Essays in Love

My sense of inferiority bred a need to take on a personality that was not my own, a seducing self that would respond to every demand and suggestion made by my exalted companion. Love forced me to look at myself as though through Chloe’s imagined eyes. ‘Who could I become to please her?’ I wondered. I did not tell flagrant lies, I simply attempted to anticipate everything I believed she might want to hear. ‘Would you like some wine?’ I asked her.

‘I don’t know, would you like wine?’ she asked back.
‘I really don’t mind, if you feel like it,’ I replied.
‘It’s as you please, whatever you want,’ she continued.
‘Either way is fine with me’.
‘I agree’.
‘So should we have it or not?’
‘Well, I don’t think I’ll have any,’ ventured Chloe.
‘You’re right, I don’t feel like any either,’ I concurred.
‘Let’s not have wine then,’ she concluded.
‘Great, so we’ll just stick with the water’.


Alain de Botton