In the dating days, it’s comforting to know you’re on the same page without having to say all that out loud to your new beau. The idea that relationships can be built on the need to say very little comes from the Romantics. It creates problems later on when your partner does something you don’t like, and instead of talking about it, you shut yourself in the bathroom and wait till they guess what they did wrong.

“They just get me” is wrong

Thinking we’re easy to live with is an easy mistake to make.  We’re all broken in some way. We lack self-awareness about the many ways in which we are uniquely mad. Alain de Botton believes we should be swapping instruction manuals on the first date.
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‘How I’m crazy’ instruction manual

Fiction is where we learn about love, about having a crush on someone; about the magical moment that one’s eyes meet another’s across a room and how that leads to happily ever after. But, love isn’t an indescribable feeling – it’s a skill – and one that we have to work on.

Fiction has ruined love

If you’re thinking of leaving a partner, ask yourself if things are bad because it really is all their fault? If it is: leave them. If it’s not, you may be experiencing the bitterness of life alongside another person, not because of another person. Can you be sure that your suffering won’t come with you into the next relationship or into your singe life?

We want to suffer a little bit

You might think that your partner is a little bit of an idiot, but you are too. Elevate yourself to being a loveable idiot. Compatibility is an achievement, not an algorithm.

Don’t be yourself

The Ancient Greeks had a good understanding of input vs. output in a long-term relationship. Their view was that people in relationships should alter between teacher and student, student and teacher, in an ongoing pursuit of becoming the best versions of ourselves.

Love is a classroom

Alain de Botton is all for having expensive ceremonies. It makes it harder for you to quit your marriage and it’s embarrassing to quit if you spent all that money. It sets the bar high for your relationship and that’s a healthy thing.

Expensive weddings

Alain de Botton suggests imagining your partner as a two-year-old. The logic is that we’ve learned to treat children with a degree of patience and understanding that we forget to use with our partners.  Grown-ups are just big versions of babies, and sometimes we act like it.
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Love is a skill

Gentle humour and delicate truths underpinned Swiss-born, British philosopher Alain de Botton's talk about love, marriage and long-term relationships at the Melbourne Town Hall last night. The everyday philosopher is in Melbourne to plug his new book The Course of Love - a fictional story about the intricacies of long-term relationships.

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