Laura: The biggest lie we're told about love isn't that 'the one' exists. It's that love is something you find. Sophia: Ooh, that’s a bold start. Like it's some treasure you just stumble upon while hiking. Laura: Exactly. What if it's actually a skill you have to learn, and most of us are failing the class? Sophia: I feel personally attacked, but please continue. I think most of us would admit we’re winging it. Where does someone even start to learn? Laura: That's the central question in Natasha Lunn's widely acclaimed book, Conversations on Love. And what's so fascinating is that Lunn isn't a psychologist; she's a journalist who started a hugely popular newsletter exploring this very topic. The book grew from her candid interviews with everyone from therapists like Esther Perel to authors like Roxane Gay, and it’s all woven together with her own raw, personal experiences. Sophia: I like that. It’s not a lecture from an ivory tower; it’s a conversation from the trenches. So, where does she say this class on love begins? What's the first lesson? Laura: It starts with the first, most painful hurdle: the gap between the love we dream of and the love we can actually have. She calls it the fantasy trap.

Sophia: The fantasy trap. I think I know this one. Is this where you’ve planned the wedding, named the kids, and picked out the dog, all based on a three-minute conversation with someone at a coffee shop? Laura: You are already an expert. Lunn is brutally honest about this. She tells this incredibly relatable story from her own life about her teenage infatuation with a boy named Ben. He was her brother's friend, and she barely knew him. Sophia: Of course. The mysterious, slightly out-of-reach type. A classic. Laura: A total classic. But in her head, he wasn't just a boy. He was this epic, romantic hero. She modeled their entire imagined relationship on Dawson and Joey from the TV show Dawson's Creek. She collected tiny details about him and wove them into this grand narrative of destiny and longing. Sophia: Oh, we've all had a 'Ben'! Mine was definitely based on a character from a teen movie, complete with a non-existent tragic backstory that only I could heal. It’s embarrassing to admit. Laura: But that's her point! It's a universal experience. And for her, this pattern of idealizing men she barely knew continued into her twenties. She’d get stuck in these situationships, sometimes for over a year, with men who were emotionally unavailable, because the instability and the longing felt like the attraction she was used to. She was chasing the fantasy, not the person. Sophia: That’s a tough cycle to break. It’s like your brain gets addicted to the drama of the 'what if' instead of the reality of the 'what is.' So what’s the expert take on this? How do you escape the trap? Laura: This is where she brings in the philosopher Alain de Botton, who offers a really counterintuitive idea. He argues that the key to finding a real connection isn't striving for self-love or pretending you're perfect. It's self-understanding. Sophia: Wait, hold on. Self-understanding, not self-love? The advice is always 'you have to love yourself before someone else can love you.' This feels different. Laura: It is different, and it’s more practical. De Botton’s point is that we are all, in his words, a bit mad. We're all flawed, anxious, and difficult in our own unique ways. True intimacy doesn't come from presenting a perfect, polished version of yourself. It comes from having the self-awareness to know your own particular brand of craziness and the courage to communicate it to someone else. Sophia: So, instead of saying, 'I'm amazing, you should date me,' it's more like, 'Just so you know, I get really anxious about Sunday evenings and I have a weird habit of organizing the dishwasher like it's a military operation. You in?' Laura: Precisely! Because that’s real. That’s human. De Botton says that's far more reassuring to a potential partner than someone claiming to have it all figured out. It signals that you're a person who reflects on their own behavior, which is the foundation for any healthy relationship. You're not looking for a perfect person; you're looking for someone whose flaws are compatible with your own. Sophia: That is so much more freeing. It takes the pressure off being this flawless, Instagram-ready version of a partner. It’s about being honest about the messy parts from the start. Laura: And that honesty, that vulnerability, is the bridge from fantasy to reality. It's the only way to let real love in. But of course, once you find it, a whole new set of challenges begins.

Sophia: Right, because finding love is one thing, but keeping it alive when life gets messy is the real final boss. Laura: Exactly. And that idea of being real, not perfect, is precisely what you need for the next stage, which Lunn argues is the hardest: sustaining love when the fantasy fades. The book is structured around these three big questions, and the second is 'How do we sustain love?' Sophia: The infamous post-honeymoon phase. When you realize they don't magically know how to load the dishwasher correctly. Laura: Or when life throws something at you that's far more serious than a dishwasher. Lunn shares an incredibly powerful and vulnerable story about this. A few years into her relationship with her now-husband, Dan, they got married and were planning their honeymoon. But then she got pregnant, and at ten weeks, she had a miscarriage. Sophia: Oh, that’s just heartbreaking. Laura: It's devastating. And she describes this one moment with such clarity. The day after the surgery, they were in a taxi on the way home from the hospital. She was in pain, they were both silent and dejected, and the car stopped at the exact same traffic lights where they’d had their magical first kiss years earlier. And on the radio, the song 'I Want to Know What Love Is' started playing. Sophia: Wow. The universe has a cruel sense of humor sometimes. The contrast in that single moment is just… immense. Laura: It’s everything. It’s the perfect, brutal illustration of the journey from the fantasy of love to the reality of it. The following months were incredibly difficult. They were trying to conceive again, and with each failure, she felt this deep sense of shame and frustration. She started to resent him for being able to just go about his life. Sophia: That’s a really common experience in grief, I think. One person feels it so physically and viscerally, and it can create this invisible wall between a couple, even when they both want to be there for each other. How did they get through it? Laura: She finally told him how she felt—all the ugly, angry, resentful parts. And he didn't try to fix it. He just listened and held her. She realized he couldn't carry her longing for her, but he could be with her in it. That’s the 'work' of love. It's not about grand gestures; it's about showing up and turning towards your partner in their darkest moments. Sophia: That reminds me of the research from the Gottman Institute. They talk about the 'four horsemen' that predict divorce. Laura: Yes! Lunn actually references that data. The four horsemen are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. The study found that couples who consistently used these during conflict had a massively higher divorce rate. Sophia: So love isn't about avoiding fights, it's about how you fight and how you repair. It's about turning towards your partner, like Dan did, instead of turning away or putting up a wall. Laura: Exactly. It’s a daily decision to build something together, to re-see your partner not as the idealized version from the first date, but as the real, evolving person they are, especially when life is hard. It’s an active, conscious choice. Sophia: But what happens when the repair doesn't work? Or when the loss is absolute, like a death? That feels like a whole different level of survival. How do you come back from that?

Laura: That's the third and final question of the book: 'How can we survive losing love?' And Lunn approaches it with the same blend of raw honesty and deep insight. She argues that one of the most painful parts of loss is grieving the 'imagined future.' Sophia: The life you thought you were going to have. That’s so true. It’s not just losing the person; it’s losing all the potential tomorrows with them. Laura: Precisely. And to explore this, she shares some of the most profound stories in the book. One that stands out is from the writer Ariel Levy. While on a reporting trip in Mongolia, she went into premature labor at 19 weeks and gave birth to her son in a hotel bathroom. He died in her arms an hour later. Just weeks after that, her marriage ended. Sophia: I… I have no words for that. That is an unimaginable depth of loss. How is it even possible to open up to love again after something so devastating? Laura: That’s the question at the heart of this section. Levy’s journey is incredible. Amidst all that grief, she ended up falling in love with the doctor who treated her in Mongolia. She writes about this moment of surrender, of accepting the facts that cannot be changed, and choosing to be present in the life that was left. It wasn't about 'getting over' her loss, but about integrating it. Sophia: It sounds like the book is arguing that you don’t move on from grief, you move forward with it. It becomes a part of you. Laura: Yes. And that part of you can actually deepen your capacity for love. Lunn quotes the writer Emily Rapp Black, who lost her young son to Tay-Sachs disease, saying, "A broken heart is an open heart." The idea is that surviving loss can break you open in a way that makes you more compassionate, more present, and more courageous in your love for others. Sophia: That’s a beautiful, if painful, way to look at it. It reminds me of what Justine Picardie said in the book. She lost her sister to cancer and then her 20-year marriage ended, but she found love again. She said her sister's death made her determined not to live a life governed by fear. Laura: Exactly. It’s about choosing courage over fear, even when you know the risks. Love, in its truest form, requires a leap of faith. It asks us to be all in, knowing that loss is always a possibility. That uncertainty isn't a flaw in love; it's what makes it precious.

Sophia: So the thread connecting all three stages—finding, sustaining, and losing love—it really seems to be vulnerability. The courage to be imperfect when you're trying to find it, the courage to face hardship together to sustain it, and the courage to risk heartbreak all over again after you've lost it. Laura: That's the perfect synthesis. It’s a complete re-framing of love. It’s not a destination or a prize. It’s a practice. Lunn concludes that love isn't an answer, but as one expert, Dr. Megan Poe, says, it's a 'frequency we can either choose to tune into or ignore.' It’s in the tiny, everyday moments, not just the grand romantic gestures. Sophia: I love that idea of a frequency. It implies that it’s all around us, if we just pay attention. Laura: It is. And that’s the final takeaway. Lunn ends the book by reflecting on what she wishes she’d known about love, and it boils down to something so simple. She says the most important thing is to remember "the little acts that say 'I'm here'." Sophia: The cup of tea made without asking. The text just to check in. The shared smile with a stranger. It makes you think about where you see love in your own life, beyond the obvious. Laura: It really does. It’s a powerful, hopeful, and deeply human book. Sophia: It sounds like it. It makes me want to go out and look for those little acts. We'd love to hear from our listeners about this. What's a small act of love you've witnessed or received this week? Share it with us on our socials; let's tune into that frequency together. Laura: This is Aibrary, signing off.