Love per Botton
The concept of rightness is the error
When you marry the wrong person, you're simply marrying a human being
The vision of theright person is the trouble
Adultery = the cycle of hurt continues. We look for happiness elsewhere only to confront the same issues again
Love is filled of day to day mundane things
What romanticism does is to remove these and only show the passionate feelings
Love in public life
Loving people who are different from us
Politeness
Family is a great test bed for love because you didnt pick them and you cant quit them. We are forced to find compatability in them. We have to apply the same attitude in public life
Compatible person
- someone who knows how to intelligently disagree
- achievement of love
- compatibility must not be a precondition of love
We need to make ourselves safely weak and vulnerable in relationships and we're not use to it because we're used to being strong.
Flirting is natural and advantageous. Not necessarily sexual.
Kissing means I accept you in an intimate way that would be revolting with another
Sex is continuos outside the bedroom.
Online dating
- whats wrong with online dating is that it encourages conflict free relationships
- make us impatient. Impatience is
- use it wisely
- it must broaden our pool of potential partners without giving us the illusion of a perfect relationship
Friends and family around the relationship can be conduits of patience that can prevent the relationship from blowing up
Why do you throw urself to marriage?
- because u r aware that there is a certain growth that u can only achieve if you cant get out of something the first time things get wrong
The premise that we are imperfect is consoling for a culture that demands perfection
Pessimistic realism
- compatible with hope, laughter, fun
The problem is not our deficiencies but our way of approaching problems endemic of being human
Love is something we can learn and make progress in. It is a skill.
Resist the idea of a conflict-free love
The more generous we can be towards our flawed humanity, the better chance we have of doing the difficult work of love