 Just how far that is, we discover in the Lysis, where Socrates makes a similar claim. Hippothales, like Socrates, loves beautiful boys and philosophical discussions (203b6–204a3). But he does not know the art of love and so does not know how to talk to Lysis—the boy with whom he is in love. What Hippothales does is sing eulogies to Lysis, and that, Socrates argues, no skilled lover would ever do. For if your suit succeeds “everything you’ve said and sung turns out to eulogize yourself as victor in having won such a boyfriend,” but if it fails, then “the greater your praise of his beauty and goodness, the more you will seem to have lost and the more you will be ridiculed.” Consequently, someone “who is wise in the art of love (ta erôtika) doesn’t praise his beloved until he has him: he fears how the future may turn out” (205e2–206a2). Convinced, Hippothales asks Socrates to tell him “what someone should say or do to get his prospective boyfriend to love him?” (206c1–3). As in the Symposium, Socrates is uncharacteristically forthcoming: “if you’re willing to have him talk with me, I might be able to give you a demonstration of how to carry on a discussion with him” (c4–6). What follows is an elenctic examination of Lysis. Socrates’ lessons in love, we may infer, are elenctic lessons—lessons in how to ask and answer questions.