Alain De Botton

speaker

1,037 appearances 5 recordings 5 series first heard Jan 2024 last heard 1 Jul

Alain De Botton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Conversations · Special Collection: Alain de Botton on the true hardwork of love and relationships · 22 May 2026 podcast

But

That's charming too.

And so there's this idea that love is about accepting a whole person.

But this sets up such a dangerous precedent because it means that when you get into the relationship, let's say three months in, you're having breakfast cereal.

One of you has been out to buy something kind of nutty and granolary.

And you're kind of listening to your partner and you're thinking, what's that funny noise?

And you suddenly turn to your partner and you're in a slightly bad mood.

And you go, you know what?

You sound like a cow, you know.

And the partner turns around and goes...

oh my God, you're criticizing me.

I thought you loved me.

And you want to go, no, no, I do love you.

It's just, there's this kind of odd thing going on, this like bovine way in which you're eating the cereal.

And romanticism tells us this is a catastrophe for love.

It's a sign, you know, and, you know, love gives us a ringside seat on another person's floors.

So in a way, we should all be able to point stuff out and not necessarily feel that we're abandoning love.

You know, I was very interested in one point in the book, I talk about

the idea that love is a process of education.

Now this sounds really odd.

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