Alain de Botton on Romanticism

thank you thank you so much what a
pleasure to be back in Australia to be
back at the opera house thank you so
much for coming out tonight
as Anne’s just said I’ve written a novel
but I don’t want to talk particularly
specifically about the novel please buy
it after if you feel inclined but what I
really want to do is to talk about some
of the ideas behind the novel and
sometimes people say to me you know what
why did you even bother to write a novel
I thought you were supposed to be a non
fiction writer and the reason I wrote a
novel is that I believe that many of our
ideas on love come from reading novels
also songs films etc but essentially we
are very shaped by the love narratives
that we read and this could seem a
little cruel we tend to think that we
love spontaneously that we’re not
influenced by what we read and by what
we see but I think that we are we love
within a very historical social context
as that lovely biting aphorism from La
Rochefoucauld he says there are some
people who would never have fallen in
love if they hadn’t heard there was such
a thing that’s a little extreme but you
get the idea that really when we love we
are taking a lot of our cues from the
outside world
we honor certain feelings that we
experience because other people are
telling us to honor them we suppress
other feelings because people have told
us not to pay them particular attention
now we are nowadays firmly in a very
distinctive era in the history of love
we are living in the era of Romanticism
romanticism is an intellectual movement
that began in the souls studies
Garrett’s
of European poets novelists writers in
the end middle end of the 18th century
and nowadays even if you’ve never heard
of a single Romantic poet or novelist
from any Garret in Old Europe and you’re
just having your love life here in
Sydney you are influenced because we all
are by Romanticism so whether you can’t
whether you don’t necessarily know about
it or feel it or touch it it is all
around us in the ether
we are living ladies gentlemen in the
era of Romanticism now what does
romanticism tell us about love it has a
very distinctive set of arguments about
what love is like what we should expect
from love and how relationships should
go and let me run you through a few of
those romantic assumptions I think the
first and most central assumption is
that for all of us out there there is
most definitely a soul mate we may not
have met them already
we may be swiping left right furiously
in order to try and locate them they
exist and eventually we keep going hard
enough we will find them and when we
find them our soul will fuse with theirs
all areas that had previously been
confused and lonely will be redeemed we
will no longer feel ourselves wordless
agonized melancholic before the
mysteries of existence we have found a
true friend and loneliness will be
banished this later judgment is the
person waiting for us somewhere out
there the soulmate
how are we going to find this person
well big question the dominant answer of
romanticism is by instinct you know for
most of history the way that people were
matched up was by the elders of the
community by parents by other people
than the couple themselves they was it
was what was known as a marriage of
reason and there were reasonable
criteria so-called reasonable criteria
which is maybe that you had a goat and
they had a sheep or you had a plot of
land and they had a blood adjoining plot
of land or whatever it was and it was on
that basis that these so-called dynastic
marriages were made and that was the way
in which people married have married for
thousands of years really since the
beginning of time but along comes
romanticism and says no we’re going to
marry in a different way we are going to
marry by instinct and the instinct is
that somewhere along the line you will
feel a special feeling very very special
feeling inside a kind of excitement and
you don’t know when it will strike you
maybe you’re at the bar maybe you’re at
the swimming pool
maybe you’re just waiting in line for
something but you’ll spot somebody and
without necessarily knowing too much
about them niether romantics were quite
keen on it happening without knowing
anything
them other than simply seeing their face
you will know that’s your soulmate and
so that special feeling has become
venerated and whoever saw you don’t
question that special feeling so if you
said your parents I’ve met somebody and
they go right tell me but you just say
I’ve had that special feeling and
everyone just you know the waters part
and the couple moves forward because
there’s been that special feeling so
once the special feeling is announced
you know you raise the flag the special
feeling has happened and that’s terrific
what if you don’t feel that special
feeling it’s a bit a little bit
embarrassing something wrong with me etc
so you may start to fake the special
feeling kind of like someone being fake
that you’ve had this romantic special
feeling and so romanticism is very into
the notion of the crush and the
immediate sensation of certainty that
you have met someone very special
romanticism goes hand-in-hand with the
developments of the railways in Europe
in the 19th century and an awful lot of
these meetings happen on trains in
fiction even in Russian fiction alone
you could build a library of stories in
which the hero and heroine meet on a
train and without much knowledge as I
say just the sight maybe of an ankle and
elbow curvature of a cheek you will know
that’s a soul mate and that’s how it it
begins so that’s how the that’s how
you’re going to find your life partner
the romantics are very keen on the
notion of happily ever after that love
is not just a passing phase it is
forever till death do us part strikingly
many of the romantics died quite young
and so often the story begins couple
fall madly in love and some with a
little coffin of tuberculosis and hooker
and it’s you know it’s beautiful love
story but it does end after a few months
but nevertheless it’s forever in
innocence and romantics also very keen
on suicide ending things dramatically so
death has a curious relationship with
love in the romantic point of view the
other essential thing about the
romantics is that generally no one
really has a job
none of the romantics really have jobs
so they can devote a lot of time to love
and they’re spending a lot of time just
in each other’s arms and also going for
walks nature is incredibly important for
the romantics going out into nature for
long long walks very particular places
waterfalls very romantic place also
places where the ocean meets the land
dramatic cliffs pounding of seas very
quintessentially romantic places
romantic times of day dusk is a quiz
essentially romantic time especially
when you know you’ve got a layer of
clouds and the underside of the clouds
are lit up by the shaft of the dying Sun
turning the sky a purpley pinky hue very
romantic sort of moment a moment to
enforce love through the help of of
nature the romantics have a very
distinctive take on sex people obviously
been having sex for all of human history
and there’s been some love but what the
romantics do is a remarkable fusion of
love and sex
they basically consecrate sex as the
summit of love and the ultimate
expression of love so far from being
Milly a mechanical action it becomes
this most sincere expression of your
feelings for another person almost
divine expression of tenderness for
another person very beautiful it has a
slight drawback which is that it turns
adultery into a tragedy a catastrophe
because if you believe as the romantics
do that lot that sex is the crowning
expression of love then any interest
outside of the couple will be
catastrophic in nature and that’s why
almost every great novel of the 19th
century in Europe is about adultery in
one form or another
starting with flow bears Madame Bovary
moving on to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and
on and on people have been having
adultery for all of human history it’s
been happening all the time but what’s
new is the weight that’s put on it and
as I say it is a violation of everything
that the romantics believe that love is
now I should say that many of these
romantic ideas are very beautiful
they’re very exciting and we all live
through them
and it would be naive to some way
dismiss them as irrelevant to the way we
live they are everywhere and they are at
the center of how we approach love but I
also want to insist that romanticism has
been a catastrophe for our capacity to
have good long-term relationships and if
we want to have a chance of succeeding
at love we will have to be disloyal to
many of the romantic emotions that got
us into relationships in the first place
romanticism has spelt trouble for our
capacity to endure and thrive in
long-term relationships why do I say
that well let me run you through a few
of the areas that I believe that
romanticism has spelt difficulty for us
in relationships so romanticism replaced
an earlier vision of human nature which
tended to stress how fragile broken and
very sinful we all were an old Christian
idea and romanticism comes along and
dismisses this attitude as hopelessly
pessimistic and insists instead on the
purity and good nature of every human
being for the romantic the romantic
space an awful emphasis at of a lot of
emphasis on children and children for
the romantics are always good
they’re always sweet it begins with
jean-jacques Rousseau in the mid 18th
century the child is the purest
expression of humankind and the only
thing that makes a child bad is
societies only society corrupts children
but basically it’s a sign that we are
born good and the older view which was
associated with Christian theologians
like st. Augustine which stressed the
fundamental sinfulness you know st.
Augustine argued that all of us bear
within us the original sin of Adam and
therefore all of us is good to speak
like this at a pulpit to an audience but
but all of us all of us are sinners or
potential sinners and therefore need to
be at the mercy of others and of the
divine in order I’m a secular Jew but
the divine in order to to enjoy life now
I racism does away with it and says to
us that all of us are angelic by Nature
the interesting thing is that
romanticism coincides with the decline
in organized religion but just as
religion is declining romanticism Rises
and is in many ways a replacement a
secular alternative so when we get
together in love you know what’s
fascinating is the use the beginning of
the use of the word angel to refer not
to those winged creatures up in the sky
but to refer to other human beings and
there’s a marked increase of this in the
age of Romanticism and nowadays of
course many of us will cheerfully call
our partner angel so we are all of us in
a sense in through the lens of
Romanticism good people our wings have
been temporarily put aside but
essentially we’re pretty perfect people
not particularly tainted by original sin
now I think this is highly troubling for
relationships because it leads to that
absolute problematic dynamic within any
relationship which is self-righteousness
if you think that you’re quite perfect
and that your partner is quite perfect –
that’s trouble anyway and if you start a
relationship you’ll soon start hitting
upon things which will lead you to think
but actually maybe they’re not that
perfect now what do you do with that
feeling if you’re operating against an
ideology that says that everyone and it
your partner particularly is by nature
good very unhelpful backdrop in which to
negotiate the troubles of relationships
it’s far better I believe to insist that
all of us are in various ways deeply and
I don’t mean this in any way in an
insult deeply crazy I may not know I may
not know exactly how you’re crazy I can
tell you later how I’m crazy I won’t
well I might um but but basically all of
us you know none of us get through the
gauntlet of early childhood adolescence
etc with our sanity entirely intact we
are all of us
warped distorted in very distinctive
ways it may take us 50 years to work out
exactly how we’re distorted but we are
distorted and this is a fundamental
piece of knowledge which we should be
taking with us into relationships with a
big warning sign over us now why are we
so unable to conceive of ourselves as
damaged and crazy and therefore so prone
to self righteousness well part of the
problem is that all of us have very low
levels of self-knowledge and
self-knowledge is really really hard to
come by part
because there’s almost a conspiracy of
silence around us people don’t quite
tell us what they think of us and
therefore we go through life where the
average person who’s met us for 20
minutes has a deeper insight into many
of our flaws than we might achieve over
a lifetime
why why don’t people tell us this well
there’s really no motive for them to
tell us this at many stages our parents
are not going to tell us certain things
that they know they can see things about
us but they’re not going to tell us
because they’re very kind they wish us
well it’s really their business they’re
not going to go into it and maybe
they’re blinded by their own affection
for us and there’s our friends but of
course our friends are not going to tell
us certain things about our characters
the ways in which we’re difficult in
particular because all they really want
from us is a pleasant evening out they
just they don’t care they don’t you
really have to care about someone to be
bothered to go into all that stuff about
their true character and our friends so
you know they can’t be bothered they
don’t they don’t like us enough so it
leaves then that other category our exes
well our exes you could expect that they
will somewhere along the lines have have
told us but the thing on the whole it’s
not really worth their while either and
so they tend to take their leave by
saying things like they need to spend
more time on that bone they need to
develop that character they’d like to go
travelling nonsense of course not they
see certain things about you but again
they’re not going to go through it they
can’t be bothered they just want out let
somebody else sort that out
so so so the thing is that we we go
through life not really knowing I mean
it’s very tender and poignant how
sometimes some of us feel but with some
of you in the audience feel that broadly
speaking you’re quite easy to live with
I mean does anyone is anyone here think
that there can’t broadly speaking easily
with if only they met the right person
like there are a few people a few people
you know that’s that’s a very poignant
combination whereby a very romantic
combination I spent my early twenties
absolutely convinced the only thing that
was missing was really the right person
as long as I met the right person then
all would would be well so this notion
that we might be easy to live with is a
deeply misleading and should be stamped
out of course we’re not everybody from
close up is trouble and we need we need
we need to put this in mind bear this in
mind if I was running the world one of
the key questions that we would always
ask each other on an early dinner date
without anything pejorative being meant
by it is how are you crazy
so I’m I’m crazy like this how about you
and that we’d be expected to have a
really thoughtful and kind of well
thought through non defensive non
hysterical answer to that question to be
able to share with another person think
how much time we would say we don’t need
people in relationships to be perfect we
need them to have a handle on their
imperfections and to be able to warn us
and prepare us for the more noxious
sides of their personalities outside of
those critical moments when those
personality distortions have deeply
upset us but it’s very hard to do and
most of the time we come upon
discoveries about other people at
moments when those discoveries have
pained us deeply and therefore we are
not likely to be in any way sympathetic
so the calm explanation of one’s
insanities to another person is one of
the greatest gifts and I think one of
the best wedding presents that any of us
could
but give one another is a large book
call you know my insanities that you
would give each person would give my
insanities to to their partner and think
how much time I think we would we would
say you know the other thing that
romanticism really gets wrong is this
this emphasis on instinct right so you
know the old marriage marriage of reason
marriage by the family etc and then you
know the romantics tell us there’s this
marriage by instinct that special
feeling well the thing about it is that
you know you don’t need to accept or
even know much about psychoanalysis and
psychotherapy to just take on board the
one key central idea of psychotherapy
which is the way that we love as adults
is a reflection and deeply connected to
the way that we learnt about love as
children that is the foundation stone of
psychotherapy so you look at an addict
you look at how you are in adult
relationships and there are million
connections that you can make with how
we learnt about love as children and the
problem with this is that the way that
we learnt about love as children is
likely to have been a bit problematic
it’s likely that we received affection
certainly but that in one way or another
without necessarily meaning to our
parents did us a great disservice in
some ways they damaged us without
necessarily meaning to and this has very
particular consequences for our capacity
to find love as adults because often
what we’re trying to do in adult love is
refined a kind of love that we knew as
children but the kind of love that we
knew as children was not necessarily
problem-free indeed it was very
particularly and interestingly distorted
and laden with all sorts of difficulties
and these become the new criteria which
we search for in our adult partners so
when people say that in love what
they’re looking for is someone to make
them happy to make them content to bring
them happiness we can’t necessarily
believe them really what we’re searching
for when we search for an adult partner
is someone who feels familiar and very
often the kind of people that we meet
don’t feel familiar in the level of care
generosity and good
that they’re bringing to us it just
feels a little bit odd we think I don’t
necessarily feel at home with this kind
of treatment you know how it is when you
sometimes set up a friend and on paper
you know two people are completely
perfect you know the two CVS match
exactly and you set them up and then you
know you have hopeful expectations for
the date and then they come back to you
and you say you know how did it go how
did the date go and they say I don’t
know you know they’re really nice I just
you know we got so much in common in a
way or our interest we do all the same
sports and with the same book cetera but
I don’t know something was missing and
chemistry something and very often the
thing is that our unconscious has
recognized that this circle very nice
person is perfect except for they won’t
make us suffer in way in the way that we
expect to be made to suffer in love so
they’ve got to be dismissed they’re just
not going to make me unhappy in the way
that I’ve learned to expect that love
should make me unhappy and you know we
know the situation in its most extreme
forms you know somebody who can only
take someone who will hit them who will
strike them but even without the
extremes of violence there are many ways
in which we are attractive to people not
so much for their positive size but
because they feel as I say familiar in
the degree to which they will frustrate
certain of our aspirations for ourselves
um there’s another problem for with you
know with romanticism and that’s really
to do with the idea of honesty you know
romanticism had an extremely high regard
for the concept of honesty and that a
relationship the whole point of
relationship is that you can be honest
with another human being most of the
time we’ve got a lie all the time about
who we are what we feel how are you I’m
fine we were breaking down inside etc
you know we’re all in tears inside we’re
broken we’ve got to put up a front
that’s what society demands of us but
finally we can meet someone and with
them the drawbridge can come down the
walls can come down and we can be
ourselves and there are wonderful
moments in the early moments of love in
the early phase of love when we really
do feel that we have found someone who
can accept all of us and take on board
everything that we are we need to have
no more secrets we can be properly
ourselves and the truth is that being
yourself fully yourself around another
human being is it
treat that you should probably spare
anyone that you claim to laugh because
it’s really a little problematic
now often it goes a bit like this you
know that there’s look let’s be honest I
think no kids in the room often it’s a
little bit around sex so in the early
days of love you know you’ve been a bit
lonely in all areas including sex and
you meet somebody and and you say you
know do you like you know that thing
that you you could do like with a rope
and like hang tough so like imagine if
do have you ever been interested and
they go wow yeah I’ve always wanted to
try that and that’s always but I’ve
never dared tell anyone and there’s that
wonderful sense of intimacy based on
their no longer needing to be shamed we
no longer need to be ashamed of
ourselves we can be ourselves in the
bedroom etc and this is a very ecstatic
discovery and it really makes us feel so
powerful in the world because we no
longer have to be a hunched hunched back
figure we can now go out into the world
and and feel that some of our darkest
secrets have acceptance an endorsement
from another human being this lovely
phase tends to last about three months
until until normally the moment goes
like this
the same for everybody but a version of
this tends to happen so you’ve been
sharing everything you’ve been sharing
that you know the thing and the thing
and the hand coupler and it’s all be fun
and then you’re sitting in a cafe with
you know with your with your lover with
whom you’ve opened your soul and they’ve
opened their soul and you spot a really
quite interesting member of the waiting
team and you go she the waiter over
there like would it be fun if like you
know the thing with the you know thing
that we I do much like if they got
involved we asked them to get involved
and like a number and they could come
and then you got watching and then and
then you turn to your partner and rather
than being this kind of open giveth they
actually look in quite a big state of
distress they look kind of kind of
unhappy and miserable and you go wow wow
I better stop right there and you’re at
a fork in the road and one fork in the
road leads to the path of honesty
another path leads to the path of love
you’ve got a choice to make
you’ve got a choice to make are you
going to carry on this anecdote this
this fantasy or are you just going to
shut up and most of us are going to shut
up at that point and that’s the
beginning of a very fundamental moment
when we realize of course we cannot be
entirely ourselves not because we’re
trying to retain a nasty secret from our
partner but because in the name of love
we cannot be entirely ourselves we have
to accept the role of editing because
the full disclosure of who we are and
what we are at every moment to another
human being will probably destroy them
and therefore we need in the name of
love to hold back and to edit a lot
none of this romanticism prepares us for
indeed it makes it look like a betrayal
so it sets up a huge it’s a very very
unhelpful backdrop in which this
scenario happens because romanticism
insists on authenticity it’s by being
totally authentic that you are true to
love anything else is a betrayal of love
and well the facts on the ground are
seriously I believe in conflict with
that romantic commandment and cause us a
lot of difficulties I’m not through with
my reservations about Romanticism
another thing about romanticism that
never really tells talks about is
romanticism never really talks about the
practical side of life in the nineteenth
century no one no romantic poet writer
artist etcetera ever mentions laundry
nothing there’s an absolutely no mention
of the fact that every couple who’s been
together any amount of time will have to
spend a lot of time doing laundry
housework
raising children is that this just goes
unmentioned and this causes us real
difficulties because it sets up an
expectation that you know intelligent
sensitive soulful people don’t really
bother about these things and therefore
that there’s no particular emphasis on
making an accommodation a preparation
for some of the difficulties that might
come in this area so at some point in a
relationship a version of this happens
this kind of scenario happens not
exactly this but a version of this
happens which is that a couple who you
know very much committed to laugh and
you know disagree with their parents and
some of their more petty attitudes to
things like you know etc where
the salt and pepper should go and etc
they they will certainly have an
argument in the bathroom that goes a bit
like this one of the couples will say
what’s that towel doing there and the
other person goes I just I just have a
shower yeah but what’s it doing on the
floor and go yeah well I just threw it
on the floor because I got to go and
meet bill and you’re good no I know you
gotta meet bill what’s it doing on the
floor and and and the other one goes
well had you mean what’s it done the
floors just on the floor and suddenly
there’s a kind of new tone of impatience
basically because both partners think
that they’ve very clever and and they’re
very little petty little doesn’t argue
about petty things like towels on the
floor that again they associated with a
grandparent doesn’t mean you don’t you
know if your true romantic you don’t
worry about these things you know make
no accommodations you are too clever to
have this sort of argument and when two
people are convinced that they’re too
clever to have this sort of argument you
know the argument will be bitter and and
and so very often there is no
accommodation with this sort this aspect
of life you know think of poor Madame
Bovary in flow bears novel Madame Bovary
has been brought up in ideas of love
drawn from romantic fiction so she
believes that love is all about guys on
horseback and castles and walked through
the mists etc and then she gets married
to this quite nice but a pretty ordinary
regular kind of guy but on the whole
okay and suddenly she realizes that a
lot of her time has got to be spent
doing the laundry organising the milk
and the cheese and sitting down with her
husband while he’s doing the accounts
and she’s supposed to be organizing the
kind of domestic rota
in the evenings and he’s reading the
newspaper and she thinks that her life
has gone terribly wrong that it’s a
disaster what has happened she thought
that she was marrying for love and now
she’s ended up with this kind of
domestic situation and these doubts
unleash a series of processes in her
mind which will lead eventually to her
suicide and death that essentially the
belief that the practical side of life
has no place in a good love life is
central to Romanticism and a disaster
for our chances of love so towels more
on that in a minute the other thing the
other thing that the romantics very much
believe is the romantics believe that
you shouldn’t necessarily talk too much
to your lover and that too
King is often the sign of not really
understanding somebody so very
privileged space is given in romanticism
to that account that we sometimes get at
the beginning of relationships that two
people have understood one another
without needing to talk all the time so
people will say things like you know
it’s amazing you know we were there we
were by the waterfront we were chatting
and then you know sometimes we were just
quiet because we just understood we just
we just knew you know I would say one
thing it was amazing he knew you know
he’d been there before she understood
she it’s like we had traveled
immediately down the same path we don’t
need to explain ourselves in the way
that I had to in that horrible last
relationship in this one I just I could
be myself and we’re a bit we’re a bit
wordless and the romantics generally
believe that too much analysis too much
putting of words on top of feelings is a
bad thing a quintessential romantic
belief is that you destroy feelings and
emotions by thinking too much about them
I don’t if anybody in the audience feels
some people feel this that if you think
too much you break things that they’re
thinking too much is I should have
weeded those are people out but there
may a few people who have come here
nevertheless this is a disaster for a
philosopher like what hang on
nevertheless there are people radix I’m
being nasty but look we’ve all will have
that feeling sometimes that words can
can break things now and so in a way one
of the nicest stories of laughs that
romantics tell us is intuitive
understanding of one person by another
without the medium of words again over
the long term a catastrophe
short term charming long term
catastrophe one of the things that it
leads to is an outbreak of sulking
romanticism was responsible for a
worldwide enormous increase in the
prevalence of sulks now what what is a
sulk a sulk is a feeling of hurt with
another person a wound that the other
person has given you that you are not
going to explain to them for the simple
reason that they’re supposed to love you
and if they love you they’re supposed to
know so of course you could explain
what’s wrong with you but if you had to
explain that would be a proof they
didn’t love you because love is by its
nature wordless true love is wordless
and that’s why let’s say you coming back
from the party where that offensive
thing happened and you’re kind of silent
in the car deliberately you’re not going
to say what happened because you’re a
romantic and they should know and they
say maybe they’re making a few attempts
and they go look is anything wrong nope
and then to me you go up you know you go
up the stairs you get you go home you go
to your apartment
and they say you know come come in the
bedroom and you go no and you go to the
bathroom you bolt the door and they say
come on it’s rigours and they’re
knocking come on just tell me what it is
and you have and the reason is the
reason is that as a romantic you believe
that a true lover should be able to
intuit the contents of your soul through
the bathroom paneled or through the
surface of your body and into your
interior and they should know so why
would you ever bother telling them so
this is a disaster because unfortunately
even the most well-meaning people simply
cannot understand all of us they can
understand bits of us how we felt maybe
when we were humiliated by our father an
early age or how it felt to join a new
school at a certain point where some
things they can just get but a lot of
things particularly over the long term
just no one can get you cannot expect
the other person to be a mind reader
and yet romanticism places the ability
to mind-read precisely at the kernel of
its vision the core of its vision of
love deeply problematic
deeply problematic here’s another thing
that romanticism talks to us about it
talks to us about the way in which when
you really love somebody you love
everything about them of course you love
the amazing things about them but but
oddly and touchingly you quite love two
slightly imperfect things about them and
that’s why in the early days of love
there’s a lot of kind of tenderness and
excitement around the discovery of the
less than perfect sides of somebody that
I use that feed into love and that
intensify love maybe
your partner’s got a slight gap between
their two front teeth not a problem I
mean a problem for an orthodontist but
for you is charming it’s charming
maybe there’s that old pair of pajamas
that their mother gave them and they put
it on on a cold nights and it’s got bear
prints on it it doesn’t look that
glamorous it wouldn’t win any fashion
awards but it’s them and it’s theirs and
it’s incredibly sweet and you love them
all the more for it so in a way in the
early days of love the fragilities and
vulnerabilities of another person are
part of what makes that person so
loveable until you’re getting the hang
of this now until maybe about three
months in a version of the following
scenario happens so maybe you’ve been
out for a big night etc and it’s a
morning it’s dawn and you having some
breakfast and you’re having some cereal
maybe they picked out a kind of granola
Ridge sort of quite nutty kind of cereal
and then next to you and they’re eating
that cereal you eat eat your you can and
you you just turn to them and you’ve got
you a cow or something this just sounds
disgusting just shut your mouth or
something and you know especially
suddenly turns around because I had a
minute this is like the third thing that
you’re criticizing before in 24 hours I
thought you loved me and you go I do
love you but but you’re eating like it
was a bovine way I mean and they get
terribly offended and think that no
one’s ever told me that before you want
to go yeah cuz why would they I mean
your friend was not going to tell you
your parents are not gonna tell you and
your ex probably knew it but went off to
India so you know the point is no one’s
going to tell you and you sound like a
cow at which point
I wish point you’ve got a problem on
your hands because romanticism doesn’t
allow for this sort of situation it
suggests that love is the acceptance of
a whole being and therefore at one point
in the relationship one person is likely
say to another if you loved me
why do you criticize me so there’s added
criticism is here love is here they
should never be together and if they are
ever together it’s a sign that love has
failed this again it’s a disastrous
philosophy the idea that another person
could spend any time with us and not
spot a whole lot of things that are
problematic is really the height of
sentimentality of course there’s not I
mean are you perfect if you’re not
perfect how on earth do you expect
someone not to notice the imperfections
and not mind them but nevertheless
romantism tells us that no this has no
place look let’s look away from that
rather unhelpful philosophy to an
earlier vision of love this one
developed by the ancient Greeks which i
think is a lot more helpful the ancient
Greeks very focused on love as we are
but had a very different vision of what
love is they felt that love is
admiration for the perfect sides of
another human being for the virtues the
qualities the accomplishments in the
character and achievements of another
person there’s other stuff of course
there’s you know floors and things and
you may be generous towards them and you
may be forgiving of them but you don’t
love them the word love is reserved for
an admiration for what is virtuous and
accomplished in another person and for
the ancient Greeks the whole notion of
love is that love should be a process of
mutual education in which two people
under the auspices of love undertake to
educate one another to become better
versions of themselves and they do this
not to be cruel not as a way of bringing
each other down but because they have
the sincerest best interest of the other
at their heart and therefore love is a
process whereby a teacher and a pupil
are constantly rotating roles everyone
is the teacher and everyone is the pupil
at certain points and has lots of things
to take on board this is not a sign that
love has been abandoned it is the proof
that love is in action now this sounds
so weird in the modern age I mean if you
said
somebody said your partner I went to
listen to this guy at the Opera House
and he’s got some various ideas and he’s
written a book and on this basis I would
like to teach you certain things I would
like to deliver a short seminar short
but to the point seminar on your
character achievements in nature way of
eating um
this would be to be so weird I get it
like what you love me etc now why are we
such bad teachers you know a lot of
relationship arguments can essentially
be seen as failed teaching moments
there’s something you want to say and it
goes terribly terribly wrong on the
journey to your listener why does it go
so wrong why why does the lesson why
does the teaching lesson fail so badly
partly because we don’t think it’s
legitimate to teach so someone’s telling
you it’s not your job is not legitimate
you’ll be a bit panicked I like oh wow
I’m not supposed to do this how do I so
you’re not relaxed the other thing of
course what makes a good teacher is that
they’re calm is that they’re relaxed and
one of the best ways to be a calm
teacher is not to mind too much if your
lesson doesn’t really get through to the
other person so you know a great maths
teacher you know they’re calm in the
classroom because there’s not that much
at stake of course they want their you
know pupils to pick up a bit about
trigonometry whatever but if they don’t
and if they flunk their exams well
there’ll be a new lot coming next year
he doesn’t really matter there’s not
that much at stake the thing is that in
loves classroom we are much more tense
we are much more on edge and the reason
is that so much seems to depend on it
and the background of our thoughts is
the most terrifying specter as we’re
trying to teach and the terrifying
specter goes like this I think I’ve
married an idiot I think I’ve got to
spend the rest of my life with someone
who doesn’t understand very basic very
important things that matters so much to
me and this person is not listening and
because they’re not listening we’re
going to ramp up the pressure and the
tension and we’re going to start to be
rude and we’re going to start to
humiliate and we’re going to start to
swear and the terrible problem is that
no one has ever ever managed to teach
anyone anything by humiliating them by
the time you are humiliating your
partner in order to teach them something
forget it bye-bye the lessons over you
are never going to get through that way
as we know from HR departments in
offices if you
teach them on something it’s got to be
99% honey and a tiny tiny little
criticism at the very end you know I
love this I love that I love it
did you know that thing that there are
that maybe how you’ve got a chance of of
getting through but we don’t do this so
in love’s classroom we do not accept
that love should be a process of mutual
education we know so much about our
partners that no one else ever does
we’ve got a ringside seat on their
charming site and on their insanities in
a way that no one ever will but because
we think it’s a betrayal of love that
knowledge can’t be shared used and grown
with because we are so brittle and
defensive as students of this we simply
fail to accept that the other person if
somebody tries to give us a so-called
lecture we might even use that
pejorative term you know are you trying
to give me a lecture and you know
because Plato would say yeah I’m trying
to give you a lecture because I love you
because I love you I’m going to give you
a lecture and we hope tomorrow you’ll
give me a lecture and that’s the way it
works but the romantics are like oh no I
I’m not gonna stay with her she gives me
lectures all the time oh I must leave
her and let me legend and so what
happens when loves classroom has failed
well then the couple things get rather
brittle and rather than trying to teach
the couple descends into a cycle of
mutual nagging and shirking what is
nagging nagging is what happens on the
other side of an attempt to teach you’re
not gonna you no longer try gonna try
and teach you’re just going to insist
you’re going to force the person to
believe and to listen you’re going to
get very controlling and these are
ministerial and you’re going to insist
that they’re back at a certain time that
they do this thing and you don’t really
care whether you’re gonna charm your way
into their minds or not you just insist
that it’s done that way and meanwhile
nagging always has the counterpart in
shirking the shirking knows that tone
well I’m going to pick up the newspaper
go upstairs they’re not going to listen
so there’s a mutual deafness teaching
and learning has gone completely wrong
and that unfortunately is very often
what happens in relationships under the
aegis of Romanticism now we alter
despair where’s this going to go can we
rescue this nosedive of feelings yes we
can I think there’s lots of things to be
hopeful about sometimes people say to me
things like well you know are you not
really hopeful about love are you saying
that like we should just reduce our
expectations no no we shouldn’t reduce
our expectations I really believe that
we should go into relationships with
very high expectations the problem is
that romanticism defined very rightly
certain high expectations but then gave
us no way of reaching those expectations
securely it’s like it set the bar but
then gave us no way of exceeding to that
bar reliably so the task before us I
think is to build the steps to get to
the high place that we’ve accorded to
love not not to necessarily bring down
love but to try and find a way and as
Ann says one of the one of the
characters in the book at some point
says you know it takes them a long time
to realize this but they do realize that
ultimately love is not just something
that you feel it is ultimately a skill
that needs to be learnt and it sounds
very odd because we’re so we’re so in
love with the notion of the intuitive
relationship in which everything just
comes sort of by nature and if it
doesn’t come by nature then it is wrong
and it’s so contrary to the way we do
other things you know we are an
incredibly procedural society that
believes that there are rules and
techniques and tricks and ways of making
things happen but somehow in the area of
love we insist stubbornly on intuition
and it sounds so odd if you compare it
with other things I mean imagine if I
said to you know I’m going to fly a
triple 7 down to Melbourne tomorrow I’m
going to land it by intuition I’m going
to perform a piece of brain surgery by
intuition that’s crazy
nevertheless in the area of love we’re
ready to embark on you know 50 year
marriages by intuition just hoping it’s
all going to go well so what are some of
these skills that we might need to
develop but let me give you just a few
and I throw these out and they’ve course
be so many more but I think one of the
things that can help and it sounds
rather odd but one of things that can
really help is to learn to see your
partner as a small child probably
between the ages of two to three and a
half basically to imagine that your
partner is of roughly that age now the
reason I say this is that all of us
nowadays are really pretty good around
two to three and a half year olds so
let’s imagine you’ve got one of those
things at home and you’ve you’re cooking
at dinner and I don’t know you’ve made
some schnitzel potatoes broccoli and you
you give the kid the dinner and it’s
just good throws the whole dinner on the
rocket
like this and now you know you don’t hit
the child you know I’ve had such a hard
day at work and now this are you trying
to bring me down are you trying to crush
my character
you got all no maybe you’ve got a sword
too so you must be quite tired or maybe
it’s that jealousy with your sibling it
is getting to you it’s hard to share
your toys that we’ve come up with very
gentle explanations of why a piece of
behavior is appeared on the horizon that
seems pretty mean we don’t necessarily
believe that people of that age are mean
we simply feel that they’re in some ways
hurting anxious damaged in some way and
we want to help them we’re generous our
adult love affairs do not find us in
that kind of mood I mean there we’re
constantly going you try to bring me
down you’re trying to humiliate me you
haven’t given me the attention I need
very much take everything extremely
personally you know part of the problem
is that we don’t look like children I
mean this is really unhelpful like if
you know one of the great things about
about children’s that they look like
children so you can’t just know that
they are a child but if you look at me
some alone that you know you think oh
this guy’s an adult he sort of looks
like an adult so it’s quite
counterintuitive to go like many parts
of this character are about two and a
half years old it just you can’t really
believe it but the thing is that you
sort of have to believe it I mean that
you know the problem with psychological
wounds and distortions is that you can’t
see them I mean is literally a sort of
simple is that you can’t see them if
I’ve got a broken arm right everyone can
see that I got a broken arm and you
start to go okay the guys like messed up
his speech because he’s got a bit of a
broken arm he must be in pain and when
he’s gonna walk through the door we’ll
hold the door open we’ll make some
special accommodation because we know
he’s not all that well in some way and
it’s just obvious he’s got a problem
the thing is that all of us are kind of
like that broken inside in various key
ways but there’s no easy way of
signaling it right we can’t signal that
we’ve got these wounds and breakages etc
and so our partners that necessarily
give us the accommodation that they
would and that’s why it’s so important
to realise that of course wandering
through the world everybody is very
severely broken and in need of a lot of
forgiveness and generally on the whole
not mean just frightened most people are
very very scared and that most appalling
pieces have behaved
normally have fear at the heart of them
rather than evil the other thing that’s
quite key I I think it is a real
achievement of love is to learn to see
your partner you know most of us after a
while start to see our partners as
idiots they just are a bit of an idiot
and just like oh god an idiot thing has
happened again with a with our partner
now this is why this is why part of the
reason why comedy and humor is so
important in a relationship you have to
find a way to access the comedic part of
all of you now the interesting thing
about comedy is that in comedy many
comic heroes are total idiots I mean if
you think of someone like David Brent or
Larry David from Kirby Reserve these
guys are just total total idiots but
when we’re watching the shows we kind of
do this amazing thing which is we both
know there it is but we kind of like
them we do this amazing metamorphosis we
start to see them as lovable idiots kind
of lovable idiots and that is such a
piece of ethical imagination to turn
someone from an idiot to a lovable idiot
in your imagination is a major piece of
maturity and if we’re able to achieve
that even sometimes in love we will have
learned very much how to temper our more
punitive interpretations of who it is
that we’ve got together with you know
the other thing that we need of course
is to really reckon with our habit of
getting into crushes it was very
charming of a certain point how easily
we’ve developed crushes on people and
you know for a time it was thrilling and
you know it really kept us going in
through certain years but like we really
have to get over the crush thing because
the thing is you don’t need to know
someone at all well to know even though
they look completely charming and it was
lovely to see them in the airline queue
or the supermarket briefly etc and
that’s why you got a little tetchy when
you’ve got home just because they were
so lingered in your imagination there
was kind of an angel walking around the
aisles of the supermarket or at the
airport and now you’ve had to go home
nah sadly but there was this angel we’ve
got to get over it
and the reason we can get over it is by
an absolute piece of scientific
certainty which is that there are no
angels they’re only human beings and
every human being wandering the earth
is very very problematic from close up
you don’t know how this person is
disturbed and would drive you mad but
you know you have to know and take
onboard that they would they just would
if you knew them better
despite their charms and honestly their
you know ankles look lovely and their
convert that little bit of conversation
that you had at the conference was just
very promising but the point is deep
down they will cause you immense trouble
because not they’re evil they’re human
and everybody does this so in a way you
know we’re so obsessed nowadays partly
because of Technology with the idea of
finding the perfect person the right
person we’re all the time swiping left
and right in a search for that right
person that you know the truth is there
is no such character everybody is going
to be wrong in substantial areas there
is no such thing
compatibility ultimately is an
achievement of love it isn’t an cart and
shouldn’t be its precondition and
therefore the notion that we can only
really get together with somebody when
we have found somebody who matches us
entirely the person who is right isn’t
the person who agrees and condones every
aspect of our character it’s somebody
who negotiates the differences between
two people in a particular way with a
particular generosity and deRossett
sometimes humor this is so the so-called
right person but then not that they are
in some ways magical ways perfect look
the other thing let’s mention it just
very quickly around sex you know we live
in an age of very high expectations
around sex romanticism has prepared us
for very high things and well the whole
subjects a little bit of a veil of Tears
to be honest there are really two things
that we want in this area and they run
in completely opposite directions all of
us want safety we want to be really safe
and loyal with somebody and loyalty
brings with it safety so we really want
safety and the other thing we really
really want is excitement and the to
just point in completely different
directions
and but you know periodically and it
happens on a 20-year basis people come
along ago I found a solution to this
kind of like safety excitement thing and
you going what is it so in the 60 people
telling us it’s called free love so
basically the deal is that you get a bit
of both
you get like safety in one corner and
you get like excitement too and it’s
really great and nowadays we’re deep in
the age of polyamory so a lot of people
do like this thing I’ve heard it’s
called polyamory and it’s great it gives
you everything and you know jealousy is
just these things dreamt up by
capitalism and we just you know head out
there
well there’s gentleman it just it just
is not true these two things are deeply
incompatible I’m not going to go into
too much why we can discuss that later
if you like but essentially you really
have to make a choice between varieties
of suffering well what kind of suffering
what kind of suffering do you want to go
for like do you want to go for you know
and a house of what kind of upside is
more important to you do you want to go
for like the safety loyalty thing which
is terrific you know fantastic coziness
really sweet but you know you will be
missing out and sometimes in the suburbs
on a Saturday night you’ll be like oh
wow you know what’s going on in the bars
and they’re kind of they’re kind of
swinging places of the city and it’s not
for you so you’ve made your choice and
then of course of course there’s the
other choice which is excitement which
is terribly thrilling and new people all
the time and the first time you undress
them and it’s all thrilling thrilling
but of course it’s utter chaos your
life’s full of recriminations full of
jealousy full of confusion the children
are in a mess but you know there’s the
excitement so really the choice before
us is what variety of suffering do you
want to go for do you want to go for the
chaos pit or the kind of boredom insult
if occation but which one is like a
choice and you know it’s funny it’s good
you’re laughing because I I recently
went
I recently went to the United States and
did a book tour and it wasn’t happen so
much on the east coast which is like
more closer to a kind of European
sensibility but by the time I got to
California by the time I was talking
about this there was literally a stunned
silence in the room and like what what
which is saying like this you can’t make
things perfect what we live in we live
in LA
like what but of course I think you know
one of the great contributions you know
Britain is not responsible for very much
that some totally perfect for one of its
greatest exports one of the greatest
British exports is melancholy melancholy
is a really kind of useful emotion
sometimes because it’s not it’s not fury
it’s not it’s not rage it’s like yeah
like you know life’s imperfect but I’m
dealing with it I’m coping with it I’m
you know I’ve got Morrissey I’ve got
back I’m handling it it’s under control
and and I think this is an area yeah
this is an area where we may we may want
to have a course to that peculiar
British gift to humanity um look you
know am I saying that we should always
stick with people you know I you know
are we in danger of saying that in that
case anyone is worth sticking with I
don’t want to say that in many ways you
know marriage is a pretty nasty thing to
do to somebody that you claim to love
it’s pretty it’s putting them through
some very pretty difficult – stresses
but you know and then undoubtedly
sometimes people that you should leave
some relationships which should be
broken up um how can you tell how do you
know whether you should leave somebody
and you know I think there’s almost got
a simple rule of thumb I think you know
if you can look at your life honestly
survey it’s good and bad sides and if
you can honestly pinpoint all the things
that are making you profoundly unhappy
to your partner if you look around you
think okay yeah all the things that are
really bringing me down it’s them
it really is them it’s them leave if you
if you really can feel that just leave
right then you should leave but if you
honestly take an audit of your sources
of unhappiness and many causes for which
they’re you know reverberating through
your soul and you look at your partner
you go I’m not sure if I can fully blame
them for everything
then stay stay because what what you may
what you may have encountered is some of
the unhappiness of existence in the
company of another person rather than
because of another person so easy to
merge the two
I mean Great Britain Britain has done
exactly this with its marriage to the
European Union it very much believed
that all of its unhappiness could be
pinpointed to this thing getting rid of
it it would be happy and now it’s
discovering a lesson that many people in
relationships have also discovered
painful when it when it when it’s too
should we even bother with marriage my
novel is about marriage in a way it’s a
very much a novel focusing on long-term
relationship so that with a marriage is
there any point to it anymore you know
many articles know me about one a week
in a major broadsheet newspaper it’s
always about his marriage still in is it
still relevant and of course it doesn’t
really make sense from all sorts of
points of view like if you look a
sugarcoat a sober look at marriage it’s
completely insane it’s like how I’m
going to give half of all my belongings
and it is still nowadays people don’t
invest heavily in lawyers to make things
easy we kind of jump headlong into
marriage and we still do it despite all
the reasons why we might not so why do
we do this and is it just a kind of
insanity well I don’t think so I think
that the very fact that we make
ourselves go through marriage and we
invite all our friends we have a huge
wedding so it would be so embarrassing
if you have to call them all up go you
know what you know that TV you bought me
really sorry it’s only been three months
but I’m quitting right why do we why do
we publicly betroth ourselves to another
person because I think I’m mature part
of us knows that we benefit from the
cage of marriage it is a cage but we put
ourselves in it we lock ourselves and we
throw away the key ourselves not because
we’re crazy but because we realize that
there are sides of our character that
really can only develop in an
environment in which neither of us can
quit the room immediately but actually
the ability to run away so tempting
though it is is not always a benefit to
the things that we’ve got to work
through so we willingly engage ourselves
because we realize that there is some
kind of piece of maturity some piece of
growing up that is going to happen when
we are locked together in a situation
which we can’t immediately accept at a
huge cost and huge embarrassment Baris
matteri important we willingly entering
into a situation which it will be deeply
embarrassing to leave we’re not simply
crazy we’re aware of the debt that
maturity owes to being slightly locked
into a situation so look I do believe
that it is possible to have long term
relationships I just think we need to
run through a kind of checklist when are
we ready for love when are we ready to
really embark on this long term business
of love I think you’re ready to really
go for it in love when you finally and
conclusively accept that you really are
crazy and you have really quite a good
handle on your craziness and not least
you have a really good handle on your
partner’s craziness and you have an
absolute awareness that anyone you meet
even the most charming person on a train
is going to be very imperfect cause
that’s human nature when you’re ready to
do the laundry when you’re ready to
discuss towels ad infinitum
when you’re ready not merely to insist
that others will guess what’s in your
heart
but you may even have to use words to
spell it out very very patiently over
long periods and you’re ready that and
you’re ready to believe that all of this
with a dose of humor belongs to a
sincere relationship then ladies and
gentleman I think you are ready for love
and I would commend you to move forward
on it that’s all from me we’ve got a bit
thank you so there are some mics and to
do to approach them with a question a
confession a vulnerability
we’re among friends yes brave brave lady
here number two thank you very much my
question is about the tools that you
spoke all the craziness quotient you
talked about that we all should be
adopting and acknowledging is there a
system that you think you could be
developing just like we have for job
interviews and those sorts of things and
fir quite sophisticated dating sites
that aren’t just related to how big
certain bits are but about the
compatibility because in as you know as
you referenced earlier time gone by we
had arranged marriages we had elders so
with the absence of that system is there
a new portal and you drop down young you
well that you have in mind you know it
is really because in a way Silicon
Valley is very romantic as a kind of
institution and very much believes in
helping us to find the right person and
if you look at most of the technological
tools that have appeared in the last 15
years an enormous number are designed to
increase on choices and to try and
direct us towards this person called the
right person and I try to hint that in a
sense that’s useful and in a sense it’s
unhelpful because this emphasis on
rightness and this notion that just with
a superior piece of technology and
algorithm we will get to a person with
whom there will be no friction sets us
up rather dangerously for the reality of
love which is that everybody is a
different person we we’ve all come from
a womb let’s remember we’ve all come
from a womb in which we didn’t have to
speak in which our needs were met as it
were just automatically through an
umbilical cord and it takes a good long
time good fifty years or so before we
realize that we have actually left that
environment and that we and and that no
one can fully understand us that we’re
you know if you’re lonely with say 40
percent of your life only you’re doing
really well but I mean the idea that
you’re not going to be lonely is very
misguided and therefore I would be wary
of utopian experiment
with matching and constant attempts to
match what we really need is you know
apps and bits of technology that teach
us patience that teaches resourcefulness
in a resourceful mnestheus forgiveness
that teaches humor to the to date um
that hasn’t happened at all there are no
apt euros interesting I was invited to a
Google conference the other day in in
the UK and Eric Schmidt that the
chairman of Google was talking about
what he what Google was planning in the
next of 15 years and it was like putting
people on Mars and curing cancer and
like you know x-ray vision and all sorts
of things amazing things and then
somebody in the audience says you know
mr. Schmidt is there anything that you
think Google can’t do like things that
are beyond technology and he laughed and
he went well we’re not exactly about to
invent an app to teach people to be more
forgiving and he laughed and anyway I as
though like what a Man Thing
so then fortunately I I sidled up to him
at the reception afterwards and said mr.
Schmidt you’re curing cancer but you
think it’s impossible to create a piece
of technology which will assist us in
the task of being more forgiving i
profoundly disagree with you and I don’t
get a kind of conversation but I think
that look to some extent my book is a
piece of technology a very old fashioned
glued together doesn’t move or sing or
light up but is essentially a tool a
piece of technology I read a book III
don’t like entertainment I don’t like
entertaining people for the sake of it I
am a teacher and I’ve written this novel
it’s not boring really well it’s nothing
happens in it really but but but but
really it’s following two people in
their attempt they go from being
romantics who believe that love is just
a feeling just slowly slowly slowly they
realize they’ve got they’re going to
break up and they’re going to create a
disaster in their lives unless they
learn some lessons of love and the novel
is you know T taking you through that
journey it’s an attempt to teach through
the medium of a novel and I think that
we need that sort of intervention into
our lives and and very kindly mentioned
a school of life which is opening the
school of life is dedicated to trying to
skill people up in this area
it sounds so unromantic
and I apologize for it sounding so
unromantic if you said I’ve just come
back from a class in which I’ve learned
how to interpret the moods of my partner
think oh my god that sounds a horrible
really you went to that poor you and of
course the old thing is when people go
you know I’m seeing a therapist and
forgoes whole no poor poor you the
relation are we seeing a marriage
therapist oh my god well it’s clearly
about to be over
what’s of course there is no sure a sign
that a relationship is on safe ground
than that a couple has taken the step to
try and examine it logically so anyway
I’m rambling but I hope that in some way
hi um I just wanted to know what are
your thoughts on the search for love
through things like tinder yes okay
let’s go back to that I think I think
that tinder again excites us because it
makes the choosing of people it places
the emphasis on the story of love at a
very particular moment which is the
moment of choice and it’s not surprising
because our culture is so obsessed most
love stories are not love stories
they’re the stories of two people
finding each other
overcoming certain obstacles and getting
together it then ends a story then ends
so I don’t have a problem with tinder
I’m sure it’s fun the thing is if you
have a bit of a high profile and you’re
married sadly you can’t go on tinder so
I have no idea and no idea about tinder
but but it places the evidence in the
wrong place which is it leads to an
impatient search you’re throwing a lot
of human beings away
look III as a secular Jew I love I love
the Christian idea that once you know
about love you could love anyone and and
Christianity really emphasizes this
point that you could love anyone you
could love a leper you could love
someone with leprosy so imagine Twitter
breaks down and goes actually stop this
choice you’re going to be choosing you a
leper
please love them but like all no I’m
gonna love a leper comes guy I can’t
stripe you try to swipe and the thing
doesn’t swipe you’ve got you’re stuck
with a leper right
wouldn’t necessarily be bad it would
teach us a lot of things and I think
that the more you know about love the
more you know about love the less
important it is who you’re loving I
don’t mean that you haven’t noticed but
you’re loving a particular person but
you realize that everyone and that the
act of loving anyone is going to require
many of the same resources and I think
that our technological tinder ish age
has deeply forgotten that lesson it is
the lesson of art you know if you think
of one of the novels of Dostoevsky but a
constant attempt to take us behind the
scenes of people who look pretty
disgusting at first swipe like you would
have got our Raskolnikov lovely match
like were murderer murderer Napoleonic
visionary and egomania you wouldn’t have
you would have gone on a date right but
but but just oh yes he takes you behind
the scenes and goes you know behind this
profile is a human and discovers the
humanity behind the profile and I worry
that our age is getting ever less adept
at that maneuver but for me that
and is there a particular model for your
notion of revealing your insanities to a
prospective partner or is that was that
something that you expect would just
emerge naturally in conversation no III
think it’s look I think it’s very
important to do it at a time when your
insanity has not wounded the other
person but the reason why most of us are
so unforgiving to the flaws of others is
because we encounter those flaws at
moments when they’ve damaged us so it’s
like look I know about your father and
how horrible he was or your mother and
how you know she didn’t love you enough
but I frankly I don’t care because right
now you’ve ruined my weekend so like I’m
not really in a mood to listen to that
stuff it’s like I don’t care that you
were once a small child who was you know
tenderer because actually frankly you
just destroyed my relationship with my
best friend out of some weird misguided
feeling of jealousy and I don’t know
where it comes from but I don’t care so
in other words you are not going to be
sympathetic when it’s damaged you so the
time to do it is when the other person
feels relaxed tender and you need to
find some strategy you know the art of
timing most of the time we are so
because there’s not a teaching culture
within relationships we feel that we’ve
got to get our lesson out at the very
moment when we feel it it’s like the
romantics are all about authenticity so
it’s like you know it’s all this cult
but being authentic to your feelings
you’ve got to be true to your feelings
that’s the you know I mean really you
really want to be true to all your
feelings oh that’s going to be trouble
like I think you’re looking a little
ugly today oh I just had to express that
because I’m a romantic
you know your your thighs are looking a
little fat but I’m a romantic so I had
to tell you jaja Caruso told me to tell
you that your thighs are a little fat so
that’s really I kind of run so do it
yeah do it when they’re calm and do it
strategically and trying not to hurt
somebody with your insanity you’ll find
a better result some number 4 hi oh god
that’s that sorry I just wanted to ask
this is a bit of an uncomfortable
question but money um is it well yeah I
got to start again my I’m under strict
instruction I’m going to go to art
school next year and I’m under strict
instruction to not fall in love with
another person who wants to become an
artist because I will end up being poor
and sad and lonely um and I just wanted
to ask the question if practical things
such as money houses towels whatever can
actually really break up a relationship
or if those a negotiable things
okay that’s such a good question because
it it really sits on top of this
romantic classical divide if you like in
it in the interview of love the last
writer to talk head-on about love and
money is Jane Austen in European fiction
and her novels are obsessed with money
not to the detriment of everything else
but they take a really fascinating look
I mean you know the way it works with
with Jane Austen novels very often
you’ll be told that such a character was
worth 20 pounds a year and you furiously
look back at the news Awards at 20
pounds like what does that mean that
doesn’t sound out very much and then
someone’s like worth for 40 pounds and
they’ve got an annuity and they got it
so like you’re totally told the
financial status of all the characters
and this can sound quite weird because
we are romantics and romantics believe
as you correctly suggest that love love
and money have nothing to do with one
another the true love has absolutely
nothing to do with money that love is a
feeling and money’s as horrible dirty
thing and Jane Austen is the last person
to have an intelligent same view of
money because she doesn’t say they’re
all characters in her novels in
Mansfield Park there are these
characters whose name I now forget I
forget her name
one there’s one couple that gets
together primarily for money because
they’re financially interested in only
financially interested and they have a
terrible life and but Fanny Price the
heroine has got she’s a little bit
interested in money in other words she
sensibly knows that money has got things
to contribute to a good relationship and
she doesn’t see this as a sign that
she’s an evil person she simply sees it
as a practical recognition of what money
can do and what practical sides of life
do to emotions and you know I would
recommend a Jane Austen view of your
dilemmas in art school in other words
it’s not that you’re a bad person that
you think of it and frankly yes I mean
you know there are plenty of extremely
nice people who are making a miserable
dry brittle living in the financial
sector who would love to infuse their
soul with a more artistic temperament
yeah I have a very simple question to
say just to give my question actually is
how do I bring romantism in my marriage
after being married 37 years today right
and gotten graduations our marriage
actually was an arranged marriage
according to our culture our parents
chose each other for us and we blindly
accepted it even though we had our own
personal views but we said yes because
our parents said he’s stable he has his
own business he will keep you safe and
secure money money being the issue yes
well look I think that some of the thing
that happens is that when you love
somebody you want to lay claim to them
you want to own them you want to possess
them but it’s a great extent I think we
don’t appreciate things or people that
we possess we don’t appreciate what we
have and I think that you know the
question that you’re asking is not
really about romanticism it’s about
appreciation and I think it holds true
not just for relationships but for
everything you know Marcel Proust was
once asked by a newspapers were doing
silly questionnaires even then and he
was asked by a newspaper how how he
would feel if he heard that a meteorite
was heading for the earth and would soon
destroy civilization just like 1919 and
he said that it would be a marvelous
thing because suddenly everything in
life would be so full of meaning Beauty
charm he would rush to go to museums
that he hadn’t been to he would
undertake journeys he would fall in love
he would appreciate his friends all of
these things and that what and he said
rather pointedly the thing that prevents
us from noticing all of these things is
the feeling that it’s forever and that
we already possess them when in fact all
of us might die this evening he says he
was a hypochondriac but a good one
but I think we can take a little lesson
from preusse book imagine you and your
husband might die this evening that’s
the single most remember this might be
your last evening that’s what you should
we’ve got we’ve got about 14 seconds for
the last question so this last question
to us tonight but also my question
relates to what you spoke to spoke about
in the beginning which is you said we’re
in the age of it romanticism right now
what what do you think has caused the
persistence of the age of Romanticism
like for centuries yeah what do you
think the next evolution is for love and
persistent relationships
look I don’t want to sound like one of
those guys but to some extent it is to
do with the commercial system we live
within it’s so much easier when you’re
trying to sell someone toothpaste
to sell it with that initial heady
ecstatic moment of love there’s a huge
interest in talking about that it’s look
it’s deeply exciting the moment two
people get together is one of the most
exciting things in the world so no
wonder we keep scratching that bit of
human nature it’s no surprise if I was
making a Hollywood movie and I was
spending a hundred million pounds and
the choice was between you know the you
know a long-term relationship or that
heady moment you know you care for the
heady moment I mean the only filmmaker
who’s ever made a sensible film in the
last of 10 years about marriage is
Richard Linklater with his beautiful
film before midnight which is about the
only adult description of love and it
was a very small grossing movie but
please go and see it if you can because
it’s one of the great films but it you
know we’re surrounded by people who have
a lot of interest in exciting us around
the early moments of love but the fight
back begins and it begins here and it
begins with a novel I’ve written ahead
and and with you listening so I
encourage all of you to come and see me
afterwards get your book sight and to
begin a new way of approaching love not
in a cold way not with cynicism or with
pessimism but with a healthy belief that
the best way to get our relationships to
go well is to overcome certain of our romantic illusions thank you so much