In authentic love, nothing is expected from the other; in romantic love, it is. More still: romantic love is essentially the hope that our partner will bring us happiness. When we fall in love, we overburden the other with our expectations. And so great are these expectations that finally practically nothing remains of our beloved. The other, then, is simply an excuse, a screen for our expectations. That is why one tends to move so quickly from falling in love to hate or indifference, because no one can fulfill such monstrous expectations.
This is on page 37 of Biography of Silence: an essay on mediation, published by Parallax Press in 2018, translated by David Shook.
washing dishes: a father’s glimpses 