To start set the mood, I’m offering you a video of Jenny Lewis and Jonathan Rice performing the song “Love Hurts.” The image quality isn’t the best but the sound is far superior to other videos.

I’ve been reading love letters written by great men lately because I am single and a masochist. Love is the most elemental emotion we’re capable of, and as such says much about the human condition. Plus, it’s often the gateway to hatred because there is that often-mentioned fine line that separates the two and that fascinates me. Either way, I’ll be republishing the ones that catch my attention; here are a few inaugural letters.

This first letter was written by the French writer Gustave Flaubert, who wrote Madame Bovary, to Louise Colet, a poet with which he had an affair. After reading this alleged love letter it will come as no surprise that he contract syphilis from a prostitute on a trip to Beirut with fellow writers.

August 15, 1846

I will cover you with love when next I see you, with caresses, with ecstasy. I want to gorge you with all the joys of the flesh, so that you faint and die. I want you to be amazed by me, and to confess to yourself that you had never dreamed of such transports. When you are old, I want you to recall those few hours, I want your dry bones to quiver with joy when you think of them.

What strikes me most about this little love note is how it really has nothing to do with her or love, which is typical of men, and focuses almost entirely on his sexual prowess and legacy. Hmmmm…methinks I detect some insecurities. After his relationship with Louise Colet ended, he never entered another and instead relied solely on platonic relationships with other writers. Perhaps that wasn’t entirely a choice of his own? Perhaps no one else would have him since he was diseased and too narcissistic to understand the true essence of a love note? Ladies, I doubt you can tell me you’ve never dated that asshole who’s more into himself than he’s into you. Well, I have some bad news: we as women have been dealing with that since the year 1846 and probably before then as well, which doesn’t speak optimistically for any chance of evolution in the future. At least we’re not alone, right? We have generations of our dating predecessors with which to commiserate.

However, the following letter somewhat redeems the first and is a truly breathtaking piece of work written by the German writer of Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to Charlotte von Stein, the woman who was also his inspiration for the character Natalie in his William Meister novels, as well as his muse for other works.

June 17, 1784

My letters will have shown you how lovely I am. I don’t dine at Court, I see few people, and take my walks alone, and at every beautiful spot I wish you were there.

I can’t help loving you more than is good for me; I shall feel all the happier when I see you again. I am always conscious of my nearness to you, your presence never leaves me. In you I have a measure for every woman, for everyone; in your love a measure for all that is to be. Not in the sense that the rest of the world seems obscure to me, on the contrary, your love makes it clear; I see quite clearly what men are like and what they plan, wish, do and enjoy; I don’t grudge them what they have, and comparing is a secret joy to me, possessing as I do such an imperishable treasure.

You in your household must feel as I often do in my affairs; we often don’t notice objects simply because we don’t choose to look at them, but things acquire an interest as soon as we see clearly the way they are related to each other. For we always like to join in, and the good man takes pleasure in arranging, putting in order and furthering the right and its peaceful rule. Adieu, you whom I love a thousand times.

The honesty in this is both unnerving and refreshing. He bombastically knows his letters show him at his best, despite the fact that he’s a curmudgeon who prefers to be alone. Yet her appeal is a force he cannot resist, and in her he has found a companion to which there can be no equal. Is that not what every woman wants to hear? He may have overlooked her in the past, but he now sees her clearly for what she is: a priceless treasure. Maybe this letter just resonated with me because I have a habit of dating artistic loners who rarely let people into their concomitantly emotionally cluttered and barren lives so I can image the impact that Goethe’s confession of selection would have had on a woman who was patiently waiting for and loving him, loving his brilliance and his obstinance.

What these speak to is the age old adage…same shit, different day. At lease the human condition is consistent, right?