Why Love Starts with Loneliness

“The more that ambivalent feelings can be brought to the surface, the safer the relationship is,” says philosopher and writer Alain de Botton. The bestselling author (On Love, The Course of Love, How to Think More About Sex, etc.) sits down with our chief content officer, Elise Loehnen, to talk about the complexities of falling into, and out of, relationships. De Botton’s perspective on intimacy is incredibly wise. He says that we are all still and will always be students of love. That no relationship should be judged by its length. That there’s a lot of “politeness” in relationships that gets in the way of a deeper connection. And that the best insurance policy is remembering that we can never own or even fully know another person—and that we shouldn’t skip the “little moments of tenderness” along the way. (For more from de Botton on emotional intelligence, see The School of Life.)