Everything I Know About Love

“Nearly everything I know about love, I’ve learnt from my long-term friendships with women.”

I know that love can be loud and jubilant. It can be dancing in the swampy mud and the pouring rain at a festival and shouting “YOU ARE AMAZING” over the band. It’s laughing until you wheeze. It’s walking along the street together on a Saturday night and feeling an entire city is yours.

I also know that love is a pretty quiet thing. It’s lying on the sofa together drinking coffee, talking about where you’re going to go that morning to drink more coffee. It’s folding down pages of books you think they’d find interesting.

I know that love happens under the splendour of fireworks and sunsets, but also happens when you’re lying on blow-up airbeds in a childhood bedroom, sitting in A&E or in the queue for a passport.