Category: Love — 37
Sex and Mismatched Desire
Sex is the biggest nothing of all time. — Andy Warhol Long relationships rarely argue about whether sex is needed at all. The argument usually starts with the calendar. One…
Money and the Household Economy
Having money isn’t as good as not having it is bad. — A Jewish proverb At the start of living together, the money question is often settled with one nice…
Power and the Cost of Leaving
Whoever can do without the other is the stronger one. — Folk wisdom One partner says: “If you don’t like it, leave.” The line looks emotional, but its force is…
Monogamy, non-monogamy and the rules of a union
…the best thing is to explain each case separately, without trying to generalise. — Anton Chekhov, “About Love” (1898) Two couples call themselves monogamous. In the first, people count only…
Divorce as the Right to Exit
The leading cause of divorce is marriage. — An ironic aphorism Divorce is usually discussed as a breakdown: there was a marriage, it was supposed to continue, and something failed.…
Children as an Irreversible Joint Project
Little children, little troubles; big children, big troubles. — Russian proverb A child is called a continuation of the parents. Then everyone is surprised when the continuation wants to live…
Why Families Interfere in the Choice of a Partner
No one can be as much of a stranger as a relative. — An ironic aphorism In 1753 the British Parliament passed Lord Hardwicke’s Act for England and Wales; Scotland…
What Is Marriage For?
No one calls a good thing a defect — in Russian the word for marriage does double duty. — Folk irony When marriage joined fields, debts and kin groups, the…
Consent and Pace
Haste is good only when catching fleas. — Folk wisdom Two people enter an apartment voluntarily. One agrees to a kiss. Then to being touched. A minute later the responses…
Why Trust Accumulates Slowly
Trust, but verify. — A Russian proverb In the first round, a person repays a debt on time. That may mean reliability. It may mean wanting a second, larger loan.…
A Cat in a Bag: People Under Incomplete Information
Man is a mystery. — F. M. Dostoevsky The seller of a used car knows what happened to the gearbox last winter. The buyer sees a clean body and hears…
How to show yourself
You are met by your clothes and seen off by your mind. — A proverb Open five profiles in a row and you easily get almost the same set: a…
Where to Look?
Chance favours the prepared mind. — Louis Pasteur A thousand profiles in one evening, a thumb worn out from swiping, and a feeling of productive work: the more you scroll,…
Who Should Make the First Move?
Water doesn’t flow under a stone that lies still. — Russian proverb In a durable cultural script one person proposes and the other chooses. The first risks a refusal, the…
The 37 Percent Rule, or When to Stop Looking
The search for an ideal usually ends in marriage to the first person who turns up. — An ironic aphorism The mathematically perfect search for a partner starts with unwelcome…
Is more choice always better?
The best is the enemy of the good. — Voltaire A table with twenty-four kinds of jam stopped more shoppers; a table with six ended in a purchase more often.…
Attention Is Not Demand
Promising is not the same as marrying. — Russian proverb On one screen, 327 likes; in the calendar, not a single date. The contradiction exists only for as long as…
The clock, age and the price of waiting
Time is a great healer, but a poor beautician. — An ironic aphorism In March 1978 The Washington Post ran a column headlined “The clock is ticking for the career…
Is Love Chemistry?
Love: a temporary insanity curable by marriage. — Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary In a supplement shop you can find a “trust spray” with oxytocin. The description promises heightened closeness,…
After the formulas
The book can be assembled into a sequence of checks. First you need to define the observable quantity: attention, desire, duration, jealousy or relationship quality. Then the binding constraint: a…