Lehndorff is very sweet but I could totally imagine finding him sort of cloying as a lover rather than as a friend myself
Oh, same. Being adored this way by your lover may be grand in the short term, but in the long term, it must be exhausting. Mind you, you and I aren't Hohenzollerns (thankfully). Heinrich liked being adored, too, as much as any child of FW and SD. (Sidenote: The younger kids didn't have the Fritz and Wilhelmine problem of being directly in the frontline of parental warfare and forced to side with one or the other, but otoh Heinrich was the thirteenth (born) child, and as I said elsewhere, it's pretty telling that during his clashes with Fritz in the 1740s and early 1750s, it never seems to have occured to him to ask his mother for help or mediation, and not because he wanted no help. (AW tried his best to mediate.) Nor did it occur to AW later when it was his turn to argue with Fritz. And we all know SD's attitude when Wilhelmine had her fallout with Fritz. What I mean is: background like that makes you susceptible to getting affection and praise elsewhere.) But evidently in his lovers, he craved challenge, too. Not that Lehndorff was ever a sycophantic yes-man - otherwise he wouldn't have had arguments with Heinrich, which he occasionally did, usually but not always about the more dastardly boyfriends -, but he'd never acted as Kaphengst or Mara or Kalckreuth did on a regular basis.
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Oh, same. Being adored this way by your lover may be grand in the short term, but in the long term, it must be exhausting. Mind you, you and I aren't Hohenzollerns (thankfully). Heinrich liked being adored, too, as much as any child of FW and SD. (Sidenote: The younger kids didn't have the Fritz and Wilhelmine problem of being directly in the frontline of parental warfare and forced to side with one or the other, but otoh Heinrich was the thirteenth (born) child, and as I said elsewhere, it's pretty telling that during his clashes with Fritz in the 1740s and early 1750s, it never seems to have occured to him to ask his mother for help or mediation, and not because he wanted no help. (AW tried his best to mediate.) Nor did it occur to AW later when it was his turn to argue with Fritz. And we all know SD's attitude when Wilhelmine had her fallout with Fritz. What I mean is: background like that makes you susceptible to getting affection and praise elsewhere.) But evidently in his lovers, he craved challenge, too. Not that Lehndorff was ever a sycophantic yes-man - otherwise he wouldn't have had arguments with Heinrich, which he occasionally did, usually but not always about the more dastardly boyfriends -, but he'd never acted as Kaphengst or Mara or Kalckreuth did on a regular basis.