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“That film sequence was like a portal into an alternate universe, where a brown girl could date a white guy and still be at peace with her family.”

When Meher Ahmad first saw the movie “Bend It Like Beckham” as a young girl, she was transfixed. Watching the main character, an Indian woman who looked like her, kiss her white soccer coach, she saw a vision of her own romantic future. While she felt pressure from her family and her culture to be with a Pakistani boy, the movie opened up the lanes of her attraction — from white boys to, eventually, “anything but brown men.”

As Meher grew older, though, her thinking started to shift. Today, we share her story about how she found “the one.”

Then, our host, Anna Martin, discusses a trend that is all over TikTok: romantic manifestation. She speaks with Laura Pitcher, a contributing writer for The New York Times, about how people are manifesting their ideal partners — and why the spiritual practice is so appealing to Gen Z.

Hosted by: Anna Martin
Produced by: Julia Botero, Hans Buetow and Elyssa Dudley
Edited by: Sara Sarasohn
Executive Producer: Wendy Dorr
Engineered by: Dan Powell
Theme Music: Dan Powell
Essay by: Meher Ahmad
Read by: Soneela Nankani
Founder, Modern Love: Daniel Jones
Editor, Modern Love Projects: Miya Lee

Special thanks: Mahima Chablani, Renan Borelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Julia Simon, Lisa Tobin, Sam Dolnick, Ryan Wegner and Anna Diamond at Audm.

Thoughts? Email us at modernlovepodcast@nytimes.com.