Interviews by Jennifer Vineyard.
Photographs by Richard Kern
* One of the couples originally featured in this story was not in fact a couple, as we learned after publication. We profoundly regret the mischaracterization—theirs and, as a result, ours—and have removed them from the slideshow.
Nora Cohen, 19 + Graham Holoch, 20
How would you define your relationship?
Nora: He’s my first serious boyfriend.
Graham: We’ve been together close to nine months.
Nora: He has an internship
in New York, so he’s been living with me for the summer.
How has it been living together?
Graham: She’s fun.
She’s not judgmental, and there’s something nice about that.
I think we could punch each other in the butt, and it’s cool.
Photo: Richard Kern
Noah Payne, 19 + Kiah Armstrong, 18
How would you define your relationship?
Kiah: Me and Noah have been together
for three years now. It’s probably one of the best relationships I’ll ever be in.
Noah: There’s a certain balance to it.
Sounds like you’re committed.
Kiah: I’m going away to school in September, and that’s when we’ll part ways.
I’m not open to a long-distance relationship.
Noah: It never seems to work in the movies.
Photo: Richard Kern
Adrien de Monès, 20 + Ruby McCollister, 19
How would you define your relationship?
Adrien: She’s my girlfriend, my partner, my sister, my lover, my snowbird.
A lot of things.
Ruby: My concept of romance and creativity has changed with this relationship.
How?
Ruby: I used to think love is like, Oh, I should have met him on a boat to Paraguay.
Now it’s pretty good that
I have a stable relationship.
Adrien: I was engaged before, and it was kind of a fantasy thing”we met in the south
of France, and we spent the summer together. When
I started going out with Ruby, it hit me in the head that
this was more of a real thing.
Photo: Richard Kern
Zonia Pelensky, 28 + Eli Reed, 27
How would you define your relationship?
Zonia: I’ve known Eli for six or seven years. We’re ex-lovers and probably soul mates. Eli: She’s one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met inside and out. Our relationship is almost like it was never broken. It’s probably going to last forever.
How did you first meet?
Eli: I had seen her around the Lower East Side for a while, and then I met her at Max Fish.
Zonia: He threw a shot over his shoulder at some guy, and I thought it was funny.
Photo: Richard Kern
