sometimes and it often happens in bed we face an acute test at the hands of a lover to whom we have pledged our affections we are asked with little warning and maybe in a serious tone what do you love me for few moments in a relationship can be as philosophical as this or as dangerous the good answer has the power to confirm and enhance a relationship a bad one could blow it apart as we try to make headway we immediately recognize that we can't simply say everything we're being asked to make choices and our love
will be deemed sincere to the extent that these choices feel accurate to their recipients the fundamental assumption behind the inquiry is that there are better and worse things to be loved for it isn't a brute fact that we are liked that can count the liking has to target certain of our best characteristics as we define these which in turn implies that there are parts of our minds and our bodies that feel as though they better contain our essential selves than others we are if we can put it like this not equally present in all parts
of ourselves when it comes to the body there appears to be more of us in our hands than in our heels and when it comes to the mind more of us in our sense of humor than in our knowledge of the 7 times table if a malevolent demon were to force us to give up a bit of our minds it might be better from the point of view of maintaining the continuity of our essential selves to surrender our ability to speak a foreign language rather than to wipe out our taste in music just as it
would be more bearable to suffer a change in the shape of our big toe than in the profile of our nose to be told that we have a lovable mind maybe a good start but not much more there are likely to be many things that this mind can do quite well lay a table Drive Safely down a motorway prepare a household budget remember geographical facts but such talents seldom feel gratifying when singled out because of their rather generic nature someone who loved us for these skills alone would have few reasons why they might not equally
well wander away and love someone else at another point which is the very risk we are trying to ward off and are looking for the right complement to appears the skills it's touching to be praised for are those in which some of our uniqueness can be observed for example in the way we prepare the icing of a birthday cake or pick songs for a drive through the desert or analyze a historical novel discuss a friend's love affair or likely teased a frustrating colleague without ruffling their dignity if someone has started to notice such details then
he or she starts to feel like a reliable candidate to whom to get attached their love has become specific rather than generic it is in the end a good deal more gratifying for a lover to pay us a small compliment about the deft way we're able to dislodge your relative from a sulk than to be declared a sensational human for knowing the capital of New Zealand all the way to calculate the diameter of a circle but to add further complexity to our demands it isn't enough just to be admired we also want a true lover
to feel well disposed towards our vulnerabilities whatever our degree of competence we are never far from moments of fear ignorance humiliation child likeness and sadness and it is these moods too that we long for a lover to have the strength to feel generous towards it may be pleasant to be found impressive but it's more reassuring to discover that our vulnerability is ready to be treated with generosity that we are with someone who will allow us to be sad discomforted and weepy who was spotted that we sometimes bite our nails or worry about our work late
at night we don't bluntly want to or a lover we want permission to be every now and then at wit's end we want them to have sufficient faith in our power that they can be unfrozen by our periods of fragility we need to know that the child in us has been seen and won't appalled I love you for being such a hero would be an eerie pronouncement I love you for being a child would be equally alienating but something like I love the sad child I occasionally glimpse in you beneath your resourceful adult day-to-day self
well that comes as close as one can imagine to the epicentre of love our hopes for what role our body will play in eliciting love follow a comparable pattern here - sweeping generic praise feels like the work of someone who might not notice if our body was replaced by that of another in the night it might be true that we have lovely eyes or soft hair but exactly the same words could be said with accuracy - millions of others just as a host would not want to hear thanks for a nice dinner but rather praise
for that hint of dill in the lemon sauce some of the best kinds of praise about the body are psychophysical that is they praise a physical aspect in order to highlight a psychological quality they reassure us that our physical envelopes have been connected up with the most lovable sides of our personalities so a perceptive lover might say I really like the way your smile is slightly different on each side of your mouth you see one side is warm and welcoming and the other is sort of thoughtful and a bit melancholy you're not really smiling it
seems like you're thinking deeply as you smile or what about this there's a charming thing you do with your eyelids when you're listening half bringing them down in a quizzical way if it's like you're saying I don't totally believe you but it's really an encouragement there's an invitation as if you were adding but come on give me the real truth I know you're holding back the best bits because you worry you won't be understood but you will be you're safe with me or I'm slightly in love with that freckle on your upper left arm it's
a bit like you quietly saying Here I am I me nothing special but I'm happy with who I am it's poised and unsure but confident of its power to attract those who get it I loved that it was there when you were little and that it's been with you every day since we can add that just as with the mind it is frequently vulnerability in bodily details that charms it is the little toe and the little finger that seduced more than the thighs or the thorax it is the hand that curls up as it must
have done in childhood it is the thin nape of the neck normally hidden behind a confident mane of hair it is a delicate wrist through which run intricate greenish veins within an otherwise mature body we're seeing hints of an endearing and more fragile earlier self to whom we offer our sympathy protection and reassurance the question of what we have found to love in someone should not frighten us we simply need to give ourselves the time to trace back our enthusiasms to their authentic sources while remembering that love is liable to collect with particular intensity in
the most vulnerable and improbably small nooks of the self our pillow-talk cards help prompt us to share our intimate desires to find out more follow the link on your screen now you
