// act 1

Love.init()

A technical guide to the most undocumented system.

// act 2 — Dependencies

import { oxytocin } from 'biology';

The bonding molecule. Released during touch, trust, and shared silence. Half-life: variable. Side effects: everything.

require('philosophy');

"Each of us when separated,
having one side only,
is but the tally-half
of a human being."

// Plato, Symposium, 191d

const attachment = require('mathematics');

// Logistic Growth of Attachment // dA/dt = rA(1 - A/K) // // A = attachment level // r = growth rate (chemistry) // K = carrying capacity (what the // heart can hold) // // As A approaches K, // growth slows. // You never fully arrive. // That's the point.

// act 3 — Runtime

function firstEncounter(stranger) {
  const signal = stranger.eyes;
  if (signal.frequency === yours) {
    return recognition;
  }
  // most signals pass unmatched
  // this is by design
}

async function vulnerability() {
  try {
    const walls = await self.lower();
    const risk = calculate(exposure);
    // risk is always nonzero
    // proceed anyway
    return trust.new(walls, risk);
  } catch (fear) {
    return self.rebuild(slower);
  }
}

class Intimacy extends Connection {
  constructor(person) {
    super(person);
    this.depth = 0;
    this.timer = Infinity;
  }

  deepen() {
    this.depth += silence.shared;
    this.depth += laughter.involuntary;
    this.depth += arguments.survived;
    // no upper bound defined
  }
}

// the hardest function to write
function stay(person, time) {
  while (time.passes()) {
    person.change();
    you.change();
    love = love.recompile(
      person, you, time.now()
    );
  }
  // love is not a constant
  // love is a process
}

The runtime never terminates cleanly. There is no process.exit(0) for love. Every instance runs until memory is reclaimed by something outside the system's control.

// act 4 — Error Handling

try {
  love.persist();
} catch (err) {
  if (err instanceof Departure) {
    // expected but never handled
    memory.freeze(lastGoodState);
    self.fragment();
  }
  if (err instanceof Silence) {
    // the worst exception
    // no stack trace
    // no error message
    // just absence
  }
}

// grief.js - undocumented module
const grief = {
  duration: undefined,
  intensity: Math.random() * Infinity,

  process() {
    while (!this.resolved) {
      yield moment.random();
      // sometimes Tuesday afternoons
      // sometimes 3am
      // sometimes a song
    }
    // this loop may not terminate
  }
};

There is no try/catch for heartbreak. The system was not designed with graceful degradation in mind. This is considered a feature, not a bug.

// act 5 — Return Value

function love() {
  // after all the analysis
  // after the dependencies
  // and the runtime errors
  // and the grief modules
  //
  // the return value is simple:

  return worth_it;

  // every time.
  // even when it breaks.
  // especially when it breaks.
}

Love is the only system that works better when you stop trying to understand it.

// end of documentation