Love Is Trending
Photography by James Emmerman / Story by Justin Moran / Interviews by Matt WilleFeb 14, 2025
It’s easy to feel like love is difficult — difficult to find, difficult to experience, difficult to feel. Especially this year, our feeds have become bottomless pits with more hate than anything, like the act of rejecting love is somehow simpler to participate in. I, too, have a tendency to focus on the deficit, rather than the love that orbits around me — and it does.
Before writing this, I texted a few people close to me asking what there is to say about love, if anything at all. My sister, who’s engaged, suggested that it "comes in many forms," sending a picture of her dog looking particularly judgemental. "Pure love on her face," she joked. My childhood friend argued that it’s "the best and the worst," a dichotomy of extremes we’re all addicted to. An ex kicked back, "Why ask me? I'm still figuring love out, too."
To Cae Monae, the Chicago artist whose love unlocked worlds of possibility for me, the prompt made her think of how much love goes unrecorded. "The idea of undocumented love," she said warmly over a voice note. "I think of how many times I have been in love, but the world has never known. Not even my closest friends have known the men that I fell in love with."
Monae continued, "That type of undocumented love speaks to my soul. Actually, in this time, the idea of talking about love sometimes in its rawest form is hidden. And I feel like for the first time in a long time, we as queer people are being forced to hide our love or scream our love."
So we invited PAPER friends out to photographer James Emmerman’s Brooklyn studio to document and scream their love. Not just queer love, but all kinds of love, both romantic and platonic — and in the same room together. For Valentine’s Day, we’re celebrating couples, friends, families and collaborators — and it’s proof that, despite what you read, love is trending.
– Justin Moran, Editor-in-Chief
Grace Kuhlenschmidt and Brooke Peshke, partners
How did you meet each other?
Grace: We matched on Tinder. We talked for a little bit. I knew of Singers. Brooke didn’t say she owned the bar, but once she told me... I had been going to the bar for years.
Brooke: I’d seen Grace at the bar several times. I knew who Grace was and I was really in need of a good laugh.
Grace: There were like two weeks where we thought it was gonna be so chill. Like, Oh we’ll just hook up, no stakes. And then I pretty immediately caught feelings.
What are your favorite memories together?
Grace: For me, it’s the day we said we loved each other. We spent the day on a boat together. It was a day when we were both struggling to not say it, because we were with other people. And it was really high-tension. I couldn’t stop truly beaming ear to ear.
Brooke: Two weeks ago we got stuck in Daytona Beach and we both got Norovirus, one after the other. It was one of the sweetest times, considering how violent the situation was. Just knowing we could get through and laugh throughout the whole thing... we felt invincible.
How would you describe your relationship in a few words?
Grace: Family fun. [Laughs] No, but like, goofy, playful.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Grace: We haven’t really had any major ones yet. I trust her a lot. If she’s telling me something about how she feels, I believe her.
Brooke: Grace takes being lighthearted very seriously. So it’s pretty easy for me to roll with it.
What was the last thing you texted each other?
Grace: “No need to rush home for me... love you, love you, finally coming home.”
Gabe Gordon and Timothy Gibbons, partners and collaborators
How did you meet?
Gabe: We met at Cafe Forgot. We both sell our work there and I was working as a shop boy. Timothy came in and was dropping off hoodies and asked me out.
Timothy: He was listening to Lana Del Rey. “Cruel World,” I think, one of my absolute favorites. And I was like, “Who the hell is this cutie?” We already followed each other, but he doesn’t have any photos of himself, so I didn’t actually know what he looked like. So I asked him out and then he had pink eye. But I was like, “I’d still hit it with pink eye” — and it worked.
How would you describe your relationship in a few words?
Gabe: Magic.
Timothy: Symbiotic. Cozy. Encouraging.
What are your favorite memories together?
Gabe: We went to New Orleans together in October, and we went on an alligator boat tour run by Lana Del Rey’s husband. Like a month after their crazy wedding.
Timothy: We went to Fire Island after the first show we did together in September for two nights. It was so dreamy. Off-season, the weather was so good, we just slept on the beach.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Timothy: We never go to bed with bad vibes. We always talk it out before going to sleep.
Gabe: It’s all through talking it out and communicating. We’re both talkers and stubborn in our own way, but not enough to not see each other’s point of view.
What’s the last text you sent each other?
Gabe: [Laughs] Timothy wrote, “Thank you for trusting me to wear this skin-tight rubber singlet and this plasticky sex-doll hair.” It was about our show.
Joyce Esquenazi Mitrani and Caleb Blansett, partners
How did you meet?
Caleb: We met online, in a couple different ways. I saw her profile on Hinge and was like, “Oh, there’s no way I’d have a chance.” But she had her Instagram linked and I saw she was already following me on my tattooing account. So I slid into the DMs.
Joyce: I had no idea what he looked like because it’s all tattoos. He doesn’t post photos of himself, but I really liked his work. After a little bit of talking I was like, “You’ve seen a lot of my face, can I see yours?”
How would you describe your relationship in a few words?
Caleb: Pushing. Playful.
Joyce: Devotion.
What are your favorite memories together?
Caleb: After her birthday last year, we went to Basement together and that was a Basement time. [Laughs]
Joyce: That was the first time he told me he was falling in love with me. And then we just went out dancing and were morphing into one person.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Joyce: We’ve gotten a lot better at it. We both have a really good way of seeing each other’s point of view. It’s not about who’s right, it’s about coming to an understanding.
Caleb: Right, it’s not about proving anything.
What’s the last thing you texted each other?
Caleb: I was telling her I was on the train heading for her. And before that, I told her she had to watch a video with sound — it was funny.
Joaquin Castillo and Javier Padilla, partners
How did you meet?
Joaquin: We met in Mexico City.
Javier: It’s maybe not safe for... [laughs]
Joaquin: We met at an after party. We found each other in Mexico almost three years ago.
How would you describe your relationship in a few words?
Joaquin: Fun. Adventurous. Collaborative.
Javier: Familiar. And fast, as well. Day three we were talking about getting married.
What are your favorite memories together?
Javier: Mine’s our first date. Just biking around Mexico City.
Joaquin: I also love when we go to Brighton Beach for day trips.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Joaquin: We... don’t talk to each other. [Laughs]
Javier: I get blocked. [Laughs] It’s his way of communicating he doesn’t want to talk to me.
What was the last text you sent each other?
Javier: It’s Joaquin saying he’s out of battery, but he’ll be home soon.
Joaquin: That’s a constant text. It’s always me being like, “I have 1%!”
Matthew Mazur and Tama Gucci, partners and collaborators
How did you meet?
Tama: We met in Miami during Art Basel, at the club. At Soho House.
Matthew: I was DJing the closing and he came to see me. But he’d been at the wrong part of Soho House for an hour, so he only saw my set for the last 10 minutes.
Tama: Then we hung out the rest of the night.
Matthew: He walked me to my hotel. I was leaving in three hours and we kissed.
What are your favorite memories together?
Tama: Going to Mexico. We’ve been like three times now, just going to the beach there together.
Matthew: Us going to Milan, getting flown out for a job, business class. It was great to experience that together and work together.
Tama: It was the Moschino show. Actually, I take my answer back, that’s better.
Matthew: He made the airline run out ginger ale. [Laughs] He kept asking for more!
How would you describe your relationship in a few words?
Tama: Funny. We laugh a lot. Also, easy.
Matthew: Healing.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Tama: If it’s really heated, we separate for a bit.
Matthew: Per my therapist, which is actually incredible: separating and coming back 15 or 30 minutes later. You come back out and look at each other and just start laughing.
What’s the last thing you texted each other?
Matthew: Oh my god, I was being crazy. He went to get a haircut and I FaceTimed him like 14 times. So the texts are like, “Why aren’t you picking up? What’s wrong with you?”
Tama: And my last text message was literally just telling him I was getting a haircut.
Cynthia Rowley, Kit Clementine Keenan and Gigi Powers, mother and daughters
How would you describe your family dynamic in three words?
Cynthia: Alpha, alpha, alpha.
Kit: I would say, “Sorority house rules.”
What are your favorite recent memories together?
Kit: In the summer, we like to cook a lot in Montauk and host all our friends over at my mom’s house. Those are some of my favorite times ever.
Cynthia: Game night.
Gia: My mom and I surf together, and once in a blue moon Kit will come out, and that’s really fun.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Cynthia: Well, I’m a pushover, so I always lose. And that’s fine.
Kit: [Gia and I] only disagree about clothes. That’s the only thing we’re bickering about.
What’s the last text message you sent each other?
Kit: Uber’s here!
Gia: Me to Kit: “Let’s go!”
Josie Dupont and Hannah Fair, partners
How did you meet?
Hannah: We met through mutual friends. Then I had a concussion on the beach, and she came to my apartment for a party and I was there being nursed back to health — and she wanted to do the nursing.
What are your favorite memories together?
Josie: This is our first photoshoot together, so that’s really special.
Hannah: We travel a lot together.
Josie: I loved Greece, it was really special. We went to Santorini and then Milos. And we went to Spain.
Hannah: Our last day in Mexico during COVID, we stayed an extra day and we were searching for this lobster pizza literally the whole time we were there, and we finally found it. Then it started raining and we were just on the beach, like, dancing together.
How would you describe your relationship in a few words?
Josie: Best friends. Trustworthy. Fun, just a lot of fun.
Hannah: Laughter. Safety. Sexy.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Hannah: We don’t really disagree.
Josie: We give each other room to make mistakes. I mean, we’ve had arguments before, but it’s like, who put the lip liner in the wrong purse?
Hannah: We have the same goal, which is helpful in a relationship.
What’s the last thing you texted each other?
Hannah: She sent me a selfie and I said, “Hot.” And then she told me she got into the wrong Uber. [Both laugh]
Memphy, Noel, Aurora, friends
How did you meet?
Noel: Me and Memphy met through mutual friends. We had this queer home we all navigated through.
Aurora: I met them both through mutual friends too, and through going out, dancing, enjoying each other’s company.
Noel: We all gravitated towards each other to take care of one another.
What are your favorite memories together?
Memphy: Whole Festival with Aurora last year.
Aurora: We really tore!
Noel: I loved when we did that sleepover.
Aurora: My favorite memory with Noelle is any time I’m around her. She just has this infectious warmth about her.
Noel: We’re the nicer girls, we have to stick together!
How would you describe your friendship in a few words?
Noel: Family, sisterhood and–
Aurora: And cunt! [All laugh]
Noel: And loyalty!
How do you navigate disagreements?
Noel: We sit down and have conversations. We set our feelings aside.
Aurora: We never let anything linger on and just deal with things head on.
What’s the last thing you texted each other?
Aurora: We were figuring out what to wear together. We decided we could all just complement each other, and feel good and cunt in our looks.
Claud and Io Fields, partners
How did you meet?
Claud: We met at music summer camp in high school. I had a really big crush on them in high school, and they had a girlfriend. Then a year and a half later, when we were both freshmen in college, we met again. We were both in college upstate at different schools. My friend was playing a show at their college and I went with them. We started dating on and off after that.
Io: We first dated eight years ago in New York. We were going in different directions and we broke up.
Claud: That lasted about a year... and then we started hooking up. [Laughs]
How would you describe your relationship in a few words?
Claud: Kind. I want to say “roomy.” There’s a lot of room for us to be ourselves and grow.
Io: Fun. And yeah, the room that came to mind was “spacious.”
What are your favorite memories together?
Claud: When we first started dating, we were long-distance and one of my favorite memories was going to visit them in Boston for the first time. They’d been telling me about the fall foliage in their neighborhood, and just getting to walk around and see their life and catch up on what had happened to us in the last four years was really special.
Io: When I first moved back to New York, we were all of a sudden living in the same neighborhood. And I remember going to the grocery store and asking Claude if they needed anything... after being long-distance for so long.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Io: I just always assume best intent. My job is to always assume that if the disagreement was hurtful, it wasn’t intentional. And I just remember we’re on the same team.
What’s your last text message to each other?
Io: I asked if they wanted anything to drink from the bagel place.
Claud: And I said, “Oh crap, just saw this!”
Savannah Sobrevilla and Isabella Roy, partners
How did you meet?
Isabella: I was working in a vegan restaurant in the East Village. Savannah came in and we immediately started eye-fucking the whole time. Obviously I knew she was gay, but all my coworkers were like, “She’s not!” I had a little liquid courage in me, then I brought her my number and some champagne.
Savannah: On a platter. She served me her number on a platter.
Isabella: And she called me the next day.
How would you describe your relationship in a few words?
Savannah: Fun. Sexy.
Isabella: Well-matched. Funny. Easy.
What are your favorite memories together?
Isabella: The Sofi Tukker music video was just ridiculous. They rigged us to a truck! And I recently threw Sav a surprise birthday party, it was such a hit. Her dad was there.
Savannah: Randomly, Bella and I went to Boston for 10 days. Boston did not show up, but we had such a good time. We were snowed in. And then another time, we went to Oklahoma, which is where Bella is from, and it was really fun because people didn’t assume we’re lesbians. They’re like, “Oh, you’re best friends, you’re sisters?”
Isabella: Oh, when we got our COVID shots together. We were so sick and delirious. I wasn’t sure if I heard her say “I love you” or not, so I pretended I didn’t hear it.
Savannah: So I said it again.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Savannah: We aren’t afraid to really just talk through it. We always joke like, we’re women, we can talk through anything. Also, I’m very testy, so I disagree with a lot of things.
Isabella: But the way we disagree with each other is so different from other relationships I’ve had. We still have respect for each other. We have perspective. We also have weekly check-ins where we share our schedules for the week, talk about issues that might have come out. We try to make it fun, go somewhere and get a drink or a bottle of wine.
Savannah: And we do a handshake at the end.
What’s the last thing you texted each other?
Savannah: Oh, it’s about these random Thrive Market packages that keep arriving to us mysteriously. It’s like a gift from god. We keep getting peanut butter, strawberry preserves, oat milk... organic ketchup, pumpkin in a can.
Lukas Battle and Thomas Lanese, partners
How did you meet?
Lukas: On Hinge. I saw a picture of him in a tiny house he built and I was instantly intrigued. We talked a lot about the trailer he got for his birthday, and the little house. In a way we were building our own home, our relationship. [Laughs]
What are your favorite memories together?
Thomas: Our trip — we hopped around Europe, but my favorite part was Mallorca.
Lukas: That’s what I was going to say!
Thomas: We rented a car, we spent the whole day driving around the island, going to different beaches.
Lukas: But I forced him to go down a street that we later found out is one of the most dangerous roads in Europe. We almost fell off the cliff multiple times, he was on the verge of tears. It was very bonding.
Thomas: Trauma bonding.
How would you describe your relationship in a few words?
Lukas: Creative. Fun.
Thomas: I would agree.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Lukas: Space.
Thomas: A little time apart.
Lukas: Communication, honesty.
Thomas: And we say it in the moment, too, so it doesn’t fester.
What’s the last thing you texted each other?
Lukas: I said, “I’m in a cafe called ‘Swallow.’” And he said, “If only.”
Michael Guisinger and Brooke Peshke, co-owners of Singers, and Erik Escobar, events director and production manager at Singers
How did you meet each other?
Mike: Brooke and I met, like, 10 years ago. We’re both from Michigan. We met through mutual friends, and then the Rosie O’Donnell Christmas album is really what connected us. We took a long road trip back to Michigan...
Brooke: We did not know each other, really.
Mike: And Brooke was playing the Rosie O’Donnell Christmas album. Which Erik also loves...
Erik: I am also obsessed with it. And we’ve known each other for at least five or six years, through mutual friends on Twitter I guess.
Brooke: We were opening the bar and Mike was like, “I know someone who can help with decorations!” And now here we are.
How would you describe the group dynamic in a few words?
Erik: Unwell.
Brooke: Dysfunctional family. Unconditional love.
What are your favorite memories together?
Brooke: Leading up to opening the bar. No heat, we didn’t have electricity. The house next door burned down.
Mike: Just three months of every day–
Erik: We were there for 10 hours every day, no electricity, no heat.
Mike: None of us had ever worked in a bar, so we were also trying to figure out what we were supposed to be doing.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Brooke: Circle back in 24 hours.
Mike: Time and space.
What’s the last thing you texted each other?
Erik: Oh, I texted you about that nonbinary book store opening down the street: The Nonbinarian.
Andrew Makadsi and George Najm, co-founders of Function
How did you meet?
Andrew: We met on the dance floor, at 3 Dollar Bill. I was coming from the [Beyoncé and Jay-Z] “On the Run II” Tour, my friend told me to come out. And George came up to me and said “hi.”
George: I wasn’t even going to go out that night, but my friend dragged me out. I had one foot out the door ready to go to an afters, but my friend said we should stay 20 more minutes. And it was in the 20 minutes that I met Andrew. It was the initial connection, when I asked him where he was from and he said Lebanon. I was like, “Oh my god, my family’s from Lebanon. So let’s hang out.”
How long has Function been going now?
George: Three and a half years, we started right out of the pandemic.
Andrew: We were already throwing these house and rooftop parties together. I started DJing, a bunch of my friends were baby DJs. It’s hard to be a baby DJ and have people believe in you. George saw something in my talent.
George: When he started mixing, I knew he had a gift for it. From that moment on, I wanted to give him as many opportunities as I could, so that’s when we started throwing parties unofficially. During lockdown, we really laid the groundwork for what would become Function.
How would you describe your creative collaboration together in a few words?
Andrew: Honest. There’s respect in embracing each other.
George: Balance. Respect. Magic. It’s really rewarding.
Do you have any favorite party memories together?
George: The first official Function, Andrew was coming off a shoot in LA, working an all-nighter. He fell off a platform and had to spend a night in the hospital because he sprained his ankle and wrist. He missed his flight and our first party was sold out. There was so much anticipation for it. A miracle happened: he made it the next day. We had to nurse him to health enough for him to DJ on a standing crutch. We’ve thrown a lot of great parties, but everyone says if you were at that first one, you're Function family.
Andrew: The latest Function was magical because we finally had two rooms: Function and Dysfunction. We’ve been trying to do that forever. Seeing two different worlds under our umbrella, it was like finally seeing my vision get closer as an artist.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Andrew: I’m such a bulldog when it comes to my vision. Sometimes it’s hard to translate it to words. George is softer and more understanding. But overall, it’s just about listening and understanding why we’re coming from where we are.
George: I always want to make his vision reality. Sometimes practical things hold that back. But I will say, he pushes me to pass those moments where I’m not comfortable. And I look back and I’m like, he was right the whole time.
Andrew: And we take our ego out, that’s important.
What’s the last thing you texted each other?
George: He said, “Come to the party, it’s cute.” And I said, “I’m gonna listen to my body and go to bed.”
Martina Castro and Ryan Winter, co-owners of Sweetbee
Ryan: Instagram.
Martina: We met on the internet during COVID, then we started this beautiful thing called Sweetbee, a cafe in Brooklyn. We opened the first location in July of 2022 and then in 2024 we opened our second in Prospect Heights. We’re about to open our third in Chelsea.
How would you describe your working relationship in a few words?
Ryan: Complicated. Crazy.
Martina: And loving, at the root of it all is loving.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Ryan: Yelling.
Martina: Yelling. But we’re trying to do less of that. We need more loving now.
Ryan: We’re pivoting to loving.
Do you have any favorite memories since you started working together?
Martina: Hosting people is my favorite.
Ryan: Opening the first one in 2022. I always wanted to have a little cafe and I never thought I’d be able to do that in Brooklyn. It felt bigger than life. And the space was so beautiful. We did a soft open on July 4, thinking people would be out of town, but it was so busy. Just to see the cafe so full of life, it was always through coffee that I found community. To be able to do that here in New York is really cool.
What’s the last thing you texted each other?
Ryan: Martina said we have to come to the shoot as lovers and be gentle with each other. [Both laugh]
Ali Bird and Ashley Tick, partners
How did you meet?
Ali: We met at work many, many years ago. Ten years ago. We were friends first, it’s been official about two years.
What are your favorite memories together?
Ashley: Pulling her up the side of a volcano in Guatemala.
Ali: Yeah, for me it’s the adventuring. It’s a lot of travel. Guatemala, Ecuador, Mexico.
How would you describe your relationship in a few words?
Ali: Loving. Passionate. Deep understanding.
Ashley: Honest. Comforting. Sexy.
How do you navigate disagreeing with each other?
Ali: With a lot of compassion, and listening and hearing each other.
Ashley: Taking breaks, knowing the conversation will be there when we come back to it. That we don’t have to solve everything in one go.
What was the last thing you texted each other?
Ashley: It was about her picking me up at the subway stop. It was cold, I was worried. [Laughs]
Jacky Sommer and Kat Smith, sisters and DJ duo Analog Soul
How long have you worked together?
Jacky: A very long time, about 20 years. We started Analog Soul as a radio show on East Village Radio.
Kat: We still do radio, at The Lot.
And live shows?
Jacky: Lots. We have a gig on Saturday in Minneapolis and then on Sunday the 16th at Public Records.
Have you always been in New York?
Jacky: We grew up in Oakland. I moved here in 2001 and then Kat came a year later. We started with the radio show and smaller venues first while we honed our craft and immersed ourselves in the scene here.
How would you describe your working relationship in a few words?
Jacky: Consistent. Comfortable. Easy.
Kat: Synergy. Symbiosis. Being twins, that comes out a lot.
How do you navigate creative disagreements?
Jacky: I feel like we don’t really have them, because we work together by doing our own thing and coming together. I can trust where she’s gonna come from creatively. We prepare so we don’t have disagreements. We’re both just in the moment since we’re prepared.
What are some of your favorite gigs you’ve played?
Kat: We played Honcho a few years ago. That was magical, it’s hard to explain. We were really able to tap into our sound in its entirety and the reception from the crowd was next-level. That space, the queer love is hard to describe.
Jacky: We did that Moga festival in Portugal. That was really fun because the crowd was so open, so engaged.
What’s the last thing you texted each other?
Kat: I literally just texted her asking how she was wearing her hair to the shoot. I wanted to see if she was going to do a part. I didn’t want us to both have a part!
Photography: James Emmerman
Photo assistant: Clay Campbell
Production assistant: Kaiya Lang
Editor-in-chief: Justin Moran
Managing editor: Matt Wille
Editorial producer: Angelina Cantú
Social editor: Alaska Riley
