Love vs. like

Jonathan Franzen has a fabulous piece up over at the New York Times about the problem with liking things as an alternative to love. He speaks of how easy it is to like technology, because it does everything we want it to. It makes life easy, it makes us look good. And he contrasts that with, "the dirt that love inevitably splatters on the mirror of our self-regard."

He goes on to say, "The simple fact of the matter is that trying to be perfectly likable is incompatible with loving relationships. Sooner or later, for example, you’re going to find yourself in a hideous, screaming fight, and you’ll hear coming out of your mouth things that you yourself don’t like at all, things that shatter your self-image as a fair, kind, cool, attractive, in-control, funny, likable person. Something realer than likability has come out in you, and suddenly you’re having an actual life."

And there's value in that. Value that comes from discomfort, not likeability. Go read it.