Daniel Jones has edited the Modern Love column in the New York Times for 20 years. Yesterday, he reflected on seven ways he’s learned to love “better” from reading and engaging with over 200,000 submissions.
His first idea was, “Love is more like a basketball than a vase. Relationships involve conflicts that can lead either to intimacy or distance. How you negotiate conflict may prove to be the single most important indicator of your compatibility.”
What I think Jones meant is when we find ourselves disagreeing with someone, even fighting, the question is do we bounce back to each other, or not so much?
Jones doesn’t mention it, but in order for a basketball to bounce back to you, you have to exert some effort. And I was pondering how a basketball is different that a billiard ball that never returns once it’s been stuck by a cue stick or ball.
So, perhaps, one way to love others “better” is to think of love as a basketball more than a billiard ball. Because for love to work, you have to want to return to each other again and again.
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