"The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post"
About this Quote
The subtext is pure Shavian skepticism about sentimentality and performance. A “love affair” conducted by post is a relationship where each party falls in love with an authored version of the other, a persona with time to edit out pettiness, boredom, contradiction. Distance doesn’t just preserve longing; it protects self-image. Shaw, the dramatist, understands that love is often theater, and letters are the perfect stage directions: pauses are intentional, silences become meaningful, and every line gets a second draft.
Context matters: Shaw lived in a period when letters were the dominant long-form medium, and courtship was heavily shaped by social rules and surveillance. The post offered privacy, plausible deniability, and a slow-burn eroticism that could masquerade as decorum. Today it lands as eerily modern - a pre-digital take on texting, DMs, and the appeal of relationships that thrive in the gap between message and reality. The wit is that “perfect” here means frictionless; the critique is that friction is where real love actually lives.
Quote Details
| Topic | Long-Distance Relationship |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Shaw, George Bernard. (2026, January 15). The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-perfect-love-affair-is-one-which-is-conducted-29180/
Chicago Style
Shaw, George Bernard. "The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-perfect-love-affair-is-one-which-is-conducted-29180/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-perfect-love-affair-is-one-which-is-conducted-29180/. Accessed 19 Feb. 2026.











