Special Collection: Alain de Botton on the true hardwork of love and relationships
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What common misconceptions about love are challenged in this episode?
We all know how the story of love is supposed to go.
There's two people, there's a chemical attraction, perhaps moments of doubt or opposition. There's a sharing of secrets, lots of heavy breathing. And so you meet your soulmate and you fall in love and love triumphs over the difficulties. And it's a kind of victory experience. That one story is so deeply ingrained in most of us. We grow up with it. It's become a kind of subconscious map of how we think our lives ought to go. But philosopher and author Alain de Botton says that most love stories are stories about the start of love. And the story makes no sense. It sets us up for disappointment and failure. This love story actually has the opposite effect in that it works against love. Alain says that love and partnership and marriage, it's not something we just know about.
It's a skill and it has to be learned. And to help, he's written an instructive novel called The Course of Love. And it follows the story of a very ordinary couple, Robbie and Kirsten, not at the exciting outset, but in the long, difficult middle bits. And he writes that Robbie and Kirsten will marry. They will suffer. They will frequently worry about money. They will have a girl first, then a boy. One of them will have an affair. There will be passages of boredom. Sometimes they'll want to murder one another and on a few occasions to kill themselves. This will be the real love story. Welcome back, Alain. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. You know, the thing is, like, yeah, it's silly, that lovebird thing, but it's so disarming and charming and lovely, isn't it?
Of course. I mean, this is the cult of what I call romanticism, which has been around for a few hundred years. And it is like chocolate. It is delicious. It's irresistible. And we all fall for it. And, you know, the way that we love is very influenced by our societies. I mean, Society tells us to pay attention to certain emotions and to neglect others. There's that lovely quote from La Rochefoucauld. There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they hadn't heard there was such a thing. And, of course, our society constantly tells us there is such a thing as love and it goes like this. And we've got this kind of template of romantic love. And it's all about finding an ideal soulmate. When you find this soulmate, you will find that there is no more loneliness, no more room for confusion and error.
They will complete you. You will become whole. You will find this soulmate by intuition. You'll get a magical feeling called falling in love. If you don't have that feeling, you can sort of fake it. But basically, it's an almost divine feeling. Lots of other assumptions.
How does Alain de Botton define the real work involved in love and relationships?
Sex becomes the most important thing in love. You know, sex becomes the bellwether of love. All these sort of assumptions. Now, in a way, they're lovely. But I argue, and the book argues, that to some extent, if we're to make long-term relationships work, we're going to have to be disloyal to some of the emotions, some of the romantic emotions that propel us into relationships in the first place. These things are trouble and they're misleading. How? How old is this concept of romantic love? Have we had it from the get-go? No, I think it arises in the minds of people in garrets and libraries in old Europe in about the middle of the 18th century, and it replaces an older vision of relationships. which is really all about a dynastic view that you should get together with people chosen by your parents, the elders, the community, and it's because they have a cow and you have a cow and so you should get together.
This is swept away by the marriage of passion. And it's really a fusion of the love affair and the marriage. And so now there's this idea that kind of it's forever and it's as intense as a previous short-term love affair. And look, as I say, it's a lovely idea that's got us into trouble.
I've actually seen accounts in Roman history, ancient Roman history, where they'll talk about an emperor or a general. They go, get a load of that guy, Pompey the Great.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What common misconceptions about love are challenged in this episode?
0:00–2:49
2
How does Alain de Botton define the real work involved in love and relationships?
2:49–6:20
3
What role does society play in shaping our ideas about love?
6:20–10:10
4
How do childhood experiences influence adult relationships?
10:10–13:00
5
What is the significance of self-awareness in romantic partnerships?
13:00–16:10
6
How can couples navigate conflicts and improve their communication?
16:10–19:18
7
What are the implications of strategic pessimism in love?
19:18–22:50
8
How does Alain de Botton suggest we redefine love for lasting relationships?
22:50–47:18
Speakers
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