It's natural to imagine that those who expect most from love, those who dream most intensely of one day alighting on, as it were, a prince or a princess who will answer all their needs, must also be those who've already enjoyed the most promising experiences of relationships.
Idealism must, we suppose, be the fruit of a preexisting surplus of very satisfying moments.
But human nature is stranger.
The greatest idealists in love are not, as we might think, those who've had the most blessed passage through their love lives.
It's precisely those who've been most starved of affection, who have often been most lonely, who go on to expect most of other people.
Deprive someone of love at the start, and you will generate an adult who wants only the greatest love, the highest love, the most perfect love.
You will breed an idealist, which also means someone who finds most relationships, probably all those they've had until now, disappointing.
Someone very inclined to leave partnerships in search of something better and higher, closer and deeper.
Cut someone off from love, and you breed not someone who will be grateful for whatever comes their way, but someone who threatens never to be content with what earthly existence can provide.
Imagine a lonely boy growing up isolated in a tall apartment building in a large city.
