We explain love through compact rules. Opposites attract. Whoever loves less holds the power. Women seek status; men seek beauty. Standards should fall with age. Real love should require no work. These claims endure because each contains enough observable truth to sound universal.
But what do they actually measure: emotion, dependence, the cost of leaving, the limits of the local dating pool, the law, or the habits of a particular era? Why can a dating profile screen out obvious incompatibility yet fail to predict attraction? When does more choice help, and when does it paralyze? Why does marriage exist, why do families intervene in partner choice, how do children change the structure of a union, and why can two loving people hold unequal power?
Love: Terms Apply tests familiar beliefs using economics, psychology, evolutionary biology, demography, and history. Search, beauty, trust, sex, jealousy, money, compromise, divorce, forgiveness, and care are treated not as timeless truths, but as decisions made under incomplete information and unequal constraints.
This is not a book about calculating love. It is about separating probability from fate, averages from individuals, and useful models from persuasive stories whose conditions have been quietly erased
