Amelia Diamond: So, where did it all start?
Ron Silver, chef and owner of Bubby’s restaurant in New York: I had this magical Santa suit that looked like a red velvet Versace tuxedo.
Melissa Silver, co-owner: It did not look like that. It was a regular Santa suit.
Ron: No, it was like a tuxedo.
Amelia: Was there a cummerbund?
Ron: Yes, I had a cummerbund. I would walk down the street and it was the only time in my life where I felt other people would notice me, especially girls. So I felt it was my magic suit. I only wore it on special occasions.
Melissa: Around Christmas.
Amelia: A holiday-specific Santa tux.
Ron: Yeah. 11 years ago, we had our company Christmas party here, at Bubby’s, and I was standing around and the bartender came over to me and said, “That woman wants to go home with you right now,” and I was like, “Oh no.” And when he stepped away — this was all in slow motion — I see the woman coming towards me, and so I grab another girl and say, “Please just pretend to be talking to me for a minute.”
Melissa: I actually have a very fuzzy memory of that night. I lived right on Franklin St. and I went to Bubby’s all the time because it was right here. I knew the bartender, he was this boy I was friends with and he was like, “Oh, the restaurant’s going to be closed; it’s our Christmas party, come in!” So I came in that night and sat at the bar. And he [signaling to Ron] was here, in what I would call a regular Santa suit.
Ron: Yet… magical.
Melissa: And magical. And there was this older woman dressed very seductively.
Ron: She was a regular. She would sit at the bar and talk about creepy things.
Melissa: But did she approach you in that way before the Christmas party?
Ron: Just that night.
Melissa: So the only thing I remember was I was standing and talking, then he grabbed me and said, “Pretend you’re talking to me,” so this other lady would go away.
Ron: Then we ended up actually talking.
Melissa: We did.
Ron: I left to be a host at the party but then I saw that Melissa was putting her jacket on to leave. I wrote my phone number down real fast and was like, “Call me in exactly ten minutes,” and then I gave her my number and she left.
Ten minutes came and the phone did not ring. So instead I asked Ryan, the bartender, for her number because I knew they were friends. I called her and I said, “I know this is going to sound weird but I was wondering if I could sleep over there.” And she goes, “I don’t think my boyfriend will like that.” I don’t think he would have.
Melissa: Because I did have a boyfriend. Who I basically lived with! But then the boyfriend was on the outs, I guess, because I entertained your idea and we started emailing, right?
Amelia: When did the emails start?
Ron: Around Christmas.
Melissa: And you were leaving for Rome.
Ron: Yeah, I left for Rome on Christmas Day.
Melissa: Like, the day after the party. We started emailing each other these very long, crazy, I don’t know, romantic emails. A few years after, I went back and saved them and printed them out.
Amelia: So wait, when he asked to sleep at your house were you like, “What the hell kind of question is that?!”
Melissa: Totally. I was like, “What’s up with this guy?”
Amelia: So how did you come to exchange emails?
Ron: I must’ve texted and asked.
Melissa: Did we text back then? Either way, we started emailing with each other. I remember being on my Blackberry doing it.
Ron: The whole time I was in Rome, we were emailing back and forth.
Haley Nahman: And you were still with your boyfriend?
Melissa: Yeah.
Haley: So were you just entertaining a friendship?
Ron: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I smuggled a bunch of meat and cheese back from Rome and the day I got back, we had a meat and cheese night.
Melissa: I went to his house.
Haley: Alone?
Melissa: Alone.
Ron: No boyfriend.
Melissa: We hadn’t broken up yet. He just wasn’t there. I was like, “This is totally on the side.” Because when I met you was I already like, “I don’t know what to do with this guy…”
Ron: I assumed that. Because I said that to myself: “I don’t know what to do with this guy…”
Melissa: I was with my boyfriend at the time for, I would say, three years. I was about three or four years older than him and it was clear that he wasn’t ready to commit in any way. He lived at my apartment, had all his stuff at my apartment and I was like, “What’s the next step?”
And he was like, “I think we should move in together.”
And I said, “We have been living together for the last three years!”
And he’s like, “But not really.”
And I was like, “But, yeah, we have!”
It was kind of a mess and I knew it wasn’t right. Then Ron came into the picture and it was very weird for me — he’s ten years older than me — and, at first, I was like, “He’s older. He’s been married before. He has a kid.” I didn’t know what to make of it. Anyway, we had this intense written courtship.
Ron: I started sending you lunch every day.
Melissa: I was going to say — you were very aggressive with that. I worked at Steven Alan and he would send me lunch when I least expected it. He would send me pie and flowers and cupcakes.
Amelia: He really courted you!
Melissa: Oh my god, beyond.
Ron: All those Bubby Dollars.
Melissa: The Bubby Dollars! If I ever came here I never had to pay for anything here, he covered anything that I got. You bought me and engraved an…iPod?
Ron: An iPod. For your birthday.
Melissa: I haven’t had an iPod since then. So I really was in a situation, at the time, that I had to get out of with this other guy. Like, I was in this transitional situation.
Amelia: You had a man-child and then a man-man.
Melissa: Yeah! Kind of. This was a leap for me, in a way. And you bought me A Course in Miracles. Do you guys know what “A Course in Miracles” is? It’s by this woman…it’s a very woo woo, spiritual, bible kind of book. It’s pretty cool, actually.
Ron: It’s new age-y.
Melissa: It’s a big, giant, blue book.
Ron: Which I was reading because I had just gotten divorced. So I was having all sorts of existential crises.
Amelia: You were soul-searching.
Melissa: A Course in Miracles is by this woman who believes that, basically, Jesus spoke through her. Give it a Google. So, at the time, we were just in our own transitions, and they were very different transitions, but we just had to bow out of these other things and come to a new place.
Amelia: Yeah, you had to see it through.
Melissa: Exactly. He had all kinds of shit going on, also. You had that crazy girlfriend that broke into your house and stole your guitar and camera.
Haley: You both had significant others when you met?
Ron: No, that girlfriend was gone by then.
Melissa: She was gone for like a hot minute.
Ron: No, like a hot hour, probably.
Melissa: We each had our own junk going on.
Ron: I was more entertained; I wasn’t so emotionally distraught.
Melissa: I was emotionally distraught. I didn’t know how to break up with the guy I was with. I was tormented by it. I didn’t want to hurt him but, on the other hand, it was so going nowhere. And as Ron and I continued talking, it got worse. I was thinking, “Oh my god, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do?” So finally, this whole A Course in Miracles book…I don’t know, I had to get up the nerve to…
Ron: Did you get to the part of “how to breakup with your boyfriend?” That’s the best chapter.
Melissa: So I did it, I broke up with my boyfriend on West Broadway in front of some bar.
Ron: And I picked you up on Broadway. Then we went and got married.
Melissa: No, that came later!
Ron: Not much later.
Melissa: Six months?
Haley: Wow! Okay, wait.
Melissa: Yeah, this was fast.
Ron: We got married three weeks short of a year from the day we met.
Haley: So when did the breakup happen, Melissa?
Melissa: I would say the breakup happened maybe three, four months after Ron and I met.
Ron: April or May. And our 10th anniversary is this year.
Amelia: Congratulations! The official wedding anniversary?
Ron: Yep, December 2nd.
Melissa: December 2nd will be 10 years so, yeah, all this was 11 years ago. Isn’t that weird?
Amelia: That’s a big milestone. 10 years.
Melissa: It’s big. It’s huge.
Amelia: Let’s rewind to that night when that lady may or may not have asked you to go home with her. What was it that night, Ron, if you remember, that made you think, “I have to giver her my number, I have to know her?”
Ron: She was the cutest girl in the room. I didn’t notice her until we were actually talking and making eye contact. We had a really good connection, immediately.
Amelia: Had you felt that in a while? I don’t want to get too personal but, you were just divorced. It must be weird when you feel that again for someone else — weird in a good way.
Ron: Yeah, it was great. I don’t know if I ever really felt that. It might have been the first time ever.
Melissa: I don’t know if that’s true.
Ron: It’s pretty true.
Amelia: I mean he was spending Bubby Dollars…
Melissa: Yeah!
Amelia: Did you have similar whoa-this-is-strange-feelings in that conversation or did it come a little bit later for you? When he referenced a “smuggled meat and cheese night,” I was thinking, “That’s when I would know.”
Melissa: I was excited for that. And I think I did initially feel that, in a way, but I wasn’t putting myself out there. I don’t know if I necessarily —
Ron: Provoked the situation?
Melissa: Yeah. But he was in the Santa suit and the way he was talking to me…I was like, “This is interesting.” It grabbed my attention and I felt something. I walked home and I was in my apartment and my phone rang and when I hung up I thought, “Huh, this is weird.”
Amelia: Because there are two courses it can take when a guy pursues you like that. He’s either a psychopath or a romantic.
Melissa: I had a smile, you know what I mean? I wasn’t opposed to it.
Ron: You responded.
Haley: But you didn’t call him in ten minutes like he asked.
Melissa: No. I was like, “I’m not going to do that!” I wasn’t going to do what he told me to do, it was too lame.
Ron: That’s the cornerstone of our relationship.
I just remembered this other funny story from right after we met. I have this thing, this sort of obsession, with being the first person at Russ & Daughters on Christmas day. I did it every year for many, many years.
Amelia: By yourself?
Ron: Yeah, I’d say, “Don’t talk to me. I have to do this thing.” And sometimes I’d be #3 and be really, really bummed out for, like, the whole year. So this particular year, after Melissa left, the party continued on until 8 a.m. and I didn’t wake up until 11:30 a.m. I was like, “Oh God!”
Amelia: The line.
Ron: I ran to Russ & Daughters in a panic. It was packed in there and I was like, “No! My number!”
When they called #90, nobody answered. Then eventually they got to me, #92. But after, when they called #93, suddenly the guy next to me was like, “I have #90!”
And the other guy next to me, with #93, was like, “If you just found that on the floor I’m going to knock the shit out of you.”
I was like, “Boys, it’s Christmas! Easy.”
Amelia: Shit gets real around schmear.
Ron: Yeah, it really does. So I told Melissa about that a few days later and it turned out #90 was her boss. I had to save him from getting the shit beat out of him at Russ & Daughters.
Melissa: It was a weird coincidence that he was there.
Ron: I think it was that moment when you realized I was a hero.
Melissa: Oh yeah, of course.
Amelia: It would have been so bad if you were the guy that tried to beat up her boss.
Ron: Yeah, that would have been bad.
Amelia: How early do you have to be at Russ & Daughters to be the first person?
Ron: It opens at 9:00 a.m. so you have to be there at 8:47, really.
Amelia: That’s such a New York thing, that’s so great. So, when you got back from Rome, was wine and cheese night your first date?
Melissa: Yes.
Amelia: Pre-breakup?
Melissa: Yes. Was that the same night as the snowstorm?
Ron: Maybe that was a different night.
Melissa: Yeah. We had another meet up a little bit later and there was this giant snowstorm. He was like, “Spend the night, spend the night.” And I was like, “No way.” I didn’t want to sleep over at all.
Ron: There was literally five feet of snow outside.
Melissa: It was an actual blizzard.
Ron: And she had this little jacket and Converse high tops.
Melissa: I have this army jacket that’s really thin —
Amelia: Where are you from?
Melissa: Pennsylvania!
Ron: She wears the same fucking clothes all year round.
Melissa: I had Converse and this little jacket, and was like, “I’m not staying, I’m going to go home, I’m fine!” I got outside and I could not walk. He lived on Broadway and Astor Place, so I was trying to walk down Broadway, but I couldn’t even walk. And then a police car came and I was like, “Help!” The police car drove me home.
Haley: That’s how much you didn’t want to sleep over.
Ron: Yeah.
Haley: This was the weird time when you were still with your boyfriend?
Melissa: I guess, it must have been. I was confused. I thought that would be awful.
Amelia: Ron, were you just super patient?
Melissa: He was.
Amelia: Because it seems like you knew right away.
Ron: Yeah, I was patient.
Amelia: What do you think it was that made you want to wait?
Ron: Cuteness. I don’t know. It was the least important thing to me, really. I mean, we were having a great time. I wasn’t even thinking about it.
Amelia: You were just like, “Let’s continue this?”
Ron: Yeah. I’m old, I was old then. I have always been old.
Amelia: Same. Okay, so Melissa, then the breakup happened?
Melissa: The breakup happened.
Amelia: And was it, sort of, “on?”
Melissa: It was on.
Ron: I definitely wasn’t seeing other people.
Melissa: And I was already sucked in. Totally sucked in.
Amelia: When was the first “I love you”?
Ron: Probably within that first conversation.
Melissa: I was going to say within a week!
Amelia: Really?
Ron: I knew I loved you from the beginning.
Melissa: Awww! I actually don’t know. I think it was soon. Do you think that? Well, he used to also say, “Marry me and have my babies.” Oh! Actually — this is interesting — when we first met, a few weeks after meat and cheese night, we had dinner. Remember that dinner at Momofuku?
Ron: No.
Melissa: Well, we used to go there all the time. We had dinner at Momofuku. I think this was our proper second date, like we didn’t know each other at all. We were sitting at the little bar and we were talking and you said, “I’ll never get married again”.
We didn’t know each other that well, and I was like, “Oh.” But in my head I was like, “Fuck this, then.” Like, why? And I hadn’t even broken up with my boyfriend yet.
Ron: Safety.
Melissa: He was married two times before me.
Ron: At least.
Melissa: And his son is from his first marriage and he was married again in-between. And I knew that, whatever. But this was after a hard courting.
Amelia: Had you always assumed you were going to get married?
Melissa: Yeah. I wanted to be married and have a family, for sure. I mean, I knew it was a possibility that it wouldn’t happen but it was something I hoped for.
Ron: Guys just say shit that comes into their heads. And we don’t really think about it.
Melissa: Did you feel that way, at that time? You must have.
Ron: Uhh, I have no idea how I felt. I was just happy to be with you, that’s it.
Melissa: I remember that specific moment of being like, “Oh, maybe this is nothing.” But then somehow shortly afterwards we launched into, “Marry me and have my babies.” So that turned around really fast.
Amelia: Do you remember the moment when you knew and the fears dissipated?
Melissa: I was scared. I was scared because he’d been married two times and he was older than me and we came from very different backgrounds.
I had him basically saying, “I want to marry you. Let’s do this.” It was fast. In my head it was like, “You have to live together for six years and then you get engaged.”
Haley: Are you an apprehensive type in general?
Melissa: Yes. I can’t make decisions. This was a totally new me and I was thinking, “Is this something I’m allowed to do? Do people do this? Do people meet somebody and get married six months later? Like, how does that work? And is this OK?” You know what I mean? It was confusing for me. I was scared.
And when he would say “marry me and have my babies” all that time, I was like, “Oh my god does he really mean it?”
Ron: But now you know I meant it. We have three whole entire babies and we’re married. How more concrete could it be?
Melissa: I felt like I was breaking all the rules. But on the flip side, I also felt super excited. I was like, “I’ve never felt like this about anybody before,” and I had a long string of serial monogamy from age 18 to 34. Every three or four years I had a boyfriend, lived with them, thought we would get married and never did, met somebody else and did the same thing. All those times I remember thinking, “Isn’t this supposed to culminate with us wanting to spend all our lives together?” But it never did.
But this time he was like,“I want to do this with you.” And I was like, “What? I want to do this with you, too. It’s only been like, ten minutes, but why not?” I just made the leap.
Ron: I had already leapt.
Amelia: Melissa, was there a moment or catalyst that made you jump?
Melissa: I remember one specific walk down Greenwich Street. I was listening to this cheesy song and I really… I just thought, “I can do this.”
Amelia: What was the song!?
Melissa: I know this is something he so doesn’t want to hear. He’s like, “Oh god…”
Ron: It’s probably some fucking Coldplay song.
Melissa: Close. No, it’s called “Let Go,” and it’s from that movie –
Haley: Is it Frou Frou?
Melissa: Yes!
Haley: Such a good one!
Melissa: Yeah, I remember listening to that song and walking down Greenwich Street and having this feeling of like, “You’re gonna do this.”
Haley: Do you remember what time of year it was?
Melissa: It was probably summer. It was warm. August, maybe September? Because when we got married, we didn’t plan a wedding. You gave me that ring on Broadway, on your scooter.
I just remember you had a ring in your pocket and you picked me up on Prince and Broadway. You came around in your scooter to get me and I got on but then you pulled the scooter over and you reached in your pocket. And, I don’t know, you might have gotten down on one knee in the street.
Ron: It’s possible.
Melissa: Right on Broadway. This was only a couple months before we got married, right?
Ron: Yeah.
Melissa: I’m going to tell you something: I got pregnant. I guess it might have been in September. Which is not like a big deal. Is that weird to include?
Ron: No.
Amelia: Nope.
Melissa: Yeah, I don’t want to be secretive about it! I got pregnant and I was scared. But I was also excited because I wanted to get pregnant and he wanted to get pregnant. So, I got pregnant and I told my parents and they freaked out, per usual. Was that the catalyst for doing it right away?
Ron: Yeah.
Melissa: Yeah, we were already going do it, but when I got pregnant we were like, “Alright, let’s just do this!” So he picked me up on the corner in the scooter with the ring and blah blah blah. And then I went to the doctor and they heard a heartbeat and we were like, “Oh my god, we’re having a baby.” And we told people, right?
Ron: I think so.
Melissa: We told a couple people. And then at eight weeks, I had a miscarriage. So we lost the baby. And, then I was like, “Do you still want to marry me?” I felt weird because we knew we wanted to do it, but we’d rushed it because I was pregnant. We’d done all this planning around it like where we should get married and when we should get married.
And then I lost the baby. And I felt so…upset. You know, usually it happens earlier than when it happened with me. Often, once you see the heartbeat, you’re kind of in the clear, so it was kind of a shock. And I was upset. But I also had this feeling of like, “Do you still want to do this with me?” You know what I mean?
Amelia: It was a moment to reflect.
Melissa: It was a moment to reflect and it was a challenge for me. But we did what we were going to do.
Amelia: So you guys carried forward.
Melissa: We carried forward. And I was happy. I guess I got scared for a hot second that–
Ron: I was gonna back out?
Melissa: Well no, just that we didn’t need to do it. I don’t know.
Ron: Yeah, I didn’t think about any of that.
Melissa: You still wanted to?
Ron: I still want to marry you, even now.
Melissa: So anyway, we kept going. We got married at St. Luke’s. We had our wedding right here in this room with our friends and family. It was cute. The next day we went to Paris. And then I got pregnant on our honeymoon with our first child, Luc, which we spelled the French way as a joke because he was conceived in Paris. L-U-C.
Amelia: That’s very nice for Tribeca.
Melissa: Isn’t that funny? Then Julian was next, six months later. Irish twins. He was between one and two when I got pregnant again with Milo, the third.
Amelia: All great names.
Ron: Julian named Milo.
Melissa: Julian’s middle name is Milo, and he was like, “I want to give the baby my name.” And we said go ahead. It’s hard to come up with boy names! And I was like, “Ugh, I blew two of the names on the second one. We’ll just take your middle name and put it on the third one.”
Amelia: It also could have been worse if he named his own brother, like it could have been like Monster 500.
Melissa: Right.
Amelia: So, how much were you working at Bubby’s during all this?
Melissa: I worked until my first one. Until a couple months before he was born. And all I could do after that was take care of the children.
Ron: But you’ve been working here a lot now. I’m also starting a new business and Melissa’s been helping more with that one.
Melissa: Yeah.
Amelia: How do you navigate working together and then coming home?
Melissa: Well, we don’t work in the same physical space.
Ron: I like it. It gives us something to talk about other than our kids.
Melissa: Yeah, but you know you’re not supposed to talk about work when you come home.
Ron: Well, I’ll keep that in mind.
Melissa: We’ve never not done that though. So, yeah, he works out of his office at the other restaurant and I have an office in our house. And the three children are in school — even the little one goes all day now — so I have time. But before this year…
Amelia: You were consumed by the three.
Melissa: Oh my god. It’s so hard, it’s really hard. I mean it still is. But when you have three babies you just can’t even function. You’re like, “Oh, have I eaten? Have I peed and will I sleep?” In fact, just last month was the first time in eight years that I slept through the night. Until 6 a.m. Like, from the time I went to bed, nobody woke me up. In eight years. Isn’t that weird? Yeah, so you’re not really functional when you have that many small children.
Amelia: Ron, do you work funny hours?
Ron: Yeah. I work a lot and I also have a lot of different things to work on.
Melissa: He has a very busy schedule. So we have a date night. Every Saturday night we go out to dinner.
Amelia: What’s the hardest part of being in a marriage?
Melissa: What would you say the hardest part is?
Ron: I think the hardest part is going through difficult times and trying to remember that they eventually go away.
Melissa: Yes. Leandra was actually saying this in her Monocycle episode with Abie: you have to always remember that there’s no door to go out. You’re in a thing where you just have to figure it out.
Ron: There’s no escape. It sounds very dire.
Amelia: But it sounds comforting sometimes.
Haley: Ira Glass had a similar line about marriage. That not having an out is what makes it beautiful.
Melissa: Right. Sometimes things get hard and you think, “We’ll never get through this.” But then we have to think, “Well, hold up. We’re in this. We have to get over it. We have to get past it. We have to get through it.” Someone has to break the–
Ron: Cycle.
Melissa: Yeah. Whatever you want to call it: the argument or the silence or the anger. And each time it’s a different. Sometimes he’ll say, “Let’s not do this. This is stupid.” Sometimes it’s me saying, “I don’t want to do this. This is a waste of time!” Somebody has to pull themselves together, do you know what I mean? And once they do, it all kind of falls away.
People say you can never want to get a divorce at the same time. The other person has to pick up your slack and say, “We’re good. You’re okay. We’re gonna be fine.” And then, of course, when you have children, it adds a whole other dimension. Because we’re a family. So not only are we just a man and a woman who are married, but we have such a responsibility to each other because of the kids, do you know what I mean? So if there’s something going on between us and we don’t fix it, we’re actually doing a huge disservice to them. We’re harming them. There’s way less of an out when you have children, let’s put it that way. But that’s also what makes it nice. You know? We’re a whole pack of people.
Amelia: You’re a wolf pack.
Melissa: We’re a wolf pack.
Amelia: What’s the best part of marriage and what’s your favorite thing about each other?
Melissa: I just find it to be a huge comfort. I don’t know if that’s the right thing to say, but just to know that you have someone who’s gonna stand by you. A friend. A support system. And we have fun together. This is super cheesy — and maybe it’s just because my days with the kids can be really grueling at times — but I look so look forward to date night, when we just get to sit and hang out. It reminds me that I really actually like spending time with him. If I could choose anybody to hang out with, I would choose him. I have the most fun with him.
Amelia: That’s such a nice thing to say.
Ron: My favorite thing about being married is having a home. An actual home where everybody gets to be. All of the family. I think it’s just amazing to build that sense of home with someone.
And my favorite thing about you…I mean you have qualities that are amazing. Like your loyalty is shocking. And well, you’re also the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I could look at you all the time.
Melissa: Stop.
Amelia: He called you 10 minutes after you left the party so I’m believing that.
Ron: Yeah, it’s a fact, I still believe it. Does that count? Or is that too…
Melissa: Surface-y?
Ron: Yeah, I don’t think so. It’s all I care about.
Melissa: My loyalty and my appearance?
Ron: Beauty.
Melissa: Are you talking about my inner beauty?
Ron: Yeah. You are very beautiful.
Melissa: Thank you. My favorite thing about you is your determination. Your inability to get knocked down and not give up. And you’re just the person I always want to hang out with. I like your sense of humor. You’re fun to be around. You don’t have a lot of hang-ups and you’re up for whatever people want to do. And you’re very generous.
Amelia: What advice do you have for people in a relationship or looking to be in one?
Melissa: Oh God.
Amelia: The most broad question ever.
Melissa: No, it’s a good one. I guess just from years of being in so many different relationships and now being in this relationship, I do think you kind of know when you meet someone, even if it’s just this little twinkle. I don’t know how to explain it, exactly.
But in terms of being in a relationship or meeting someone, I guess I’d say: Nobody is going to be the exact right person for you. It’s never going to be perfect and it’s not always what you think. The more you get to know someone, the more you see and notice what qualities you appreciate in them — and that might not look like what you thought it would look like: this relationship doesn’t look like what I thought it would look like, even when I first saw it and entertained it, do you know what I mean?
But there was a certain kind of unnamable feeling that I had that it would be right. That we would be good together.
It’s a lot of work. I think you have to be at a place in life where you can kind of handle stuff. Where you have a wherewithal in yourself and about yourself that can move you through difficult situations that you’re going to have with this significant other. How can you prepare yourself for that…I’m not sure.
Haley: It’s losing a little bit of ego. Or self-indulgence.
Melissa: Right. Because it’s not just about you. There’s another person who is half of the equation, so you have to step outside or yourself and think, “What are they going through?” You have to almost be more selfless I guess. I’m not saying you should let people treat you like crap, but if you’re not thinking about what the other person is dealing with or going through, then you’re kind of screwed.
Amelia: That make so much sense. Ron, what do you think?
Ron: My advice would be to try to stay open-hearted and open-minded and be willing to take a lot of risks.
Melissa: With your heart?
Ron: Yeah, be willing to feel exposed. If you’re in an intimate relationship, you see the most horrible things. And so you have to be cool with that.
Melissa: Yeah, you see parts of people that you would otherwise never see. Even your closest friend.
Ron: Somebody told me once that marriage is designed to bring the worst out of everybody. Then you love them at their worst. I think there’s something to that.
Melissa: Yeah. You can’t hide. It’s a very humbling or kind of frightening.
Ron: Yeah, it’s sort of embarrassing in a way.
Melissa: Totally. And I think it builds up over time. You both stick around. You’re both still here.
Visit the Bubby’s website here to find their TriBeCa and High Line locations and follow them on Twitter @Bubbys. Order a pie and follow @bubbyspieco on Instagram while you’re at it! You can also follow Melissa’s personal Instagram @melissajsilver. Photographed by Krista Anna Lewis; pull quotes designed by Emily Zirimis.
