LOVE IS NOT A MATH PROBLEM đź’Ś
No wonder everybody’s sad and single and swiping fruitlessly and endlessly wondering why they haven’t been able to connect with anybody.
gonzalonunez.substack.com
No wonder everybody’s sad and single and swiping fruitlessly and endlessly wondering why they haven’t been able to connect with anybody.
gonzalonunez.substack.com
This dry and rational view of love is a disease that needs to be fully and totally eradicated off the face of the Earth.
Love is not some sort of cold, mechanistic math problem that needs to be hyper-optimized.
Love is not some sort of cold, mechanistic math problem that needs to be hyper-optimized.
Is this due to capitalism and technological progress? What is love but a free market, anyways?
In the perfectly efficient market of love, everyone can find the perfect life partner.
In the perfectly efficient market of love, everyone can find the perfect life partner.
That is the goal, one must optimize all of the variables, and thanks to the internet this is now possible for the very first time in all of human history.
Today all 7 billion of us are on the same field, in the same arena, playing the same game, fighting the same fight.
Today all 7 billion of us are on the same field, in the same arena, playing the same game, fighting the same fight.
But capitalism and the advent of technology are the wrong culprits:
An increase in the number of choices does not necessitate the mechanization of the process by which one chooses.
An increase in the number of choices does not necessitate the mechanization of the process by which one chooses.
I argue that a more appropriate culprit to blame for this cold, rational view of love is utilitarianism:
The predominant ethical philosophy of today that espouses the mechanization of processes exactly like this.
gonzalonunez.substack.com
The predominant ethical philosophy of today that espouses the mechanization of processes exactly like this.
gonzalonunez.substack.com
The concept of “settling” and the obsession with perfect romantic compatibility are both born of the idea that a relationship must maximize utility:
There exists a set of variables that together form one’s utility function and the goal is to optimize them.
There exists a set of variables that together form one’s utility function and the goal is to optimize them.
Instead, consider that maybe love is not a math problem.
Love is intractable; it requires a small dose of irrationality.
The world is not an equation and people are not variables.
Love is intractable; it requires a small dose of irrationality.
The world is not an equation and people are not variables.
Settling does not exist, neither does perfect romantic compatibility, because life and love are not games with perfect information.
Nobody in this world has “complete and instantaneous knowledge of all market prices, their own utility, and own cost functions.”
Nobody in this world has “complete and instantaneous knowledge of all market prices, their own utility, and own cost functions.”
In lieu of perfect information, you have to make bets.
A bet is a commitment in the face of uncertainty and it’s required to do anything meaningful over a long enough time horizon, especially if you will probably die before the naïve brute-force algorithm finishes running.
A bet is a commitment in the face of uncertainty and it’s required to do anything meaningful over a long enough time horizon, especially if you will probably die before the naïve brute-force algorithm finishes running.
It does not stop here though: love is dying and the blows are raining down on her from all sides.
Hollywood often paints us a shoddy picture of love and somewhere in there lies our way out.
Hollywood often paints us a shoddy picture of love and somewhere in there lies our way out.
Think about the typical depiction of love in a Hollywood movie.
Anything?
I presume you conjured up some sort of cheap, stereotypical love at first sight high school sweetheart romcom Jimmy Fallon bullshit.
Something like this that “invokes primal reactions in people.”
Anything?
I presume you conjured up some sort of cheap, stereotypical love at first sight high school sweetheart romcom Jimmy Fallon bullshit.
Something like this that “invokes primal reactions in people.”
This is a beautiful picture, for what it’s worth. The only problem with this picture is that it is just that: a picture, a moment in time.
Moments in time are most of what Hollywood sells.
It is very hard to fit an entire lifetime into a few hours of film, so what we are left with is but a small window into an imagined life:
The story of a 500-day-long relationship with a girl named Summer.
It is very hard to fit an entire lifetime into a few hours of film, so what we are left with is but a small window into an imagined life:
The story of a 500-day-long relationship with a girl named Summer.
Love is so much more than this!
Love deals with entire lifetimes. It deals with future lifetimes.
Love deals with entire lifetimes. It deals with future lifetimes.
Love is about growing old and it deals with the mundane, even if you did get your photo taken at the 40-yard line with your helmet in your hand.
That is just a photo, what about the rest of your life? What do you when the photo op is over?
That is just a photo, what about the rest of your life? What do you when the photo op is over?
Commitment is underrated.
Žižek is right: true love begins with the patient building of small, daily rituals.
It is the unfurling of the day to day into the story of a lifetime.
youtu.be
Žižek is right: true love begins with the patient building of small, daily rituals.
It is the unfurling of the day to day into the story of a lifetime.
youtu.be
It is not about preserving optionality or staying flexible or being absolutely sure to mechanically and rationally maximize “romantic” utility.
Love is about commitment.
Love is about commitment.
Of course you need to commit to a compatible partner, but I’d wager that most people today are not failing to be compatible.
They are failing to commit.
Everyone is trying to maximize their utility in the intractable problem space that is romance.
They are failing to commit.
Everyone is trying to maximize their utility in the intractable problem space that is romance.
Love lasts much longer than a photo of you in high school at the 40-yard line with your helmet in your hand.
There is a whole life left out there for you to build with someone who loves you đź’Ś
gonzalonunez.substack.com
There is a whole life left out there for you to build with someone who loves you đź’Ś
gonzalonunez.substack.com
“An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.”
themarginalian.org
themarginalian.org
(Said much more beautifully, but in the same spirit. Process is the right word.)
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