Before They Met Us
“If those whom we begin to love could know us as we were before meeting them, they could perceive what they have made of us.” ALBERT CAMUS · NOTEBOOKS 1935-1951
The people who love you now have no access to the person you were before they arrived. They cannot see the comparison, which means they cannot see their own work.
Camus is pointing at something that goes unnoticed in almost every close relationship. Being loved changes people, usually slowly and in ways that are invisible from the inside. You became less defensive. You started saying what you meant. Some old cruelty went out of you. Whoever caused that has no way of knowing they did.
This cuts against a common worry, which is that you ought to be loved exactly as you are and that anything else amounts to a demand for change. Camus is describing something different from a demand. Nobody asked you to improve. The improvement was a side effect of being treated well for a long time.
It also suggests a practical act. The person cannot perceive what they made. You can tell them. Not vaguely, but with the before and the after actually in it.
Tell someone what you were like before you knew them, and what they altered. They almost certainly do not know.
