The Olive Theory

A couple of years ago, not long after I moved to France, I found myself in a tiny bar in Paris with my mom. It was the typical Parisian place, dimly lit, slightly offbeat, with a hum of conversations that felt older than the walls themselves. My mom, in her gentle (yet relentless) way of nudging me toward experiences she thought I needed, urged me to order something “adult.” “Un martini, s’il vous plaît,” I said, my voice teetering between confidence and uncertainty. The bartender smirked as he set the glass in front of me, the olive perched precariously on the rim like it had something to say.

“Vous aimez les olives?” Do you like olives?

The question caught me off guard. Did I? I’d never really thought about it. Olives had always been a garnish to me, background noise on a plate. They weren’t loved or hated; they were just... there. But standing in a Parisian bar, determined to belong to this new life I was building, I nodded. “Oui.”

I sipped the martini, sharp, briny, foreign, and stared at the olive, as if it were asking something I wasn’t ready to answer. It wasn’t just a piece of fruit anymore, it was a decision.

Do you eat it? Do you leave it? Do you pretend it doesn’t matter?

In that pause, my thoughts drifted to the Olive Theory from How I Met Your Mother, a show I quote far more often than I care to admit, and one that has influenced more of my choices than it probably should. The idea was simple: a relationship works best when one person loves olives and the other doesn’t. Balance, supposedly. Except the punchline is that Marshall doesn’t hate olives at all. He just lets Lily believe he does so she can enjoy them. On the surface, it’s almost silly. But the longer I sat with it, the more it made sense. I don't think the theory was ever about balance, now I know it was about paying attention to what someone else cares about, even when it’s small, and stepping back just a little to make room for them, an invisible lean toward the other person.

I looked over at my mom. She was sipping her red wine, calm as ever, unmoved by my tendency to overanalyze everything. Without glancing up, she asked, “So, do you actually like olives?”

I laughed, immediately exposed. “I'm not sure, they're sour,” I said. “But I wanted to try.”

She lifted her glass with a small smile, as if the attempt alone deserved a toast.

That moment stuck with me, first of all because I understood that I actually do enjoy olives (with all their sourness), I like them to the point that I could pretend to hate them for someone I really care about, for them to have them all. And secondly, I started to think about all the ways we bend toward each other in relationships, often without realizing it. It’s the almost invisible decisions we make every day  that define us as people and as love-givers. Like letting someone else have the window seat, even when you secretly wanted it. Staying up late to help someone pack because they couldn’t do it alone, even though you’ve barely slept. Watching a terrible movie just because it’s their favorite. Letting someone fall asleep on your shoulder althought you yourself would like to sleep. It’s the unnoticed gestures, the things no one will ever thank you for, that build the architecture of love.

Marshall didn’t hate olives. He just knew it mattered to Lily, and so he let her have them. That's what you do when you love someone.

That night, I left one of the olives in the empty glass. It sat on the rim of my glass, unresolved, a small mystery in a moment that didn’t need an answer. My mom didn’t push me, she just smiled in that way she does when she knows I’m turning something small into something big, but doesn’t say anything because she knows I need to. And maybe that’s what stuck with me: not the olive itself, but the trying. The effort to bridge a gap, to belong, to show up for someone else.

I’ve thought about that night often since then.

About the times when someone has done the same for me. Love, I think, is less about compatibility than it is about awareness. It’s not necessarily about finding someone who balances you perfectly, who fits into your life like a puzzle piece. It’s about seeing the spaces where someone else needs a little more, and being willing to give it. And it’s about trusting that they’ll do the same for you, in their own way, when the moment comes.

Marshall’s olive was a choice.

And those choices, the ones that no one else notices, the ones you make without expecting anything in return, are the ones that make you who you are.

I like this version of myself, ready to make this type of choice, ready to make space for someone else, ready to give love, ready to give up the olives.

After a lot of (visions and) revisions, I came to the conclusion that I don't like olives at all, I like the people I love much more!