Generous Pessimism in Love

We think – of course – that pessimism must be the enemy of love. Yet what a properly thoughtful gift well-aimed, generously held pessimism can be to any incoming partner. What kindness it is to tell a partner, in effect or even directly:

You will sometimes hate me and I will sometimes hate you, and we will think we made the worst error of our lives – but still I want, on balance, to be with you.

I don’t expect to be happy here very often.

I know I will frequently cry and yearn. And you will, in private, do likewise.

How cheerful it would be if we could, on our first dates, around about the main course, ask each other: What variety of madness do you bring with you? What kind of calamity do you like to unleash?

It would be the ones who couldn’t answer that we’d need to worry about – those cruel enough to still think of themselves as people who don’t bring trouble in their wake.

It’s inculcated in us that optimism is the thing we need, but what if darkness actually held us more securely? What if we could rehearse some of the following:

Sex will fail.

If you are too present, I will feel suffocated; if you are too distant, I will feel abandoned…

You will mistake me for some figure from your past; I will land on your head some of the anger and frustration that belong to another.

What if, on our wedding day, we threw away the usual bromides and went for something stiffer? What if we told the assembled gathering: I have chosen this person, over any other, to be miserable around – and they have done the same to me. They are, all told, the very best person to be sad about, the finest individual to lament, the least-worst person to feel disappointed by.

At the height of the wedding ceremony, we might say: I have chosen you – above all others – on whom to rest my foiled hopes, my dashed expectations, my madness and my formless yearnings. You will be the one I have chosen to hurt, to be hurt by, and to suffer alongside.

We might whisper to our beloved on the honeymoon: I will be irritated by your habits; you will be maddened by mine. You will wish that I had had different parents – and I will regret the lessons life has taught you. Often, we will think we have stumbled into a monumental error. Then the mood will pass.

Let’s be frank. It’s not in our purview to enjoy unblemished happiness. We haven’t until now – and why would we break the habit at this stage? There are people who can do serenity; we hear rumours about how they live. But this isn’t us. We come from a different tribe: the anxious, tetchy, glass-half-empty ones who wake up every morning and scan the horizon for horror. Bless us in our misery.

We have got it all wrong. We have allowed ourselves to be tormented by our hopes and expectations. To think that we’d cut through the mess and rest on an altar of sanity and good sense in the company of another untouched human? No. To expect almost nothing – to consider ourselves lucky if nothing terrible has happened today, or in the last hour – that is proper generosity, that is true forgiveness, that is exceptional maturity.

If we have spent a few happy moments with someone, this is already a feat. Let’s not assume as our birthright something that can only ever be a lucky accident.

Let’s do our next partner the greatest honour: to dress them in the delightful romantic robes of pessimism. Let’s hope for very little from them; let’s expect – often – to be a bit sad around them. That will be the true beginning of contented love, properly understood.