On Love

Two passengers board the same commercial flight from Paris to London and take neighboring seats. During the short trip across the sea, they exchange casual remarks about the weather, share a snack, and discover immediate affinities. The narrator calculates the mathematical probability of that meeting: less than one chance in several million that they would be together at that exact minute. To a newly enchanted mind, the coldness of numbers is intolerable. Instead of accepting chance as a statistical lottery, the imagination turns to fatalism, creating the magical narrative that the universe planned their union.

This same psychological alchemy happens when you bump into someone at the neighborhood bakery on a rainy morning or share a seat on a crowded commuter train after a tiring day at work. It is the human need to turn chaos into poetic meaning. By christening coincidence as destiny, romance takes on a sacred aura, as if it justified every previous stumble and heartbreak in life. That initial illusion, however, comes at a high price later on. Anyone who believes in cosmic predestination expects a mystical perfection from their partner that no relationship can sustain in the long run.

In his first days with Chloe, the protagonist does not fall in love with a real woman, but with the radiant projection he has sketched over her. Every unpretentious gesture becomes a reason for unconditional admiration. The way she holds her cup or lets out a laugh at a restaurant is interpreted as definitive proof of moral purity and refinement. The infatuated lover acts like an artist gathering loose fragments of reality to fill in the invisible gaps with his own emotional longings.

This mechanism of early idealization completely shuts down the infatuated person's critical judgment. In everyday life, it is what happens when someone overlooks a new partner's rude behavior toward servers at a neighborhood bar or ignores out-of-control credit card debt, excusing it all as laid-back charm or a free spirit. The mind prefers to cultivate a comforting fantasy rather than admit that the other person is just an ordinary human being, full of insecurities, annoying habits, and obvious limitations. Early passion rarely sees reality honestly; it prefers to decorate it.

Before mutual affection is formally confirmed, growing closer emotionally feels like walking on thin ice. The person in love is haunted by the fear of sounding ridiculous or intrusive. Every comment over coffee is meticulously rehearsed to sound intelligent without seeming pedantic, light without seeming uninterested. Being aware of one's own vulnerability causes discomfort, because confessing genuine attraction hands the other person the undeniable power to either welcome us warmly or crush us with indifference.

Who hasn't typed out a text message on their phone, deleted it three times in a row, and waited several long minutes before hitting send just to avoid looking needy or overly eager? The book accurately portrays this social theater of romantic courtship, in which two adults fake an unshakable posture of detachment while terrified of the possibility of rejection. Desire strips us of our usual ego defenses, and the fear of looking foolish serves as the final defensive barricade before sincere emotional surrender.