This Valentine's Day, I'm reading "Love In The Time Of Contagion," Laura Kipnis' mordantly funny analysis of the many ways living through a massive worldwide extinction event has sucked for intimate relationships. Of course the disease itself has ravaged people's lives, but Kipnis is curious about the impact of the secondary, social characteristics of the pandemic – the economic hardship, loneliness (two-thirds of people said they felt more lonely, coupled or not, she notes), homeschooling ordeals and novel anxieties – on our most intimate relationships.
The lettuce story is one of my favorites. A friend's partner, Kipnis reports, insisted on washing the lettuce with soap for an entire year. Okay sure, lettuce has to be washed, she thinks. But doesn't it taste like soap no matter how much you rinse it? Was her friend's partner suffering a mere abundance of caution, she wonders – or could there be a more sinister subtext?
"Wouldn't lettuce washed with soap taste like a reprimand disguised as a salad? Like your contempt for me on a plate?" Perhaps, she speculates, the partner has an unconscious desire to wash her friend's mouth out with soap?
We are all a little more paranoid these days. Suspicious of everything from the latest government recommendation to the newest variant of concern, to a friend or partner's hidden heart. What will all this mean for the future of love? We share more thoughts on the subject in this week's show, “Rewriting the Romance Script.” No matter what state your love life's in, I hope you enjoy it.
–Anne