It all started in a museum depot, of all places. Not the glamorous exhibition halls with polished marble floors and reverent tourists, but in that giant mirrored bowl that looks like someone dropped a salad mixing dish in the middle of the city and decided to fill it with art. Unlike most museums, where treasures are carefully hidden behind Do Not Touch signs and velvet ropes, the Depot is gloriously transparent. Everything is stored in glass rooms: broken statues, forgotten paintings, pieces that didn’t make it to the spotlight but are still too precious to throw away.
I was there with a friend who once studied philosophy, the kind of woman who can casually drop Plato into a conversation, while I’m still trying to remember whether Aristotle was the one with the beard. I couldn’t help but think how much the Depot felt like life itself: messy, upside down, and brutally honest. So there we were: two women, surrounded by artifacts in crates, talking about love and relationships as if it were an ancient relic itself.
I say relationships are basically performance reviews: full of expectations, feedback, and sometimes, the awkward moment when you realize you’ve both been working in different job descriptions all along. Yes, I know, I see only metaphors for love and work. Because that’s what I always do: I parallel my working life with my love life. HR policies, team dynamics, performance reviews, all of it somehow becomes a reflection of my own relationships.
Somewhere between the broken vases and the Greek busts, we started laughing. Because the truth is, we’re all a little upside down. We try to make love logical, to turn the chaos of feelings into neat categories and frameworks. But love laughs at frameworks. Love spills outside the boxes, like a cracked amphora leaking water across the depot floor. And maybe that’s where the beauty is: not in perfection, not in control, but in the upside down moments where you’re laughing in a all-glass museum, realizing that broken things still tell the best stories.
Do you think perfect love exists? she asks.
I glance at a lemon-spotted vase that seems to judge us. Depends what you mean by perfect. In HR terms, it’s compatible goals, clear communication, conflict resolution, appreciation for small wins. I grin. Basically, a good relationship is a well-run team.
She laughs, nearly spilling her coffee. Oh, of course! And the soul of the team is—?
Mutual respect. Safety. Trust. Like a well-designed onboarding program.
She rolls her eyes: You really turn HR into romance theory!
A tiny bronze sculpture lying on a white pillow looks like it will squeak when we touch it. See that? I whisper. Every relationship has these small, fragile, unpredictable moments. Handle with care or risk catastrophic failure.
She twirls her blonde hair like Kant conducting an orchestra. Aristotle would say friendship is the highest form of love. Good love is friendship first, passion second, and shared absurdity third. Must we argue about abstract sculpture in a depot to test our souls?
I point at a Picasso-esque face stack. Exactly. A relationship is like this painting: messy, fragmented, sometimes ridiculous, but somehow it’s a masterpiece if you accept the chaos. I nod toward a precarious stack of crates. And HR tells us: check in regularly. Quarterly performance reviews. ‘How are you feeling? Any feedback? Are your needs met?’ Very romantic, very corporate.
She laughs again. So maybe good love is like the Depot: chaotic, upside down, full of treasures you didn’t know you had, and sometimes you bump into a crate and hurt yourself, but you laugh and keep exploring anyway.
I would say: to good love, then. And to friends who make you think, laugh, and see the world a little differently, to the mirrors, the cracked vases, and all the beautiful mess in between.
We sit for a while, upside down city reflected around us, laughing at the absurdity of life, love, and art.
And maybe that’s the lesson. Life isn’t the pristine gallery; it’s the depot. It’s Freud and Jung arguing in your head while Plato sighs in the background. It’s philosophy and HR and art colliding while you laugh with a friend among glass.
Because in the end, perfect love isn’t in Plato’s heaven. It’s in the depot, cracked and stored, but still worth keeping.