Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. But then perhaps this is what lovers are.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that deep friendship can be the foundation of romantic relationships.
Andr Aciman reflects on the nature of relationships, proposing that strong romantic connections often stem from a solid friendship. This interplay between friendship and love highlights the idea that true intimacy may develop from genuine understanding and companionship first, before evolving into a romantic relationship, suggesting that such a progression can strengthen the bond between partners.
In practice
I shared this quote during my wedding vows to emphasize our deep friendship.
As we walked, I began to wonder what the opposite of molting was and why, unlike the body, which sheds everything, the soul cannot let go but compiles and accumulates, growing annual rings around the things it wants and dreams and remembers
And on that evening when we grow older still we'll speak about these two young men as though they were two strangers we met on the train and whom we admire and want to help along. And we'll want to call it envy, because to call it regret would break our hearts.
Where shall the lover rest,_x000D_ _x000D_ Whom the fates sever_x000D_ _x000D_ From his true maiden's breast,_x000D_ _x000D_ Parted for ever?_x000D_ _x000D_ Where, through groves deep and high,_x000D_ _x000D_ Sounds the far billow,_x000D_ _x000D_ Where early violets die,_x000D_ _x000D_ Under the willow.
When it comes to love, compassion, and other feelings of the heart, I am rich.
We have these earthly bodies. We don't know what they want. Half the time, we pretend they are under our mental thumb, but that is the illusion of the healthy and the protected. Of sedate lovers. For the body has emotions it conceives and carries through without concern for anyone or anything else. Love is one of those, I guess. Going back to something very old knit into the brain as we were growing. Hopeless. Scorching. Ordinary.
Then there were the shabti, magical figurines that were supposed to come to life when summoned. A few months ago, I’d fallen for a girl named Zia Rashid, who’d turned out to be a shabti. Falling in love for the first time had been hard enough. But when the girl you like turns out to be ceramic and cracks to pieces before your eyes—well, it gives “breaking your heart” a new meaning.
Woe, alas, to those who have loved only bodies, forms, appearances! Death will rob them of everything. Try to love souls, you will find them again.
as females in a patriarchal culture, we were not slaves of love; most of us were and are slaves of longing-- yearning for a master who will set us free and claim us because we cannot claim ourselves
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