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I used to think it was love that I was longing for, but I was wrong. I was obsessed with the idea of love, not the truth of it.
It seems strange to me, how we expect so much from love, and yet devote so little time to understanding it.
‘Learning faulty definitions of love when we are quite young makes it difficult to be loving as we grow older’
a reminder to not let the people you love slip into the background;
How many of us have these stories of adolescent infatuation, in which longing is more important than knowing, and fantasy trumps reality?
‘It was every day implied, but never professedly declared. Sometimes I thought it had been – but it never was.’
‘People think, if I’m matching the other person then we’re a match, but that makes them more insecure because they’re not being themselves.’
The best frame of mind to be in – for anything you want – is an ability to walk away from it, were it not to come right. Otherwise you put yourself at the mercy of chance and people abusing your desperation.
Because if being in your own company is fine on a Monday and a tragedy on a Saturday, the problem is not the objective fact of being alone, it’s the story you’re telling yourself.
You are you; how could you become less you by being in contact with somebody else?
A child might say, ‘I want to kill Granny. She’s so stupid.’ And the parent might say, ‘No you don’t, you love her.’ Actually, a wiser parent would say, ‘I suppose we do all sometimes get a bit angry with others, maybe she disappointed you in some way. What way might that be?’ Then the child might get in touch with their feelings to understand why, and they can talk about it. But people run away from more disturbing feelings in their children and encourage them to cut themselves off from them. Then, as an adult, they might not feel their feelings are legitimate.
So to be on the receiving end of somebody’s idealizing feelings is alienating. It looks like we’re being seen and admired like never before, but actually, many important parts of us are being forgotten.
We need to show more imagination about what a good life might look like.
Perhaps, if we could, we would see that there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ stories after all – just the lives in front of us, full of possibilities.
I’m still open to a romantic relationship, but I want love to be a part of the puzzle that is my life. I don’t need it to be the full picture.
We spend our whole lives trying to meet targets set by someone else.
now I largely refuse to go to places where I know I’ll be interrogated about not being married, because there’s no love or concern there. It’s just nosiness.
Why do we sometimes choose to hurt ourselves more in the future by denying a painful truth in the present?
when we stop relying on one person to make us happy, we not only find more confidence to question a relationship that isn’t working; we live a more varied and interesting life.
what makes somebody right is commitment.
If someone you spend a lot of time with tells you you’re not worth much, that begins to dent your confidence.
The obvious solution is to not pretend to be someone you’re not, while still allowing space for the person you are dating to get to know you (and vice versa).
What I found tiring about looking for a romantic relationship was that there was no way of knowing for certain if there would ever be an end point.
I wondered if the ugliest shade of unhappiness comes, not directly from what you lack, but from wanting a different life to the one you’re living.
Being content with what you have is key.
By saying, ‘Even if I don’t get what I want, I have a good life,’ then paying closer attention to the small details that make that life beautiful. And by never forgetting that not knowing what will happen next also means that anything could.
it’s so important to spend your life with people who not only see the goodness in you, but bring it out too.
