How to Fall in Love with Anyone: A Memoir in Essays

by Mandy Len Catron

When I woke up coughing in the middle of the night, I thought of the doctor who’d said the respiratory system was the first thing to erode under long-term stress.

But in a relationship where individual needs aren’t met, partners feel low-level chronic physical and emotional stress, weakening the immune system.

I’d get home from night class at eleven thirty, drop my books on my bed, and bike down the hill to his house. I’d let myself in, tiptoe up to his room, and crawl under the covers beside him. I’d wake up before dawn, pull on my jeans, and ride to the small coffee shop where I worked on Capitol Hill. It was always worth the inconvenience: a few hours of his body pressed against mine in the dark.

People who knew they would spend their life with someone were like people who knew they were going to heaven. It just seemed so audacious, so irrational.

It astounded me, this extreme gratitude in the face of lifetime commitment. How unself-conscious these people seemed, how sure.

Her reflection on her wedding struck me as particularly genuine: “Was it the happiest day of my life? Probably not. Was it the best decision I ever made? Yes.”

I began to feel that nothing was knowable, especially my own feelings.

There is a strange logic to the idea of a soul mate. To believe that such a person exists is to believe that destiny is a real and active force in our lives. But it also means believing that there are wrong people, and wrong choices. Accepting both rightness and choice requires simultaneous investment in the forces of fate and free will.

Talking about “rightness” seemed like a way of obscuring more subtle questions—not “Is there someone better for me out there?” but “Why is it so hard to be kind to the person I love?”

I found this immediately reassuring: If the need to love is encrypted in our biology, maybe I was supposed to feel like love was controlling me.

Rob (played in the movie by John Cusack) gets dumped by Laura. Confused and distressed, he goes back to each of his exes, hoping to figure out why he can’t make a relationship last. Ultimately, as in countless other books and movies, the heartbroken protagonist finally gets it: He was taking the person he loved for granted. And thanks to this hard-won revelation, he now knows how to be a better partner.

Eventually, I would come to see that I’d been thinking of moral rightness in love the wrong way. My job was not to choose a good person to love, but rather to be good to the person I’d chosen. Extraordinary love was not defined by the intensity with which you wanted someone, but by generosity and kindness and a deep sense of friendship. You had to love someone and like them.

We had found a way forward—a way to be kind to each other—and, right or wrong, it was a relief.