everything I know about love

Tracey Emin, I Can’t Believe How Much I Loved You, 2013

1. Love contaminates. From Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez: Love is impure, that’s what Anne’s eyes were saying. And it was true. It contaminates you and makes you possessive, savage, destructive.

2. Let people be who they are, and love them in the capacity that you’re able to.

3. People don’t change on your schedule.

4. It’s not interesting when someone is mean to you. If you find meanness interesting, stop it.

5. If your three closest friends all tell you the same thing, listen to them. As long as you actually like your friends and think they’re smart, there are no exceptions to this rule. Of course you can choose not to listen to them, but you’ll regret it.

   Listen up: this is such a cheat code. You don’t understand the extent to which I abdicate responsibility and just do whatever my friends tell me to do. I trust them completely. It makes things so easy.

6. Love is a pattern of behavior, not a feeling. But the feeling is nice, too.

7. Pay attention to what other people bring out in you. When I think about the relationships in my life, I notice that some people help me feel more responsible, more together. Others make me feel more childish and spontaneous. Some make me feel more creative. Some make me feel more critical. The question is: what do you want to be brought out in you?