Dedicated to Sophie Christine de Chastenier and Jean-Michel Beigbeder, without whom this book would not have been possible (and so am I)

As a loser, I know what I'm talking about.

Scott Fitzgerald

So what? Well, yes! We must call a spade a spade! A person loves, and then no longer loves.

Françoise Sagan (at a dinner party at her home with Brigitte Bardot and Bernard Franck)

Translation from French Nina Khotynskaya

Art design by Nadezhda Cheremnykh

Begbeder F. Love Lives for Three Years: Roman / Frederic Begbeder; per. from French N. Khotinsky. - M.: Foreigner, Azbuka-Atticus, 2012. - 192 p.

ISBN 978-5-389-00641-6

UDC 821.133–312.6Begbeder BBK 84(4Fra)–44

ISBN 978-5-389-00641-6

I
Communicating vessels

I
With time love passes

Love is a battle. Lost in advance.

At first, everything is fine, even you. You are only amazed that you can be so in love. Every day brings a new batch of miracles. No one on Earth has ever felt so good. There is happiness, it is simpler than simple: it is someone's face. The whole world is smiling. For a whole year, your life is one continuous sunny morning, even at dusk and when it snows. You write books about it. Hurry up to get married - why pull if you are so happy? I don’t want to think, it makes me sad; let life decide for you.

Something changes in the second year. You have become softer. Be proud of how well you and your half got used to each other. You understand your wife "at a glance"; it's great to be one. The wife is taken on the street for your sister - it flatters you, but it also affects the psyche. You make love less and less and think: it's okay. You arrogantly believe that this same love is growing stronger every day, when the end of the world is just around the corner. You defend marriage in front of bachelor friends who don't recognize you. And you yourself are sure that you will recognize yourself when you chant a learned lesson, trying your best not to look at fresh girls, from which it is brighter on the street.

In the third year, you no longer try not to look at fresh girls, from whom it is brighter on the street. You don't talk to your wife anymore. Spend long hours with her in a restaurant, listening to what the table neighbors babble. You and her are increasingly out of the house: this is an excuse not to fuck. And soon there comes a moment when you can no longer endure your half for a single extra second, because you fell in love with the other. Only in one thing you were not mistaken: the last word really always remains with life. In the third year, you have two news - good and bad. The good news is your wife is fed up and is leaving you. The bad news: you're starting a new book.

II
Divorce in a festive way

When you go poddaty, the main thing is to aim between the houses and do not miss.

Marc Marronnier steps on the gas, causing his scooter to pick up speed. He maneuvers between cars. They flash their headlights at him, honk when he touches them, just like at weddings in countryside. Here's the irony of fate: Marronier is just celebrating his divorce. Today he is touring route number 5 bis, and every minute counts: five places per evening (“Castel” - “Buddha” - “Bus” - “Cabaret” - “Queen”) - this is already cool, but think about it, that the 5-bis, as the name implies, is performed twice a night.

In such places, he is often alone. Secular people are generally loners, lost in a sea of ​​vaguely familiar faces. They cheer up by shaking hands. Every new kiss is a trophy. They indulge themselves in the illusion of their own importance, greeting celebrities, although they themselves have not done a damn thing in life. They try to visit only where it is noisy - you can not talk. Holidays are given to a person to hide what is on his mind. Few people know more people than Mark, and few people are so lonely.

And tonight is not just a holiday. Today he has a divorce-party! Hooray! To begin with, he bought a bottle in each institution. And, it seems, he managed to cling to each robustly.

Marc Marronnier, you are the King of the Night, wherever you go, the owner of the establishment kisses you on the lips, you skip the line, the best table is waiting for you, you know everyone by their last names, you laugh at all jokes (especially the most unfunny ones), they give you dope for nothing, you show off everywhere in the photographs, it is not clear why on earth, it’s crazy how high you have soared in a few years in the gossip column! Nabob! "Secular Lion"! But tell me, explain for a minute, why did your wife make you a pen?

“We broke up by mutual disagreement,” Mark says through gritted teeth as he enters the Bus.

He later adds:

- I married Anna because she was an angel - and that is the reason we divorced. I thought I was looking for love, until one day I realized that I wanted the exact opposite - to stay away from her.

A quiet angel flies inappropriately, and Mark changes the subject.

- Damn it! he barks. - And the girls are nothing here, sorry, I didn’t brush my teeth when I was going. Whoops! Mademoiselle, you are wonderfully good. Be kind, let me undress you!

He is like that, Marc Marronier: he pretends to be cool in his velvet suit, because he is ashamed to be gentle. He was in his thirties: the middle age, when you are too old to be young and too young to be old. He does everything to be like his reputation: God forbid disappoint anyone. He tried so hard to expand his track record that he became a caricature of himself. He is tired of proving that he has a kind and deep soul, so he makes himself out to be a mean and superficial, purposely demonstrating a violent, and even rude disposition. So when he runs out onto the dance floor yelling, “Hurrrah! I'm r-r-divorced!" - no one wants to console him. Only laser beams pierce the heart like sharp blades.

There comes a time when rearranging the legs becomes a complex operation. Staggering, he saddles the scooter again. The night is cold. Starting right off the bat, Mark feels tears running down his cheeks. Probably from the wind. His eyelids are still stony. He doesn't wear a helmet. Dolce Vita? What is Dolce Vita? Where is she? There are too many memories, too much to forget, it will be a hell of a job to erase all this from memory, how many wonderful minutes will have to be experienced instead of those former ones.

He meets his buddies at the Baron on avenue Marceau. Champagne is exorbitant, girls too. For example, if you want to fuck with two - lay out six thousand, and with one - three. They don't even give discounts. They demand to pay in cash; Mark walks out to the ATM with his credit card; they take him to a hotel, undress in a taxi, suck him for a couple, and you know he presses on the heads; in the room they are smeared with fragrant cream, he inserts one and licks the other; after a while, realizing that he will not finish, he fakes an orgasm, after which he goes to the bathroom to stealthily throw away the empty condom.

In a taxi on the way back, early in the morning, he hears:

He decides to continue to masturbate before going out so that he no longer confuses the demon to get up God knows what.

III
On the beach, all alone

Hi everyone, I'm an author. Welcome to my brain, sorry for the intrusion. I will no longer fool you: I am my main character. Everything that usually happens to me is, well, seeds. Nobody dies from this. For example, my foot has never been in Sarajevo. My dramas play out in restaurants, nightclubs and stucco apartments. The biggest tragedy I've ever had Lately survive - I was not invited to the celebration of John Galliano. And suddenly on you: for no reason I die, before I feel bad. I remember the time when all my friends drank bitter, then they got big, then they got married, and now the period has come when everyone gets divorced before dying. And this happens, by the way, in the most cheerful places, here, for example, on the Red Sail, the beach in Saint-Tropez, the heat, eurodance at the bar, to freshen up bikini-clad lumpen pussies, they are poured with Crystal Roederer for a million old 0.75 liters, and then sucked on their navels. In all corners they chuckle. I would drown myself in the sea, but there are too many people water skiing.

How did I allow window dressing to crush my life to such an extent? It is often said: "We must save face." And I say, the face must be killed, only in this way you will be saved yourself.

IV
The saddest person I've ever met

There are places in Paris in winter where it is somehow especially cold. No matter how hard you drink strong drinks, it seems like a blizzard blows through the bars. The ice age is coming. Even in the crowd, a thumper makes its way.

I did everything right: I was born into a good family, studied at the Lycée Montaigne, then at the Lycée Louis the Great, received higher education at institutes where I moved among intelligent people; I invited them to dance, there were those who gave me work; I married the most beautiful girl of all my acquaintances. Why is it so cold here? At what point did I fail? I only wanted to please you, and it was not so difficult for me to comply. Why don't I have the right to live like everyone else? Why, instead of the simple happiness with which I was beckoned, did I get only difficulties and tears?

I am a dead person. I wake up in the morning, and I unbearably want one thing - to sleep. I dress in black: I mourn for myself. Mourning for the man he didn't become. I walk like an automaton down Art Street, down the street where Oscar Wilde died, just like me. I go to a restaurant where I don't eat anything. The head waiters are offended that I do not touch the dishes. Have you seen a lot of dead people who eat hot and lick their lips? That is, everything I drink, I drink on an empty stomach. What's good: I get drunk quickly. What's bad: I'm getting a stomach ulcer.

I don't smile anymore. This is beyond my power. I am dead and buried. I won't have children. Dead people don't produce offspring. I'm a dead man shaking hands with acquaintances in a cafe. A very sociable dead man and very cold. I'm probably the saddest person I've ever met in my life.

In the winter in Paris, when the temperature drops below zero, a person desperately needs the halls in the back of the cafe, where the lights are on all night. There, huddled in the herd so that no one can see, you can finally begin to tremble.

V
Best before date

You can be a tall brunette and cry. To do this, it is enough to suddenly discover that love lives for three years. I wish to know such a truth and worst enemy(this is a figure of speech - I have no enemies). Snobs don't have enemies, that's why they slander everyone: they try to have them.

A mosquito has one day, a rose has three. A cat has thirteen years, love has three years. And you won't write anything. First a year of passion, then a year of tenderness, and finally a year of boredom.

In the first year, they say: "If you leave, I will end my life."

In the second year they say: "If you leave, it will hurt me, but I will survive."

In the third year they say: "If you leave, I will wash it with champagne."

And no one will warn you that love lives only for three years. This whole love scam is built on the strictest observance of secrecy. You are told that this is for life, but in fact, love chemically ceases to exist after three years. I myself read in one women's magazine: love is a short-term increase in the level of dopamine, norepinephrine, prolactin, luliberin and oxytacin. A tiny molecule of phenylethylamine (PEA) causes certain sensations: high spirits, excitement, euphoria. Love at first sight is the saturation of PEA in the neurons of the limbic system. And tenderness is endorphins (opium for two). Society leads you by the nose: great love is sold to you, when in fact it is scientifically proven that these hormones only work for three years.

However, the statistics speak for themselves: passion lasts an average of 317.5 days (which, interesting to know, happens in the last half a day ...), and in Paris, out of three marriages, two break up in the first three years. In the United Nations population yearbooks, census specialists have been asking questions about divorce in sixty-two countries since 1947. Most couples divorce in the fourth year of marriage (meaning that the procedure was started at the end of the third year). “In Finland, Russia, Egypt, South Africa, hundreds of millions of men and women interviewed by the UN who speak different languages, work in different fields, dress differently, use different currencies, pray to different gods and fear different demons, feed endlessly varied hopes and illusions...the divorce curve skyrockets after three years living together". This commonplace is just another humiliation.

Three years! Statistics, biochemistry, my personal experience: the term of love is the same. I don't like these coincidences. Why three years and not two, four or, say, six hundred? In my opinion, this confirms the existence of three stages that Stendhal, Bart and Barbara Cartland have repeatedly singled out: Passion - Tenderness - Boredom, a cycle of three steps, each a year long - a triad, unshakable, like the Holy Trinity.

In the first year they buy furniture.

In the second year, the furniture is rearranged.

In the third year, the furniture is divided.

Everything is said in Ferre's song: "Over time, love passes." Who are you to compete with glands and neurotransmitters that will inevitably fail you just in time? It would be nice to have lyrics, you can argue with poets, but you can’t argue against the natural sciences and demography.

VI There's nowhere to go

I got home barely alive. Lord, how can you bring yourself to such a state, at my age! The cult of the green serpent - at the age of eighteen it was still all right, but at thirty it was already pathetic. I swallowed half an ecstasy so that I could kiss strangers without any problems. Otherwise, I would not have dared to try my luck. How many girls I have not kissed, afraid to get in the face - do not count. That's my charm: I'm not sure I have it. At Queen's, two plump blondes, nothing, pretty - they fumbled with their tongues in my ears, creating the effect of stereophonic gurgling, - they asked:

- Shall we go to you or to us?

Having arranged a collective hickey for both at once (and biting four breasts), I proudly replied:

- You to yourself, and I to myself. I don't have rubber bands with me, and besides, I'm celebrating a divorce today, so I'm going to tremble - what if I don't get up.

I saddled the motor scooter and returned to my empty apartment. The hand of fear squeezed my stomach: ecstasy hit me. But what's the point: did you really have to run away from yourself all night long in order to be overtaken at home in the end? In my coat pocket, I dug up the remains of cocaine in an envelope. Sucked straight from the craft paper. At least it will dispel the blues a little. I have left a white powder on the tip of my nose. I don't want to sleep anymore. It's already morning, soon France will get to work. And at this time, one youngster stuck in childhood will not budge. Too oblique to sleep, read or write, I will stare at the ceiling for hours, gritting my teeth. Red face and white nose - I see a clown in the mirror on the negative.

I won't go to work today. There is something to be proud of: he abandoned the bisexual groupak the day after the divorce. Fed up with all these chicks with whom you sleep, but you don’t want to wake up. Except perhaps the milk that has escaped from the saucepan, there are few spectacles on earth more miserable than me.

VII
Recipe to lift your spirits

Repeat the following three phrases often:

1. NO HAPPINESS.

2. LOVE - FAIRY TALES.

3. AND NOTHING WRONG.

Jokes aside, it looks stupid, but this recipe may have saved my life when I got to the point. Try it yourself in the next nervous depression. Highly recommend.

Here is another list of sad songs that are useful to listen to to get out of the hole: "April come she will" by Simon & Garfunkel (20 times), "Something in the way she moves" by James Taylor (10 times), "If it wasn't for you was" by Joe Dassin (5 times), "Sixty years on" and "Border song" by Elton John (40 times), "Everybody hurts" by REM (5 times), "A few words of love" by Michel Berger (40 times, but better don't tell anyone), "Memory Motel" by the Rolling Stones (8 and a half times), "Living without you" by Randy Newman (100 times), "Caroline No" by the Beach Boys (600 times), "Kreutzer Sonata" by Ludwig van Beethoven (6 thousand times). An excellent combined hodgepodge - I already have a slogan ready:

Gathering heals the mind

Collection for black thoughts.

VIII
For those who missed the start

At thirty, I still can't look a beautiful girl in the eye without blushing. No, you must have such an impressionable nature! To truly fall in love, I'm too fed up; to remain indifferent - too sensitive. In short, too weak to be married for long. Well, what kind of fly bit me? Of course, it's tempting to refer you back to the previous two volumes, but that wouldn't be quite fair play when you consider that these romantic masterpieces were butchered to bits shortly after their modest success.

So, summary previous episodes: I was an incorrigible gambler, a pure product of our society of useless luxury. Born on September 21, 1965, twenty years after the liberation of Auschwitz, on the first day of autumn. I was born on the day when the leaves begin to fall from the trees, on the day when the days shorten. Hence, perhaps, my natural disappointment. I earned my daily bread by stringing words in newspapers or advertising agencies - the latter are preferable, as they pay more for fewer words. Gained fame organizing holidays in Paris at a time when there were no holidays in Paris. It has nothing to do with words, but that's how I made a name for myself, probably because these days word stringers are considered less significant figures than people appearing in pictures in illustrated magazines, in the "Nightlife" section.

I surprised those who were interested in my biography when I married for love. One day I looked into Blue eyes, and I dreamed of eternity in them. I, fluttering from party to party, from profession to profession, so as not to have time to mope, imagined that I was happy.

Anna, my wife, was an unearthly creature of dazzling, almost unbelievable beauty. Too good to be happy - but it came to me hopelessly late. I could look at her for hours. Sometimes she noticed this and got angry. "Stop staring," she pleaded, "don't embarrass me." But I looked anyway - she became my favorite object for contemplation. Guys like me, who thought they were freaks as kids, are usually so surprised when they captivate beautiful girl that they propose to her, perhaps too hastily.

What follows does not shine with originality: let's say, in order not to go into details, that the apartment in which we settled was small for such a big love. We ourselves did not notice how we began to spend more and more time outside the home, and we were pulled into a very dubious whirlpool. People said about us:

These two are having fun.

- Yes, poor things ... They must be doing badly!

And people weren't entirely wrong, although they were glad to have a beautiful woman at their lousy parties.

This is how life works: as soon as you feel at least a little happy, she will not hesitate to call you to order.

We changed our vows one by one.

We broke up the same way we got married: not really understanding why.

Marriage is a colossal scam, a monstrous swindle, pure deceit, which we bought into as little children, and this is what ruined us. Why? How? Yes, very simple. Let's say a young man proposes to his girlfriend. He is barely alive with fear (oh, how cute!), He blushes, sweats, mumbles, and her eyes sparkle, she giggles nervously, asks to repeat: what did you say? But as soon as she answers "yes" - that's it, duties pile on them, the list is endless, family lunches and dinners, guest lists, trying on dresses, quarrels, as usual, you can’t burp or fart with father-in-laws, stay straight, smile, smile, the nightmare has no end in sight, but this is only the beginning: further - more, see for yourself, everything is arranged so that they hate each other.

IX
Rain over Copacabana

Fairy tales are only in fairy tales. The truth is far worse. The truth is always ugly, that's why everyone lies.

The truth is a photograph of another woman, which, due to my oversight, was found in my travel bag, in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), on New Year's Eve. The truth is love starts with roses and ends with thorns. Anna was looking for a hairbrush and her hair stood on end at the sight of a Polaroid photograph complete with love letters not written by her hand.

At the Rio airport, Anna sent me. She wanted to fly to Paris alone, without me. I had nothing to say to her. She wept in surprise. Shut down a man who lost everything in twenty seconds. A lovely girl suddenly discovered that life was terrible and that her marriage had collapsed. She did not see anything around her - no airport, no queues, no information boards, everything disappeared, except for me, her executioner. How I regret today that I did not grab her in my arms! But I had a complex, because she shed and shed tears and everyone was staring at me. It's always kind of embarrassing to look like a bastard in public.

I should have asked for forgiveness, and I said: "Go, you'll be late for boarding." I did nothing to save her. Just thinking about it still makes my long chin quiver. Her eyes were pleading, mournful, wet, hateful, tired, anxious, disappointed, naive, proud, contemptuous, and yet still blue. I will never forget: these eyes have learned what pain is. I'll have to get used to living with this dirty trick, you can't get anywhere. They pity the sufferers, but not the tormentors. Understand yourself, old man, how big. You are a man who has not kept his promises. Remember what it says at the end of "Adolf" 2
A textbook for the French story by Benjamin Constant (1767–1830).

: "The most the main problem in life, it is the suffering that one inflicts, and the most sophisticated philosophy cannot justify a man who has tormented the heart that loved him.

Rated the book

A mosquito has one day, a rose has three. A cat has thirteen years, love has three years. And you won't write anything.

I don’t know where, how, but our Pitsunda mosquito lives for ten days (if they don’t slam, of course) - it’s checked! Maybe this is because the ecological situation here is better not to come up with.
And on my table in a vase, a rose has been living for three weeks, and has not withered yet! Before I cut it off, it still lived on the bush for some time. Because the humidity is high, and the air temperature in the kitchen rarely rises above ten degrees in winter. Well, I also change her water every other day, cut my stem and cut it ...
I am not very familiar with cats, but three of my friends have each lived for more than twenty years, and they say that some live up to 25. What is characteristic - none of those three sat on whiskas, as the owners took care of them and cherished them.
Well, what then, it turns out, is the age of love? Now let's count... six years?.. twenty?.. thirty?..
Yep, dumb, I agree with you. But not dumber than the above quote from a provocative novel by a new author for me - Begbeder. A novel written, in my opinion, by a neurotic for the same neurotics. Moreover, a neurotic, burdened with other concomitant diagnoses - capriciousness, selfishness, selfishness, frivolity, suspiciousness and vanity. Which is indirectly confirmed by the words of Mark's first wife:

– I prefer a handsome and decent old man to a young vulgar neurotic

And three years is rather not a century of love, but the psycho-emotional age of the protagonist. And love ... damn, sometimes I would like to kill her so as not to suffer - but no, you're naughty, it won't work! And how long your feeling will live, to which you do not want death at all - it depends on a lot. Create, so to speak, a suitable ecological environment for him, do not dry the air, do not forget to refresh the water more often and remove dead parts, take care, cherish - and you will be happy!
I will probably end my acquaintance with Mr. Begbeder on this. I don't like books written by 30 year old kindergartners. And you won't write anything!

Rated the book

All men are goats. But how can they treat us women like that, and most importantly, love? No, definitely, they are all as one, all! And not a single normal one! Just a nightmare! Everything! ALL MEN GOATS! And once again I was convinced of this!
...Probably heard this more than once, or maybe they themselves said, shouted, whispered, it doesn’t matter, right? In moments of despair, clouds gather over us, and under the pressure of our emotions that overflow, we say that men are goats, or love lives for three years, we speak with full awareness of our rightness, with "youthful maximalism". I say this to show: people who scream in their reviews: “Yes, he lies! Love lives longer!”, “Read to everyone who was disappointed in love, to everyone who urgently needs to recover from the emotional trauma caused by this innermost feeling.”, “You can’t read naive romantics, so as not to injure their vulnerable soul. "," Begbeder breaks all mankind's dreams of eternal love" do not seem to have read this book. We read either only the title or the first part, where Begbeder tells about his breakup with his wife.
People, dear people, what are you talking about?! Begbeder showed you that love does not last for three years. Every love has its time. Someone has three years, because it was not the right person, someone has a lifetime. Why don't you read between the lines?! But would a person who wants to expose such a great feeling as love, would show his grandfather's tears at his wife's funeral? Retired colonel. Would he show his new love that broke into his life with destructive force and stayed there for a long time? And how could you miss such a phrase:

“I hope that the false title of this book did not get you too much: of course, love does not live at all for three years; I am happy that I was mistaken. Just think - the book was published by the Grasse publishing house, this does not mean that the truth is necessarily written in it. "

And look at how you protested, how you began to prove that "love has its own time" (by the way, this is also said in the book). And it's worth it!
You say that Begbeder suffers from "youthful maximalism", that he is a "thirty-year-old kindergartener", but, excuse me, have you been in such a situation? Yes, here everyone will divide the world into black and white, love will begin to live for three years, and the men will become goats.
It's about what others say about this book.
I'll tell you to read this costs, but only if you expect pleasant, easy leisure from reading.
Begbeder is a pleasure to read. He has a lively and mobile style. From this, even if he does not say anything significant, it is interesting to read. And yes, the book is fast paced.

The sun shines inescapably. Maybe few people will notice, but I struggled with this phrase for more than one hour.

It's also a treasure trove of quotes. When I began to read this book, as usual, I took a piece of paper to write them out, but after reading no more than 20 pages (out of 193 in the reader), I realized that there would be few sheets. The book can be simply pulled apart into quotes.
And once again I was convinced that love is a strong, wonderful feeling!

Love is a battle. Lost in advance, ”Marronier, the hero of Frederic Begbeder’s sensational novel Love Lives for Three Years, begins his story. Main character sure: any relationship is doomed, because. he himself had never loved a woman for more than three years. All his "love" moved according to the same scenario:

The first stage is the stage of falling in love.

“At first everything is fine, even you. You are only amazed that you can be so in love. Every day brings a new batch of miracles... Hurry up to get married - why wait if you are so happy? I don’t want to think, it makes me sad; Let life decide for you."

The second stage is a slight cooling, the appearance of a friendly “tenderness”.

“Things change in the second year. You have become softer. Be proud of how well you and your half got used to each other. You understand your wife "at a glance"; it's great to be one. The wife is taken on the street for your sister - it flatters you, but it also affects the psyche. You make love less and less and think: it's okay. You arrogantly believe that this very love is growing stronger every day, when the end of the world is not far off.

And the third stage is alienation, cooling, boredom.

“In the third year, you no longer try not to look at fresh girls, from which it is brighter on the street. You no longer talk to your wife ... You and her are increasingly out of the house: this is an excuse not to fuck. And soon there comes a moment when you can no longer endure your half for a single extra second, because you fell in love with the other.

All of the above, of course, is just an idea about the life of a guy with a skin vector, the main factor in a relationship for which is novelty. He would be glad to “love his wife more”, but when everything around is the same, the same, he wants something new, fresh, different!

However, Mark Marronier, believing in his theory of “three years of love”, is afraid: he does not want the relationship to cool down, each time he fearfully waits for the approaching third anniversary, until he finally finds the girl with whom he is connected with something more, than a bed or mutual sympathy. “That same date” is approaching, and he still loves his chosen one. Why?

The theory that love lives for three years is not an invention of a particular hero of the novel. It was put forward by biologists, having properly studied the physiological reactions of a person during a relationship.

Most people agree with this hypothesis, because they themselves experienced it in life: after three years (sometimes earlier), their relationship, so wonderful at the beginning, ended in failure.

Love lives for three years. What is this curse? Bad sign? Superstition? There is no mysticism. Everything is explained.

Three years - exactly how much was given by our mother nature for people to be attracted to each other, give birth to a child and feed him. It is believed that just this much time is enough for the baby and mother to survive. Further, the child becomes less vulnerable, the mother can get food herself, and the man, the male, in fact, becomes unnecessary. He can move on, find another woman, have another child... and so on.

What does it take for a woman and a man to be attracted to each other? Attraction pheromones. Most people find their partner by that very elusive smell. This is the main component of physical intimacy: pheromones that excite certain chemical processes in the human brain. Each of the stages of love is accompanied by a change hormonal background in the human body.

Over time, the body of partners gets used to each other's pheromones. This usually happens after about 3 years. In some pairs, this period is longer, in some it is shorter. When addiction occurs, it’s like we wake up from a dream and ask: “What was that all about?” Our partner appears before us in new colors, we, who had previously looked at him through the veil of love, begin to see his shortcomings. Very often, caress and tenderness are replaced by irritation and anger. Relationships slowly (and sometimes very rapidly) roll into oblivion.

"And it's all? - you will say, - All love, all high feelings come down only to pheromones and chemical reactions of the brain? If this were true, then there would be no evidence to the contrary in the world. Despite the fact that many couples fail, break up, divorce, there are also many examples when a man and a woman love each other for 3, and 5, and 10, and 20 years. And their tenderness and love towards each other knows no bounds. Do you think it's a fairy tale? Not at all.

Love lives for three years. This myth becomes a reality if nothing brings you together with your chosen one, except for sexual attraction. The relationship of two is work, and they need to be built from the very first meeting. Do not turn a blind eye to omissions and shortcomings, do not wave your hand and say: "Ah, let it be what will be." It will be ... the first three years, and then, when the time will come wake up, don't ask what you did wrong.

An ideal relationship is the work of both partners, when everyone thinks not about themselves, but about their “half”. This does not mean that you need to dissolve in each other, falling into love addiction. To love is not to accept a person with all his advantages and disadvantages, but to understand him. Do not blindly look at him, but be aware of the motives of his behavior and actions. After all, only when we begin to treat each other more tolerantly does the desire to change a partner for ourselves go away.

Relationships are built on a sound understanding of who is in front of you and what should or should not be expected from him. If you see that your future chosen one is a potential domestic tyrant, then three years later there is no need to cry to your girlfriend in a vest and say: “But he was so gentle in the first year of our acquaintance!” Wake up: the signs of a domestic tyrant can be recognized even at the first meeting if you know System-Vector Psychology.

We often think: “Since everything is fine now, then everything will be fine later.” But when that “later” comes, we cry with disappointment: everything “wonderful” has passed, dried up, and we simply have nothing to talk about with our chosen one, because all the time allotted for us we did not get to know each other better, did not build relationships at a higher level, but simply indulged in mutual intoxication. And, as you know, the morning after drinking comes a headache. And it will come if you treat relationships only as a source of pleasure.

Love lives for three years. Is it a little or a lot? But each of us has the power to extend or shorten this period. Now, in the skin era of consumption, when sex has lost its intimacy and intimacy is becoming more and more consumerist, it is becoming increasingly difficult to build long term relationship. And why do we need a long relationship, if you can change partners until old age? Who needs a traditional marriage if you can live to the fullest without it?
As a result, people with an anal vector, monogamous and adherents of traditions, suffer. They cannot keep up with flickering leather workers, it is difficult for them to adapt to new living conditions.

In an era when sex has ceased to be something significant and intimate, it is time for a new level of relationship - spiritual.

That is why, if you want love to live not for three years, but for much longer, you need to try to build, first of all, a solid foundation of spiritual intimacy, which will guarantee that your tenderness and affection will not run out after the expiration of pheromones. You will become each other's support and support, a saving shore from life's turmoil for many, many years.

Frederic BEGBEDER

LOVE LIVES FOR THREE YEARS

Dedicated to Sophie Christine de Chastenier and Jean-Michel Beigbeder, without whom this book would not have been possible (and so am I)

As a loser, I know what I'm talking about.

Scott Fitzgerald

So what? Well, yes! We must call a spade a spade! A person loves, and then no longer loves.

Françoise Sagan (at a dinner party at her home with Brigitte Bardot and Bernard Franck)

COMMUNICATING VESSELS

With time love passes

Love is a battle. Lost in advance.

At first, everything is fine, even you. You are only amazed that you can be so in love. Every day brings a new batch of miracles. No one on Earth has ever felt so good. There is happiness, it is simpler than simple: it is someone's face. The whole world is smiling. For a whole year, your life is one continuous sunny morning, even at dusk and when it snows. You write books about it. Hurry up to get married - why pull if you are so happy? I don’t want to think, it makes me sad; let life decide for you.

Something changes in the second year. You have become softer. Be proud of how well you and your half got used to each other. You understand your wife "at a glance"; it's great to be one. The wife is taken on the street for your sister - it flatters you, but it also affects the psyche. You make love less and less and think: it's okay. You arrogantly believe that this same love is growing stronger every day, when the end of the world is just around the corner. You defend marriage in front of bachelor friends who don't recognize you. And you yourself are sure that you will recognize yourself when you chant a learned lesson, trying your best not to look at fresh girls, from which it is brighter on the street.

In the third year, you no longer try not to look at fresh girls, from whom it is brighter on the street. You don't talk to your wife anymore. Spend long hours with her in a restaurant, listening to what the table neighbors babble. You and her are increasingly out of the house: this is an excuse not to fuck. And soon there comes a moment when you can no longer endure your half for a single extra second, because you fell in love with the other. Only in one thing you were not mistaken: the last word really always remains with life. In the third year, you have two news - good and bad. The good news is your wife is fed up and is leaving you. The bad news: you're starting a new book.

Divorce in a festive way

When you go poddaty, the main thing is to aim between the houses and do not miss. Marc Marronnier steps on the gas, causing his scooter to pick up speed. He maneuvers between cars. They flash their headlights at him, honk when he hits them, just like at weddings in the countryside. Here's the irony of fate: Marronier is just celebrating his divorce. Today he is touring route number 5 bis, and every minute counts: five places per evening (“Castel” - “Buddha” - “Bus” - “Cabaret” - “Queen”) - this is already cool, but think about it, that the 5-bis, as the name implies, is performed twice a night.

In such places, he is often alone. Secular people are generally loners, lost in a sea of ​​vaguely familiar faces. They cheer up by shaking hands. Every new kiss is a trophy. They indulge themselves in the illusion of their own importance, greeting celebrities, although they themselves have not done a damn thing in life. They try to visit only where it is noisy - you can not talk. Holidays are given to a person to hide what is on his mind. Few people know more people than Mark, and few people are so lonely.

And tonight is not just a holiday. Today he has a divorce-party! Hooray! To begin with, he bought a bottle in each institution. And, it seems, he managed to cling to each robustly.

Marc Marronnier, you are the King of the Night, wherever you go, the owner of the establishment kisses you on the lips, you skip the line, the best table is waiting for you, you know everyone by their last names, you laugh at all jokes (especially the most unfunny ones), they give you dope for nothing, you show off everywhere in the photographs, it is not clear why on earth, it’s crazy how high you have soared in a few years in the gossip column! Nabob! "Secular Lion"! But tell me, explain for a minute, why did your wife make you a pen?

“We broke up by mutual disagreement,” Mark says through gritted teeth as he enters the Bus.

He later adds:

- I married Anna because she was an angel - and that is the reason we divorced. I thought I was looking for love, until one day I realized that I wanted the exact opposite - to stay away from her.

A quiet angel flies inappropriately, and Mark changes the subject.

- Damn it! he barks. - And the girls are nothing here, sorry, I didn’t brush my teeth when I was going. Op-la! Mademoiselle, you are wonderfully good. Be kind, let me undress you!

He is like that, Marc Marronier: he pretends to be cool in his velvet suit, because he is ashamed to be gentle. He was in his thirties: the middle age, when you are too old to be young and too young to be old. He does everything to be like his reputation: God forbid disappoint anyone. He tried so hard to expand his track record that he became a caricature of himself. He is tired of proving that he has a kind and deep soul, so he makes himself out to be a mean and superficial, purposely demonstrating a violent, and even rude disposition. So when he runs out onto the dance floor yelling, “Hurrrah! r-r-divorced!" - no one wants to console him. Only laser beams pierce the heart like sharp blades.

There comes a time when rearranging the legs becomes a complex operation. Staggering, he saddles the scooter again. The night is cold. Starting right off the bat, Mark feels tears running down his cheeks. Probably from the wind. His eyelids are still stony. He doesn't wear a helmet. Dolce Vita? What is Dolce Vita? Where is she? There are too many memories, too much to forget, it will be a hell of a job to erase all this from memory, how many wonderful minutes will have to be experienced instead of those former ones.

He meets his buddies at the Baron on avenue Marceau. Champagne is exorbitant, girls too. For example, if you want to fuck with two - lay out six thousand, and with one - three. They don't even give discounts. They demand to pay in cash; Mark walks out to the ATM with his credit card; they take him to a hotel, undress in a taxi, suck him for a couple, and you know he presses on the heads; in the room they are smeared with fragrant cream, he inserts one and licks the other; after a while, realizing that he will not finish, he fakes an orgasm, after which he goes to the bathroom to stealthily throw away the empty condom.

In a taxi on the way back, early in the morning, he hears:

Alcohol is slightly bitter

The day has passed and the day is dead.

seedy musician

played my life

(Christophe, "Beautiful eccentric.")

He decides to continue to masturbate before going out so that he no longer confuses the demon to get up God knows what.

On the beach, all alone

Hi everyone, I'm an author. Welcome to my brain, sorry for the intrusion. I will no longer fool you: I am my main character. Everything that usually happens to me is, well, seeds. Nobody dies from this. For example, my foot has never been in Sarajevo. My dramas play out in restaurants, nightclubs and stucco apartments. The biggest tragedy I've had to endure lately is that I wasn't invited to a John Galliano celebration. And suddenly on you: for no reason I die, before I feel bad. I remember the time when all my friends drank bitter, then they got big, then they got married, and now the period has come when everyone gets divorced before dying. And this happens, by the way, in the most fun places, here, for example, on the Red Sail, the beach in St. Tropez, the heat, Eurodance at the bar to refresh the lumpen pussies in bikinis, they are poured with Crystal Roederer for a million old 0.75 l, and then they suck on their navels. In all corners they chuckle. I would drown myself in the sea, but there are too many people water skiing.

How did I allow window dressing to crush my life to such an extent? It is often said: "We must save face." And I say, the face must be killed, only in this way you will be saved yourself.

The saddest person I've ever met

There are places in Paris in winter where it is somehow especially cold. No matter how hard you drink strong drinks, it seems like a blizzard blows through the bars. The ice age is coming. Even in the crowd, a thumper makes its way.

I did everything right: I was born into a good family, studied at the Lycée Montaigne, then at the Lycée Louis the Great, received higher education at institutes where I moved among intelligent people; I invited them to dance, there were those who gave me work; I married the most beautiful girl of all my acquaintances. Why is it so cold here? At what point did I fail? I only wanted to please you, and it was not so difficult for me to comply. Why don't I have the right to live like everyone else? Why, instead of the simple happiness with which I was beckoned, did I get only difficulties and tears?

Frederic Beigbeder is a writer who is distinguished by a special frankness of the story about the life of his heroes. One of his most famous works is Love Lives Three Years. It received a lot of feedback from readers and critics, both flattering and not very. The name itself is intriguing, and the reader wants to check whether this is really so. Although the main meaning of the book may be quite different. Based on the theory of hormones in love. It is believed that the first three years of a relationship, all emotions are due to a hormonal surge, and when it subsides, the person seems to remove pink glasses and does not understand why he fell in love with a partner.

The protagonist of the novel has exactly this point of view. Mark works as a journalist, does not have a very bright and attractive appearance. But his wife is just beautiful. Their relationship with Anna has been going on for three years, Mark recalls their whole life on the pages of the work. He analyzes emotions, coming to the conclusion that during three years his feelings faded away and now there is little left of them. Turning to previous experience, he realizes that he has never loved more than this period.

Alice appeared in his life, who was able to brighten up the gray everyday life. The hero talks a lot about cheating in marriage, about love and relationships. He feels that with Alice he lives for real. But following his assumptions about the timing of love, he is waiting for the fatal hour when it goes out.

In the book, the author shows how much we depend on our own prejudices, often ruining the lives of ourselves and loved ones. The protagonist does not treat love and marriage as something serious, it's like a game that lasts three years, and then must be completed. The writer managed to reflect well the realities of modern society and make you think that love lasts not for three years, but for as long as we ourselves want.

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