The Hairdresser of Harare Quotes

Quotes

It's difficult to stop loving someone, even when they have done something that you once thought unforgivable. There isn't an off-switch for love.

Narrator

Everyone has been there; the person we once loved, dreamed about when asleep and awake, built our whole existence around, does something that before we loved them we would have said would be the very end of our relationship. When the time comes to put that into action, though, it's far more difficult to corral our emotions in that way.

This is also an interesting observation about ending a relationship even when still in love. It's a question of listening to our heads and putting our hearts onto mute for awhile. Love does not have an off switch, but it does have a volume control. The quote points out that feelings about theoretical relationships, hurt and love are all very well, but they are not easy to apply to an actual real-life relationship once love is involved. Love is not something that we can control and so it is not something that turns off just because we might want it to or feel it should.

Men don't take rejection well. It's like they're raised expecting that they can have whatever they want.

Narrator

This is a very astute observation and cuts to the heart of the difference between the way girls and boys are raised in terms of expectations. Girls are raised to wait for a boy to ask them out on a date. This means that girls learn that they can only have what they want if someone else is willing to allow them to have it. Boys, on the other hand, are raised to do the asking. They see a girl they are attracted to, they ask them out, and they expect a positive response because they have been raised to expect to get what they want just by asking for it. This also means that men see rejection where it doesn't necessarily exist simply because they are not accustomed to hearing the word no very often.

The city went on with its business as usual, oblivious to my pain.

Narrator

This quote is similar in nature to the W. H. Auden poem Stop All The Clocks in which the poet describes how the world should come to a halt because his own world has ended. She is in emotional pain, such distress that it should not be possible for the rest of the world to go about its business as if nothing of note was happening in her world. Out of respect for the magnitude of her feelings the city should lower its metaphorical flag to half staff, and slow down the day because one of its citizens is hurting. To see everyone else going about their day as if nothing has happened is to open up the wound even further.

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