The Course of Love by Alain de Botton Page A

nonnormative parts of himself. It is neither arrogance nor a sense that his wife has no right to know who he really is that makes him secretive and hesitant; rather, it is sheer terror that his tendencies towards self-loathing will be intensified to an unbearable degree by the presence of a witness.
    Were Rabih less afraid of his own mind, he might be able to square up to Kirsten with his desires, like a natural scientist holding up for a colleague’s inspection some newly discovered, peculiar-looking species which both of them might strive to understand and accommodate themselves to. But he instinctively feels that there is quite a lot about himself that it would be wiser for him not to share.He is too dependent on Kirsten’s love to map out for her all the places to which his libido regularly takes him. She thus never learns about the woman her husband daily admires behind the till at the newsagent in Waverley Station, or his curiosity about her friend Rachel on the night of her birthday, or the dress that turns him on in a shop on Hanover Street, or some of his thoughts about stockings, or some of the faces that, unbidden, occasionally pass through his mind while he is in bed with her.
    The first heady period of sexual adventure and total honesty passes. It is significantly more important to Rabih now that he remain attractive to Kirsten than that he be a truthful correspondent of the reality of his inner life.
    Good listeners are no less rare or important than good communicators. Here, too, an unusual degree of confidence is the key—a capacity not to be thrown off course by, or buckle under the weight of, information that may deeply challenge certain settled assumptions. Good listeners are unfussy about the chaos which others may for a time create in their minds; they’ve been there before and know that everything can eventually be set back in its place.
    The blame is not on Rabih’s side alone. In having on the tip of her tongue such words as weird and perverted , Kirsten does little to foster an atmosphere ripe for revelations. Then again, she uses these words not out of nastiness or contempt but rather out of fear that, by tacitly endorsing Rabih’s fantasies, she may end up giving them greater license and so undermine their love.
    She might instead, in another mood, as a different person, have said something like the following in response to her husband’s scenario: “The nature of this particular daydream is foreign, unfamiliar, and frankly not a little disgusting to me; but I’minterested in hearing about it nonetheless, because more critical than my relative comfort is my ability to cope with who you are. The person thinking of Antonella just now is the same person I married in Inverness and the same little boy who stares out from that picture on top of our chest of drawers. It’s him I love and refuse to think badly of, however much his thoughts may sometimes disturb me. You’re my best friend, and I want to know and come to terms with your mind in all its weird byways. I will never be able to do or be everything you want, nor vice versa, but I’d like to think we can be the sort of people who will dare to tell each other who we really are. The alternative is silence and lies, which are the real enemies of love.”
    Or conversely, she might have revealed the vulnerability that has lain all the while behind her annoyed demeanor: “I wish I could be everything to you. I wish you didn’t have such needs outside of me. Of course, I don’t really think your fantasies about Antonella are repulsive; I just wish there didn’t have to be—always—that imagined someone else. I know it’s madness, but what I want most is to be able to satisfy you all by myself.”
    In the event, Rabih didn’t speak, and Kirsten didn’t listen. Instead they went to the cinema and had a thoroughly nice evening together. In the engine room of their