The day you die, the person who knew you best will stand at your funeral and tell stories about you.

Half of them will be things you swear never happened, and some of those stories would probably piss you off enough to bring you back from the dead just to correct them. Which, if you've ever been in a relationship, shouldn't surprise you.

She remembers that he spent twenty minutes talking to Jennifer, laughed at every joke she made, and paid more attention to her friend than he had to her all evening. He remembers reluctantly agreeing to let Jennifer third-wheel, asking his girlfriend what was wrong three times, and getting "nothing" three times.

They both think the other one has a terrible memory, and they're both right.

Your brain compresses reality more than it records it. What survives depends on what you noticed in the first place, what you've experienced before, what you expect, and what your brain considers important.

One theory is that you can blame your hairy ancestors for that. Back then, men hunted by navigating unfamiliar territory, remembering which ridge led to which valley and how to get home. Women gathered by remembering exactly which tree, which plant, which patch of ground was safe. Different survival problems may have produced different memory strategies.

Which could explain why, when you ask your girlfriend for directions, she'll tell you to turn left at the coffee shop with the yellow awning, right at the pharmacy where you got antibiotics, then look for the green building with the ivy. Ask her which way is north and she has no fucking clue.

And I can already hear a woman typing, "That's not true. I know my directions, and I know plenty of men who don't have a good sense of direction."

Congratulations. You've discovered what an average is.

And on average, a man can memorize the street grid of every city he's visited since he was twelve, but ask him to grab your glasses from the bedroom and he'll open the same drawer four times, and tell you with absolute confidence that they are nowhere to be found.

Your memories also shape what you expect. What you expect influences what you notice. And what you notice becomes evidence that you were right all along.

So the next time he talks to another woman, she's looking for signs that he's flirting. He's looking for signs that she's getting jealous. By the end of the evening, they've both found exactly what they were looking for.

Repeat that for twenty years, and they're defending two completely different histories of the same relationship.

This is why telling your partner to put themselves in your shoes is almost useless. Even if they try, they're still bringing their own brain. Their memories, expectations, their entire history. They're just imagining what they would do if they were you.

So next time you're arguing with someone, consider the possibility that they're wrong about what happened, but right about something you've never noticed about yourself.

And if you can resist the urge to defend yourself for five minutes, you might discover something that years of introspection couldn't reveal. The bonus is that if the relationship ends tomorrow, you get to keep that discovery. And in the meantime, you might become a slightly more tolerable partner.

This is why I'm considering organizing my own living eulogy.

Get all my exes around a table, open a few bottles of wine, and ask them to describe the man they dated. I suspect it'd be cheaper, more entertaining, and more revealing than a Tony Robbins seminar.

My ego says I can handle it.

And if it kills me, at least everyone will already be there for the funeral.

Stay curious, happy Halloween, and feliz domingo

Benoit

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P.S. I'm currently working on Issue #2 of Les Essais, on Purpose. More specifically, why we seem to be the only creatures that need to justify our own existence.

Les Essais is a private, physical correspondence. One printed essay delivered to your door every month, an invitation to think together, and a conversation that continues beyond the page.

If you'd like to be part of the November correspondence, join here. I'm closing this issue to new subscribers on November 7, before it goes to print.