“You’re so sweet to have done this.”

“Rubbish.”

“No, seriously, you are. It’s not every day I get breakfast cooked for me, ” I said, and put my arms around her waist.

She didn’t turn to look at me, but took my hand in hers and squeezed it for a moment.

“Don’t flatter yourself, it’s not for you I did this. I eat like this every weekend.

Her lie was symptomatic of a certain pride she took in mocking the romantic, in being unsentimental, matter-of-fact, stoic; yet at heart she was the opposite: idealistic, dreamy, giving and deeply attached to everything she liked verbally to dismiss as “mushy.”

—On Love; Alain de Botton

If ever there was a couple of sentences that described how I act during these situations and how I really feel these would be it.