course of love

Course of Love is a fictional self-help book, which examines how we form and maintain relationships. De Botton takes us through the stages in his fictional case study where he explains how love matures and twists, as well as when our anticipations should go along with it.

Philosopher and author Alain de Botton mixes lived experience with theory. He provides a perspective to analyze contemporary matters and demonstrates how philosophy can provide significant insights into everyday banalities.

In The Course of Love, readers meet Rabih and Kirsten who are not real, but they just serve to represent an all-knowing observer about their relationship. At the beginning of the narrative, we learn that “he will marry her ….” This bird’s-eye view sets up early on such that readers can also be able to look inside while remaining distanced from their intimate worlds.

This Summary is briefer. From the very beginning, we are shown that our views regarding love will always be different from the reality of life; where romanticism and marriage have been built upon expectations. However, de Botton points out that “love is a skill,” meaning that there is room for improvement in all of us and that one can challenge his/her own beliefs on how to sustain it.

It’s often the case that we’re confined within our expectations of love: these are feelings I have had throughout my relationships but not once did I know they were not going to last long enough through love itself. On this note, De Botton avers, ‘Love can endure only when one betrays its seductive opening aspirations.’

Romanticism:

“For a Romantic, all it takes is an instant impression of someone to make them come up with a grand answer: he or she could just as well address all the unasked questions about existence”

To have meaningful relationship which will last long beyond infatuation into true bonding; any assumptions about romance being constant should be discarded. By taking us through Rabih Khan and Kirsten McClelland's love life sequence, we see how infatuation cannot lead to 'happy ever after’.

Romanticism is undoubtedly an amazing state to be in however we must approach it cautiously. This way, if we get into marriage with the idea that romance is just around the corner for us, then we shall fail. In this sense, de Botton argues against “falling” in love but rather claims that love is an agreement between two people. If we use pragmatism with love then we can learn how to become better at it too. Changing one’s attitude to expect romantic solutions could mean learning how better to communicate.

“Love itself begins when what we call love ends.”

What’s so important about meet-cutes? We know they’re huge in Hollywood movies and are the basis of any best man speech ever written, but why?

The first encounter might be significant because it becomes a summary or abridged form of the whole relationship.

Maybe this first meeting represents the unique nature of a relationship, and the "right" meeting can make a relationship less likely to fail. Meetings can be like metaphors for love.

How did you meet?:

While the beginning of a relationship gets a lot of attention, are these meetings truly valuable and full of wisdom? We can learn from how people meet and connect. It may be more insightful to ask couples about how they decided on the bedroom color, the sofa design, or the china pattern.

When we first meet someone, we can run into problems by making quick decisions about love, instead of carefully considering their inner and outer qualities. This seems innocent enough, but when we initially encounter people, we often try to manage the impression we give. We edit ourselves and hide aspects of our character that we see as flaws. We don't prioritize showing our true selves; we read into silences and navigate anxieties. It's a performance.

Things we do for love:

The real love story begins once we decide to commit to the person and continue from the first meeting.

The Things We Do For Love

'Love means admiration for qualities in a lover that promise to correct our weaknesses and imbalances. Love is a search for completion.'

We often fall in love with the qualities in another that we don't ourselves possess. We look for complementary strengths, and we seek out a host of aspirational attributes. Because humans are by our very nature incomplete, we have a desire to make ourselves whole, and we do this by making up for our deficiencies by seeking out qualities in others.

When we enter into love, we share stories, vulnerabilities, and we try to find balance. We take comfort in being comforted and providing comfort. We benefit from sharing our pain, frustrations, and anxieties, and this allows us to be more authentic.

De Botton says that, 'Love reaches a pitch at those moments when our beloved turns out to understand, more clearly than others have ever been able to, and perhaps even better than we do ourselves, the chaotic, embarrassing, and shameful parts of us.'

We feel profound gratitude when impression control fails and we are free to be honest with our spouse. We can predict our partners' actions and reactions by knowing them well, and we feel a great sense of relief when we can open up to them about our own secrets and hidden aspects.

Intimacy and Sexuality:

The particulars of what stimulates our interest may seem strange and silly, but upon closer look, they bear echoes of attributes we yearn for in other, seemingly peaceful domains of life: understanding, compassion, unity, kindness, and love. Many romantic triggers have emotional references to our need for companionship and understanding, as well as symbolic answers to some of our deepest concerns.

Sex is thrilling and dangerous. Even while we would believe it to be purely physiological and physical, it's much more than that. According to De Botton, sex is "more about ideas than sensations." The idea of acceptance and the assurance that shame and loneliness will end rank first among them.

The first step in starting a sexual relationship is overcoming any feelings of shyness or embarrassment, and once we've done that, it's incredibly freeing.

We might become more intimate and honest with someone when we establish a shared sexual bond. When a relationship reaches this stage, it can be freeing, and we could find ourselves talking openly about the qualities of the person standing next to us that initially drew our attention. We could go in-depth about the exact moment we began to consider them as a potential partner. We might then automatically move on to talking about fantasies and discovering unexpected details about our companion.

Finding a partner to discuss sex and sexuality with makes it simpler because these topics are frequently fraught with guilt. Sexuality is a sin, and purity is a mark of "goodness," according to the messages we've been fed. But we can express so many of our emotions through sex, transforming love and gratitude into a concrete bodily act.

"Marriage is a hopeful, generous, and infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who do not yet know themselves or each other, binding themselves to a future they cannot conceive of and have carefully omitted to investigate." is how Then Comes Marriage is described.

As with the "how did you two meet" question, questions around the nature of the proposal are infinitely fascinating. Why we accept, or make a proposal, becomes fodder for anyone with a vague interest in making conversation. Again, the proposal becomes the stepping stone for all the hopes and dreams of married life.

Most proposals take a lot of thought, effort, research, and planning. Comparatively, almost no thought goes into the actual marriage. None of us read books on it, study it extensively, interview other married couples, or do empirical research. When we scrutinize the failed relationships of others, we chalk them up to incompatibility, lack of imagination on the part of the participants, laziness, or general idiocy. We feel as if our own marriages will be exempt from marital issues because we have something "special" and "unique."

Historically, marriage was based on what was termed "logical reasons." Political, social, or economic benefits were at the heart of most marriages. Later, reasons became entwined with sex. When sex before marriage was taboo, a lot of couples jumped into marriage. Once the taboo was lifted, decisions around marriage were calmer and less impulse-driven. Nowadays, the need to rush into marriage seems to be the need for company and the fear of being single and alone.

Marriage is based on feelings and instinct, and there's an element of danger. Marriage can result in destruction. So why is it that we're so ill-prepared for such a huge decision? If we look at the traditional Western marriage vows, we're given a list of promises, but with no sense of how to adhere to them. Religious and government institutions don't exactly provide us with an exhaustive list on how to stay married. Once we say "I do," we're on our own.

The Rhythms Of Married Life:

'It is precisely when we hear little from our partner which frightens, shocks, or sickens us that we should begin to be concerned, for this may be the surest sign that we are being gently lied to or shielded from the other’s imagination, whether out of kindness or from a touching fear of losing our love. It may mean that we have, despite ourselves, shut our ears to information that fails to conform to our hopes.'

Once committed to marriage, the routine starts to set in. Marriage is in many ways about the banalities of everyday life, so couples settle into a repetitive rhythm. Years melt into each other, and are punctuated by small decisions like what glassware to buy, and more significant decisions like where to live and whether to have children. Creating and making a home becomes the focus for many couples, while also being a source of many disagreements. The decision to have children adds a whole new dynamic to the routine of marriage. Parenthood is simultaneously tedious and exciting, and it also gives us a new perspective on hope and the future.

Agreements occur when both partners see the world in the same way, and disagreements happen when they don't. Small things like how to pack a dishwasher, and when to put things back into the fridge after use, become catalysts for bigger arguments. Compromise becomes the end game. And, marital struggles, like extended periods of silence, slammed doors, and immaturity, are things couples keep to themselves.

Struggles are normal, and form part of the fabric of marriage. Most couples experience financial woes, troubles at work, career crises, unexpected curveballs, and things not turning out as we hoped. More often than not, our expectations aren't met, and there's lingering disappointment and resentment.

The success of marriage also comes down to learning how we, and our partner, deal with conflict and anxiety. Typical areas of disagreement include domestic responsibilities, the division of labor, and feeling valued. More serious issues such as coping with infidelity, jealousy, and betrayal, can also be part of the journey. The key is to be aware of how we rationalize our mistakes, what attachment style we have, and getting to know these things in our partner.

Perhaps one of the most profound insights is that 'We don't need to be constantly reasonable in order to have good relationships. All we need to have mastered is the occasional capacity to acknowledge, with good grace, that we may, in one or two areas, be somewhat insane.'

In Conclusion:

'Ideally, art would give us the answers that other people don't. This might even be one of the main points of literature: to tell us what society at large is too prudish to explore. The important books should be those that leave us wondering, with relief and gratitude, how the author could possibly have known so much about our lives.'

The Course of Love is a didactic novel that gives us a crash course in relationships. And, by juxtaposing two different characters, it shines a very empathetic light on faults, flaws, and foibles. However, it's not just instructive; it's a humorous and witty take on a familiar story.

Mark Twain famously said that 'There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.' So, although de Botton tells a relatively generic story that goes through the patterns of a long-term relationship, the narrator's insights add theoretical grounding. All of us experience relationships, but often we don't have the theories to explain why they thrive or fail. Understanding "romantic pessimism" is profoundly enlightening.

De Botton teaches us about how past experiences lead us to behave and how powerful transference is. How often do we repatriate emotions and respond with irritation and anger over empathy? We're also given a fascinating case study on attachment theory that builds from theories that Amir Levine discusses in Attached.

Love is a skill, and emotional intelligence is a skill. However, as we've learned from marriage vows, so often we're told the basics, with no details on how to approach them. Relationships are about teaching and learning; they're also about intuiting our partner's needs. Once we approach relationships and love as imperfect, we're more likely to manage our expectations and realize that enthusiasm is an unsustainable dream.