Start here.
The core ideas the rest of the site builds on — what love actually is (it's not one thing), how to tell when it's real, and why the chemistry settling isn't love dying.
7 pieces · tag: foundations
Why we evolved to love — the survival problem love was built to solve.
Love isn't a luxury or a cultural invention. It's an ancient biological system that solved one of evolution's hardest problems: how do you get two people to stick together for the 15 years a human child needs to grow up?
ArticleHow love looks different in 147 cultures (and how it stays the same).
The phrase 'I love you' feels universal. Its expression is not. From Japanese amae to Welsh lovespoons to Zulu beadwork, a tour of how humans show love when words aren't the medium.
ArticleMedieval thinkers asked: how do you love a person without making them your god?
Augustine and Aquinas inherited Greek philosophy and Christian theology and tried to reconcile them. Their answer — love is ordered, and disordered love makes us miserable — still describes most heartbreak.
ArticleWhat the ancient Greeks figured out about love.
They didn't have one word for love. They had four. Knowing which one you mean — eros, philia, storge, or agape — explains most arguments about whether something 'counts' as love.
ArticleThe neuroscience of love — what's actually happening in your brain.
Dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin, and the ancient brain systems that make new love feel like an addiction and long love feel like home. The biology, written for humans.
ArticleThree meanings hiding inside one word.
The word love does a lot of jobs. The dopamine rush, the slow oxytocin warmth, the daily practice — three meanings, one word.
Q&AHow do I know if it's real love?
Honest test: would you choose them on a boring Tuesday in February? Feelings fluctuate. Real love is what you do when the feeling goes quiet.