We spend our whole lives trying to meet targets set by someone else. We lose sight of who we are, because we’re so busy chasing external things. In love that means people search for what’s outside of them (a romantic partner) and lose sight of what’s inside them (a potential for self-development and understanding).

two types of suffering: the pain we feel from experiencing loss and the pain we can inflict upon ourselves if we get stuck in a self-pitying

Alain convinced me that searching for love from a place of fear was not a good beginning to any love story. It meant motivations were often selfish – to avoid loneliness; to outsource happiness – and would lead in the wrong direction. As the psychiatrist M. Scott Peck wrote, ‘If being loved is your goal, you will fail to achieve it.’

And that things would work out or they wouldn’t, and even then, that would be fine too. This black and white model of ‘it’s got to be like this and then it will be perfect’ just doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter who you meet or when you meet them; there’s pain and joy on each side of the ledger. So don’t stick rigidly to one story about what your

We need to stop tying ourselves so narrowly to this punitive vision that we’ve got to date in our twenties, find the ideal partner by twenty-eight, and have our first child at thirty-one, otherwise our life will be miserable.

What do you wish you’d known about love? What would I say to my younger self? Keep your feet well planted. You know it’s not just about who you find, it’s also who you’re going to be. Love is not a state of enthusiasm. It’s a verb. It implies action, demonstration, ritual, practices, communication, expression.

When you feel completely alone and at sea, a short prayer can give you the strength to go somewhere inside yourself to find love.

Do you think that our lives being more visible on social media has aggravated the problem of competition in friendship? It must do, because the anonymizing makes it less real. A physical encounter with somebody can smash through projections, because you realize that a person is actually generous, or thoughtful. Or you discover they have their own

You like or love someone when you like or love yourself when you’re with them – and that takes a long time to know. You have to let them in.