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  • Of course, we don’t officially have the slightest  belief in mind reading: we scoff at the absurd  

  • idea that we might telepathically know what number  between one and a million a stranger is thinking  

  • of or that we could place our hands on someone  else’s skull and thereby intuit the precise  

  • details of what they dreamt of last night. But in  relationships, whatever our professed scepticism,  

  • we very frequently proceed as if mind reading were  not only possible but a standard requirement and  

  • possibility in love, something of whose absence we  would have every right to complain with bitterness  

  • and surprise. In a great many ways, we simply  assume that our partner must automatically be able  

  • to know the movements and preoccupations of our  minds. And our expectations shows up in one of the  

  • standard ways in which we speak of the perfection  of a lover in the initial days of rapture:  

  • they seem to know what we are  thinking, without us needing to speak

  • But our superstitious commitment to  mind-reading soon evolves into something  

  • darker as relationships proceed, for example when: - we get huffy that our partner didn’t realise  

  • that our off-colour comment was only a joke - we can’t imagine they could even think we’d  

  • like the bizarre birthday present they bought us - were offended that they like a  

  • book weve already decided is silly - were annoyed that they didn’t know we  

  • wouldn’t want to go to the mountains this summer - they can’t understood the mood we are in  

  • when we get back from having lunch with our mother

  • We get worked up because we can’t conceive  that certain ideas and feelings that are  

  • so vivid in our minds should not immediately be  obvious to someone who professes to care for us.  

  • We quickly fall into believing that the partner’s  incomprehension can only be explained in one way:  

  • it must come down to wilfulness or nastiness. And  therefore, it seems only fair that we respond with  

  • one of our standard forms of punishment due  to all those who should have known better:  

  • a sulk - that paradoxical pattern of behaviour  in which we refuse, for several hours or even  

  • a day or two, to reveal what is wrong to our  confused partner because they should just know.

  • The origins of our reckless hopes are, in a senseextremely touching. When we were little a parent  

  • really did, at key moments, seem to know what we  were thinking without us needing to speak. As if  

  • by magic, they guessed that we might want some  milk. With a medium’s genius, they determined  

  • that we needed a bath or a nap or that a blanket  was a bit scratchy for our cheek. And from this,  

  • an equation formed in our minds: wheneveram properly loved, I do not need to explain.

  • But however great our parents were at reading  our minds, they had a huge advantage over our  

  • partners: we were - back then - really very  simple. Our requirements were usefully few:  

  • we needed only to be fed, bathed, slepttaken to the potty and entertained with  

  • a picture book or bit of string. But  we had no advanced views on politics,  

  • we had no complicated opinions on interior  design, our psyches didn’t register feint  

  • tremors of sarcasm or hypocrisy, we couldn’t be  thrown off course by the pronunciation of a word.

  • How much more complicated we have grown  since then. We are now adults who can  

  • feel very strongly that a table must be placed  symmetrically in a room twenty centimetres from  

  • the door to the kitchen; or we like it very  much when or partner rolls up their sleeves  

  • but we hate them wearing a short-sleeved shirtespecially the green one; we like being teased  

  • (but only sometimes and never about our age); we  are very critical of our mother but can’t allow  

  • anyone to mention her habit of being late; we come  across as confident but think of ourselves as shy;  

  • we like art but have an aversion to museumswe love stone fruits but hate peaches;  

  • we talk a lot about politics but can’t stand  reading newspapers. Our partner’s inability  

  • to know all this - fast and decisivelynecessarily feels like an intimate insult  

  • and the complex task of explaining our thoughts  and attitudes like an unreasonable imposition.

  • But once we accept that there is no such thing as  mindreading, a central part of our relationship  

  • becomes the slow, careful process of piecing  together - in one another’s company - what  

  • matters to us and why, with all the surprise and  moments of genuine revelation this entails. We  

  • accept that there will be an immense amount  we need to teach each other about who we are  

  • pretty much every day - while trusting that  this is not an attack on the idea of love.

Of course, we don’t officially have the slightest  belief in mind reading: we scoff at the absurd  

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