Psyche | L Freed/Magnum
Each person lives a personal history of love. Typically, this involves things like middle-school crushes, high-school couples, college hook-ups, beautiful moments, bad breakups, unforgettable dates, dates you’d rather forget, reliable partners, unreliable jerks, leaps of trust, insipid marriages, pains of betrayal, love into old age, and so on. Of course, no single history looks the same. But a reasonable hope is that, as we gain experience as lovers, we figure out what works for us and what doesn’t. Ideally, a person reflects on the reasons they have for loving certain persons and not others, and this reflection allows for the discovery of a deeper, more valuable love. Ideally, love gains wisdom.