Alain De Botton

And they go, I don't want that.

And, you know, they've made a mess, et cetera.

The typical parent goes, oh, you must have a sore tooth.

Or maybe you didn't sleep, et cetera.

You know, they're always looking for attenuating circumstances.

As you say, if a spouse did that, they'll be like, what are you trying to do?

You ruined my life.

And I think that one of the things that my couple learns to do, and the novel is really a story of a couple learning to love.

They learn that love is a skill, not an emotion.

And one of the skills they learn is to treat their partner as if they were a child.

And this sounds odd because it's like, this sounds patronizing.

We're so used to the idea.

that it's patronising to treat someone as younger than they are, that we miss out on the generosity that's also involved in sometimes looking beneath the adult to see the slightly frightened, tired, bolshie little child within that is also fundamentally still okay.

And I think that part of the problem of adults is that we look like adults.

You look at me, I look at you, we both look very grown up.

And that's a problem because actually a lot of us, well, I can't speak for you, I will speak for you.

You know, we've got various bits of us that are quite broken and childlike, etc.

But we don't give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.

And we're quite punitive towards those sides.

And I think we're trying to say, what is love?