
Two weeks ago, as I was reading How to Think About Sex, I posted: Mayhap Alain de Botton is on to something here—to replace the usual vows and platitudes with something more cautionary, downbeat, pragmatic: “I promise to be disappointed by you and you alone. I promise to make you the sole repository of my regrets, rather than to distribute them widely through multiple affairs and a life of sexual Don Juanism. I have surveyed the different options for unhappiness, and it is you I have chosen to commit to.” And so, for example, upon the discovery of infidelity, the betrayed could more poignantly and justly cry: “I was relying on you to be loyal to the specific variety of disappointment that I represent.” [Continue reading.]