This is special entry number four.
After falling for Alain de Botton's way with words, I discovered his Twitter account, and found out he's quite obsessed with it as well, his own way with words I mean. When he tweets, it's usually a succession of a thousand submitted texts. I enjoy reading every, single, one. And guilty of RTing most of them, including the following:
Compatibility is an achievement of love; it shouldn't be its precondition.
— Alain de Botton (@alaindebotton) April 2, 2012
It sparked a nostalgic note within me like I had heard it before. Except, after reading it over, and over, again, I realized, I hadn't. I had heard the nearly gut-wrenching opposite: "I know we were really compatible. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't love you for some reason..."
To this very day I could still never know for sure what that meant: if he never fell for me or if he'd only been ignoring any remote feelings he even had. At the time, I took it for indifference and pretended to understand it, just to that point where the uncertainty lingers every time you think back. Like the difference between a husband whom divorced you, or died on you.
But after today's words from de Botton, I feel more confident about the latter. That he was unaware of his love and mistook it for love's achievement: compatibility. Like skipping a step when climbing a staircase, eager to make it to the approaching floor. Or reading the end of a novel first to assure yourself of a happy (or tragic, if you're one to embrace pessimism like myself) ending when you go through the plot.
And hasn't anyone told you that in order for two lovers to "make it work" they must sacrifice something of themselves for the other? Is compatibility not a resulting factor?.
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