When it comes to love, we tend to cling to clichés. We are told 'nobody will love you until you’ve learned to love yourself' and that when you meet the right person 'you’ll just know’. One of the biggest challenges we face, I think, is to sift through these clichés, unpick the stories we have been told, and cut to the heart of what love really means to each of us.
That's why I decided to begin investigating love, one interview at a time, via a newsletter called Conversations on Love. The aim? To explore the many different shapes that love takes in our lives – not only the romantic kind, but the love between parents and children, siblings, strangers and friends. And even the love we feel for ourselves.
Along the way I’ve spoken to some of our greatest thinkers and writers about the topic: philosopher Alain de Botton (on the perils of romanticism), Man Booker-winning novelist Hilary Mantel (on first love) and New York University ‘love professor’ Dr. Megan Poe (on retaining your sense of self in a relationship). These conversations, among others, have taught me so many valuable lessons that have changed the way I view and approach love. Here are 10 of them…
Love is a verb, not a noun
All too often we think of love as a noun, a thing to ‘get’ or something that is outside of our control. But Dr. Megan Poe, who teaches a course called 'Love, Actually' at NYU, believes that we are actually far more in control of love than we realise. “If we see love as something that either comes into our lives or doesn’t, that makes us passive, because we’re supposed to sit here and wait for it,” she says. Instead, Poe invites us to see love as something active that we can practise and get better at. So next time you feel that you can’t influence your own love life, remember: “Love is more of a verb than a noun; it’s a faculty we develop.”
See your partner’s childlike qualities
One of the biggest challenges we face in relationships is frustration. Can you keep your cool when your partner leaves a wet towel on the floor? Or when you’re bickering over hotel prices on Booking.com? In moments like these, philosopher and The School of Life founder Alain de Botton believes it’s useful to think of your partner as they might have looked as a small child. It might sound like a strange exercise, but de Botton says, “When we’re around children we’re used to being forgiving and searching for benevolent explanations for tricky behaviour. We tend to say children are ‘tired’ rather than ‘bad,’ or perhaps ‘feeling threatened’ rather than ‘evil’. We don’t jump to the harshest conclusions and yet we do do that with adults.” With that in mind, try to bring some of the strategies that work when you’re dealing with children into your adult relationships. The results might surprise you.
The world can be a romantic place with or without a romantic partner
When you’re single it can sometimes feel like your life is lacking in romance, perhaps because the romantic myth we’re so often sold is that your life isn’t complete until you meet a partner. Ask Polly columnist Heather Havrilesky points out the dangers of buying into this myth, because it means “you rob your otherwise rich experiences of colour if you choose to see your life alone as this incomplete thing that’s black and white. You believe all the colours can only be unlocked when someone approves of you and adores you.” This is, she says, just an immature vision of what love is. The good news? “As you get older, you understand the world as a romantic place with or without a romantic partner.”
It’s not always sensible to protect yourself from heartbreak
It’s easy to regret the relationship that broke your heart, but from Man Booker-winning novelist Hilary Mantel I learned that “you shouldn’t try to live a life where the first objective is to protect yourself from regret.” She reminded me that some mistakes have to be made – there’s no point wasting precious energy trying to avoid them before they happen. As Mantel says, “Nothing is more empowering and more enlarging to the spirit than the first rush of passion, and it’s deeply nasty to try to quash it.”
Your sex life can tell you a lot about your relationship
Author Mira Jacob sees sex as “the dream life of a marriage.” What she means is that our sex lives can often tell us things about our relationships that our day-to-day lives can’t. She believes in paying attention to “what our bodies know about us that our minds are not yet processing” and sees sex as “a subconscious language”. It’s all too easy to dismiss sex and physical connection as being the more shallow side of love. Actually, it’s just as important.
Feelings are not enough to sustain a relationship
Having high expectations when it comes to love can be a good thing – it means you won’t settle for less than you deserve. But now that love has become the central reason for people being together, New York Times Modern Love editor Dan Jones thinks we could be expecting too much from it. “That’s a big burden to place on love, the idea that you have to feel good in a relationship all the time for that relationship to be worth sustaining,” he says. “I actually think the expectation that love is going to be the answer is one of the biggest problems in love.” In fact, being truly in love is about accepting that there will be moments in which you will feel frustrated. That’s when it’s helpful to return to the basic, hard tasks of love: being kind, generous and patient, and not expecting feelings to be able to sustain a relationship.
Falling in love is just the beginning
Some people think that falling in love is the finishing line; actually, it’s just the beginning. And writer Poorna Bell thinks that we should focus less on the big, grandiose vision of what love should be like, and more on asking the right questions about the person we choose to love. “It isn’t just about meeting someone,” she says. “That’s just the beginning. It’s about all those questions you need to ask yourself about this person – are they good for you? Do they make you a better person? Do you feel good about yourself when you are with them? It’s about having a firm idea within yourself of what you want and what you need.” So next time you meet a potential partner, don’t get distracted by their taste in music or how witty their WhatsApp messages are. Instead, find the courage to know what you deserve and to ask the bigger questions.
Friendships are love stories too
There are many milestones to celebrate romantic love: engagements; weddings; anniversaries; vow renewals. But what about our friendships? Writer Dolly Alderton believes that we should pay more attention to the significant roles our friends play in our lives. She points out, “[With friends] you do all the things that we’re aware of consciously when we’re falling in romantic love – understanding and accepting their flaws; getting to know their family; gaining an academic knowledge of everything that makes them them and makes them tick. But because we place such a premium on romantic love you forget that that’s what you’re doing with those relationships as well. They should hold the same sanctity.”
The experience of loving can be richer than being loved
We spend a great deal of time talking about wanting to be loved, but what about the beauty to be found in loving someone else? Author Lionel Shriver finds the experience of loving richer. She says, “It’s actually challenging to receive being loved well and fully. There can even be a trace of embarrassment about it, a sense of not being sure you’re worthy. It also comes with a responsibility because you don’t want to hurt them. But the experience of loving – as long as you’re not sitting there also being terrified that they are going to hurt you – it’s like being on drugs. It’s great.”
Love is unknowable
All of these lessons have helped me to understand love in a more nuanced way, but what I’ve also learned is that it will, in many ways, always remain unknowable; that’s what makes it terrifying and wonderful in equal measure.
Sometimes, the vulnerability love requires can be uncomfortable. Other times, it can feel like the odds really are against us. But ultimately? All the unknowns and challenges, the risks and the questions, are precisely what make love such an extraordinary thing. It can be fragile, solid, painful, joyful, mundane and magical, sometimes all at once. And, above everything else, it’s always worth trying for.
Natasha Lunn is a writer and features editor at Red magazine, and also writes a bimonthly newsletter called Conversations on Love.
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