Alain De Botton - Essays in Love

Alain de Botton: Essays in love

Romantic Fatalism

The longing for a destiny is nowhere stronger than in ourromantic life. All too often forced to share a bed with those who cannot fathomour soul, can we not be excused for believing (contrary to all the rules of ourenlightened age) that we are fated one day to run into the man or woman of ourdreams? Can we not be allowed a certain superstitious faith that we willultimately locate a creature who can appease our painful yearnings? Though ourprayers may never be answered, though there may be no end to relationshipsmarked by mutual incomprehension, if the heavens should come to take pity onus, then can we really be expected to attribute our encounter with our princeor princess to a mere coincidence? Or can we not for once escape logic and readit as nothing other than a sign of romantic destiny?

One mid-morning in early December, with no thought of loveor stories, I was sitting in the economy section of a British Airways jetmaking its way from Paris to London. We had recently crossed the Normandy coast,where a blanket of winter cloud had given way to an uninterrupted view ofbrilliant blue waters. Bored and unable to concentrate, I had picked up theairline magazine, passively imbibing information on resort hotels and airportfacilities. There was something comforting about the flight, the dullbackground throb of the engines, the hushed grey interior, the candy smiles ofthe airline employees. A trolley carrying a selection of drinks and snacks wasmaking its way down the aisle and, though I was neither hungry nor thirsty, itfilled me with the vague anticipation that meals may elicit in aircraft.

Morbidly perhaps, the passenger on my left had taken offher headphones in order to study the safety-instruction card placed in thepouch in front of her. It depicted the ideal crash, passengers alighting softlyand calmly onto land or water, the ladies taking off their high heels, thechildren dexterously inflating their vests, the fuselage still intact, thekerosene miraculously non-flammable.

"We're all going to die if this thing screws up, sowhat are these jokers on about?' asked the passenger, addressing no one inparticular.

'I think perhaps it reassures people,' I replied, for I washer only audience.

'Mind you, it's not a bad way to go, very quick, especiallyif we hit land and you're sitting in the front. I had an uncle who died in aplane crash once. Has anyone you know ever died like that?'

They hadn't, but I had no time to answer for a stewardess arrivedand (unaware of the ethical doubts recently cast on her employers) offered uslunch. I requested a glass of orange juice and was going to decline a plate ofpale sandwiches when my travelling companion whispered to me, 'Take themanyway. I'll eat yours, I'm starving.'

5. She hadchestnut-coloured hair, cut short so that it left the nape of her neck exposed,and large watery green eyes that refused to look into mine. She was wearing ablue blouse and had placed a grey cardigan over her knees. Her shoulders wereslim, almost fragile, and the rawness of her nails showed they were oftenchewed.

'Are you sure I'm not depriving you?'

'Of course not.'

'I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself, my name is Chloe,'she announced and extended her hand across the armrest with somewhat touchingformality.

An exchange of biography followed. Chloe told me she'd beenin Paris in order to attend a trade fair. For the past year, she'd been workingas a graphic designer for a fashion magazine in Soho. She'd studied at theRoyal College of Art, had been born in York, but moved to Wiltshire as a child,and was now (at the age of twenty-three) living alone in a flat in Islington.

6. 'I hopethey haven't lost my luggage,' said Chloe as the plane began to drop towardsHeathrow. 'Don't you have that fear, that they'll lose your luggage?'

'I don't think about it, but it's happened to me, twice infact, once in New York, and once in Frankfurt.'

'God, I hate travelling,' sighed Chloe, and bit the end ofher index finger. 'I hate arriving even more, I get real arrival angst. AfterI've been away for a while, I always think something terrible has happened: allmy friends have come together and decided they hate me or my cacti have died.'

'Youkeep cacti?'

'Several. I went through a cactus phase a while back.Phallic, I know, but I spent a winter in Arizona and sort of got fascinated bythem. Do you have any interesting plants?'

'Only an aspidistra, but I do regularly think all myfriends might hate me.'

The conversation meandered, affording us glimpses of oneanother's characters, like the brief vistas one catches on a winding mountainroad this before the wheels hit the tarmac, the engines were thrown intoreverse, and the plane taxied towards the terminal, where it disgorged itscargo into the crowded immigration hall. By the time I had collected my luggageand passed through customs, I had fallen in love with Chloe.

Until one is close to death, it must be difficult todeclare anyone as the love of one's life. But only shortly after meeting her,it seemed in no way out of place to think of Chloe in such terms. On our returnto London, Chloe and I spent the afternoon together. Then, a week beforeChristmas, we had dinner in a west London restaurant and, as though it was boththe strangest and most natural thing to do, ended the evening in bed. She spentChristmas with her family, I went

We even had the same copy of Anna Karenina on our shelves (the old Oxford edition) smalldetails, perhaps, but were these not grounds enough on which believers couldfound a new religion?

We attributed to events a narrative logic they could notinherently have possessed. We mythologized our aircraft encounter into thegoddess Aphrodite's design, Act One, Scene One of that primordial narrative,the love story. From the time of each of our births, it seemed as though thegiant mind in the sky had been subtly shifting our orbits so that we would oneday meet on the Paris-London shuttle. Because love had come true for us, wecould overlook the countless stories that fail to occur, romances that neverget written because someone misses the plane or loses the phone number. Likehistorians, we were unmistakably on the side of what had actually happened.

We should, of course, have been more sensible. NeitherChloe nor I flew regularly between the two capitals nor had been planning ourrespective trips for any length of time. Chloe had been sent to Paris at thelast minute by her magazine after the deputy editor had happened to fall sick,and I had gone there only because an architectural conference in Bordeaux hadfinished early enough for me to spend a few days in the capital with a friend.The two national airlines running services between Charles de Gaulle andHeathrow offered us a choice of six flights between nine o'clock and lunchtimeon our intended day of return. Given that we both wanted to be back in Londonby the early afternoon of December 6th, but were unresolved until the very lastminute as to what flight we would end up taking, the mathematical probabilityat dawn of us both being on the same flight (though not necessarily inadjoining seats) had been a figure of one in six.

Chloe later told me that she had intended to take the tenthirty Air France flight, but a bottle of shampoo in her bag had happened toleak as she was checking out of her room, which had meant repacking the bag andwasting a valuable ten minutes. By the time the hotel had produced her bill,cleared her credit card and found her a taxi, it was already nine fifteen, andthe chances that she would make the ten thirty Air France flight had receded.When she reached the airport after heavy traffic near the Porte de la Villette,the flight had finished boarding and, because she didn't feel like waiting forthe next Air France, she went over to the British Airways terminal, where shebooked herself on the ten forty-five plane to London, on which (for my own setof reasons) I happened also to have a seat.