Carrie Jenkins, Sad Love, chap. 2

Posted: Mon, Feb 3, 2025

In-Class Activity

1. Does love happen at first sight, or is love something to be developed over time?
2. Do you believe in a “happy ever after”? Why or why not?

Limerence vs. Love

Limerence: “an involuntary state involving obsessive and intrusive thinking and extremes of positive and negative emotion” (p. 52).

Jenkins argues that limerence is not love:

• You can’t really love someone you barely know, but you can experience limerence for them.
• You can’t really love someone you actively dislike, but you can experience limerence for them.

Static vs. Dynamic Love

The Paradox of Happiness: pursuing happiness as such makes us less happy.

• Jenkins thinks there is a similar paradox of romantic happiness (“the Romantic Paradox”): pursuing the “happy ever after” as such makes us less happy.
• The conception of love as “happy ever after,” for Jenkins, “is an image of static love: ‘happy ever after’ comes at the end of the story because, once it arrives, there’s nothing else to tell. Nothing ever changes” (p. 57)

She proposes an alternative, dynamic conception of love: “A healthy relationship is something dynamic that grows and changes over time along with the people in it” (p. 57).

• Two conceptions of happiness: hedonic (psychological state) vs. eudaimonic (human flourishing).
• Love that feels sad can nevertheless be good for us!