I've been asked to talk to you today
about an essay that I wrote uh for the
New York Times um last year which went
under a rather dramatic uh heading uh it
was called why you will marry the wrong
person and perhaps we can just begin um
we're among friends um by just asking
how many of you in the room do feel on
balance that you have married the wrong
person I mean we're among friends honest
any yeah lady that c couple of people
that 5 10 I'd say 30 people in the room
and and so we always have to trle that
uh so there's there's a pretty hefty
majority but I'm here to give counsel
and to give uh consolation for this
situation you know there's a lot of
anger around our love lives privately
held but a lot of us go around feeling
quite enraged angry privately about the
way that our love lives have gone my
task today is to turn that anger into
sadness if we if we manage to turn rage
into grief we will have made
psychological progress and this is uh
the task today what lies behind rage
very often is an unusual quality because
we tend to think that very angry people
are sort of dark and pessimistic
characters absolutely not scratch the
surface of any regularly angry person
and you will find a wild Optimist it is
in fact hope that drives rage think of
the person who screams every time they
can't find their house keys or every
time they get stuck in traffic these
unfortunate characters are evincing a
curious but Reckless faith in a world in
which Keys Never Go astray the roads are
mysteriously traffic free it is hope
that is turbocharging their rage so if
we're to get a little bit less sad uh uh
and as a little less angry about our
love lives we will have to diminish some
of our hopes it's very hard to diminish
hope around love because there are vast
Industries designed to inflate our
expectations of Love um there was
wonderful quote from the German
philosopher Theodore adoro who in the
1960s said that the most dangerous man
in America was Walt Disney and the
reason for his attack on Walt was
because he believed that Walt was the
Prime agent of Hope and therefore of
rage and therefore of bitterness and he
thought that um it was the task of
philosophy to let us down uh gently
which is what I'm going to be uh uh
doing uh today so remember the theme of
the talk why you will marry the wrong
person there are a number of reasons why
this is going to happen to you or has
maybe already in the privacy of your
heart happened to you um I should say
that it's not that bad and the reason is
that all of us uh will not manage to
find the right person but we will
probably all of us manage to find a good
enough person so and that's success um
as as as you will we'll come see one of
the one of the reasons why we're not
going to be able to pull this one off as
successfully as we might have hoped at
the early at the outset of our our
probably our teenage Hood when we were
contemplating love is that we are very
strange I'm very strange and you're very
strange you don't let on and you know
we're not going to do anything very
dangerous but we are basically
psychologically quite strange um we
don't normally know very much about this
strangeness it takes us a long long time
before we're really on top of the way in
which we are hard to live with does
anyone in this room think that they're
quite easy to live with on balance yeah
oh my goodness okay I don't want to be
rude but please come and see me
afterwards I
know I know that you're not easy to live
with um and the reason is that you are
Homo sapiens and therefore you are not
easy to live with no one is um and but
there's a there's a wall of Silence that
surrounds us from a deeper acquaintance
with what is actually so difficult about
us uh our friends don't want to tell us
why would they bother they just want a
pleasant evening out they're not our
friends know more about us us and more
about our flaws probably after a
10-minute acquaintance a stranger will
know more about your flaws than you
might learn over 40 years of life on the
planet our our capacity to Intuit it
what is wrong with us is very weak our
parents don't tell us very much why
would they they love us too much they
know they can see of course I mean
they've followed us from the crib they
know what's wrong with us they're not
going to tell us uh because they they
just want to you know be sweet uh and
our ex-lovers a vital source of
knowledge they know absolutely they know
uh but do you remember that speech that
they gave it was it was moving at the
time when they said that they wanted a
little more space and we're attracted to
travel and we're interested in the
culture of Southeast Asia nonsense they
thought lots of things were wrong with
you but they weren't going to be
bothered to tell you they were just off
out of there why would they bother so
this knowledge that is out there is not
in you it's out there but it's not in
you and so therefore we progress through
the world with a very uh low sense of
what is actually wrong with us um not
least all of us are addicts almost all
of us are addicts not injecting heroin
as such but addicts in the we need to
redefine what addiction is I like to
Define addiction not in terms of the
substance you're taking in other words
you know I'm heroin addict I'm a cocaine
addict no addiction is basically any
pattern of behavior whereby you cannot
stand to be with yourself and certain of
the more uncomfortable thoughts and more
importantly emotions that come from
being on your own and so therefore you
can be addicted to almost anything so
long as it keeps you away from yourself
so long as it keeps you away from tricky
self- knowledge and most of us are
addicts and thanks to all sorts of
Technologies and uh distractions Etc we
can have a good life where we will
almost certainly be guaranteed not to
spend any time with ourselves um except
maybe for certain kind of airlines that
still don't have the gadgets to distract
us but otherwise you can be guaranteed
you don't have to talk to yourself and
this is a disaster for your capacity to
have a relationship with another person
because until you know yourself you
can't properly relate uh to another
person um one of the reasons why love is
so tricky for us is that it requires us
to do something we really don't want to
do which is to approach another human
being and say I need you I wouldn't
really survive without you I am
vulnerable before you and there's a very
strong impulse in all of us to be strong
and to be well- defended and not to
reveal our vulnerability to another
person psycho psychologists talk of two
patterns of response that tend to crop
up in people whenever there's a danger
of needing to be extremely vulnerable
dangerously vulnerable and exposed to
another person the first response is to
get what what um uh psychologists call
anxiously attached this attachment
Theory some of you may know so when you
are anxiously attached to somebody
rather than saying I need you I depend
on you you start to get very procedural
you say you're 10 minutes late or I
think the bin bags need to be taken out
or you start to get strict when actually
what you want to do is to ask a very
poignant question do you still care
about me but we don't dare to ask that
question so instead we get nasty we get
stiff uh we get procedural the other
other thing the other pattern of
behavior which psychologists have
identified and it tends to apply to
people uh who are in this room in other
words a types very outgoing types uh
Strivers uh you become in relationships
tell me if I'm wrong uh you become what
is known as avoidant which means that
when you when you need someone it's
precisely at that moment that you
pretend you don't when you feel most
vulnerable you say I'm quite busy at the
moment I'm fine thanks I'm well busy
today uh in other words you don't reveal
the need for another person which sets
them off in into a chain of wondering
whether uh you are to be trusted and
there's then a cycle of low trust so we
get into these patterns of not daring to
do the thing that we really need to do
which is to say even though I'm a grown
person maybe I've got a beard maybe I've
been alive for a long time uh I'm 6'2
Etc I'm actually a small child inside
and I need you I like a small child
would need its parent this is so
humbling that most of us refuse to make
that step and therefore refuse the
challenge of uh of Love um in short we
don't know very very much how to love we
and it sounds very odd cuz imagine if
somebody said to you look all of us
probably in this room would probably
need to go to a school of love we think
what a school of love love is just an
instinct no it's not it's a skill and
it's a skill that needs to be learned
and it's a skill that our society
refuses to consider as a skill we are
meant to always just follow our feelings
if you keep following your feelings you
will almost certainly make a big mistake
uh in in your life what is love
ultimately love I believe is something
first of all there's a distinction
between love loving and being loved we
all start off in life by knowing a lot
about being loved being loved is the fun
bit uh that's when somebody brings you
something on a tray and ask you how your
day at school went Etc and we grow up
thinking that that is what's going to
happen in an adult relationship we can
be forgiven for that it's an
understandable mistake but it's a very
tragic mistake and it leads us not to
pay attention to the other side of the
equation which is to love and what does
it really mean to love to love
ultimately is to have the willingness to
interpret someone's on the surface not
not very appealing behavior in order to
find more benevolent reasons why it may
be unfolding in other words to love
someone is to apply charity and
generosity of interpretation most of us
are in dire need of love because
actually we need to be we need to have
some slack cut for us because our
behavior is often so tricky that if we
don't do this uh we wouldn't get through
uh any kind of relationship but we're
not used to thinking that that is the at
the core of what love is core of what
love is is the willingness to interpret
another's behavior um what we tend to be
very bad at is recognizing that anyone
that we can love is going to be a
perplexing mixture of the good and the
bad there's a wonderful uh psychoanalyst
called Melanie Klein who was active in
the 50s and 60s originally from Vienna
uh active in North London studying how
children learned about relationships
from the parental situation and she came
up with a very fascinating analysis she
argued that when children are small very
small they don't really realize that a
parent is one character they actually do
what she called split a parent into a
good parent and a bad parent and so this
is when a a baby is you know really at
infant stage so what you do is you split
into the good mother or and the bad
mother and it takes a long long time
melan Klein thought it might be until
you're four um until you actually
realize that the good and the bad mother
are one person and you become ambivalent
in other words you become able to hate
someone and really go off them and at
the same time also love them and you're
able not to run away from that situation
you're able to say I love someone and
hate them and that's okay uh and Melanie
Klein thought this is an immense
psychological achievement when we can no
longer merely divide people into
absolutely brilliant perfect what
marvelous and hateful let me down
disappointed me everyone who we love is
going to disappoint us we start off with
idealization and we end up often with
denigration the person goes from being
absolutely marvelous to being absolutely
terrible maturity is the ability to see
that there are no heroes or or Sinners
really among human beings that all of us
have this wonderfully perplexing mixture
of the good and the bad and adulthood
true psychological maturity and you may
need to be 65 before it hits you I'm not
there yet uh is the capacity to realize
that anyone that you love is going to be
this mixture of uh uh the good and the
bad so love is not just admiration for
strength it is also tolerance for
weakness and recognition of ambivalence
um the reason why we're going to
probably make some real mistakes when we
choose our love Partners some of you in
this room have made some stunning
mistakes now why is this the reason is
that we've been told that the way to
find a good partner is to follow your
instinct right follow your heart that's
the Mantra and so we're all the time
reminded that if we stop uh reasoning
analyzing by the way are there people in
this room who think that you can think
too much about your emotions there sort
of few people go you you can think too
much a few people okay I you can't think
too much you can only ever think badly
uh but there's no such thing as thinking
too much about emotions but the problem
is we live in a romantic culture that
privileges impulse now when it comes to
love something tricky occurs because you
don't have to be a paid out believer in
Psychotherapy or psychoanalysis to
realize that the way we love as adults
sits on top of our early childhood
experien
and in early childhood the way that we
learned about love was not just via
experiences of tenderness and kindness
and generosity the love that we will
have tasted as children will also be
bound up with experiences of being let
down being humiliated maybe being with a
parent who treated us very harshly who
scolded us who made us feel small in
some way in other words quite a lot
about our early experiences of Love
abound up with various kinds of
suffering now something quite bad
happens when we start to go out into the
adult world and start to choose love
Partners we think we're out to find
Partners who will make us happy but
we're not we're out to find Partners who
will feel familiar and that may be a
very different thing because familiarity
may be bound up with particular kinds of
torture and this explains why sometimes
um people will say to us look there's a
wonderful person you should go and date
them they're they're they're goodlooking
they're Charming they're all sorts of
things and we go out with them we them
and we do recognize that they're really
wonderful and amazing but we have to
confess to our partners that to to our
friends that actually we found this
person often we struggle with the
vocabulary we say maybe not that
exciting or maybe not sexy or a bit
boring but really what we mean is that
we've detected in this really quite
accomplished person someone who will not
be able to make us suffer in the way
that we need to suffer in order to feel
that love is real and that's why we we
reject them so we are not merely on a
quest to be happy we are on a quest to
suffer in ways that feel familiar and
this radically undermines our capacity
to find a good partner here's another
reason why we're going to come unstuck
in the field of Love We tend to believe
that the more a lover is right for us
the less we're going to have to explain
about who we are how we feel what upsets
us what we want we believe rather as a
young child believe of its parent that a
true lover will guess what is in our
minds one of the great errors that human
beings make is permanently to feel that
other people know what's in their minds
without us having said what's in our
minds it's very cumbersome to use words
it's such a bore and when it comes to
love we have this deep desire that will
simply be understood wordlessly it's
touching it's a beautiful romantic idea
but it also leads to a catastrophic
outbreak of sulking now what is sulking
sulking is an interesting phenomenon we
don't just sulk with anyone we sulk with
people who we feel should understand us
and yet for some reason have decided not
to and that's why we tend to reserve our
suks for people who we love and who we
think love us and they tell us something
you know they unwittingly will trigger a
negative reaction in us and we'll Suk
and they'll say what's wrong with you
darling and we'll say nothing and
they'll say but come on you're upset and
we'll go no I'm not I'm absolutely fine
and it's not true and we'll go upstairs
and we'll shut the door and we won't
tell them what's wrong with us and then
they'll knock at the door and they say
please just tell me and we'll say no
because we want them to read our souls
because we expect that a true lover can
understand what we feel and who we are
without us speaking this is a
catastrophe for our capacity to form
lasting relationships if you do not
explain you can never be understood the
root to a good marriage and to Good Love
is the ability to become a good teacher
now teaching sounds like a narrow
profession those guys in Tweed jackets
and fussy with a with a chalkboard Etc
I'm not talking about that kind of
teaching all of us whatever our job
aspirations whatever it is we do have to
become teachers now teaching is merely
the word that we give to the skill of
getting an idea from one head into
another in a way that is likely to be
accepted and most of us are appalling
teachers most of us teach when we're
tired when we're frightened what are we
frightened of we're frightened we've
married an idiot and because we're so
frightened we start screaming at them
you've got to understand and the thing
is that unfortunately by the time you've
started to humiliate the person you want
to understand something less and over
you will never get anyone to understand
what you want them to understand so long
as you make them feel small in order to
teach well you need to be relaxed you
need to accept that maybe your partner
won't understand um and also you need a
culture within a couple that two people
are going to need to teach each other
and therefore also learn from one
another and this brings me to the next
reason why you're going to have a very
unhappy relationship probably and that
is because you probably believe that
when somebody tries to tell you
something about yourself that's a little
ticklish and a little uncomfortable they
are attacking you they're not they're
trying to make you into a better person
and we don't tend to believe that this
has a role in love we tend to believe
that true love means accepting the whole
of us it doesn't no one should accept
the whole of us we're appalling really
want the whole of you accepted no that's
not love the the full display of our
characters the full articulation of who
we are should not be something that we
do in front of anyone that we care about
um so what we need to do uh is is to
accept that the other person is going to
want to educate us and that it isn't a
criticism criticism is merely the wrong
word that we apply to a much nobler idea
which is to try and make us into better
versions of ourselves but we tend to
reject this idea uh very strongly um is
there any hope of course there's hope
look I mentioned the word good enough
it's a phrase phase taken from a
wonderful English psychoanalyst called
Donald winot he had a lot of parents who
would come to him and say things like
I'm so worried I'm not a good parent um
my child has this problem or that
problem Etc and he came up with a
wonderful phrase he said you are most
likely to be a good enough parent and he
it's a relief from our otherwise
punishing uh uh perfectionism the good
thing is that none of us are perfect and
therefore we don't need Perfection and
the demand for Perfection will lead you
to only one thing loneliness you cannot
have Perfection and Company to be in
company with another person is to be
negotiating imperfection every day um
incompatibility we are all incompatible
but it is the work of love to make us
graciously accommodate each other and
ourselves to each other's
incompatibilities uh and and therefore
compatibility is an achievement of love
it isn't what you need from the outset
of course you're not going to be totally
compatible that's not the point it is
through love that you grow gradually
accept the need uh uh to to be uh
compatible um we probably can't change
our types right so all of us are pro
many of us are have got types who are
going to cause us real problems they may
be too distant they may be arrogant
they're going to torture Us in some way
now friends casually say to us Chuck
them get out the relationship Etc right
no I don't you know we're realists here
at Google and I'm giving you realistic
advice you're not going to manage to
change your type let's get that for
granted what you can do and this is a
big achievement is to change how you
characteristically respond to your
tricky type most of us have formed the
way that we respond to tricky types in
early childhood so we had a distant
parent we've now chosen a Distant Lover
when we were very young we responded to
that distant parent by attention seeking
we rattled and banged and now we're
adults we rattle and bang in our own way
and we think that's going to help it
doesn't it creates a a cycle that's
going to be a vicious uh uh cycle that's
not going to get us anywhere it is open
to us at any time to have a more mature
response to the challenges that the
types of people we're attracted to are
going to pose for us and that is an
immense step forward an immense uh uh
achievement um the other thing we should
do is recognize the nobility of
compromise one of the most shameful
things to ever have to admit is to say
this is my partner I've compromised in
choosing them I've compromised oh why
have you compromised well I'm not that
attractive myself uh I've got lots of
problems I'm a bit nutty frankly I
couldn't pull anyone better but they're
very nice they're okay now you would
think loser it's not true compromise is
Noble we compromise in every area of
life there's no reason why we shouldn't
compromise in our love lives maybe we're
sticking around for the children good
people say oh they're only sticking
around for the children that's a
wonderful reason to stick around why
else are you going to stick around okay
so let's look a bit more benevolently at
the art of uh compromise it's a massive
achievement uh in love I'm going to end
um with with a a quote from one of my
favorite philosophers Danish 19th
century very gloomy philosopher called
kard and kard in his book either or had
a wonderful Outburst where he basically
said of course you're going to marry the
wrong person and make the wrong
decisions in a whole row of areas and
the reason you're going to do this is
that you're human therefore do not
berate yourself for doing what humans do
this is what he says marry and you will
regret it don't marry you will also
regret it marry or don't marry you will
regret it either way laugh at the
world's foolishness you'll regret it
weep over it you'll regret that too
laugh at the world's foolishness or weep
over it you will regret both hang
yourself you will regret it don't hang
yourself you will regret that too hang
yourself or don't hang yourself you'll
regret it either way whether you hang
yourself or don't hang yourself you will
regret both this gentleman is the
essence of all philosophy thank you very
[Applause]
[Music]
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