On love, limerence, and other-significant-others

Romantic love has taken on excessive significance in modern times because it is supposed to fill the void left by other social bonds. Family, religion, community—all of these have lost their footing. So we charge love with meaning.

It is supposed to offer intimacy, belonging, identity, and even moral fulfillment. In a world where work and... See more

Love, for hooks, is not a feeling but an ethical act, a conscious choice to engage in mutual transformation. To love is to take responsibility for one’s own and another’s becoming, sustaining relationships that enable freedom rather than dependency.

This definition allows for many forms of attachment but roots the concept of love in commitment: a... See more

in the past, our social lives were primarily dictated by rules, duty, obligation, and commitment. And in the other parts of the world, it still is. That is how social living is organized. You don’t go to see your grandparents because you feel like it. You go because you have to, because it’s what you do. We have replaced commitments with feeling,... See more

I always make the distinction between love stories and life stories. There’s many more people you can love than people you can have a life with.

historically, marriage was an economic arrangement between families. And now it’s an identity project — two individuals seeking self-actualization

And just as emotional language has entered the business world — where we talk about psychological safety and vulnerability — business language has seeped into romantic relationships. We want “return on investment” and to “hedge our bets” and “this is not a deal I signed up for.”

“Yearning has been showing up in pop culture, with the succession of films like Netflix’s One Day , Bridgerton and the recently concluded The Summer I Turned Pretty all depicting the sweet torture of pining and longing for someone. And it goes beyond the media industry to manifest in the types of content we see brewing on social—people are... 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