on park benches licking melting ice cream off each other’s faces and fingers. It makes your heart ache more because you remember the times when you felt like that, when spring made your heart sing as your rode your bike through the woods with the wind in your hair to meet friends on the shore, and the sun shone through the leaves in playful patterns. And there was a slight chill in the air down there in the shade of the trees, which might have warned you that age and experience would bring darker times in springs ahead, if you hadn’t been too innocent or just happy to notice. But you don’t understand the true cruelty of April until you are freshly heartbroken or terribly depressed, just like you don’t understand the true beauty of April until you’ve experienced a magical spring, and what’s more magical than being in love?

On this episode we’re honoring spring with a couple of very small stories about the quest for love, and the way it sometimes works out and sometimes does not. The first story, Copenhagen Laundry, was recorded and edited by Danish radio producer Christine Runøe. The second story, Looking for Love in El Paso, features Dave Kessler and first appeared on Strangers in February 2012.

(L-R) Helen, producer Christine Runøe, Daniel, and Andreas

The note Daniel left on Helen’s laundry seven years ago

Helen and Daniel, the couple that almost never was, still in love seven years later

Dave Kessler, the intrepid online dater, when Lea first met him in 2012

The cover of Look Magazine from February 1966 with a story about the earliest form of
computer dating, which is how Dave Kessler’s parents met

The 1966 story from Look Magazine

Part of the original 1960’s OPERATION MATCH questionnaire that Dave’s parents filled out

Dave and Rachel in Costa Rica