It may sound ungenerous to throw the emphasis on the negative, but we can fairly say that people who are good at love know, first and foremost, who not to fall in love with. While they may have all sorts of friends and a wide sympathy for the vagaries of being human, when it comes to who they opt to tie themselves to, this is some of what they will avoid with determination. People who have no sense of how difficult they are to live with. People with a heightened belief in their infallibility. People who will, when something is pointed out to them, quickly choose the occasion to simultaneously inform you that it's not as though you're perfect either. People who will label any criticism of them, however sensitively delivered, as rude or offensive and contrary to the rules of true love as they define these. People who deliberately drive you to the edge of frustration, then turn and say, why are you getting cross so suddenly? People who smile and say, I get it completely now, I'm going to change, and then go and do whatever it was all over again a few days later. People who combine an exquisite talent for upset with an even greater talent for sentimental apology. People who will flirt with others, then call it only a bit of fun and label you a prude for minding. People who will mess up your house and call you anal. People who will prioritise time with their friends over time with you and then call you controlling. People who tell you you're imagining things a lot. People who harbour a background grudge against your gender. People who are furious with a parent and don't realise they are. People who can't forgive anyone who thinks better of them than they think of themselves. People who claim desperately to want a relationship but are inwardly so committed to distrust, isolation and self-hatred that they aren't in any position really to have one and yet don't know this of themselves. People who principally associate love with the pleasant feelings they register when you are nice to them. People who don't take your love as a substantial gift you choose to bestow every day and could take elsewhere.

The reason for this is because we, as a species, don't like vagaries.

and she had explored it to its furthest end in all its delicious vagaries of brook and bridge, fir coppice and wild cherry arch, corners thick with fern and branching byways of maple and mountain ash.

For although the vagaries of Cubism and Futurism are many and wild, they do not often reproduce that cryptic regularity which lurks in prehistoric writing.

Time moves more or less slowly according to the vagaries of the human mind: it may fly or it may drag. It may evaporate into airy nothing or achieve enduring density.

insincere, this may have far more to do with the vagaries of their industry than of anything fixed in their natures.

But your good friend there," nodding towards the upper end of the table, "has so few vagaries herself,

Nine, we accept how many of our moods rely on the vagaries of our bodies.

I think for better, but I also try to limit my exposure to the vagaries of the time.