love and dating

Psychologists generally agree that similarity isn’t a good predictor of romantic compatibility. Nor is “complementarity”; opposites don’t necessarily attract. Gaps, then, aren’t a hugely helpful frame with which to consider relationships at all. And besides, isn’t it a bit navel-gazey to think so much about yourself in comparison to others? Freud... See more

This is why the right gaze, the right conversation, can change you down to the grain. Emotional heat loosens the architecture of the self, and in the presence of someone who sees you vividly, the molten structure reforms around their image of you. What remains afterwards is stronger, different, marked by the shape of their attention. Attention... See more

In the wilds of the internet, some “gap” references are played solely for laughs; others appear completely serious. Many fall somewhere in between: They go for cheeky and knowing while making a sincere point—usually about approaching the gap in question with caution, or avoiding it entirely. And this category is the kind that can get in your head;... See more

Who we choose to orbit defines, over time, the texture and colour palette of our becoming. Love becomes a technology of transformation, a living interface between selves. To love well is to take part in someone else’s unfolding, even as they take part in yours.

Prioritizing pure feeling, so the idea goes, leads to people choosing bad, unsuitable partners, to acts of desperation and violence, to shirking your duties. That love can also be an incredibly redemptive force meshes uneasily with our sense of individualism, with our Protestant ethics. Controlling it requires an entire normative framework.

our sense of self is a collaborative fiction, drafted in the space between your gaze and my interpretation of it, and love has a way of making that fiction more generous, more daring, more alive. Each act of seeing draws up another hidden self from the depths

I’m not surprised that people are wrestling with what it means to desire someone different from them. Since the rise of dating apps, singles—instead of coupling up with people in their social bubble, who are likely to be similar to them—have become more likely to date across race, education, and religious lines. This is a big societal shift, but... See more