The idea that we can have whatever we want whenever we want is wreaking havoc on our love lives. Have we become too demanding for love relationships to succeed? Philosopher Jan Drost tells about a new take on love.
“What we need, according to Drost, is for romantic thinking to make way for loving thinking. “We need to regain perspective on the fact that a relationship is not a gift we can just take when we feel like it,” he says. “We should make the tenderness of a love relationship more central to our experience again. A character in the movie Revolutionary Road illustrates this beautifully in one scene, when he returns from chasing after a better life. He sees his wife at the breakfast table in the morning, with bleary eyes and an orange juice stain on her robe, and he thinks: She’s with me. He can see very clearly once again what he does have.”
Text Peggy van der Lee Illustration Kate Pugsley
