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Change interface language 0:04 Sometimes , and it often happens in bed , we face an acute test at the hands of a lover
0:11 to whom we have pledged our affections . We are asked , with little warning , and in a serious
0:16 tone : ‘ What do you love me for ? ’ Few moments in a relationship can be as philosophical
0:24 as this – or as dangerous . A good answer has the power to confirm and enhance the union ;
0:30 a bad one could blow it apart . As we try to make headway , we immediately recognise that
0:35 we can’t simply say ‘ everything ’ . We’re being asked to make choices – and our love
0:41 will be deemed sincere to the extent that the choices feel accurate to their recipients .
0:46 The fundamental assumption behind the enquiry is that there are better and worse things
0:51 to be loved for . It isn’t the brute fact that we are liked that can count ; the liking
0:57 has to target certain of our best characteristics as we define them . Which in turn implies that
1:04 there are parts of our minds and our bodies that feel as though they better contain our
1:09 ‘ essential selves ’ than others . We are – if we can put it like this – not equally
1:15 present in all parts of ourselves . When it comes to the body , there appears to
1:20 be more of ‘ us ’ in our hands than in our heels and , when it comes to the mind , more
1:26 of ‘ us ’ in our sense of humour than in our knowledge of the seven times table . If
1:31 a malevolent demon were to force us to give up a bit of our minds , it might be better
1:36 – from the point of view of maintaining the continuity of our essential selves – to
1:40 surrender our ability to speak a foreign language than to wipe out our taste in music – just
1:47 as it would be more bearable to suffer a change in the shape of our big toe than in the profile
1:52 of our nose . To be told that we have a ‘ loveable mind ’
1:58 may be a good start , but not much more . There are likely to be many things that this mind
2:04 can do quite well : lay a table , drive safely down a motorway , prepare a household budget ,
2:09 remember geographical facts . But such talents seldom feel gratifying when singled out , because
2:16 of their intrinsically generic nature . Someone who loved us for these skills alone would
2:21 have few reasons why they might not equally well wander away and love someone else at
2:25 another point , which is the very risk we are trying to ward off and are looking for the
2:30 right compliment to appease . The skills it’s touching to be praised for
2:34 are those in which some of our uniqueness can be observed , for example : in the way we
2:39 prepare the icing of a birthday cake , pick songs for a drive through the desert , analyse
2:45 a historical novel , discuss a friend’s love affair or lightly tease a frustrating colleague
2:51 without ruffling their dignity … If someone has started to notice such details , then he
2:56 or she starts to feel like a reliable candidate to whom to get attached . Their love has become
3:03 specific rather than generic . It is in the end a good deal more gratifying for a lover
3:09 to pay us a small compliment about the deft way we are able to dislodge a relative from
3:14 a sulk than to be declared a sensational human for knowing the capital of New Zealand or
3:20 the way to calculate the diameter of a circle . But , to add further complexity to our demands ,
3:26 it isn’t enough just to be admired . We also want a true lover to feel well disposed towards
3:34 our vulnerabilities . Whatever our degree of competence , we are never far from moments
3:39 of fear , ignorance , humiliation , childlikeness and sadness – and it is these moods too
3:46 that we long for a lover to have the strength to feel generous towards . It may be pleasant
3:51 to be found impressive , but it is more reassuring to discover that our vulnerability is ready
3:57 to be treated with generosity ; that we are with someone who will allow us to be sad ,
4:03 discomfited and weepy , who has spotted that we sometimes bite our nails and worry about
4:07 work late at night . We don’t bluntly want to awe a lover , we want permission to be ,
4:14 every now and then , at wits end . We want them to have sufficient faith in our powers that
4:19 they can be unfrightened by our periods of fragility . We need to know that the child
4:25 in us has been seen and won’t appall . ‘ I love you for being a hero , ’ would be an
4:32 eerie pronouncement . ‘ I love you for being a child , ’ would be equally alienating . But
4:38 ‘ I love the sad child I occasionally glimpse in you beneath your resourceful adult day
4:45 to day self ’ comes as close as one can imagine to the epicentre of love .
4:51 Our hopes for what role our body will play in eliciting love follow a comparable pattern .
4:57 Here too , sweeping generic praise feels like the work of someone who might not notice if
5:03 our body was replaced by that of another in the night . It might be true that we have ‘ lovely
5:08 eyes ’ or ‘ soft hair ’ but exactly the same words could be said with accuracy to
5:13 millions of others , just as a host would not want to hear thanks for a ‘ nice dinner ’
5:19 but rather praise for the hint of dill in the lemon sauce or for the seating arrangement
5:23 that allowed political opposites to be reconciled . In the detail lies proof that someone cares .
5:24 Some of the best kinds of praise about the body are psycho - physical , that is , they praise
5:29 a physical aspect in order to highlight a psychological quality . They reassures us that
5:34 our physical envelopes have been connected up with the most loveable sides of our personalities .
5:40 A perceptive lover might say : I like the way your smile is slightly different
5:45 on each side of your mouth . One side is warm and welcoming , the other is thoughtful and
5:50 a bit melancholy . You’re not merely smiling , it seems like you’re thinking deeply as
5:56 you smile . Or : There is a charming thing you do with
6:00 your eyelids when you are listening , half bringing them down in a quizzical way . It
6:05 feels like you’re saying ‘ I don’t totally believe you ’ but it’s really an encouragement ;
6:09 there’s an invitation , as if you were adding : ‘ but come on , give me the real truth , I
6:13 know you’re holding back the best bits because you worry you won’t be understood … but
6:16 you will be . You’re safe with me . ’ Or : There’s this great thing you do with
6:17 your thumb and middle finger when you get excited by an idea . It’s as if you’re
6:18 feeling the quality of a piece of silk … as if you’re touching a thought with your fingers .
6:20 Or : I’m slightly in love with the freckle on your upper left arm . It’s a bit like
6:25 you , quietly saying ‘ here I am , I’m me ; nothing special but I’m happy with who I
6:29 am . ’ It’s poised and unshowy but confident of its power to attract those who get it .
6:35 I love that it was there when you were little and that it’s been with you every day since .
6:39 In the art of caricature , an artist looks closely at the face and body of a politician
6:40 and then carefully pick out details with whose help we can be taught to forever hate and
6:41 mock them . The caricaturist will spot a slight jump at the end of the nose , a pair of unusually
6:42 large earlobes , a somewhat wavy curl of hair or knobbly set of knees . They will then place
6:43 such emphasis on these details that we will never be able to overlook them again – nor
6:44 cease despising the unfortunate politicians who possess them . One way to think of love
6:45 is as a comparable yet entirely compassionate process , whereby the lover studies their beloved
6:46 minutely and latches on to elements – an index finger , the inside of a knee , a shoulder
6:47 blade or a way of closing the eyes – that become the touchstones of affection , part
6:48 of the many apparently tiny but in reality hugely sound reasons why one person has come
6:49 to admire and love another . We can add that , just as with the mind , it
6:50 is frequently vulnerability in these bodily details that charms . It is the little toe
6:51 and the little finger that seduce more than the thighs or thorax . It is the hand that
6:54 curls up as it must have done in childhood . It is the thin nape of the neck normally hidden
6:59 behind a confident mane of hair . It is a delicate wrist through which run intricate greenish
7:05 veins . Within an otherwise mature body , we are seeing hints of an endearing and more
7:10 fragile earlier self , to whom we offer our sympathy , protection and reassurance .
7:17 The question of what we have found to love in someone should not frighten us . We simply
7:22 need to give ourselves the time to trace back our enthusiasms to their authentic sources ,
7:28 while remembering that love is liable to collect with particular intensity in the most vulnerable
7:34 and improbably small nooks of the self .
