helP PaGeS the child at infancy: a contract binding
the parent to love and loyalty and fidel-
The Agony Uncle
ity, come what may. After all, if we are
loved conditionally, what happens when
the original conditions of love disappear –
Alain de Botton is here to help you
when the money goes and the body ages?
In short, we want to be loved for sim-
Problem oNe: I am a nervous public being ‘modern’, we will feel perturbed, and ply existing, not for doing a certain thing
speaker and next month I have to address a perhaps more unhappy than if they’d never or looking a certain way. Then again, the
meeting of top business managers. Do you have said anything in the first place. So we don’t desire is somewhat unrealistic and many
any advice on how I might keep calm on stage? just want any kind of love, we want to be people, philosophers among them, have
loved for the person who we think we are. at times judged it wise to continue visit-
The origins of your problem lie in a gross We want to see an accurate, albeit flattering, ing the gym.
over-estimation of the people you are picture of ourselves emerging from within
planning to talk to. After all, you talk the comments of others. If a lover says they Problem three: A friend of mine has
confidently with your family and the love us for our body or our car, our money recently been left by her boyfriend and is very
greengrocer, largely because you accept or our cat, these elements may not consti- upset. I’d like to cheer her up and thought of
that they are ordinary human beings. But tute appropriate targets for love. taking her out to dinner somewhere nice. I live
in the case of these business managers, Women in particular are often dis- in Grimsby and wondered if you had any nice
you ascribe them an other-wordly aura, turbed by the idea of being loved for their ideas for restaurants in the town or the vicinity?
which has a paralysing ef_fect on your bodies. They may spend a considerable
powers of speech. It is therefore essential amount of time thinking of their appear- I rarely dine out – but the greater ques-
that you bring them down to earth in ance (the gym etc), but when someone tion is whether you should be taking your
your own mind. To help with the task, I falls in love with them, they don’t wish friend out anywhere in the first place.
recommend that you read (and perhaps these bodies to be the central focus of love. Your intended goal is to make her feel bet-
repeat to yourself shortly before going on In fantasy, and it has nothing to do with ter about the (unspecified) romantic disas-
stage) a passage from the sixteenth centu- prudishness, the body would be beside the ter she has suf_fered. And if this is the goal,
ry French philosopher Montaigne, taking point. They would be loved for the mys- we must analyse what it is truly useful to
care to substitute ‘top business managers’ terious rest one is left with after it is dis- say to someone who has been left in love.
for the words ‘kings’ and ‘philosophers’: counted: the habits, moods, history, and Part of the pain of a sad love af_fair comes
‘Upon the highest throne in the world, temperament we tend to call ‘ourselves’. from the preconception, which is fostered
we are seated, still, upon our arses. Kings Give a person enough beauty or suc- in a thousand Hollywood films and in the
and philosophers shit: and so do ladies.’ cess, someone will sooner or later fall in generally optimistic atmosphere of the
‘Au plus eslevé throne du monde si ne sommes love with them. But love has as its ideal- modern media, that love is a happy busi-
assis que sus nostre cul. Les Roys et les philos- ized prototype what should be the un- ness. This optimism makes us suf_fer dou-
ophes fientent, et les dames aussi.’ conditional love of a parent for their baby. bly when love goes wrong for us: we suf_fer
Our earliest memory of love is of being not only from the pain of the loss of love,
Problem two: My boyfriend (Tom ) is a cared for in a helpless and weak condi- but also from the pain of being in pain
kind and loving man, but often when he pays me tion. Some babies are notably cute, but when we are supposed to be happy. In this
a compliment, I get upset, because of the way he they are by definition unable to bargain situation, it is apparent that the most use-
does it. Last week he said he loved me and then with the world on account of extrinsic ful thing one can do with someone who
added, almost immediately after, ‘because your characteristics. In so far as they are loved has been abandonned is to provide them
bottom is so pert.’ It’s true that my bottom is pert and looked after, they are therefore loved with evidence that life is not in fact a hap-
(I go to the gym a lot), but I’m uncomfortable simply for who they are – which tends py process, whatever the songs say. This
with such remarks. Another time, he said that to be rather a messy business. They are will appease their feeling of persecution
what he really liked about me was my breasts loved for, or in spite of, their dribbling, and place their own pain in context. Rath-
(they are quite large!!!! ). Am I being ungrateful peeing, vomiting, howling and selfish er than a restaurant invitation, I therefore
or is there something to complain about? characters. suggest that you send your friend a box
Only as the baby grows up does af_fec- containing: the Pensees of Pascal, the aph-
Your question raises a profound philosophi- tion become conditional on a number of orisms of La Rochefoucauld, the collected
cal issue, namely, ‘What do we want to be achievements – saying thank you at table, works of Chamfort, Schopenhauer and
loved for?’ Though we all want love, we fetching mummy her glasses, scrubbing Cioran, and selections from the work of
also recognize that there are better and dishes and later, looking attractive, ac- Seneca. Your friend may particularly ap-
worse things to be loved for. To take an quiring status, houses etc. But though preciate the Roman philosopher’s remark
example, if our beloved says they love us these things guarantee the interest of (you may even want to embroider this for
because we are ‘so old-fashioned’, when others, the true desire is not so much to her on a cushion or bedcover): ‘What need
in fact we’ve never noticed we are old- impress through one’s assets as to recre- is there to weep over parts of life? The
fashioned and actually pride ourselves on ate the contract made by the parent with whole of it calls for tears.’ ◊
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