finding love essay

The Concept of True Love Definition Essay

Introduction, understanding the unrealistic notion of true love, the concept of love itself is an illusion, works cited.

The concept of true love is based on the belief that to truly love someone you have to accept them for who they are (including their shortcoming and faults), put their happiness above your own (even if your heart is broken in the process) and that you will always love them even if they are not by your side.

In essence it is a self-sacrificing act wherein a person puts another person’s happiness and well-being above their own. For example in the poem “To my Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet she compares her love for her spouse as “more than whole mines of gold or all the riches that the East doth hold” (Bradstreet, 1). While such an example is archaic it does present itself as an excellent example of the value of true love for other people.

What must be understood though is that in recent years the concept of true has been adopted by popular culture as a needed facet in a person’s life. Various romantic comedies produced by Hollywood all portray characters that at one point or another exhibit tendencies akin to the realization that their life is incomplete without true love and that they should seek it out in the form of female or male character that has been provided as an embodiment of what true love should be.

Due to the influences of popular culture on modern day society this has resulted in more people believing in the concept of true love and actively seeking it out as a result. The inherent problem with this is that true love is an ideal that can be considered the embodiment of every single positive thing that can happen actually happening. In that a person that fits your idea of the perfect partner suddenly appears, that events lead the two of you to be together and that the end result is a classic happily ever after ending.

Unfortunately it must be noted that the concept of the “ideal” is based on the best possible action, event and circumstance actually happening. The fact remains that the real world, unlike in the movies, does not revolve around fortuitous circumstances and the supposed ideal is nothing more than a fanciful notion created by the movie industry.

For example in the story “Rose for Emily” it can be seen that the main character, Emily Grierson, goes to such lengths of retaining love that she murders Homer Barron in order to keep him by her side (Faulkner, 1). The reason behind this action is simple, by the time Homer Barron came into her life she couldn’t experience true love as we know it in the movies due to the effect of reality.

Due to this she creates the illusion of love which she wraps around herself. While most people don’t go to the lengths Emily had done it must be noted that they often follow the same pattern of developing the illusion of true love and retaining its idea. Since the concept of finding true love revolves around finding the ideal partner and that the ideal partner is nothing more than a fanciful creation it can be said that the reality of true love does not exist since it revolves around a fictitious notion and principle.

In the story of Araby readers are introduced to the concept of an unrealistic idea of the embodiment of love wherein the narrator (in the form of a young boy) falls in apparent rapture at the sight of Mangan’s sister. Though she is never mentioned by name the line “I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: ‘O love! O love!’ many times”, shows that the boy indeed developed substantial feelings for her (Joyce, 1).

It fact it is suggested numerous times in the story that the boy thinks that what he feels is true love and this is exemplified by his action of offering to buy the girl some souvenir from the Araby fair. Yet once he gets there he encounters a full grown woman at a stand idly chatting with men on various nonsensical topics.

It is then that he comes to the realization that he had crafted for himself a false ideal and that what lay before him was an example of what he could gain in the future. It must be noted that in essence this particular encounter shows what happens when an “ideal” meets reality in that the boy had been so presumptuous in crafting an “ideal” for himself that he neglected to take into account the possibility of better things in the future.

The line “I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger” is an indication of the point in the story when the boy comes to the realization that his ideal was false and that he only though that way because of his isolated world (Joyce, 1).

The story itself could be considered a microcosm of reality with Mangan’s sister acting as the concept of true love. The isolated nature of the idea of love developed by the boy in the story could be compared to the propagated concept of true love in movie industry wherein concepts related to the ideal partner as exemplified by various movies are in effect false when compared to the realities people face.

All too often people think of a person as their true love in an isolated fashion, conceptualizing in them in a world devoid of the interference of reality wherein their every move is considered lovely and perfect.

While such a concept is seen in numerous films it can be seen though that this particular point of view is usually false since when the outside world of reality is introduced people tend to see their “ideals” for what they really are and as a result their behaviors towards such loves usually change.

In essence it can be boiled down to true love being a fantasy created through the isolation of an individual from reality and as such can never be truly attained since once reality is introduced the fantasies diminish resulting in reality taking over banishing the illusion and subjecting people to the harsh truths that they neglected to see.

In the story bitch by Roald Dahl readers are introduced to the notion that passion incited through the creation of a simple chemical compound. This notion is actually symbolic of an ongoing thought that feelings of love are nothing more than illusion created by chemicals and hormones in the body that induce such feelings in order to propagate the species.

In fact various studies have do indeed show that love is a chemical reaction in the brain and as such if properly triggered through an outside source it can be assumed that this can in effect create the same feelings of love.

In fact the poem “Love is not all” by Edna St Vinven Millay says its best when she states that “Love is not all, is not meat or drink nor slumber nor roof against the rain”; from this it can be said that love is immaterial, nothing more than an illusion created by man (Millay, 1). For example in the story it can be seen that once males are affected by the chemical they all of sudden give into to primal urgings for procreation and don’t remember their actions afterwards (Dahl, 1).

Such an effect is suggestive of the fact that in essence people only consider love as love when there is a thought that tries to explain it. The loss of memory of events in the story is symbolic of the loss of thought and as a result the loss of the ability to associate a particular action with love.

In effect the story suggests that love itself is nothing more than a chemical reaction and that as logical individuals we try to justify it through other means that what it actually is. If this is so, the concept of true love itself is again proven to be nothing more than an illusion since it can be considered nothing more than a chemical and hormonal reaction rather than originating from some arbitrary and yet to be defined origin.

Faulkner, William. “Rose for Emily”.

Dahl, Roald. “Bitch”- Switch bitch”.

Joyce, James.”Araby”.

Bradstreet, Anne.“To My Dear and Loving Husband”

Millay, Edna.“Love Is Not All”

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, September 20). The Concept of True Love. https://ivypanda.com/essays/true-love/

"The Concept of True Love." IvyPanda , 20 Sept. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/true-love/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'The Concept of True Love'. 20 September.

IvyPanda . 2018. "The Concept of True Love." September 20, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/true-love/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Concept of True Love." September 20, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/true-love/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Concept of True Love." September 20, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/true-love/.

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Essay on Love for Students and Children

500+ words essay on love.

Love is the most significant thing in human’s life. Each science and every single literature masterwork will tell you about it. Humans are also social animals. We lived for centuries with this way of life, we were depended on one another to tell us how our clothes fit us, how our body is whether healthy or emaciated. All these we get the honest opinions of those who love us, those who care for us and makes our happiness paramount.

What is Love?

Love is a set of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs with strong feelings of affection. So, for example, a person might say he or she loves his or her dog, loves freedom, or loves God. The concept of love may become an unimaginable thing and also it may happen to each person in a particular way.

Love has a variety of feelings, emotions, and attitude. For someone love is more than just being interested physically in another one, rather it is an emotional attachment. We can say love is more of a feeling that a person feels for another person. Therefore, the basic meaning of love is to feel more than liking towards someone.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Need of Love

We know that the desire to love and care for others is a hard-wired and deep-hearted because the fulfillment of this wish increases the happiness level. Expressing love for others benefits not just the recipient of affection, but also the person who delivers it. The need to be loved can be considered as one of our most basic and fundamental needs.

One of the forms that this need can take is contact comfort. It is the desire to be held and touched. So there are many experiments showing that babies who are not having contact comfort, especially during the first six months, grow up to be psychologically damaged.

Significance of Love

Love is as critical for the mind and body of a human being as oxygen. Therefore, the more connected you are, the healthier you will be physically as well as emotionally. It is also true that the less love you have, the level of depression will be more in your life. So, we can say that love is probably the best antidepressant.

It is also a fact that the most depressed people don’t love themselves and they do not feel loved by others. They also become self-focused and hence making themselves less attractive to others.

Society and Love

It is a scientific fact that society functions better when there is a certain sense of community. Compassion and love are the glue for society. Hence without it, there is no feeling of togetherness for further evolution and progress. Love , compassion, trust and caring we can say that these are the building blocks of relationships and society.

Relationship and Love

A relationship is comprised of many things such as friendship , sexual attraction , intellectual compatibility, and finally love. Love is the binding element that keeps a relationship strong and solid. But how do you know if you are in love in true sense? Here are some symptoms that the emotion you are feeling is healthy, life-enhancing love.

Love is the Greatest Wealth in Life

Love is the greatest wealth in life because we buy things we love for our happiness. For example, we build our dream house and purchase a favorite car to attract love. Being loved in a remote environment is a better experience than been hated even in the most advanced environment.

Love or Money

Love should be given more importance than money as love is always everlasting. Money is important to live, but having a true companion you can always trust should come before that. If you love each other, you will both work hard to help each other live an amazing life together.

Love has been a vital reason we do most things in our life. Before we could know ourselves, we got showered by it from our close relatives like mothers , fathers , siblings, etc. Thus love is a unique gift for shaping us and our life. Therefore, we can say that love is a basic need of life. It plays a vital role in our life, society, and relation. It gives us energy and motivation in a difficult time. Finally, we can say that it is greater than any other thing in life.

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Essays About Love: 20 Intriguing Ideas for Students

Love can make a fascinating essay topic, but sometimes finding the perfect topic idea is challenging. Here are 20 of the best essays about love.

Writers have often explored the subject of love and what it means throughout history. In his book Essays in Love , Alain de Botton creates an in-depth essay on what love looks like, exploring a fictional couple’s relationship while highlighting many facts about love. This book shows how much there is to say about love as it beautifully merges non-fiction with fiction work.

The New York Times  published an entire column dedicated to essays on modern love, and many prize-winning reporters often contribute to the collection. With so many published works available, the subject of love has much to be explored.

If you are going to write an essay about love and its effects, you will need a winning topic idea. Here are the top 20 topic ideas for essays about love. These topics will give you plenty to think about and explore as you take a stab at the subject that has stumped philosophers, writers, and poets since the dawn of time.

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

1. Outline the Definition of Love

2. describe your favorite love story, 3. what true love looks like, 4. discuss how human beings are hard-wired for love, 5. explore the different types of love, 6. determine the true meaning of love, 7. discuss the power of love, 8. do soul mates exist, 9. determine if all relationships should experience a break-up, 10. does love at first sight exist, 11. explore love between parents and children, 12. discuss the disadvantages of love, 13. ask if love is blind, 14. discuss the chemical changes that love causes, 15. outline the ethics of love, 16. the inevitability of heartbreak, 17. the role of love in a particular genre of literature, 18. is love freeing or oppressing, 19. does love make people do foolish things, 20. explore the theme of love from your favorite book or movie.

Defining love may not be as easy as you think. While it seems simple, love is an abstract concept with multiple potential meanings. Exploring these meanings and then creating your own definition of love can make an engaging essay topic.

To do this, first, consider the various conventional definitions of love. Then, compare and contrast them until you come up with your own definition of love.

One essay about love you could tackle is describing and analyzing a favorite love story. This story could be from a fiction tale or real life. It could even be your love story.

As you analyze and explain the love story, talk about the highs and lows of love. Showcase the hard and great parts of this love story, then end the essay by talking about what real love looks like (outside the flowers and chocolates).

This essay will explore what true love looks like. With this essay idea, you could contrast true love with the romantic love often shown in movies. This contrast would help the reader see how true love looks in real life.

An essay about what true love looks like could allow you to explore this kind of love in many different facets. It would allow you to discuss whether or not someone is, in fact, in true love. You could demonstrate why saying “I love you” is not enough through the essay.

There seems to be something ingrained in human nature to seek love. This fact could make an interesting essay on love and its meaning, allowing you to explore why this might be and how it plays out in human relationships.

Because humans seem to gravitate toward committed relationships, you could argue that we are hard-wired for love. But, again, this is an essay option that has room for growth as you develop your thoughts.

There are many different types of love. For example, while you can have romantic love between a couple, you may also have family love among family members and love between friends. Each of these types of love has a different expression, which could lend itself well to an interesting essay topic.

Writing an essay that compares and contrasts the different types of love would allow you to delve more deeply into the concept of love and what makes up a loving relationship.

What does love mean? This question is not as easy to answer as you might think. However, this essay topic could give you quite a bit of room to develop your ideas about love.

While exploring this essay topic, you may discover that love means different things to different people. For some, love is about how someone makes another person feel. To others, it is about actions performed. By exploring this in an essay, you can attempt to define love for your readers.

What can love make people do? This question could lend itself well to an essay topic. The power of love is quite intense, and it can make people do things they never thought they could or would do.

With this love essay, you could look at historical examples of love, fiction stories about love relationships, or your own life story and what love had the power to do. Then, at the end of your essay, you can determine how powerful love is.

The idea of a soul mate is someone who you are destined to be with and love above all others. This essay topic would allow you to explore whether or not each individual has a soul mate.

If you determine that they do, you could further discuss how you would identify that soul mate. How can you tell when you have found “the one” right for you? Expanding on this idea could create a very interesting and unique essay.

Break-ups seem inevitable, and strong relationships often come back together afterward. Yet are break-ups truly inevitable? Or are they necessary to create a strong bond? This idea could turn into a fascinating essay topic if you look at both sides of the argument.

On the one hand, you could argue that the break-up experience shows you whether or not your relationship can weather difficult times. On the other hand, you could argue that breaking up damages the trust you’re working to build. Regardless of your conclusion, you can build a solid essay off of this topic idea.

Love, at first sight is a common theme in romance stories, but is it possible? Explore this idea in your essay. You will likely find that love, at first sight, is nothing more than infatuation, not genuine love.

Yet you may discover that sometimes, love, at first sight, does happen. So, determine in your essay how you can differentiate between love and infatuation if it happens to you. Then, conclude with your take on love at first sight and if you think it is possible.

The love between a parent and child is much different than the love between a pair of lovers. This type of love is one-sided, with care and self-sacrifice on the parent’s side. However, the child’s love is often unconditional.

Exploring this dynamic, especially when contrasting parental love with romantic love, provides a compelling essay topic. You would have the opportunity to define this type of love and explore what it looks like in day-to-day life.

Most people want to fall in love and enjoy a loving relationship, but does love have a downside? In an essay, you can explore the disadvantages of love and show how even one of life’s greatest gifts is not without its challenges.

This essay would require you to dig deep and find the potential downsides of love. However, if you give it a little thought, you should be able to discuss several. Finally, end the essay by telling the reader whether or not love is worth it despite the many challenges.

Love is blind is a popular phrase that indicates love allows someone not to see another person’s faults. But is love blind, or is it simply a metaphor that indicates the ability to overlook issues when love is at the helm.

If you think more deeply about this quote, you will probably determine that love is not blind. Rather, love for someone can overshadow their character flaws and shortcomings. When love is strong, these things fall by the wayside. Discuss this in your essay, and draw your own conclusion to decide if love is blind.

When someone falls in love, their body feels specific hormonal and chemical changes. These changes make it easier to want to spend time with the person. Yet they can be fascinating to study, and you could ask whether or not love is just chemical reactions or something more.

Grab a science book or two and see if you can explore these physiological changes from love. From the additional sweating to the flushing of the face, you will find quite a few chemical changes that happen when someone is in love.

Love feels like a positive emotion that does not have many ethical concerns, but this is not true. Several ethical questions come from the world of love. Exploring these would make for an interesting and thoughtful essay.

For example, you could discuss if it is ethically acceptable to love an object or even oneself or love other people. You could discuss if it is appropriate to enter into a physical relationship if there is no love present or if love needs to come first. There are many questions to explore with this love essay.

If you choose to love someone, is heartbreak inevitable? This question could create a lengthy essay. However, some would argue that it is because either your object of affection will eventually leave you through a break-up or death.

Yet do these actions have to cause heartbreak, or are they simply part of the process? Again, this question lends itself well to an essay because it has many aspects and opinions to explore.

Literature is full of stories of love. You could choose a genre, like mythology or science fiction, and explore the role of love in that particular genre. With this essay topic, you may find many instances where love is a vital central theme of the work.

Keep in mind that in some genres, like myths, love becomes a driving force in the plot, while in others, like historical fiction, it may simply be a background part of the story. Therefore, the type of literature you choose for this essay would significantly impact the way your essay develops.

Most people want to fall in love, but is love freeing or oppressing? The answer may depend on who your loved ones are. Love should free individuals to authentically be who they are, not tie them into something they are not.

Yet there is a side of love that can be viewed as oppressive, deepening on your viewpoint. For example, you should stay committed to just that individual when you are in a committed relationship with someone else. Is this freeing or oppressive? Gather opinions through research and compare the answers for a compelling essay.

You can easily find stories of people that did foolish things for love. These stories could translate into interesting and engaging essays. You could conclude the answer to whether or not love makes people do foolish things.

Your answer will depend on your research, but chances are you will find that, yes, love makes people foolish at times. Then you could use your essay to discuss whether or not it is still reasonable to think that falling in love is a good thing, although it makes people act foolishly at times.

Most fiction works have love in them in some way. This may not be romantic love, but you will likely find characters who love something or someone.

Use that fact to create an essay. Pick your favorite story, either through film or written works, and explore what love looks like in that work. Discuss the character development, storyline, and themes and show how love is used to create compelling storylines.

If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

Bryan Collins is the owner of Become a Writer Today. He's an author from Ireland who helps writers build authority and earn a living from their creative work. He's also a former Forbes columnist and his work has appeared in publications like Lifehacker and Fast Company.

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Alain de Botton

The true hard work of love and relationships.

Last Updated

February 11, 2021

Original Air Date

February 9, 2017

As people, and as a culture, Alain de Botton says, we would be much saner and happier if we reexamined our very view of love. His New York Times essay, “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person,” is one of their most-read articles in recent years, and this is one of the most popular episodes we’ve ever created. We offer up the anchoring truths he shares amidst a pandemic that has stretched all of our sanity — and tested the mettle of love in every relationship.

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Image by Victoria Birkinshaw , © All Rights Reserved.

Alain de Botton is the founder and chairman of The School of Life. His books include Religion for Atheists and How Proust Can Change Your Life . He’s also published many books as part of The School of Life’s offerings, including a chapbook created from his essay Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person .

Krista Tippett, host: Alain de Botton’s essay “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person” is one of the most-read articles in The New York Times of recent years, and this is one of the most popular episodes we’ve ever created. As people and as a culture, he says, we would be much saner and happier if we reexamined our very view of love. I’m glad to offer up the anchoring truths he tells amidst a pandemic that has stretched all of our sanity — and tested the mettle of love in every home and relationship.

Alain de Botton: Love is something we have to learn and we can make progress with, and that it’s not just an enthusiasm, it’s a skill. And it requires forbearance, generosity, imagination, and a million things besides. The course of true love is rocky and bumpy at the best of times, and the more generous we can be towards that flawed humanity, the better chance we’ll have of doing the true hard work of love.

Tippett: I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being .

[ music: “Seven League Boots” by Zoe Keating ]

Alain de Botton is the founder and chairman of The School of Life, a gathering of courses, workshops, and talks on meaning and wisdom for modern lives, with branches around the world. He first became known for his book How Proust Can Change Your Life . I spoke with him in 2017.

Tippett: So we did speak a few years ago, but on a very different topic, and I’m really excited to be speaking with you about this subject, which is so close to every life. And as I’ve prepared for this, I realize that you’ve actually — I knew that you’d written the novel On Love a long time ago, but you’ve really been consistently attending to this subject and building your thoughts on it and your body of work on it, which is really interesting to me. You wrote On Love at the age of 23, which is so young, and you were already thinking about this so deeply. I think this is the first line: “Every fall into love involves the triumph of hope over knowledge.”

de Botton: Well, and I think what’s striking is that our idea of what love is, our idea of what is normal in love, is so not normal.

Tippett: Is so abnormal. Right.

de Botton: So abnormal. And so we castigate ourselves for not having a normal love life, even though no one seems to have any of these.

Tippett: Or not have been loved perfectly.

de Botton: Right, right. So we have this ideal of what love is and then these very, very unhelpful narratives of love. And they’re everywhere. They’re in movies and songs — and we mustn’t blame songs and movies too much. But if you say to people, “Look, love is a painful, poignant, touching attempt by two flawed individuals to try and meet each other’s needs in situations of gross uncertainty and ignorance about who they are and who the other person is, but we’re going to do our best,” that’s a much more generous starting point. So the acceptance of ourselves as flawed creatures seems to me what love really is. Love is at its most necessary when we are weak, when we feel incomplete, and we must show love to one another at those points. So we’ve got these two contrasting stories, and we get them muddled.

Tippett: And also, I feel like this should be obvious, but you just touched on art and culture and how that could help us complexify our understanding of this. And one of the things you point out about — I don’t know; When Harry Met Sally or Four Weddings and a Funeral — one of the things that’s wrong with all of that is that a lot of these take us up to the wedding. They take us through the falling and don’t see that — I think you’ve written somewhere — you said, “A wiser culture than ours would recognize that the start of a relationship is not the high point that romantic art assumes; it is merely the first step of a far longer, more ambivalent, and yet quietly audacious journey on which we should direct our intelligence and scrutiny.” [ laughs ]

de Botton: That’s right. We are strangely obsessed by the run-up to love. And what we call a love story is really just the beginning of a love story, but we leave that out. But most of us, we’re interested in long-term relationships. We’re not just interested in the moment that gets us into love; we’re interested in the survival of love over time.

Tippett: A lot of what you are pointing at, the work of loving over a long span of time, is inner work, right? [ laughs ] And it would be hard to film that. But I’m very intrigued by how you talk about the Ancient Greeks and their “pedagogical” view of love.

de Botton: That’s fascinating, because one of the greatest insults that you can level at a lover in the modern world, apparently, is to say, “I want to change you.” The Ancient Greeks had a view of love which was essentially based around education; that what love means — love is a benevolent process whereby two people try to teach each other how to become the best versions of themselves.

Tippett: You say somewhere, they are committed to “increasing the admirable characteristics” that they possess and the other person possesses.

de Botton: That’s right. That’s right.

Tippett: Your most recent book on this subject is The Course of Love , which is a novel, but it’s a novel that actually, I feel, you kind of weave a pedagogical narrator voice into it. Do you think that’s fair?

de Botton: That’s right. Absolutely.

Tippett: Woven into the narrative. And you say, at one point, this is the relationship between Rabih and Kirsten. And you said at one point, “Their relationship is secretly yet mutually marked by a project of improvement,” which I think we all recognize. And then there’s this moment where you say, “After the dinner party, Rabih is sincerely trying to bring about an evolution in the personality of the wife he loves. But his chosen technique is distinctive: to call Kirsten materialistic, to shout at her, and then, later, to slam two doors.” [ laughs ]

de Botton: That’s right.

Tippett: And we all recognize that scene. [ laughs ]

de Botton: [ laughs ] By the time we’ve humiliated someone, they’re not going to learn anything. The only conditions — as we know with children, the only conditions under which anyone learns are conditions of incredible sweetness, tenderness, patience — that’s how we learn. But the problem is that the failures of our relationships have made us so anxious that we can’t be the teachers we should be. And therefore, some often genuine, legitimate things that we want to get across are just — come across as insults, as attempts to wound, and are therefore rejected, and the arteries of the relationship start to fur.

Tippett: Someone recently said to me — and I’d be curious about how you would respond to this. It was a wise Jewish mother who had said to them, “Men marry women with the intention that they — with the idea that they will the stay the same. Women marry men with the idea that they will change.” Which is obviously a huge generalization, but gosh, it made a lot of sense to me, even in terms of my own life and in terms of what I see around me.

de Botton: I would argue that both genders want to change one another, and they both have an idea of who the lover “should” be. And I think a useful exercise that sometimes psychologists level at feuding couples is they say things like, “If you could accept that your partner would never change, how would you feel about that?”

Sometimes pessimism, a certain degree of pessimism can be a friend of love. Once we accept that actually it’s really very hard for people to be another way, we’re sometimes readier. We don’t need people to be perfect, is the good news. We just need people to be able to explain their imperfections to us in good time, before they’ve hurt us too much with them, and with a certain degree of humility. That’s already an enormous step.

Tippett: It’s a lot to ask, but it’s so — it’s also — it sounds reasonable, if we could really have that in our minds early enough on in a relationship.

de Botton: That’s right, and almost from the first date. My view of what one should talk about on a first date is not showing off and not putting forward one’s accomplishments, but almost quite the opposite. One should say, “Well, how are you crazy? I’m crazy like this.”  [ Editor’s note: Since this interview was recorded, the word “crazy” has fallen out of use as sensitivity to people who live with mental illness has grown .] And there should be a mutual acceptance that two damaged people are trying to get together, because pretty much all of us — there are a few totally healthy people — but pretty much all of us reach dating age with some scars, some wounds.

And sometimes we bring to adult relationships some of the same hope that a young child might’ve had of their parent. And of course, an adult relationship can’t be like that. It’s got to accept that the person across the table or on the other side of the bed is just human, which means full of flaws, fears, etc., and not some sort of superhuman.

Tippett: And I think that that question that you said could be a standard question on an early date — “And how are you crazy?” — there’s also something that you’re getting at that it almost seems like we must be hardwired to do this, although one of the wonderful things we’re learning in the 21st century is that we can change our brains. But a way you say it in On Love , in a scene in On Love , is, you start to be enamored in details of this new person and find things in common like, I don’t know, “both of us had two large freckles on the toe of the left foot,” [ laughs ] and then, you wrote, “Instinctively” — and this happens very quickly — “he teases out an entire personality from the details.”

But also, what I know from my own life is you tend to — when we fall in love with another person, we magnify in our minds those things that are immediately enrapturing and craft our idea of the other person almost exclusively around those wonderful qualities, which is not fair to them or to us. [ laughs ]

de Botton: That’s right. And we feel, in a way, that we know them already, and we impose on them an idea —

Tippett: And of course, we don’t. Right.

de Botton: And we don’t. We don’t. Which also explains another phenomenon that I’m fascinated by — you probably will have noticed in both novels — is the phenomenon of being in a sulk; of sulking, because sulking is a fascinating situation which takes you right into the heart of certain romantic delusions. Because what’s fascinating about sulking is that we don’t sulk with everybody. We only get into sulks with people that we feel should understand us but, rather unforgivably, haven’t understood us.

So in other words, it’s when we are in love with people and they’re in love with us that we take particular offense when they get things wrong. Because the kind of the governing assumption of the relationship is, this person should know what’s in my mind, ideally without me needing to tell them. If I need to spell this out to you, you don’t love me.

And that’s why you’ll go into the bathroom, bolt the door, and when your partner says, “Is anything wrong?” You’ll go, “Mm-mm.” And the reason is that they should be able to read through the bathroom panel into your soul and know what’s wrong. And that’s such an extraordinary demand.

Tippett: It’s so unfair. [ laughs ]

de Botton: We see it in children. This is how little children behave. They literally think that their parents can read their minds. It takes a long time to realize that the only way that one person can really learn about another is if it’s explained to them, preferably using words, quite calm ones.

Tippett: Yes, “use your words,” [ laughs ] which we say to children.

de Botton: [ laughs ] When people always say, “Communicate,” we have to be generous towards the reasons why we don’t. And we don’t because we’re operating with this mad idea that true love means intuitive understanding. And I go crazy when people say things like, “I met someone. The loveliest thing is, they understood me without me needing to speak.”

Tippett: [ laughs ] Right.

de Botton: So many alarm bells go off when I hear that, because I think, OK, well, good luck in this instance, but if you guys get together, that’s not going to go on forever. No one can intuitively understand another beyond a quite limited range of topics.

Tippett: Your children — how old are your children? They’re still pretty young, right?

de Botton: They’re 10 and 12.

Tippett: Oh, OK. So now that I have young adult children, when you hear that coming out of the mouth of your 21-year-old — “He should know. [ laughs ] He should just know” — and you just …

What I also know is that grasping this, what you’re talking about, it’s work. It is the work of life, right? It is the work of growing up.

de Botton: It’s the work of love. But it’s interesting that you mention your children and children generally, because I think — it sounds eerie, but I think that one of the kindest things that we can do with our lover is to see them as children — and not to infantilize them, but when we’re dealing with children as parents, as adults, we’re incredibly generous in the way we interpret their behavior.

If a child says — if you walk home, and a child says, “I hate you,” you immediately go, OK, that’s not quite true. Probably they’re tired, they’re hungry, something’s gone wrong, their tooth hurts, something — we’re looking around for a benevolent interpretation that can just shave off some of the more depressing, dispiriting aspects of their behavior. And we do this naturally with children, and yet we do it so seldom with adults. When an adult meets an adult, and they say, “I’ve not had a good day. Leave me alone,” rather than saying, “OK. I’m just going to go behind the facade of this slightly depressing comment…”

Tippett: And understand that that’s actually not about me; that’s about what’s going on inside them today.

de Botton: Right, exactly. We don’t do that. We take it all completely personally. And so I think the work of love is to try, when we can manage it — we can’t always — to go behind the front of this rather depressing, challenging behavior and try and ask where it might’ve come from.

Love is doing that work to ask oneself, “Where’s this rather aggressive, pained, noncommunicative, unpleasant behavior come from?” If we can do that, we’re on the road to knowing a little bit about what love really is, I think.

[ music: “The Sick System” by Lambert ]

Tippett: I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being . Today, a conversation about love with writer and philosopher Alain de Botton.

Tippett: I’d love to talk about your — you used this word “pessimism,” a little while ago, and I’d love to dig into that a little bit more. And what you’re really talking about is being reality-based as opposed to being ideal-based. There’s a beautiful video that I’ve shared that’s out there; I think it’s “The Darkest Truth About Love.” Is that right? That’s the title, isn’t it?

de Botton: Yes, that’s right. Exactly. Made that for YouTube.

Tippett: From The School of Life. I’d like to talk through some of these core truths that fly in the face of this way we go around behaving and that movies have taught us to behave and that possibly our parents taught us to behave — these core truths that can put us on the foundation of reality.

de Botton: Yes, that’s very useful. We could chisel them in granite. Look, one of the first important truths is, you’re crazy. Not you; as it were, all of us; that all of us are deeply damaged people. The great enemy of love, good relationships, good friendships, is self-righteousness. If we start by accepting that of course we’re only just holding it together and, in many ways, really quite challenging people — I think if somebody thinks that they’re easy to live with, they’re by definition going to be pretty hard and don’t have much of an understanding of themselves. I think there’s a certain wisdom that begins by knowing that, of course, you, like everyone else, is pretty difficult. And this knowledge is very shielded from us. Our parents don’t tell us, our ex-lovers — they knew it, but they couldn’t be bothered to tell us. They sacked us without …

Tippett: Well, by the time they tell us, we’re dismissing what they say anyway. [ laughs ]

de Botton: Well, that’s right. And our friends don’t tell us, because they just want a pleasant evening with us. So we’re left with a bubble of ignorance about our own natures. And often, you can be way into your 40s before you’re starting to get a sense of, “Well, maybe some of the problem is in me.” Because, of course, it’s so intuitive to think that of course it’s the other person. So to begin with that sense of, “I’m quite tricky; and in these ways” — that’s a very important starting point for being good at love.

So often, we blame our lovers; we don’t blame our view of love. And so we keep sacking our lovers and blowing up relationships, in pursuit of this idea of love which actually has no basis in reality. It’s simply not rooted in anything we know.

Tippett: This right person, this creature, does not exist.

de Botton: And is in fact the enemy of good-enough relationships. I’m really fond of Donald Winnicott, this English psychoanalyst’s term, which he first used in relation to parenting, that what we should be aiming for is not perfection but a good-enough situation. And it’s wonderfully downbeat. No one would go, “What are your hopes this year?” “Well, I just want to have a good-enough relationship.” People would go, “Oh, I’m sorry your life is so grim.” But you want to go, “No, that’s really good. For a human, that’s brilliant.” And that’s, I think, the attitude we should have.

Tippett: In this “Darkest Truth About Love,” you say the idea of love in fact distracts us from existential loneliness. You are irredeemably alone. You will not be understood. But also, behind that is the — as you say, these are dark truths, but it’s also a relief, as truth always ultimately is, if we can hear it. Again, that is the work of life, is to reckon with what goes on inside us.

de Botton: I think one of the greatest sorrows we sometimes have in love is the feeling that our lover doesn’t understand parts of us. And a certain kind of bravery, a certain heroic acceptance of loneliness seems to be one of the key ingredients to being able to form a good relationship.

Tippett: Isn’t that interesting? And it sounds paradoxical.

de Botton: Of course. If you expect that your lover must understand everything about you, you will be — well, you’ll be furious pretty much all the time. There are islands and moments of beautiful connection, but we have to be modest about how often they’re going to happen. I think if you’re lonely with only — I don’t know — 40 percent of your life, that’s really good going. You may not want to be lonely with over 50 percent, but I think there’s certainly a sizable minority share of your life which you’re going to have to endure without echo from those you love.

Tippett: You know, I debated over whether I would discuss this with you, but I think I will. I’m single right now and have been for a few years, and it’s actually been a great joy. Not that I think I will be single forever or want to be single forever, although actually I think I would be all right if I were, which is a real watershed. And also, what this chapter of life has taught me to really enjoy more deeply and take more seriously are all the many forms of love in life aside from just romantic love or being coupled. Do people talk to you about that?

de Botton: Well, it’s funny, because just as you were saying, “I’m single,” I was about to say, “You’re not.” Because we have to look at what this idea of singlehood is. We’ve got this word, “single,” which captures somebody who’s not got a long-term relationship.

Tippett: But I have so much love in my life.

de Botton: That’s right. And another way of looking at love is connection. We’re all the time, we are hardwired to seek connections with others. And that is in a sense, at a kind of granular level, what love is. Love is connection. And insofar as one is alive and one is in buoyant, relatively buoyant spirit some of the time, it’s because we are connected. And we can take pride in how flexible our minds ultimately are about where that connection is coming.

And I think it’s also worth saying that, for some people, relationships are not necessarily the place where they encounter their best selves; that, actually, the person that they are in a relationship is not the person that they want to be or that they can be in other areas of life; that they feel that there are other possibilities that they’d like to explore. And I think getting into a relationship with someone, asking someone to be with you is a pretty cruel thing to do to someone that you love and admire and respect, because the job is so hard. Most people fail at it.

When you ask someone to marry you, for example, you’re asking someone to be your chauffeur, co-host, sexual partner, co-parent, fellow accountant, mop the kitchen floor together, etc., etc., and on and on the list goes. No wonder that we fail at some of the tasks and get irate with one another. It’s a burden. And I think sometimes, the older I get, sometimes I think one of the nicest things you can do to someone that you really admire is leave them alone. Just let them go. Let them be. Don’t impose yourself on them, because you’re challenging.

Tippett: I want to read this definition of marriage that you’ve written in a few places — I think it’s wonderful — and just talk about this. “Marriage ends up as a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don’t know yet who they are or who the other might be, binding themselves to a future they cannot conceive of and have carefully avoided investigating.”

de Botton: Well, yes. [ laughs ] It’s challenging. And it’s certainly contrary to the romantic view. But again, this kind of realism or acceptance of complexity, I think, is ultimately the friend of love. I’m not — look, it’s also worth adding — I don’t believe that everybody should stay in exactly the relationship that they’re in, and that any relationship is worth sticking with, and that, in a way, the fault is always the fault of the lovers, if it’s not — both lovers, if it’s not happy. There are legitimate reasons to leave a relationship.

But when you’re really being honest, if you ask yourself, “Why am I in pain?” and you can’t necessarily attribute all the sorrows that you’re feeling to your lover, if you recognize that some of those things are perhaps endemic to existence or endemic to all human beings or something within yourself, then what you’re doing is encountering the pain of life with another person, but not necessarily because of another person.

Tippett: And, for example, you are in fact arguing — as you said before, some marriages are meant to end. And there’s certainly reasons for marriages to end or to end marriages. But you also point out this very contradictory fact that the thing that’s ultimately wrong with adultery as an easy out to what’s going wrong in the marriage is that it is based on the same idealism that certain ideas of marriages are based on that go wrong.

de Botton: That’s right, in a way that you’re just redirecting your hope elsewhere.

Tippett: Imagining this is the perfect one, right? This is the one person with whom you won’t ever be lonely again; who will understand you completely.

de Botton: That’s right. And so it’s — on and on the cycles of hurt continue.

Tippett: Something else you name about marriage that I feel is not often enough just named is that — we spoke a little while ago about children coming into a marriage. And of course, children teach us so much. One thing you say that’s beautiful, that “children teach us that love in its purest form is a kind of service”; that the love we have for our children — I certainly know this with myself — that the love I have for my children has changed me, and it is distinct from all the other loves I’ve ever known.

But also that children are hard on marriages, right? And I think, on a more complicated level, if there are problems in a marriage, that can get amplified when children are there. And it’s also partly because you just get — everybody’s tired. Right? [ laughs ]

de Botton: That’s right. It’s interesting; in a way, there’s a lot of mundanity in relationships. And one of the things that romanticism does is to teach us that the great love stories should be above the mundane. So in none of the great, say, 19th-century novels about love does anyone ever do the laundry, does anyone ever pick up the crumbs from the kitchen table, does anyone ever clean the bathroom. It just doesn’t happen, because it’s assumed that what makes or breaks love are just feelings, passionate emotions, not the kind of day-to-day wear and tear.

And yet, of course, when we find ourselves in relationships, it is precisely over these areas that conflicts arise, but we refuse to lend them the necessary prestige. There’s no arguments as vicious as when two people are arguing about something, but both of them think the argument is trivial. So they’ll say things like, “Oh, it’s absurd, we’re arguing over who should hang up the towels in the bathroom. That’s for stupid people.”

Tippett: [ laughs ] Right — “That has nothing to do with …”

de Botton: And you know that that’s going to be trouble. And so we need, in a way — one of the lessons of love is to lend a bit of prestige to those issues that crop up in love, like who does the laundry and on what day. We rush over these decisions. We don’t see them as legitimate. We think it’s fine to …

Tippett: But they are.

de Botton: But they are. As you say, there’s a lot of life that is extremely mundane.

Tippett: It is the stuff of life. Right. It’s the stuff of our days. There’s this wonderful line from The Course of Love about these two parents with children: “The tired child inside each of them is furious at how long it has been neglected and in pieces.”

de Botton: That’s right. And in a way — it’s so funny. If I can be indiscreet on air, my wife used to say to me, in the early days of our marriage, she sometimes would say to me things like, “My father would never have said something like” — and I would say something, “It’s not my turn to make the tea” or something. She’ll go, “My father would never have said it. He would always do this for us.”

And then I had to point out that there was really a — she wasn’t comparing like with like. She was comparing this man, her father, as a father, but not as a lover. And in the end, what I say to her, did end up saying to her was, “In a way, I’m probably behaving exactly like your father, but just not the father that you saw when he was around you.”

Tippett: The way he behaved towards your mother. [ laughs ]

de Botton: [ laughs ] That’s right. Exactly. And so one of the things we do as parents is to edit ourselves, which is lovely in a way, for our children. But it gives our children a really unnatural sense of what you can expect from another human being, because we’re never as nice to probably anyone else on Earth as we are to our children. I’m saying this is the cost of good parenting.

[ music: “Red Virgin Soil” by Agnes Obel ]

Tippett: After a short break, more with Alain de Botton. You can always listen again, and hear the unedited version of this and every conversation I have on the On Being podcast feed, wherever podcasts are found.

I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being . Today, we are exploring the true hard work of love with the writer and philosopher Alain de Botton. This is one of the most popular shows we’ve ever created. And it’s an offering of anchoring truths in a pandemic that has tested the mettle of love in every home and relationship.

Tippett: I’d like to go a slightly different place with all of this. The things you’ve been saying, pointing out about how love really works — that people don’t learn when they’re humiliated; that self-righteousness is an enemy of love — I’m thinking a lot right now, these days, about how and if we could apply the intelligence we actually have with the experience of love — not the ideal, but the experience of love in our lives — to how we can be, as citizens, moving forward. There’s a lot of behavior in public — I’m just speaking for the United States, but I think there are forms of this in the UK, as well — we’re kind of acting out in public the way we act out at our worst in relationships. [ laughs ]

de Botton: I think that’s fascinating; I think you’re onto something huge and rather counterintuitive, because we associate the word “love” with private life. We don’t associate it with life in the republic; with civil society. But I think that a functioning society requires — well, it requires two things that, again, just don’t sound very normal, but they require love and politeness. And by “love” I mean a capacity to enter imaginatively into the minds of people with whom you don’t immediately agree, and to look for the more charitable explanations for behavior which doesn’t appeal to you and which could seem plain wrong; not just to chuck them immediately in prison or to hold them up in front of a law court, but to —

Tippett: Or just tell them how stupid they are, right?

de Botton: Right. Exactly. We’re permanently — all sides are attempting to show how stupid every other side is. And the other thing, of course, is politeness, which is an attempt not necessarily to say everything: to understand that there is a role for private feelings, which, if they were to emerge, would do damage to everyone concerned.

But we’ve got this culture of self-disclosure. And as I say, it spills out into politics as well. The same dynamic goes on of, like, “If I’m not telling you exactly what I think, then I may develop a twitch or an illness from not expunging my feelings.” To which I would say, “No, you’re not. You’re preserving the peace and good nature of the republic, and it’s absolutely what you should be doing.”

Tippett: Yes. And I guess — I’ve been having this conversation with a lot of people this year — the truth is, more than ever before perhaps in our world, we are in relationship. We are connected to everyone else. And that’s a fact. Their well-being will impact our well-being; is of relevance to our well-being, and that of our children.

But we have this habit and this capacity in public — and also we know that our brains work this way — to see the other — to see those strangers, those people, those people on the other side politically, socioeconomically, whatever, forgetting that in our intimate lives and in our love lives, in our circles of family and friends and in our marriages and with our children, there are things about the people we love the most, who drive us crazy, that we do not comprehend, and yet we find ways to be intelligent, to be loving — because it gets a better result. [ laughs ]

de Botton: That’s right. And families are at this kind of test bed of love, because we can’t entirely quit them. And this is what makes families so fascinating, because you’re thrown together with a group of people who you would never pick, if you could simply pick on the grounds of compatibility. Compatibility is an achievement of love. It shouldn’t be the precondition of love, as we nowadays, in a slightly spoiled way, imagine it must be.

Tippett: Yes. Wonderful. I think this is deeply politically relevant.

de Botton: Totally. And I think if we just try and explore the word “political,” political really means “outside of private space.” And we’re highly socialized creatures who really take our cues from what is going on around us. And if we see an atmosphere of short tempers, of selfishness, etc., that will bolster those capacities within ourselves. If we see charity being exercised, if we see good humor, if we see forgiveness on display: again, it will lend support to those sides of ourselves. And we need to take care what we’re exposing ourselves to, because too much exposure to the opposite of love makes us into very hostile and angry people.

Tippett: Yes, and I think it’s also such an important thing to bear in mind, that the import of our conduct, moment to moment — that that is having effects that we can’t see.

de Botton: That’s right. We’re far more sensitive than we allow for. And we need to build a world that recognizes that if somebody goes “mm-hmm” rather than this, or “thanks” rather than “yes,” or whatever it is, this can ruin our day. And we should think about that as we approach not just our personal relationships, but also our social and political relationships. These things are humiliating. Little things can deeply wound and humiliate.

Let’s not forget that one of the things that makes relationships so scary is, we need to be weak in front of other people. And most of us are just experts at being pretty strong. We’ve been doing it for years. We know how to be strong. What we don’t know how to do is to make ourselves safely vulnerable, and so we tend to get very twitchy, preternaturally aggressive, etc., when we’re asked to — when the moment has come to be weak.

Tippett: And I feel like there’s almost this calling now, because the stakes are so high, for emotional intelligence in public, which of course, we don’t — none of us gets perfectly in our intimate lives, but we do know these things about people we love. And they’re also true of people we don’t know and don’t think we love.

But I want to return a little bit to love and sex and eros and all of this. I have to say, one thing I really love and appreciate and learned from in your writing is your reflection on flirting [ laughs ] as an art, the art of flirting; that it can be something edifying, a pleasurable gift. And you have this phrase, a “good flirt.” So would you describe what a “good flirt” is?

de Botton: Well, if you think about what flirtation is, in many ways flirtation is the attempt to awaken somebody else to their attractiveness. I think it would be such a pity if we had to drive something as important as validation and self-acceptance and a pleasant view of oneself through the gate of — the rather narrow gate of sex.

And flirtation is a kind of act of the imagination. And what’s fun about flirtation is that it often happens between really quite unlikely people. Two people meet, and maybe they’re both with someone, or there’s a difference in status or background, etc., and they can find that they’re in a little conversation about the weather, and both parties will recognize, there’s something a little bit flirtatious going on. And it’s got really nothing to do with sex, as such; it’s just two people delighting in awakening one another …

Tippett: It’s pleasant. Right.

de Botton: … to the fact that they’re quite nice people, and they’re quite attractive, and that that’s OK.

Tippett: You also have this lovely film, it’s one of these School of Life films, about this, a good flirt. You can make these assumptions that this other person maybe would love to sleep with us, won’t sleep with us, and the reason why they won’t has nothing to do with any deficiency on our part. But it’s also not, as you say, a deception. It’s a natural, pleasurable human experience.

de Botton: That’s right. The other thing that we get quite wrong in our culture is the whole business of what sex actually is, because we’ve come from a Freudian world. Freud has told us that there’s a lot more going on in sex than we want to believe and that a lot of it is quite weird, and darker than we’d ever want to imagine, and that sex is everywhere in life, even in places where we don’t think it is or perhaps should be.

But, in a way, I’ve got a sort of different view of this. I think that it’s not so much that sex is everywhere, it’s that psychological dynamics are everywhere, even in sex. And so often we think of sex as just a sort of pneumatic activity, but really, it’s a psychological activity. And if you try to imagine why people are excited by sex, it’s not so much that it’s a pleasurable nerve-ending business. It’s ultimately that it’s about acceptance.

If you think about, why is it exciting to kiss someone for the first time? It’s probably more fun eating an oyster or flossing your teeth or watching TV than kissing. It’s a bit weird. What’s this odd thing we call kissing? It’s like sort of trying to inflate somebody else’s mouth. It’s just odd.

Tippett: [ laughs ]

de Botton: Nevertheless, we like it, not because of its physical feeling but because of what it means, the meaning we infuse. And the meaning we infuse into it is, “I accept you. And I accept you in a way that is incredibly intimate and that would be quite revolting with anyone else. I’m allowing you into my private space as a way of signaling, ‘I like you.’” And what really — we call it getting “turned on,” but what we’re really, as it were, excited by is that someone accepts us with remarkable — in all our…

Tippett: Takes delight in us.

de Botton: Right; takes delight in us. And that’s what’s exciting about it. In other words, sex is continuous with a lot of things that we’re interested in outside of the bedroom.

Tippett: And you say that flirting is one way to experience, in the course of ordinary life, in a way that’s completely nonthreatening to whatever your commitments are, what is enjoyable about sex that’s not necessarily the act itself: the fact that we are sexual beings.

de Botton: That’s right. That’s right. But we feel often conflicted about it. “I shouldn’t be flirting. I can’t flirt,” etc. So there’s a lot of fear of — there’s a lot of fear of slippery slopes. In many situations, we can hang on, on the slippery slope. It’s OK. We’ve got tools to hang on in there.

Tippett: I want to know — I don’t want to let you go before asking what you think about — what’s your view of online dating? Because this a new way that so many people, perhaps most people, moving forward, are meeting, are engaging this romantic side of themselves.

de Botton: Look, at one level, online dating promises to open up something absolutely wonderful, which is a more logical way of getting together with someone. The sort of dream is that the secrets of our soul and the secrets of somebody else’s soul will be sort of downloaded onto a computer and that we will find the best possible match for who we are.

The darker side of online dating is that it encourages the idea that a good relationship must mean a conflict-free relationship. And therefore, any relationship which has conflict in it, which has unhappiness and areas of tension in it, is wrong and can be terminated, because we have this wonderful backup, which is alternatives. So, like any tool, it’s got its pluses and minuses and has to be used correctly. And I think what I mean by “correctly” is, it has to broaden the pool of people from which we’re choosing our lovers, while not giving us the illusion that there is such a thing as a perfect human being.

Tippett: Right. So then you’re back to the basic truth, [ laughs ] the darker truth about love. Also, what online dating does is it introduces you to people, but then, really, the whole thrust of your thinking is that loving is really what comes next. That’s what comes after the meeting.

de Botton: That’s right. Silicon Valley has been incredibly interested in getting us to that first stage of meeting the person, and that’s great. But the next stage has been abandoned. Where is the app that will tell you how to read, how to interpret somebody else’s confused signals of distress or that will remind you, at a certain point, to look charitably upon someone’s behavior because you remember their childhood, etc.? So we have a long way to go.

Our technology is still — look, we’re still — it sounds odd, because it’s one of the sort of narcissisms of our time that we think we’re living late on in the history of the world. We think we’re sort of — we’re latecomers to the party. We’re still at the very beginning of understanding ourselves as human, emotional creatures. We’re still taking our first baby steps in the understanding of love, and we need a lot of compassion for ourselves. And no wonder we make horrific mistakes pretty much all the time.

[ music: “Turquoise” by Mooncake ]

Tippett: I happened to see your tweet at the end of 2016, when The New York Times released its most-read articles of the year, [ laughs ] and your “Why You’ll Marry the Wrong Person” was No. 1, which is really extraordinary; the most-read article in a year of the Brexit vote, the presidential election, war, refugee crisis. I wonder what that tells you about us as a species.

de Botton: Look, it was deeply fascinating and quite extraordinary. And apparently, it was first by a long way. It’s just peculiar. And I think that — look, first of all, it tells us that we have an enormous loneliness around our difficulties. One could write a follow-on piece — I may or may not — called, “Why You Will Get Into the Wrong Job,” which would probably score quite highly too, and “Why You’ll Have the Wrong Child” and “Why You’ll Go on the Wrong Vacation” and “Why Your Body Will Be the Wrong Shape” and “Why You’ll Think You Live in the Wrong Country,” etc. And in a way, we need solace for the sense that we have gone wrong in an area, whatever it may be, where perfection was possible.

And anyone who comes along and says, “You know, it’s normal that you are suffering. Life is suffering,” is doing a quite unusual thing in our culture, which is so much about optimism. It sounds grim; it is in fact enormously consoling and alleviating and helpful, in a culture which is oppressive in its demands for perfection. So I think a certain kind of pessimistic realism — which is totally compatible with hope, totally compatible with laughter, good humor, a sense of fun — it doesn’t have to be dour.

Tippett: It’s how comedy and tragedy belong together.

de Botton: Right. Exactly. So I’m a great fan of gallows humor. We’re all on our way to the gallows in one way or another, and we can hug and give each other laughs and point out the more pleasant sides as we head towards the scaffold.

Tippett: [ laughs ] That may be your last word. I just want to ask you, when we first began to speak about On Love , which you wrote — which was published when you were 23 in the late ‘90s — you’ve now been married for over a dozen years. What did you really not know? And that book was so wise. And in fact, that book that you published when you were 23, On Love , really presented a lot of the themes that you’ve carried forward in time. But I do wonder what you really did not know; what you’ve learned; what you continue to learn about love at this stage in your life.

de Botton: I genuinely thought at that time that problems in love are the result of being with people who are, in one way or another, defective. And in 2002, this belief was severely tested, in that I met someone who was really absolutely wonderful in every way. And through much effort, I pursued her and eventually married her and discovered something very surprising. She was great in a million ways. She was very right. And yet, oddly, there were all sorts of problems.

And I think it’s been the path that I’ve been on, to realize that those problems had nothing to do with her being a deficient person or indeed with me being a horribly deficient person. They were to do with the challenges of being a human being trying to relate to another human being in a loving relationship; that I was encountering some endemic issues that every couple, however well-matched — and there is no such thing as a perfect match, but however well-matched, every couple will encounter these problems; that love is something we have to learn and we can make progress with, and that it’s not just an enthusiasm, it’s a skill, and it requires forbearance, generosity, imagination, and a million things besides.

And we must fiercely resist the idea that true love must mean conflict-free love; that the course of true love is smooth. It’s not. The course of true love is rocky and bumpy at the best of times. That’s the best we can manage, as the creatures we are. It’s no fault of mine or no fault of yours; it’s to do with being human. And the more generous we can be towards that flawed humanity, the better chance we’ll have of doing the true hard work of love.

[ music: “Semblance” by Auditory Canvas ]

Tippett: Alain de Botton is the founder and chairman of The School of Life. His books include Religion for Atheists and How Proust Can Change Your Life . He’s also published many books as part of The School of Life’s offerings — there is a chapbook, for example, created from his essay “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person.”

The On Being Project is: Chris Heagle, Lily Percy, Laurén Drommerhausen, Erin Colasacco, Eddie Gonzalez, Lilian Vo, Lucas Johnson, Suzette Burley, Zack Rose, Colleen Scheck, Christiane Wartell, Julie Siple, Gretchen Honnold, Jhaleh Akhavan, Pádraig Ó Tuama, Ben Katt, Gautam Srikishan, and Lillie Benowitz.

The On Being Project is located on Dakota land. Our lovely theme music is provided and composed by Zoë Keating. And the last voice that you hear, singing at the end of our show, is Cameron Kinghorn.

On Being is an independent, nonprofit production of The On Being Project. It is distributed to public radio stations by WNYC Studios. I created this show at American Public Media.

Our funding partners include:

The Fetzer Institute, helping to build the spiritual foundation for a loving world. Find them at fetzer.org .

Kalliopeia Foundation, dedicated to reconnecting ecology, culture, and spirituality; supporting organizations and initiatives that uphold a sacred relationship with life on Earth. Learn more at kalliopeia.org .

The George Family Foundation, in support of the Civil Conversations Project.

The Osprey Foundation, a catalyst for empowered, healthy, and fulfilled lives.

And the Lilly Endowment, an Indianapolis-based, private family foundation, dedicated to its founders’ interests in religion, community development, and education.

Books & Music

Recommended reading.

Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion

Author: Alain De Botton

The Course of Love: A Novel

On Love: A Novel

Author: Alain de Botton

Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person: A pessimist’s guide to marriage, offering insight, practical advice, and consolation. (Essay Books)

Author: The School of Life

The On Being Project is an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and Amazon.com. Any earnings we receive through these affiliate partnerships go into directly supporting The On Being Project.

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Into The Trees

Artist: Zoe Keating

Stay In The Dark

Citizen of Glass

Air (Vāyu)

Artist: Auditory Canvas

Pacific•atlantic

Artist: The End Of The Ocean

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Brené Brown says our belonging to each other can’t be lost, but it can be forgotten. Her research has reminded the world in recent years of the uncomfortable, life-giving link between vulnerability and courage. Now she’s turning her attention to how we walked into the crisis of our life together and how we can move beyond it: with strong backs, soft fronts, and wild hearts.

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Before You Write a Love Essay, Read This to Get Examples

The day will come when you can’t escape the fate of all students: You will have to write a what is love essay.

No worries:

Here you’ll find tons of love essay topics and examples. No time to read everything? Scroll down to get a free PDF with original samples.

Definition: Essay on Love

First, let’s define what is love essay?

The most common topics are:

• Definition of love
• What is love?
• Meaning of love

Why limit yourself to these hackneyed, general themes? Below, I’ll show how to make your paper on love original yet relevant to the prompt you get from teachers.

Love Essay Topics: 20 Ideas to Choose for Your Paper

Your essay on love and relationship doesn’t have to be super official and unemotional. It’s ok to share reflections and personal opinions when writing about romance.

Often, students get a general task to write an essay on love. It means they can choose a theme and a title for their paper. If that’s your case,  feel free to try any of these love essay topics:

• Exploring the impact of love on individuals and relationships.
• Love in the digital age: Navigating romance in a tech world.
• Is there any essence and significance in unconditional love?
• Love as a universal language: Connecting hearts across cultures.
• Biochemistry of love: Exploring the process.
• Love vs. passion vs. obsession.
• How love helps cope with heartbreak and grief.
• The art of loving. How we breed intimacy and trust.
• The science behind attraction and attachment.
• How love and relationships shape our identity and help with self-discovery.
• Love and vulnerability: How to embrace emotional openness.
• Romance is more complex than most think: Passion, intimacy, and commitment explained.
• Love as empathy: Building sympathetic connections in a cruel world.
• Evolution of love. How people described it throughout history.
• The role of love in mental and emotional well-being.
• Love as a tool to look and find purpose in life.
• Welcoming diversity in relations through love and acceptance.
• Love vs. friendship: The intersection of platonic and romantic bonds.
• The choices we make and challenges we overcome for those we love.
• Love and forgiveness: How its power heals wounds and strengthens bonds.

Love Essay Examples: Choose Your Sample for Inspiration

Essays about love are usually standard, 5-paragraph papers students write in college:

• One paragraph is for an introduction, with a hook and a thesis statement
• Three are for a body, with arguments or descriptions
• One last passage is for a conclusion, with a thesis restatement and final thoughts

Below are the ready-made samples to consider. They’ll help you see what an essay about love with an introduction, body, and conclusion looks like.

What is love essay: 250 words

Lao Tzu once said, “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” Indeed, love can transform individuals, relationships, and our world.

A word of immense depth and countless interpretations, love has always fascinated philosophers, poets, and ordinary individuals. This  emotion breaks boundaries and has a super power to change lives. But what is love, actually?

It’s a force we feel in countless ways. It is the warm embrace of a parent, filled with care and unwavering support. It is the gentle touch of a lover, sparking a flame that ignites passion and desire. Love is the kind words of a friend, offering solace and understanding in times of need. It is the selfless acts of compassion and empathy that bind humanity together.

Love is not confined to romantic relationships alone. It is found in the family bonds, the connections we forge with friends, and even the compassion we extend to strangers. Love is a thread that weaves through the fabric of our lives, enriching and nourishing our souls.

However, love is not without its complexities. It can be both euphoric and agonizing, uplifting and devastating. Love requires vulnerability, trust, and the willingness to embrace joy and pain. It is a delicate balance between passion and compassion, independence and interdependence.

Finally, the essence of love may be elusive to define with mere words. It is an experience that surpasses language and logic, encompassing a spectrum of emotions and actions. Love is a profound connection that unites us all, reminding us of our shared humanity and the capacity for boundless compassion.

What is love essay: 500 words

A 500-word essay on why I love you

Trying to encapsulate why I love you in a mere 500 words is impossible. My love for you goes beyond the confines of language, transcending words and dwelling in the realm of emotions, connections, and shared experiences. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to express the depth and breadth of my affection for you.

First and foremost, I love you for who you are. You possess a unique blend of qualities and characteristics that captivate my heart and mind. Your kindness and compassion touch the lives of those around you, and I am grateful to be the recipient of your unwavering care and understanding. Your intelligence and wit constantly challenge me to grow and learn, stimulating my mind and enriching our conversations. You have a beautiful spirit that radiates warmth and joy, and I am drawn to your vibrant energy.

I love the way you make me feel. When I am with you, I feel a sense of comfort and security that allows me to be my true self. Your presence envelops me in a cocoon of love and acceptance, where I can express my thoughts, fears, and dreams without fear of judgment. Your support and encouragement inspire me to pursue my passions and overcome obstacles. With you by my side, I feel empowered to face the world, knowing I have a partner who believes in me.

I love the memories we have created together. From the laughter-filled moments of shared adventures to the quiet and intimate conversations, every memory is etched in my heart. Whether exploring new places, indulging in our favorite activities, or simply enjoying each other’s company in comfortable silence, each experience reinforces our bond. Our shared memories serve as a foundation for our relationship, a testament to the depth of our connection and the love that binds us.

I love your quirks and imperfections. Your true essence shines through these unique aspects! Your little traits make me smile and remind me of the beautiful individual you are. I love how you wrinkle your nose when you laugh, become lost in thought when reading a book, and even sing off-key in the shower. These imperfections make you human, relatable, and utterly lovable.

I love the future we envision together. We support each other’s goals, cheering one another on as we navigate the path toward our dreams. The thought of building a life together, creating a home filled with love and shared experiences, fills my heart with anticipation and excitement. The future we imagine is one that I am eager to explore with you by my side.

In conclusion, the reasons why I love you are as vast and varied as the universe itself. It is a love that defies logic and surpasses the limitations of language. From the depths of my being, I love you for the person you are, the way you make me feel, the memories we cherish, your quirks and imperfections, and the future we envision together. My love for you is boundless, unconditional, and everlasting.

A 5-paragraph essay about love

I’ve gathered all the samples (and a few bonus ones) in one PDF. It’s free to download. So, you can keep it at hand when the time comes to write a love essay.

Ready to Write Your Essay About Love?

Now that you know the definition of a love essay and have many topic ideas, it’s time to write your A-worthy paper! Here go the steps:

• Check all the examples of what is love essay from this post.
• Choose the topic and angle that fits your prompt best.
• Write your original and inspiring story.

Any questions left? Our writers are all ears. Please don’t hesitate to ask!

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Valentine's Day

Finding true love beyond the love story.

Elizabeth Tannen

What's Rosier? A remarkable love or a remarkable love story? iStockphoto.com hide caption

What's Rosier? A remarkable love or a remarkable love story?

Elizabeth Tannen is a student in the creative writing program at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. You can find links to her other essays and read her blog about dating here .

For the most part, my aversion to online dating is about vanity. Simply put, I think that I'm too attractive, too interesting and too young to need to subject myself to the trauma of courting on the Internet.

But there's another reason, too — it's that I love a story. One of my favorite parts of dating is a charming "how we met" anecdote. And I'm sorry, but there's nothing charming about eHarmony. So when someone I know admitted that part of getting over his first love meant realizing that he'd been "in love with the story" — the two of them met in the desert in Israel — I immediately recognized my own experience.

Specifically, I recognized my Missed Connection. It was the Internet that brought us together, ironically, but there was plot. We made eye contact on a Brooklyn-bound F train and then found one another through the Missed Connections page on Craigslist. I posted the ad, for the first time in my life, and he hadn't even heard of the site until reading about it in the Times Book Review two weeks prior.

On our first date, he unassumingly disclosed a critical mass of Ideal Boyfriend qualities: he was 6-foot-5 and a lawyer for a labor union. He asked me questions and read the New Yorker . He had become an ordained minister online so that he could perform the weddings of both of his younger sisters.

Essayist Elizabeth Tannen is on a quest to find true love. Courtesy of Elizabeth Tannen hide caption

He was so completely good-natured that, initially, my attraction vanished. (I questioned my sexuality the way I had after the first time I kissed an attractive man and felt nothing — only years later realizing it was because he was meek and unintelligent.) But the story of my Missed Connection was so compelling that I persevered, eventually convincing myself that I should probably marry him. When life plans pulled us apart after just three months of dating, I felt devastated. Recently, though, when our paths crossed briefly for beers and conversation, we had a great time — but the chemistry wasn't there. I had to admit that, on some level, it never truly was.

Sometimes we encounter the opposite: We find the connection, but not the story. The other night I talked with a friend who is navigating an increasingly serious relationship. Outwardly creative and liberal, she always anticipated that she'd end up with someone similar. The man she's dating isn't: He's clean-cut and has a "conventional" job. He's right for her in deeper, more fundamental ways — but she admits it's a struggle to accept that, superficially, he's not what she thought she wanted. He doesn't reflect the story she believed about herself.

No matter where we meet people — on the subway or online — all of us make up stories that reinforce notions of our relationships and ourselves. It's the way we make sense of the world: I'm not sure any of us could survive without giving our lives some compelling plotlines. I certainly couldn't. But even as I do, I will try to remember that any connection I'm lucky enough to find with someone is far more important than whatever story that connection might tell.

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Music: songs for romantics & curmudgeons.

Non-Fiction Writing Prompts About Relationships And Love

Don’t you love to write your thoughts?  Sometime when you’re stuck in your fiction writing, finding a non-fiction prompt and writing until you’re out of words about it can really break down some barriers and show you something about yourself and your writing.

Here are 25 of my favorite about love and relationships (heavy stuff for heavy writing!):

•  Tell a story about how you see love.
•  Write about what’s most important in a relationship.
•  Write about how to enjoy your relationship in every phase of life.
•  Write about your idea of a successful relationship.
•  Write about what it really takes to have a> successful relationship.
•  Write about how your friendships play a part in your relationships.
•  Write about how self-doubt can affect your search for love.
•  Write about how to love someone else in a way they need.
•  Write about how to find what you truly enjoy in a life partner.
•  Write about becoming open-minded in your pursuit of love.
• Write about the importance of loving yourself before loving someone else.
• Write about your journey to find love and what it’s meant for you.
• Write about a time you thought you found love but were very wrong.
• Write about how finding love has changed the way you care for others.
• Write about how to develop healthy and nurturing relationships.
• Write about friendships and how they play a role in your happiness.
• Write about creating relationships that lift you up and not drag you down.
• Write about what it means to truly love unconditionally.
• Write about how intimacy can help your self-esteem.
• Write about ways in which you can improve your sex life.
• Write about ways in which you can improve your romantic relationship.
• Write about ways in which you can improve your platonic relationships.
• Write about loving yourself and what that fully means.
• Write about building strong relationship foundations in a family.
• Write about how to communicate in relationships.

Here are a few ideas to push the above prompts a bit further:

• Never assume every single person loves and wants love the same way
• Tell personal, real-life stories to build relatability
• Keep your advice open-ended and always encourage communication

Happy writing!

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The organic route: as you become more eminent, gradually to increase the parts of your job that you like at the expense of those you don't. The two-job route: to work at things you don't like to get money to work on things you do.

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Relationship — Understanding True Love

Understanding True Love

• Categories: Relationship

About this sample

Words: 380 |

Published: Apr 11, 2019

Words: 380 | Page: 1 | 2 min read

Works Cited

• Beck, A. (1988). Love is never enough: How couples can overcome misunderstandings, resolve conflicts, and solve relationship problems through cognitive therapy. New York: Harper Perennial.
• Cohen, L. (1992). The Future. In The Future (p. 13). Columbia Records.
• Epstein, M. (2009). The nature of love: A philosophical exploration. Oxford University Press.
• Fisher, H. (2017). Anatomy of love: A natural history of mating, marriage, and why we stray. WW Norton & Company.
• Fromm, E. (1956). The art of loving. Harper & Row.
• Johnson, S. (2008). Hold me tight: Seven conversations for a lifetime of love. Little, Brown.
• Rumi. (2004). The Essential Rumi (Coleman Barks, Trans.). HarperCollins.
• Schwartz, B. (2016). The paradox of choice: Why more is less. HarperCollins.
• Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2015). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice. John Wiley & Sons.
• Whelan, M. (2013). Love 2.0: How our supreme emotion affects everything we feel, think, do, and become. Penguin.

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Modern love: scientific insights from 21st century dating.

• Personality/Social
• Relationships

Take Your Pick

For millions of years, humans have been selecting mates using the wealth of information gleaned in face-to-face interactions — not just appearance, but characteristics such as tone of voice, body language, and scent, as well as immediate feedback to their own communications. Does mate selection differ when those looking are presented with an almost overwhelming number of potential partners, but limited to a few photos, statistics, and an introductory paragraph about each one? What information do online daters focus on? Is it all about the photo? Or are words the key to someone’s heart (or at least their Match.com inbox)? In one survey of Australian online daters, 85% said they would not contact someone without a posted photo, so physical appearance is indeed important (Fiore et al., 2008). A 2008 study in which participants rated actual online profiles confirmed this, but also explored the criteria that made certain photos attractive (Fiore et al., 2008). Men were considered more attractive when they looked genuine, extraverted, and feminine, but not overly warm or kind. (Although feminine male photos were seen as attractive, whole male profiles were rated more attractive when they seemed more masculine, a perplexing result worthy of more study.) Women were deemed more attractive when they looked feminine, high in self-esteem, and not selfish. This study also found that the narrative  self-descriptive sections of the profiles played a key role in attractiveness, but the fixed choice sections of the profiles (where users have to pick from a specific set of descriptors, i.e., “Have children now,” “Want children someday,”  “Don’t want children,” smoker/non-smoker, etc.) only minimally affected attractiveness ratings. However, these fixed choice descriptors allow users to triage by easily weeding out those who don’t meet their  dealbreaker criteria for a partner (Fiore et al., 2008).

Researchers believe that users make up for the lack of information in online profiles by filling in the blanks with guesses based on small pieces of information. Some theorize that online daters may be wearing rose colored glasses when looking at potential dates — filling in the information gaps with positive qualities in a potential partner (Gibbs et al., 2006). In one study, knowing more information about a potential date generally led to liking them less, possibly because it called out inconsistencies and reduced opportunities to fill in the blanks with positive inferences. But, with a particularly compatible partner, more information led to more liking. For online daters, this means that a very detailed profile might attract fewer, but more compatible suitors (Norton et al., 2007).

Research has also revealed gender differences in both preference and messaging behavior on online dating sites. In particular, women and men differ in the relative importance they assign to various attributes of potential partners. A forthcoming study conducted by Günter Hitsch, Ali Hortaçsu (both at University of Chicago), and Dan Ariely (Duke University) confirmed existing evolutional theory, finding that in a sample of 22,000 online daters women weigh income more than physical attributes, including facial attractiveness, height and body mass index, when deciding who to contact (Hitsch et al., 2009). Interestingly, these differences persist even when reproduction is no longer a factor. In a study that looked at online daters across the lifespan, even older men “sought physical attractiveness and offered status-related information more than women” and women continued to be the more selective gender (Sears-Roberts Alterovitz & Mendelsohn, 2009).

In a nine-month study of participants on a dating site in 2008 and 2009, Andrew Fiore, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues examined stated preferences and actual messaging behavior (Fiore et al., 2010). In general, women really are pickier than men — listing smaller ranges in their preferences for age and ethnicity. Women also initiate and reply to contact less than men. They were contacted much more than men and, hence, generally had their choice of who to reply to. But, just as in the face-to-face dating scene, respect is important — users who respected others’ listed preferences for a potential partner were more likely to get a response. In light of these findings, the researchers presented some advice to potential online daters: “Choose wisely and, if possible, be female” (Fiore et al., 2010).

This study also leads to some intriguing design ideas for online dating sites’ automatic matching systems, which present users with sets of likely partners. More popular users are contacted more and, therefore, are less likely to respond to any one user. Taking this into account, dating sites may want to steer users toward slightly less popular potential dates who are more likely to respond, “a trade-off many users may willingly accept” (Fiore et al., 2010).

What I Like About You Me

In a 2005 study, Fiore and Judith Donath (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) examined messaging data from 65,000 users of a United States-based dating site. They found that users preferred sameness on all of the categories they tested (a variety of features from child preferences to education to physical features like height). But some factors played a larger role than others, with marital status and wanting or already having children showing the strongest same-seeking. Fiore has also found that women responded more frequently to men whose popularity on the site (a measure based on the average number of people contacting the user per day) was similar to their own (Fiore, 2010).

Online dating service users tend to contact people who are about as attractive as they are, but does your own attractiveness level influence how attractive you believe others to be? One research team put this question to the test on the website HOTorNOT.com. The site was launched in 2000 purely for users to rate each other on how attractive (or, obviously, not) they were. Later, the site added an online dating component. This provided an extra set of information for researchers — not only knowing who’s talking to whom, but the overall attractiveness ratings of those users from everyone on the site. Consistent with previous research, this study, published in Psychological Science , found that people with similar levels of physical attractiveness indeed tend to date each other, with more attractive people being more particular about the physical attractiveness of their potential dates. Compared to females, males are more influenced by how physically attractive their potential dates are, but less affected by how attractive they themselves are when deciding whom to date. (But these findings about gender bias in attraction are being challenged in other studies – more on this later.)  Also, regardless of how attractive people themselves are, they seem to judge others’ attractiveness in similar ways, supporting the notion that we have largely universal, culturally independent standards of beauty (e.g., symmetric faces; Lee et al., 2008).

Stretching (or Shrinking) the Truth

Assessing potential partners online hinges on other users being truthful in their descriptions. But what if they aren’t? Psychological scientists have turned to online dating to examine how truthful people are in their descriptions of themselves, both with themselves and to others. Online daters walk a fine line — everyone wants to make themselves as attractive as possible to potential dates, making deception very tempting. But, daters can’t be too deceptive, lest they actually get to the point of a real life meeting in which they could be exposed. Catalina Toma, Jeffrey Hancock (both at Cornell University), and Nicole Ellison (Michigan State University) examined the relationship between actual physical attributes and online self-descriptions of online daters in New York. They found that lying was ubiquitous, but usually fairly small in terms of magnitude. Men tended to lie about height and women tended to lie about weight. And the lying wasn’t due to self-deception — self-ratings of attributes tended to be accurate, even when information on the dating site was not (Toma, 2008).

The Need for Speed

Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist and co-author of the HOTorNOT.com study and the forth-coming article with Hitsch and Hortaçsu, was initially drawn to online dating because it seemed like a very nice solution to a common problem — people in need of partners and no market for them to find each other. But while online dating has yielded fascinating results about preferences and many real-world matches, it doesn’t work for every person looking for a mate because it is so difficult to quantify the qualities that lead to and keep attraction going. As Ariely said, attempting to sum up the myriad aspects of a person in an online dating profile can be like “describing a dish in a restaurant by its chemical composition.” It’s accurate, but it doesn’t provide useful information when deciding what to order. Another modern dating innovation may provide a better solution: speed dating.

In the late 1990s, a rabbi in Los Angeles created a new way for Jewish singles in his community to meet each other — they would go on many “dates” lasting just a few minutes in one night, report to the event organizers if they wanted to see any of their “dates” in the future, and, if two people said yes to each other, they would be given contact information to continue corresponding. Since then, speed dating has spread around the world, giving millions of singles a chance at love. It also gives savvy researchers an unprecedented chance to study attraction in situ .

In the winter of 2004, Eli Finkel and Paul Eastwick, both at Northwestern University at the time, thought that speed dating would be “a terrific way to catch initial attraction in action,” as Eastwick, now at Texas A&M, reported. This hunch was confirmed by a speed dating outing with several other Northwestern colleagues, and the researchers embarked a new track of speed dating work. (No word on whether the outing was a success from other standpoints.)

As Finkel and Eastwick point out in a 2008 study published in Current Directions in Psychological Science , the popularity of speed dating allows the collection of large, real world samples across cultures, ethnicities, and socioeconomic levels. The speed dating design also lets researchers to study both sides of a dyadic process. A speed dating event with 20 participants would yield 400 separate interactions, allowing researchers to create very detailed accounts of people’s attractions. For example, they would be able to tell that a certain woman liked a certain man because (a) she likes all the men (she has fewer dealbreaker standards), (b) all the women liked that man (he was an irresistible dish), or (c) they had a unique experience that made her like him more than other men at the event and him like her more than other women at the event (Finkel & Eastwick, 2008). Also, speed dating allows for exploring reciprocity effects. A 2007 Psychological Science article (Eastwick et al., 2007) found that liking can be reciprocal — if a women likes a certain man more than others, he is more likely to like her — but isn’t always reciprocal — if a woman likes all the men more than other women did, the men will generally like her less. As Finkel says, “romantic likers tend to be disliked.”

Speed dating empowers researchers to study interactions as they happen, rather than post-hoc reports. It also allows for testing actual versus stated preferences. One speed dating study showed that stated preferences do not match actual preferences and called into question the gender biases in attraction that have been well-documented elsewhere (i.e., that men see physical features as more important and women see earning prospects or security as more important), raising the specter of a disconnect between what we say we’re attracted to and what we’re actually attracted to (Eastwick  & Finkel, 2008).

Speed dating studies also allow researchers to study the implications of simple changes in dating paradigms. For example, even in light of the emerging sexual equality of the last several decades, many women (and men) expect the man to play the pursuer at the beginning of romantic heterosexual relationships (Finkel & Eastwick, 2009). This idea holds true at speed dating events, where women generally stay seated while the men rotate. This set-up stems from vague notions of chivalry, but also from more mundane purposes — according to one speed dating company executive, women tend to have more stuff with them, like purses, and are therefore less efficient movers. Could this set-up in itself affect attraction? Turns out that it can. In most speed dating scenarios (as in most attraction scenarios in general) women are more selective. But, when women rotated, this effect disappeared and they became less selective than the men. The researchers purport that, consistent with an embodied-approach explanation, the physical act of being the one to approach could increase self-confidence leading to being more open to approaching romantic partners and, therefore, less selective (Finkel & Eastwick, 2009). (For more information on embodied cognition, see “The Body of Knowledge” in the January 2010 Observer .)

he search for love is never easy and attraction is never simple.  Research into online matchmaking and speed dating is providing valuable insight into the human quest for romance, and this is only the beginning. Most of the research in this area to-date focuses on dating behavior of heterosexuals in the United States. More work is necessary to determine if the findings so far also apply to international daters and to understand the dynamics of homosexual pairings. Emerging methods may also bring new insight into dating dynamics. Finkel and Eastwick have begun using a coding scheme to study exactly what participants are saying during their dates, allowing them to potentially code what exactly makes a date great or awkward. As they say, “Is it better to be warm or a little cool and aloof? Is it better to communicate independence from or interdependence with your partner?” The duo has also begun to collect saliva samples from speed daters which they hope will allow them to explore “the biochemistry of romantic desire.” In the future, the search for love may be as simple as submitting saliva and waiting for a match, but for now those looking for love can at least take this new research to heart.

References and Further Reading

Eastwick, P.W., Finkel, E. J., Mochon, D., & Ariely, D. (2007). Selective versus unselective romantic desire: Not all reciprocity is created equal. Psychological Science , 18 , 317–319.

Eastwick, P.W., & Finkel, E.J. (2008). Sex differences in mate preferences revisited: Do people know what they initially desire in a romantic partner? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 94 , 245-264 .

Finkel, E.J., & Eastwick, P.W. (2009). Arbitrary social norms influence sex differences in romantic selectivity. Psychological Science , 20 , 1290-1295.

Finkel, E.J., & Eastwick, P.W. (2008). Speed-dating. Current Directions in Psychological Science , 17 , 193-197.

Fiore, A.T., & Donath, J.S. (2005). Homophily in online dating: When do you like someone like yourself? Short Paper, ACM Computer-Human Interaction 2005.

Fiore, A.T., & Donath, J.S. (2004). Online personals: An overview . Short Paper, ACM Computer-Human Interaction 2004 .

Fiore, A T., Taylor, L S., Mendelsohn, G.A., & Hearst, M. (2008). Assessing attractiveness in online dating profiles . Short Paper, ACM Computer-Human Interaction 2008.

Fiore, A.T., Taylor, L.S., Zhong, X., Mendelsohn, G.A., & Cheshire, C. (2010). Who’s right and who writes: People, profiles, contacts, and replies in online dating. In Proceedings of Hawai’i International Conference on System Sciences, 43 .

Gibbs, J.L., Ellison, N.B., & Heino, R.D. (2006). Self-presentation in online personals: The role of anticipated future interaction, self-disclosure, and perceived success in Internet dating . Communication Research , 33 , 1-26.

Hitsch, G.J., Hortaçsu, A., & Ariely, D. (in press). Matching and sorting in online dating. American Economic Review.

Hitsch, G.J., Hortaçsu, A., & Ariely, D. (2009). What makes you click: An empirical analysis of online dating. Working Paper, retrieved Jan. 2010 from: http://home.uchicago.edu/~hortacsu/onlinedating.pdf

Lee, L., Loewenstein, G., Ariely, D., Hong, J., & Young, J. (2008). If I’m not hot, are you hot or not? Physical-attractiveness evaluations and dating preferences as a function of one’s own attractiveness. Psychological Science , 19 , 669-677.

Norton, M., Frost, J., & Ariely, D. (2007). Less is more: The lure of ambiguity, or why familiarity breeds contempt. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 92, 97-105.

Sears-Roberts Alterovitz, S., & Mendelsohn, G.A. (2009). Partner preferences across the life span: Online dating by older adults, Psychology and Aging , 24 , 513-517.

Toma, C., Hancock, J., & Ellison, N. (2008). Separating fact from fiction: An examination of deceptive self-presentation in online dating profiles. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34 , 1023-1036.

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From songs and poems to novels and movies, romantic love is one of the most enduring subjects for artworks through the ages. But what about the science?

Historical, cultural and even evolutionary evidence suggests love existed during ancient times and across many parts of the world. Romantic love has been found to exist in 147 of 166 cultures looked at in one study.

The complexity of love has much to do with how people experience it differently and how it can change over time.

Read more: Friday essay: finding spaces for love

Like, love, or ‘in love’?

Psychological research over the past 50 years has investigated the differences between liking someone, loving someone and being “in love”.

Liking is described as having positive thoughts and feelings towards someone and finding that person’s company rewarding. We often also experience warmth and closeness towards the people we like. In some instances we choose to be emotionally intimate with these people.

When we love someone we experience the same positive thoughts and experiences as when we like a person. But we also experience a deep sense of care and commitment towards that person.

Being “ in love ” includes all the above but also involves feelings of sexual arousal and attraction. However, research into people’s own views of love suggests that not all love is the same.

Passionate vs companionate love

Romantic love consists of two types: passionate and companionate love. Most romantic relationships, whether they be heterosexual or same sex , involve both these parts.

Passionate love is what people typically consider being “in love”. It includes feelings of passion and an intense longing for someone, to the point they might obsessively think about wanting to be in their arms.

The second part is known as companionate love . It’s not felt as intensely, but it’s complex and connects feelings of emotional intimacy and commitment with a deep attachment toward the romantic partner.

How does love change over time?

Research looking at changes in romantic love over time typically finds that although passionate love starts high, it declines over the course of a relationship.

There are various reasons for this.

As partners learn more about each other and become more confident in the long-term future of the relationship, routines develop. The opportunities to experience novelty and excitement can also decline, as can the frequency of sexual activity . This can cause passionate love to subside.

Although a reduction in passionate love is not experienced by all couples, various studies report approximately 20-40% of couples experience this downturn. Of couples who have been married in excess of ten years, the steepest downturn is most likely to occur over the second decade .

Life events and transitions can also make it challenging to experience passion. People have competing responsibilities which affect their energy and limit the opportunities to foster passion. Parenthood is an example of this.

Read more: Love by design: when science meets sex, lust, attraction and attachment

In contrast, companionate love is typically found to increase over time.

Although research finds most romantic relationships consist of both passionate and companionate love, it’s the absence or reductions in companionate love, moreso than passionate love, that can negatively affect the longevity of a romantic relationship.

But what’s the point of love?

Love is an emotion that keeps people bonded and committed to one another. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, love evolved to keep the parents of children together long enough for them to survive and reach sexual maturity .

Read more: What is this thing called love?

The period of childhood is much longer for humans than other species. As offspring rely on adults for many years to survive and to develop the skills and abilities needed for successful living, love is especially important for humans.

Without love, it’s difficult to see how the human species could have evolved .

A biological foundation too

Not only is there an evolutionary foundation to love, love is rooted in biology. Neurophysiological studies into romantic love show that people who are in the throes of passionate love experience increased activation in brain regions associated with reward and pleasure.

Read more: Love lockdown: the pandemic has put pressure on many relationships, but here's how to tell if yours will survive

In fact, the brain regions activated are the same as those activated by cocaine.

These regions release chemicals such as oxytocin, vasopressin and dopamine, which produce feelings of happiness and euphoria that are also linked to sexual arousal and excitement.

Interestingly, these brain regions are not activated when thinking about non-romantic relationships such as friends. These findings tell us that liking someone is not the same as being in love with someone.

What’s your love style?

Research has found three primary styles of love. First coined by psychologist John Lee , the love styles are eros, ludus and storge. These styles include people’s beliefs and attitudes about love and act as a guide for how to approach romantic relationships.

This style of love refers to erotic love and is focused on physical attraction and engaging in sex, the quick development of strong and passionate feelings for another and intense intimacy.

This style involves being emotionally distant and often involves “game-playing”. It’s not surprising people who endorse this love style are unlikely to commit, feel comfortable ending relationships and often start a new relationship before ending the current one.

Storge is often regarded as a more mature form of love. Priority is given to having a relationship with a person who has similar interests, affection is openly expressed and there is less emphasis on physical attractiveness. People high on storge love are trusting of others and are not needy or dependent on others.

Or is a mixture more your style?

You may see yourself in more than one of these styles.

Evidence suggests some people possess a mixture of the three main love styles; these mixtures were labelled by Lee as mania, pragma and agape.

Read more: Darling, I love you ... from the bottom of my brain

Manic love includes intense feelings for a partner as well as worry about committing to the relationship. Pragmatic love involves making sensible relationship choices in finding a partner who will make a good companion and friend. Agape is a self-sacrificing love that is driven by a sense of duty and selflessness.

Why do you love the way you do?

A person’s love style has little to do with their genetics . Rather, it’s associated with the development of personality and a person’s past relationship experiences.

Some studies have found people who are high on dark traits, such as narcissism, psychopathy and machiavellianism, endorse more of a ludus or pragma love style.

Read more: There are six styles of love. Which one best describes you?

People who have an insecure attachment style , involving a high need for validation and preoccupation with relationship partners, endorse more mania love, while those who are uncomfortable with intimacy and closeness do not endorse eros love.

No matter the differences in the way love is experienced, one thing remains common for all: we as humans are social animals who have a deep fascination for it.

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To Find Love and Meaning in Life, First Find Your Purpose

Chasing your passion often comes with personal and professional benefits..

Posted May 9, 2024 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

• Why Relationships Matter
• Find a therapist to strengthen relationships
• Studies have found that purposeful people are more attractive overall than those who have no sense of purpose.
• The first step toward finding your purpose is believing you have one.
• A higher sense of purpose often results in more positive relationship outcomes.

What motivates and has meaning for you, helps you set goals , and makes you feel your life is moving in a clear forward direction? If you can easily answer those questions, if you believe your life has meaning and that you have a reason for being right here, right now, you’re much more likely on track to find your unique purpose in life and a path to success and happiness than someone who feels no particular calling or direction.

To find your purpose, start with the understanding that a purposeful life is a life filled with meaning and direction. Finding purpose requires self-reflection on your past life experiences and how they have affected you, opening yourself up to diverse ideas and experiences, and, ultimately, actively participating in your most meaningful areas of interest.

A small study led by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that narrowing down life’s many options to those that motivate you, and leave you feeling satisfied and positive about yourself, not only helps you find people to whom you are attracted but also helps them find you. And that may well include a long-term romantic partner, if that’s what you seek.

After setting up fake profiles on a dating app of people who appeared to have a strong sense of purpose as well as people with no real sense of purpose beyond themselves, the researchers asked 119 men and women to read and rank each on their attractiveness as romantic partners. Overall, the researchers reported, profiles of people called to a higher purpose—wanting to help others (i.e., volunteering community service), following a strong creative drive (i.e., having a passion for acting, writing, dancing or visual arts), focusing on financial goals (i.e., pursuing wealth) or strongly centering their lives around relationships with loved ones—were perceived to be more attractive as potential romantic partners than those who expressed no particular purpose at all.

The highest rank for potential partners went to profiles of individuals most focused on their relationships, followed by those with a creative profile, and then those who were committed to helping others. Interestingly, the profiles primarily focused on finances were ranked lower in appeal than any of the others.

According to Robert Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, intimacy, passion, and commitment are three components necessary for successful consummate, or complete, love. Other types and stages of love, from friendship and infatuation to romantic and companionate love, contain and often survive on just one or two of these components. In any case, commitment must be a component of any relationship if it is to be sustained.

Earlier studies have shown that those who have a higher sense of purpose, regardless of the category of purpose, report more positive relationship outcomes than those who don’t feel purposeful or are not pursuing a broader purpose in life. Research suggests this could be because highly purposeful people are also highly motivated people who invest more in their personal relationships and are therefore more committed to taking steps to resolve inevitable conflicts and sustain the intimacy and passion felt in a healthy, consummate relationship. Someone with a lesser sense of purpose may feel less invested in a romantic relationship and therefore be less motivated to take those same steps to protect that relationship.

But the benefits of having and feeling purpose extend well beyond finding like-minded thinkers and a near-perfect partner. Purposeful people have also been found to have better time management skills, better emotional regulation , less negativity and reactivity in stressful situations, and greater overall life satisfaction than those who feel little to no purpose in life. The purposeful are more resilient when faced with setbacks, and motivated to find the time and resources necessary to reach their goals, both personal and professional.

D’Ottone IC, Pfund GN, Hill PL. Purposeful Partners: Potential Relationship Quality and Sense of Purpose. International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, 2023

Yemiscigil A, Yilmaz MS, Lee MT. How to Find Your Purpose. Harvard Business Review. September 15, 2023

Pfund GN. Hill PL. The Multifaceted Benefits of Purpose in Life. The International Forum for Logotherapy.(2018) 41; 27-37

Susan McQuillan is a food, health, and lifestyle writer.

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At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that threatens to derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face our triggers with less reactivity so that we can get on with our lives.

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A Love Letter To LA, From A Brit Who Never Thought She’d Fit In

The miracle of backyard oranges

Ditching the stereotype, collective marveling, l.a. lessons.

T hat first smell of the air — it is sweeter out here, I swear. The feel of sand in my toes. My first farmers market with coconut tortillas and jackfruit carnitas.

From the time we landed, I was hooked.

I’d grown up in London. I’d been happily living on the East Coast for 10 years. The L.A. I thought I knew was for other people, not me. But the minute we arrived it felt like I’d stumbled on paradise.

Gone baby, gone. It’s remained this way ever since. A decade in, I still look up as I cross the street and wonder — wait, who put those palm trees there? And I clutch myself with glee.

That first week is still vivid. Each morning I’d get up, pad outside in my bare feet and stand there, face turned up to the sun, marveling that such a life existed.

No wonder Californians seemed so damn happy and healthy all the time! The young me back in damp, cold London could only have dreamed of such things (and did, enviously watching Baywatch and 90210 ).

We’d moved into a house that had an orange tree in the yard — a miracle. In England, oranges strictly arrived in supermarkets, slightly sullen from their arduous journey from Florida.

Back home, they were reserved for unimaginative fruit salads or quartered for mid-game refreshment at cricket matches. Here, the lushness, the proliferation, the goddamn extravagance of the fruit — I mean, you could just reach out and have one for breakfast!

Which brings me to food. Such a variety! Yes, I’d lived in New York with its plethora of choices, but somehow here there was a glee about the diversity, a pride in all the different cultures rubbing up against each other.

Japanese and Korean and Ethiopian and Persian, as well as more tacos than you could possibly try in one lifetime. And the pushing of food frontiers, the willingness to blend, the “Hey, why not mix Mexican and Korean food?” When I first saw a Kogi food truck I stood in disbelief …and reverence.

Over the years I’ve learned to let go of my preconceptions. On the East Coast I grabbed my husband and said, “I can’t move to Los Angeles! All the women are so gorgeous! I’ll just never fit in. They’ve all had work done, and their teeth are so perfect!” (Actually this is true — I’m still embarrassed by my British teeth and somehow Angeleno teeth gleam whiter in the sunshine).

Then we moved to the Westside and suddenly I’m awash in yogis in leggings and no makeup, wafting through the farmers market holding a perfectly situated bunch of sunflowers, with little thought to fashion or dressing up.

How can you reduce 10 million people to a stereotype? You can’t.

In fact dressing up seemed to consist of stepping out of Birkenstocks and putting on some Uggs. (My favorite look remains a fleece and flip flops. What would be an unimaginable combo in, say, New York or London just seems to make perfect sense here).

When I did finally make it to Beverly Hills, I found the L.A. of my imagination. Walking behind women in Chanel suits, men in cashmere sweaters and dogs in sequined collars and realizing … aha ... It’s all about the neighborhoods. There are so many. And each is different.

Downtown with its lofts and the Eastside with its hipster enclaves and Pasadena pressed up against the mountains and up through the 405 to a vast landscape of valley-ness laid out below, and out east to the desert … what an array of different experiences. I had no idea. How can you reduce 10 million people to a stereotype? You can’t.

There are some ways, though, that Angelenos who grew up here do betray themselves. Early on I was in Starbucks when the barista paused mid-pour. “Wow,” he said, staring through the big glass windows to the street. “Is that what I think it is?” Customers around me right and left turned to look, and each, too, became awestruck at the sight. What was it?

Rain was falling from the sky.

(As a child of London, I spent so much time in the rain that my shoes constantly squelched and my umbrella became surgically attached to my hand.)

Still, to be fair, my family had arrived during a period of drought. I, too, had grown unfamiliar with the appearance of rain. But even now, when we’ve had plenty of rain-filled winters, it seems to catch people off guard. I’ve become so assimilated that one day I actually thought, “Wait, what is that water falling from the sky?” and looked around to see if any sprinklers had gone rogue.

What else have I absorbed? That a 6 p.m. dinner reservation is perfectly acceptable. That going to sleep at 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve is fine. That it’s not a big deal to stay inside for three days straight because hey, the sun is going to come out tomorrow anyway.

That there are seasons here, and that during fall, the colors of the changing leaves on the trees can be as beautiful as Vermont, and that during winter it can feel damn cold because homes have no insulation.

That people really do surf before work, sun-silhouetted palm trees will make an appearance most nights, the impossibly good-looking waiter is likely an actor and that if you have to go somewhere five blocks away, driving is totally OK.

That there will always be a food truck wherever you go, there are geckos hanging out in the sun outside your house, and yes, the produce really does taste much better here — especially strawberries, even though there are two painful weeks each year when they’re just not available at farmers markets.

That there will always be someone grilling at the park, that skateboards are a legit form of transportation, and vegan soul food is not an oxymoron. And ultimately, that the sun makes you happy, the mountains are often snow-capped, and the wide horizon of the Pacific gives you room to dream.

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Like Love by Maggie Nelson review – music, passion and friendship

Vibrant essays from the author of The Argonauts touch on art, inspiration, and many of the central dilemmas of our times

“A s a child I had so much energy I’d lie awake and feel my organs smolder,” Maggie Nelson wrote in 2005’s Jane: A Murder . She was a dancer before she was a writer and you can feel the commitment to the fire of bodily motion in her masterpieces: the shimmeringly brutal excavation of girlhood and violence in Jane , the story of her aunt’s killing at the hands of a rapist; the clear-headed yet ecstatic celebration of the transformations of pregnancy and top surgery, and the new kind of family she and her trans partner brought into being in The Argonauts (2015). Her dedication to the material finds the forms it needs; I don’t think she sets out to bend genres. Instead, her high-stakes eviscerations of body settle into radically new forms.

Is this the energy of the rebel or the valedictorian? For decades, Nelson has parted her hair, fastened her top button, won the right grades and grants while throwing herself voluptuously into the counterculture, dreaming of being an “ electric ribbon of horniness and divine grace ” like one of her inspirations, Prince . It’s an American energy – expansive, new, full of power, pleasure, change and motion; a frontier energy, even when she’s writing about New York. We can hear Whitman behind her, and Emerson. “Power ceases in the instant of repose,” Emerson pronounces in Self-Reliance ; “it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of a gulf, in the darting to an aim.”

A decade after The Argonauts became the bible of English graduates everywhere, the essays in Like Love arrive to help us understand Nelson’s place in a culture where, to her half-delight, she has become such a powerful voice. Spanning two decades, they range from appreciations of influences including Prince and Judith Butler , to wild, freefalling conversations with figures such as Björk, Wayne Koestenbaum and Jacqueline Rose. There is a passionate, wondering account of her formative half-erotic friendship with the singer Lhasa de Sela . The writing isn’t consistent, any more than her books are. But I like to take my thinkers and writers whole, as she does. The essays offer a kind of composite self-portrait, and illustrate how she thinks, sometimes painstakingly, sometimes with casual jubilance, about some of the central dilemmas of our time.

In the face of the climate crisis, how to avoid “giving in to the narcissistic spectacle of the slo-mo Titanic going down”? In the face of the crisis in feminism, how and whether to move beyond sexual difference? The written exchanges show her interlocutors thinking it through, too. “ You dare to step into the future like no one else atm ,” Björk says. It’s true. This is where all that restless energy is leading. This is why she’s an Emersonian, shying away from nihilism. “There are new lands, new men, new thoughts,” Emerson wrote in Nature , discarding the “dry bones” of his ancestors; “Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.”

In her powerful piece on the artist Carolee Schneemann , Nelson posits her as a female incarnation of Emerson’s self-reliant man. But it’s Nelson herself who proffers new laws and worship – whose project amounts to a practical philosophy of contemporary American culture. In The Argonauts she offers the gift of a future we can somehow share; one that acknowledges the miseries of the present, that has space for dreams, but is obstinately material and in our world. Here, in dialogue with Jacqueline Rose, she proposes that “ Everybody deserves the kind of non-stultifying internal breathing space of fluidity or instability that is attributed to queers, or to women, or whatever.”

Like Love’s title comes from writer and theatre critic Hilton Als ’s vision of a group on the subway not as white women or black men but as mouths that need filling “with something wet or dry, like love, or unfamiliar and savory, like love”. Nelson, too, is drawn to mouths – to orifices in general – as organs of pleasure and pain, and as portals enabling a radical openness.

Because Nelson likes writing about her friends, there’s a kind of homogeneity to much of the book that cumulatively left me feeling a little claustrophobic, longing especially for the roominess of time travel. With the exception of 2009’s Bluets , Nelson’s writing is so located in the postwar world that the past can feel entirely absent. This is her affinity with Emerson and Whitman again – her song to the future – but I wonder if I’m alone in wishing that, alongside those two often acknowledged ancestors, her future could have artists, activists and libertines from earlier centuries informing it, too.

Which is not to say that she’s wrong to write about the people in her circle. The brutality of the present moment may require us precisely to batten down the hatches and commit to extreme solidarity. At a time when institutional life is collapsing, when the pandemic privileged family over friends, when work expands in ways that leave many too exhausted to socialise, Nelson demonstrates what it means to dedicate yourself to a cohort with seriousness and strenuousness. “You, to me, quickly became an inspiration,” she tells the poet Brian Blanchfield , “a brother, a support in times of seriously dark waters, an editor, a lender of excellent and pivotal books, a cheerleader, a colleague, a couch sleeper (and couch mover), a fellow swimmer … a corrupting gambler, (queer) family.” Like Love may be one of the most movingly specific, the most lovingly unruly celebrations of the ethics of friendship we have.

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Dorinda Medley Jokes the Best Place to Meet Men Is at 'Glamorous' N.Y.C. Funeral Home: 'It Is a Little Morbid'

"I’m looking around and I’m thinking, ‘There are some good-looking people here!" the TV personality joked

Dia Dipasupil/Getty

Dorinda Medley is deadly serious about finding love in New York City!

The Real Housewives of New York City alum, 59, was hesitant to reveal one of the places she's considered picking up a date while filming a live episode of the Page Six podcast, Virtual Reali-Tea, on Friday, May 17.

“It is a little morbid," she confessed to the hosts, before revealing that she's been to three funerals at Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home in Manhattan and it's hypothetically a good place for people of a certain age to find love for a surprisingly relatable reason.

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!

"Forgive me," the TV personality said, before explaining that in her experience, the Upper East Side location has glamorous services for the dead and "the most glamorous people" attend.

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"I’m looking around and I’m thinking, ‘There are some good-looking people here!'" Medley said through hysterical laughter after assuring the audience that she was "very sad" while attending the funerals.

"I somehow feel bonded to them because we all loved this person so much,” she continued. "So, I feel a little bit more comfortable going up and saying, ‘Hi, my name’s Dorinda Medley. How did you know …?’ ”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

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Medley clarified that she actually hadn't been on a date with anyone she's met at the funeral home, though the hosts assured her that once she explained it, her logic made sense to them.

The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip alum's last public relationship was with her ex-boyfriend John Mahdessian, whom she split from around 2019 when she was still starring on RHNY .

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‘The Bachelor’ Promises True Love. So Why Does It Rarely Work Out?

Of the 40 combined seasons of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” only eight couples have stayed together. We spoke to former contestants and leads about roadblocks to a happy ending.

By Shivani Gonzalez

The season premiere of any installment in “The Bachelor” franchise always starts the same: with the host talking directly to camera about the lead’s almost-certain path to finding lasting love. Unlike other popular reality dating shows, the franchise markets itself as a genuine chance to find love without any other incentives like cash prizes.

But it’s actually not all that probable: Of the 40 combined seasons of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” only eight couples have stayed together — not great betting odds.

Morale in the franchise was low going into 2023, with no recently minted couples still together, until ABC announced a hopeful new twist. “The Golden Bachelor” pledged to aid then-72 year-old Gerry Turner make the most of a second chance at love following the death of his wife. At season’s end, he proposed to Theresa Nist in a teary finale. In January their wedding was televised on ABC. By April, they’d announced plans to divorce.

That breakup felt like the last straw in believing this franchise could foster lasting love, so to look into why “The Bachelor” rarely makes good on its premise, we spoke to the former Bachelorettes Kaitlyn Bristowe and Tayshia Adams, as well as the former contestants Tyler Cameron and Melissa Rycroft about the flaws that doom the reality franchises’ lovebirds.

The main prize might not be the catch you thought.

Many love-related reality television shows that are on the air today — think “Love Island,” “Are You the One?” or even “Bachelor in Paradise” — allow for participants to intermingle in environments specifically designed to mimic some version of real life.

On “The Bachelor” circumstances are purposely anti-real-world dating scenarios, the better to “focus” on finding real love. The lead dates 25 or more people at once while the contestants have their sights set on that one person. Prospective love interests don’t have access to any outside distractions like cellphones, books or television.

“When you’re in that ‘Bachelor’ bubble, all you do is focus on and be brainwashed toward that person,” Tyler Cameron, the runner-up on Hannah Brown’s “Bachelorette” season, said.

Since the show is marketed as an opportunity to find love and have the lead establish separate connections with different contestants, Melissa Rycroft, from Season 13, said the competitive feel among the contestants is orchestrated by producers and not necessarily inherent to the environment.

Contestants are isolated and singularly focused on gaining the affections of one target. The competition makes it hard for contestants to know if they even like the lead. Rycroft got engaged to the bachelor Jason Mesnick at the end of his season before he broke it off to instead be with the season’s runner-up.

“They have built him up as this amazing bachelor,” Rycroft said, adding, “I finished this process not knowing a lot about him because I was more interested in making sure he wanted me and didn’t want to reject me than going through the process going, ‘Are you the one that I want to be?’”

Cameron agreed. “You kind of look past the red flags and the signs that it won’t work,” he said, “because you want to work for what you think it could be because of how great or fun the show makes it seem on the other side.”

The fairy-tale dates eventually stop.

Kaitlyn Bristowe, the Bachelorette from Season 11, got engaged at the end of her run but broke off the relationship four years later (“In Bachelor years, that’s like 40 years,” she joked.) Bristowe’s season, like many others, featured elaborate dates including multiple helicopter and yacht rides and a private fireworks display, not exactly a window into what a real-world future would look like.

Bristowe has discussed the troubles with “Bachelor” dating on her podcast, “Off the Vine.” “I always talk about the foundation of a relationship and when the foundation is that it’s built off an edited TV show, a TV show where you’re doing all these dream dates,” she said, “you don’t actually get to spend a lot of time with the person.”

So “the relationship is so built up and put on a pedestal,” she said, “and it’s manufactured, and that’s a tricky foundation to start a life on.”

There’s a letdown after the show wraps.

Tayshia Adams became the lead on Season 16 of “The Bachelorette” after Clare Crawley bowed out a few episodes in to leave with a contestant from the season. Adams got engaged to that season’s winner but that relationship ended just under a year later.

“Where there is a logistical hiccup, it’s the fact that it is a television show and you and your partner essentially have to go into hiding for months on end before the show airs,” Adams said.

“It’s not normal for people to get engaged and then be like, ‘Bye, gotta go, I’ll see you later. Oh, I don’t even have your cellphone number yet,’” she said.

Real-world logistics are hard.

When Turner and Nist announced their divorce, they cited the fact that neither of them wanted to move away from their families.

Bristowe also noted that this type of coordination can be a part of the problem.

“Logistically to live in two different cities, when you have built your foundation for who you are in a certain city, I feel like that all makes it kind of a recipe for a failed relationship,” she said.

Adams said it was important to manage expectations. The leads sign up because they’re ready to get engaged. But the real questions are, “‘Are you ready to uproot your life in order to make a relationship work if you end up in one? Are you ready to leave your job? Are you ready to leave your family? Are you ready to move? Are you ready to start over?’ That’s reality, it’s not just being in a relationship, we can all be in relationships.”

Stable relationships aren’t good TV.

“If you just look at dating shows across the board,” Bristowe said, they’re “not a perfect recipe for happiness.”

Rycroft agreed, adding: “I think what you need to create a lasting relationship is just not really good TV.”

And perhaps, it’s about changing perception — it isn’t a show about love; instead the drama is what reels people in.

“I started watching back way back when you were rooting for these people like you wanted love,” Rycroft said. “And now I’m not even sure that the audience wants a love story.”

Shivani Gonzalez is a news assistant at The Times who writes a weekly TV column and contributes to a variety of sections. More about Shivani Gonzalez

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How to Find Love (Essay Books) Kindle Edition

Drawing on in-depth analysis, How to Find Love explains our instinct for romantic self-sabotage and provides a crucial set of ideas to help us make safer, more imaginative and more effective choices in love.

• A GUIDE TO MAKING BETTER DECISIONS IN LOVE:  and how to choose the "right" partner.
• PRESENTS THE TOOLS WE NEED:  to break unhealthy relationship habits.
• PART OF THE SCHOOL OF LIFE'S GIFTABLE ESSAYS SERIES:  other titles include  Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person ,  Why We Hate Cheap Things , and  Self-Knowledge .
• DRAWS FROM THE SCHOOL OF LIFE'S CORE CURRICULUM
• Print length 96 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher The School of Life
• Publication date July 29, 2020
• File size 648 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

About the author.

The School of Life is a global organization helping people lead more fulfilled lives. Through our range of books, gifts and stationery we aim to prompt more thoughtful natures and help everyone to find fulfillment. The School of Life is a resource for exploring self-knowledge, relationships, work, socializing, finding calm, and enjoying culture through content, community, and conversation. You can find us online, in stores and in welcoming spaces around the world offering classes, events, and one-to-one therapy sessions.

The School of Life is a rapidly growing global brand, with over 6 million YouTube subscribers, 351,000 Facebook followers, 218,000 Instagram followers and 163,000 Twitter followers.

The School of Life Press brings together the thinking and ideas of the School of Life creative team under the direction of series editor, Alain de Botton. Their books share a coherent, curated message that speaks with one voice: calm, reassuring, and sane.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1. The problem with our instinct for completion

The Instinct for Completion drives us towards strengths in others that promise to compensate for weaknesses in our own natures. What this means in practice is that, in order to become complete, two things must happen: we need to be willing to learn things and our partner must be willing to teach us things. And vice versa. The success of love will depend on success at learning and teaching .

Unfortunately, we tend to fail badly in both areas. We can decide that we don't really want to be taught. We don't need to change; change is painful. So although we're attracted to strengths in others, we don't necessarily accept that we have to correct the weaknesses in ourselves that fired our attractions in the first place. We are asking, in effect, to be educated by the other but we don't factor in that we might be reluctant pupils. Close up, we resist the lessons that we were, from afar, drawn to - and end up feeling patronised, humiliated and 'got at' by our partner.

Furthermore, our partner may not always be the tolerant, wise teacher we might have needed. However patient they might be in other contexts, they will be at risk of getting scared and offended by our flaws. They may become intemperate teachers from an overwhelming fear that they have married an idiot and ruined their lives. No wonder they may deliver their lessons sarcastically and humiliating menace.

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B2ZKDR5R
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ The School of Life (July 29, 2020)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 29, 2020
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 648 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 96 pages
• #690 in Two-Hour Parenting & Relationships Short Reads
• #1,635 in Dating (Books)
• #1,689 in Two-Hour Self-Help Short Reads

About the authors

Alain de botton.

Alain de Botton is the author of Essays in Love (1993), The Romantic Movement (1994), Kiss and Tell (1995), How Proust can Change your Life (1997), The Consolations of Philosophy (2000) The Art of Travel (2002), Status Anxiety (2004) and most recently, The Architecture of Happiness (2006).

The School of Life

The School of Life is a global organisation helping people lead more fulfilled lives. It is a resource for helping us understand ourselves, for improving our relationships, our careers and our social lives – as well as for helping us find calm and get more out of our leisure hours. They do this through films, workshops, books and gifts – and through a warm and supportive community. You can find The School of Life online, in stores and in welcoming spaces around the globe.

The School of Life Press was established in 2016 to bring together over a decade of research and insights from The School of Life’s content team. Led by founder and series editor Alain de Botton, this is a library to educate, entertain, console and transform us.

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Where to find "I Love NY" eclipse glasses for April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse in New York

NEW YORK --  Limited edition "I Love NY" solar eclipse glasses are now available statewide ahead of the  April 8 total solar eclipse .

Gov. Kathy Hochul  is giving a live update on the state's preparations for the celestial celebration. Watch streaming now on CBS News New York .

The April 8 total solar eclipse will travel through the western part of the state , including cities like Buffalo , Rochester and Syracuse . Celebrations are planned all weekend long , and traffic is expected to be heavy. 

Most of the surrounding Tri-State Area will be outside the path of totality, but will see the moon cover about 90% of the sun. 

I Love NY eclipse glasses

The state is distributing the  "I Love NY" eclipse glasses at 30 locations , including welcome centers and service areas.

Around the New York City area, they are available at Penn Station's Moynihan Train Hall, the Long Island Welcome Center on the Long Island Expressway Eastbound in Dix Hills and the Hudson Valley-Catskills Welcome Center at Woodbury Commons in Central Valley. See the full list.

• Adirondacks Welcome Center on I-87 Northbound in Glen Falls
• Lake Placid Visitor Bureau on Main Street in Lake Placid
• Capital Region Welcome Center on I-87 Northbound in Hannacroix
• New Baltimore Service Area on I-87 North & Southbound in Hannacroix
• Mohawk Valley Welcome Center on I-90 Westbound in Fultonville
• Southern Tier Welcome Center on I-87 Northbound in Kirkwood
• Mohawk Service Area on I-90 Eastbound in Amsterdam
• Indian Castle Service Area on I-90 Eastbound in Little Falls
• Iroquois Service Area on I-90 Westbound in Little Falls
• Schuyler Service Area on I-90 Westbound in Frankfort
• Oneida Service Area on I-90 Eastbound in Westmoreland
• Chittenango Service Area I-90 Westbound in Canastota
• National Comedy Center on West 2nd Street in Jamestown
• Central NY Welcome Center on Destiny USA Drive in Syracuse
• Finger Lakes Welcome Center on Lakefront Drive in Geneva
• Port Byron Service Area on I-90 Eastbound in Port Byron
• Warners Service Area on I-90 Westbound in Warners
• Junius Ponds Service Area on I-90 Westbound in Phelps
• Clifton Springs Service Area on I-90 Eastbound in Clifton Springs
• Seneca Service Area on I-90 Westbound in Victor
• Western NY Welcome Center on Alvin Road in Grand Island
• Pembroke Service Area on I-90 Eastbound in Corfu
• Clarence Service Area on I-90 Westbound in Clarence
• Hudson Valley | Catskills Welcome Center at Woodbury Commons in Central Valley
• Ardsley Service Area on I-87 Northbound in Hastings-on-Hudson
• Plattekill Service Area on I-87 Northbound in Plattekill
• Modena Service Area on I-87 Southbound in Modena
• Long Island Welcome Center on the Long Island Expressway Eastbound in Dix Hills
• Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station in Manhattan
• North Country Welcome Center on Collins Landing Road in Alexandria Bay

Experts say it is important to wear protective eclipse glasses, which are 1,000 times darker than sunglasses and adhere to international safety standards. See the American Astronomical Society  for an approved list .

NASA warns not look at the eclipse through a camera lens, binoculars or telescope -- even while wearing eclipse glasses -- because the solar rays could burn through the lens. You can also try to view the eclipse indirectly with a  homemade pinhole projector .

CBS News New York will  stream live coverage  of the eclipse from 2 to 4 p.m. on April 8 with Chief Meteorologist Lonnie Quinn reporting in  Rochester  and CBS2 News at 5 Anchor Kristine Johnson in  Niagara Falls .