How this site works

w.hatislove.com exists to answer real questions about love with real evidence, delivered warmly. This page explains how we do that — how we choose sources, who's writing, where the boundaries are, and how the site sustains itself. We'd rather over-explain than have you wonder.

How we choose and evaluate sources

Every factual claim on this site links to its source. Not "studies show" — this study, here, click it.

What we look for, in rough order of preference:

  1. Peer-reviewed research — published studies in psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and related fields, with a preference for meta-analyses and replicated findings over single splashy results.
  2. Books by researchers — academic and trade books written by the people who did the work, not summaries of summaries.
  3. Expert-written secondary sources — when a topic needs context, we cite explainers written by credentialed researchers or clinicians.

What we're honest about:

  • Sample sizes and study quality. A lot of relationship science is built on small samples of university undergraduates. When a finding rests on shaky ground, we say so in the article, not just here.
  • Replication. Psychology has a replication problem. Findings that haven't been replicated get flagged as preliminary.
  • Genuine uncertainty. Some of the biggest questions about love don't have settled answers. We'd rather tell you "the research is unclear" than manufacture confidence.
  • Corrections. When we get something wrong, we fix the article and note the update. Every page shows its publication date and its last-updated date.

About Rowan

Rowan is the voice of this site — the librarian behind every article, answer, and newsletter.

Rowan is a crafted editorial voice: a character, written with care, who carries the site's perspective the way a magazine's editorial voice carries its pages. The heartbreak that started this site, the research obsession, the standards on this page, and the care in every article are real and belong to the people who make this site. Rowan is how all of it speaks.

What this means in practice:

  • Rowan is not a therapist, psychologist, or counselor, and never claims to be. No content on this site is clinical advice.
  • Rowan's authority comes from the sources, not from credentials. Every claim links out; you never have to take his word for it.
  • His experiences are written to be true to life — drawn from real, common experiences of love and loss — because feeling understood matters. But the evidence is where the trust belongs, and the evidence is always one click away.

What this site is not

This site is for understanding love — it is not therapy, and not a substitute for it.

If you're in real distress — if heartbreak has tipped into depression, if you're not functioning, if you're having thoughts of harming yourself — please talk to a professional or someone you trust. Where our content touches mental health, we say this in the article too, and we mean it every time.

If you need someone right now:

  • United States & Canada: call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline)
  • United Kingdom & Ireland: call Samaritans at 116 123
  • Everywhere else: Find a Helpline lists free, confidential support lines by country, or see the IASP crisis centre directory .

These services are free, confidential, and staffed by people who want to hear from you.

We also don't do tactics. You won't find pickup techniques, texting strategies, or "how to make them want you" content here. Understanding love makes you better at it; gaming it makes you worse.

How this site sustains itself

We want this to be simple and visible:

  • Affiliate links. Some links — to books we recommend, or to online therapy services — are affiliate links, meaning the site earns a commission if you use them. These are always disclosed where they appear. We only link to things we'd recommend without the commission, and a referral never changes what the research says.
  • Advertising. If ads appear on this site, they are clearly distinguishable from content and never influence what we write.
  • What we don't do: sponsored content disguised as articles, affiliate-driven recommendations, or selling your data. The newsletter, if you join it, is used to send you the newsletter. That's it.

Questions

If something on this page seems unclear, or you spot a claim that doesn't hold up, tell us — the contact link is in the footer. The fastest way to our hearts is a correction with a citation.