Alain De Botton

I'm there with you.

And so that sets us up to believe that a true lover just understands you and you don't need to kind of use words.

Now, this is catastrophic because it leads to moments when your partner doesn't understand.

Indeed, they cause you offence.

And what do you do as a romantic lover?

You get into a sulk.

And a sulk is a commitment to not explaining something to your lover because you feel you could do it, but you're not going to do it because you feel that if they really loved you, they wouldn't need you to explain because true love is understanding without words.

And that's why after the party, when they've caused you the offence, you go up to the bathroom, you bolt yourself in.

The partner's knocking at the door going, look,

what's wrong?

And you go, you don't want to explain.

And they go, come on, what is it?

And you go, because you basically, as a romantic, expecting them to kind of read your soul through the bathroom panel and into the innards of your thing.

And this is catastrophic.

We have to use words.

But romantic culture, which is kind of what I'm taking an aim at in the novel, is kind of not giving us the good preparation for this.

Again, romantics are very keen on crushes.

A crush is a momentary glimpse maybe of another person, perhaps you've never spoken to them, that is accompanied by an absolute certainty that this is the one and that this person you have encountered a perfection, an angel shorn of their wings but walking among humans.

You know, romanticism, it was accompanied by the spread of the railways in 19th century Europe.

And there are so many stories where people get a crush on a train.