Alain de Botton on Ikea Glassware & the Appropriate Time to Leave for an 8 o’ Clock Dinner Reservation

A disgruntled couple sits on opposite ends of a flower-patterned coach.  The woman looks livid: her thin lips are pursed, her arms are crossed.  Rather than gaze affectionately at her husband, she looks into the distance as if she were contemplating why she married such a moron.  The tweed-suited husband is sitting at least four feet from his paramour.  One arm lays across his lap, the other is bent and resting against his head.  His expression is one of defeat and resignation.   

So what caused this contention?

Though an assessment of their sullen faces might suggest the couple is fighting about a missed mortgage payment or the discovery of an affair, they’re actually quarreling about something quite inconsequential: the best placement for their new accent chair.  While the wife feels it would be best in the left most corner of the room next to the window where it will catch the most sunlight, the husband insists it would look most natural nestled next to the bookshelf in the opposite corner. 

Why do couples bicker about such trifling matters?

In his insightfully observed novel, The Course of Love, British philosopher Alain de Botton examines the many silly, insignificant things serious couples squabble about.  In a hilariously relatable scene reminiscent of the iconic 30 Rock episode, the novel’s protagonists, newlyweds Rabih and Kristen, decide (against their better judgement) to spend their Saturday morning in IKEA.  In the unforgiving glare of the Scandinavian home goods store, the most minuscule matters— the appropriate length for living room curtains, the proper shade of brown for dining room chairs— become a metaphor for the myriad ways two people may not be right for each other:

“Not long after entering the cavernous homeware department, Kirsten decides that they should get a set from the Fabulos line— little tumblers which taper at the base and have two blobs swirling blue and purple across the sides— and then head right home….But for Rabih it swiftly becomes evident that the larger, unadorned, and straight-sided glasses from the Godis line are the only ones that would really work with the kitchen table.” 

“However compatible a couple might be over certain things, compatibility doesn’t extend indefinitely,” Botton wrote over 30 years ago.  Even the most well-suited couple is more like a Venn diagram than two completely overlapping circles.  While Kirsten prefers embellishment to characterless minimalism, Rabih is partial to stark simplicity and clean lines.  Despite the seeming silliness of the matter (after all, who really cares what glasses they buy?), the couple proceed to very publicly fight about which is better, the Fabulos or Godis line:

“Though both equally are aware that it would be a genuine waste of time to stand in the aisles at Ikea and argue at length about something as petty as which glasses they should buy (when life is so brief and its real imperatives so huge), with increasing ill-temper, to the mounting interest of other shoppers, they nonetheless stand in an aisle at Ikea and argue at length about which sort of glasses they should buy.  After twenty minutes, each one accusing the other of being a little stupid, they abandon hopes of making a purchase and head back to the car park. Kirsten remarking on the way the she intends to spend the rest of her days drinking out of her cupped hand.  For the whole drive home they stare out of the windscreen without speaking, the silence in the car interrupted only by the occasional clicking of the indicator lights.” 

And it’s not just Ikea glassware that becomes an occasion for a fight.  One night when Rabih and Kirsten decide to treat themselves out for dinner on a weeknight, the couple discovers another irreconcilable  difference in their personalities: their sense of time.  While Kristen is a methodical planner who prefers to leave at 7 for an 8 o’ clock dinner, Rabih thinks there’s no logical reason to leave so early:

“Kristen thinks: the reservation is for eight.  Origano is approximately 3.2 miles away, the journey is normally a short one, but what if there were a hold up at the main roundabout, she reminds Rabih, like there was last time (when they went to see James and Mairi)?  In any event, it wouldn’t be a problem to get there a bit early.  They could have drinks at the bar next door or even take a stroll in the park; they have a lot to catch up on.  It would be best to have the cab come by for them at seven.

And Rabih thinks: An eight o’ clock booking means we can arrive at the restaurant at eight fifteen or eight twenty.  There are five long emails to deal with before leaving the office and I can’t be intimate if there are practical things on my mind.  The roads will be clear by then anyway.  And taxis always come early.  We should book the cab for eight.”

The result?  What was supposed to be a romantic evening ends in yet another silent, sulky car ride:

“I’ve married a lunatic, [Rabih] thinks, at once scared and self-pitying, as their taxi makes its way at speed through the deserted suburban streets.  His partner, no less incensed, sits as far away from him as it is possible to do in the backseat of a taxi.  There is no space in Rabih’s imagination for the sort of martial discord in which he is presently involved.  He is in theory amply prepared for disagreement, dialogue, and compromise, but not over such stupidity.  He’s never read or heard of squabbling this bad over such a minor detail.  Knowing that Kirsten will be haughty and distant with him possibly until the second course only adds to his agitation.  He looks over at the imperturbable driver— an Afghan, to judge from the small plastic flag glued to the dashboard.  What must he think of such bickering between two people without poverty or tribal genocide to contend with?  Rabih is, in his own eyes, a very kind man who has unfortunately not been allotted the right sort of issues upon which to exercise his kindness.  He would find it so much easier to give blood to an injured child in Badakhshan or to carry water to a family in Kandahar than to lean across and say sorry to his wife.”

As anyone who’s been one half of a couple knows, there’s nothing worse than having a pointless argument ruin your night. 

So the question remains: how can we resolve such disputes? 

Botton recommends we contextualize our needs and wants.  Rather than insist that it’s “right” to leave an hour early and criticize her irresponsible husband for being perpetually late, Kirsten might explain why she’s so concerned with punctuality.  Perhaps her obsessive nature has its origins in a dysfunctional upbringing.  Kirsten tries to plan for potential traffic and methodically calculates the distance from their home to the restaurant because it’s a way of exercising some semblance of control in a world of chaos.  In childhood, planning and plotting and preparing eased her anxieties and made her feel safe when so much of her life felt unstable (her father had abandoned her as a child). 

In an ideal world, Kirsten would say:

“My insistence on leaving so early is in the end a symptom of fear.  In a world of randomness and surprises, it’s a technique I’ve developed to ward off anxiety and an unholy, unnamable sense of dread.  I want to be on time the same way others lust for power and from a similar drive for security; it makes a little sense, though only a little, in light of the fact that I spent my childhood waiting for a father who never showed up.  It’s my own crazy way of trying to stay sane.”

Had Kirsten communicated the reason behind her seemingly irrational behavior, Rabih might have been more sympathetic.  Instead of be irritated with his wife’s neurotic habit of leaving a whole hour before dinner, he might have felt compassion for the young Kirsten who developed such controlling tendencies as a defense mechanism.  Ultimately, couples must explain the stories behind their particular proclivities if they want to spare themselves silent car rides and tense dinners.

If you and your partner still feeling embittered after an argument, Botton suggests situating your trivial concerns in the grander scheme of existence.  Go for a walk on the beach and contemplate the fact that the deepest part of the ocean is 35,876 feet.  Savor the stirring scale of the Sierra Nevada.  Meditate on the Grand Canyon’s layered bands of magnificent red rock that reveal millions of years of geological history.  Among the many marvels of the physical world, you’ll realize your little spats are stupid and petty. 

After the IKEA incident, Rabih and Kirsten reconcile after strolling through the Lammermuir Hills to the southeast of Edinburgh.  Wandering through the rolling green hills that were formed many millennia ago, the newlyweds come to comprehend the true insignificance of their marital problems:

“They start out silent and cross, but nature gradually releases them from the grip of their mutual indignation, not through its sympathy but through its sublime indifference.  Stretching interminably far into the distance, created through the compression of sedimentary rocks in the Ordovician and Silurian periods (some four hundred fifty million years before Ikea was founded), the hills strongly suggest that the struggle which has lately loomed so large in their minds does not in fact occupy such a significant place in the cosmic order and is as nothing when set against the aeons of time to which the landscape attests.  Clouds drift across the horizon without pausing to take stock of their injured sense of pride.  Nothing and no one seem to care: not the family of common sandpipers circling up ahead nor the curlew, the snipe, the golden plover or the meadow pipit.  Not the honeysuckle, the foxgloves, or the harebells nor the three sheep near Fellcleugh Wood who are grazing on a rare patch of clover with grave intent.”