11:56
We think, of course, that pessimism must be the enemy of love. Yet, what a properly thoughtful gift, well-aimed, generously held pessimism can be to any incoming partner. What kindness it is to tell a partner, in effect, or even directly, "You will sometimes hate me, and I will sometimes hate you, and we will think we made the worst error of our lives, but still, I want, on balance, to be with you." I don't expect to be happy here very often. I know I will frequently cry and yearn, and you will, in privacy, do likewise.
How cheerful, if we could, on our first dates, around about the main course, ask each other, "What variety of madness do you bring with you? What kind of calamity do you like to unleash?" It would be the ones who couldn't answer that we'd need to worry about, those cruel enough to still think of themselves as people who didn't bring trouble in their wake. It's inculcated in us that optimism is the thing we need in love, but what if darkness actually held us more securely? What if we could rehearse some of the following in relationships? Sex is, at some point, going to fail. If you're too present, I will feel
suffocated. If you're too distant, I will feel abandoned. You will mistake me from some figure from your past. I will land on your head some of the anger and frustration that belongs to another person. What if, on our wedding day, we threw away the usual bromides, and went for something stiffer? What if we told an assembled gathering, "I've chosen this person over any other to be miserable around, and they've done the same to me. They are, all told, the very best person to be sad about, the finest individual to lament, the least worst person to feel disappointed by." At the height of the wedding ceremony, we might say, "I've chosen you above all others on whom to rest my foiled hopes,
my dashed expectations, my madness and my formless yearnings. You will be the one I've chosen to hurt, to be hurt by, and to suffer alongside. We might whisper to our beloved on the honeymoon, "I will be irritated by your habits. You will be maddened by mine. You will wish that I had different parents and I will regret the lessons that life has taught you." Often, we will think we'd stumbled on a monumental error. Then, the mood will pass. Let's be frank. It's not in our capacity to enjoy unblemished happiness.
We haven't until now, and why would we break the habit at this stage? There are people who can do serenity. We hear rumors about how they live, but this isn't us. We come from a different tribe, the anxious, tetchy, glass-half-full ones who wake up every morning and scan the horizon for horror. Bless us in our misery. We've got it all wrong. We've allowed ourselves to be tormented by our hopes and expectations. To think that we'd cut through the mess and rest on an altar of sanity and good sense in the company of another untouched human? No. To expect almost nothing, to consider ourselves lucky if nothing terrible's happened today or in the last hour, that's proper generosity. That's true forgiveness.
That is exceptional maturity. If we've spent a few happy moments with someone, that's already a feat. Let's not assume as our birthright something that can only ever [clears throat] be a lucky accident. Let's do our next partner the greatest honor, to bathe them in the delightful romantic robes of pessimism. Let's hope for very little from them. Let's expect often to be a bit sad around them. That will be the true beginning of contented love, properly understood.
