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Can't Help Falling in Love: The Moth Radio Hour

February 17, 2026·55 min·4 clips

Eva Santiago defends marrying a man serving a 34-year sentence and explains exactly what he taught her about living.

The hour opens with love already hanging around the room. Sarah Austin-Ginness introduces Moth stories about romance showing up where nobody quite planned for it, and about people deciding whether to move toward it anyway. Then David Greco takes the stage. He had only been visiting New Orleans when he dropped his name into the open mic hat, so the story already feels a little accidental. His memory begins in dating territory, but the excerpt is less about a grand confession than the fear of being known before you are ready. A letter sits at the center of it. David thinks his mother has found something from his girlfriend, and suddenly the whole house feels like it is waiting for him. She calls him to dinner. That should be ordinary, but he hears it as a summons. Maybe she wants to deal with the discovery over a meal. Maybe everyone already knows. The panic is funny because it is so specific. He waits, peers from the stairs, studies everyone watching television, and decides they look normal enough to approach. Still, his body gives him away. The food turns on him. His mother notices he is not eating. Every look from her feels like the beginning of a conversation he cannot survive. So he tries to confess. He tells her he thinks she found something personal in his room, and then realizes he may have just handed her the whole thing. Her eyes widen. She asks what he means. Now the secret has to come out because he opened the door himself. The tenderness stays clumsy, which is why it works. Around him, it is just family dinner and television. Inside him, it feels like disownment, nausea, and the small hope that love can still hold once somebody else sees it. The credits bring the story back into The Moth's familiar frame: music, producers, funders, and the reminder that the stories are true as remembered.

As heard by us

A dating story where one misunderstanding turns awkwardness into comic tension.

David Greco's story leans into the nervous comedy of dating, where a small misunderstanding can start to feel far larger than it really is. The Moth keeps the pressure on dread and absurdity in equal measure: a private worry, a family dinner, then the slow realization that he…

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a love story that starts with panic, not polish.

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