Zero Sum Love

This is how love goes: You meet someone at a coffee shop. Tuesday, 2:47 PM. She's reading the last page of a book first. Psychopath behavior, you think, but the good kind. The kind that means she knows how things end and chooses to begin anyway.

You introduce yourself. Your voice cracks on the second syllable. She notices. Files it away. Later, she'll tell you it was the crack that did it. The fault line that let her in.

Six months. That's how long before you stop using protection. Not the kind you think. The emotional kind. The careful distance between souls. You trade passwords, prescriptions, parking spots. Build a language from inside jokes and 3 AM silences. She talks about being an astronaut once, back when gravity was negotiable. You nod like dreams still have market value, even as yours depreciate in real-time.

The toothpaste develops a crust around the cap.

First anniversary: Italian restaurant. The waiter assumes you're siblings.

Second anniversary: You forget.

Third: She forgets to care that you forgot.

Your fights develop a rhythm. Accusation, deflection, exhaustion, sex, silence. The washing machine breaks. You argue about the warranty while your relationship runs past its own expiration date, unregistered, unprotected.

The world ends at 3:23 PM. Eastern Standard Time. A push notification.

Your Love Balance: 0.00

Everyone gets it. Simultaneously. The couple next door stop mid-argument. The silence is so sudden you can hear a baby crying three floors up.

Turns out MIT had been running the numbers for years. Every text, every shared photo, every biometric response during intimacy. Logged, graphed, quantified. Love wasn't infinite. It was a resource. Measurable. Depletable. Gone.

The algorithm knew what your mother never told you: Love operates on a half-life. Cs-137. Thirty years until it's half-dead. Another thirty until it's quarter-dead. Except most people burn through their supply in three to five. High-intensity users in eighteen months.

The app arrives within hours. LoveLife™. Clean interface. Helvetica font. Your relationship status in real-time:

Current Balance: 0.00
Days Since Depletion: 0
Renewal Options Available

The subscription tiers are elegant. Brutal.

Basic ($49.99/month): Functional compatibility. Shared grocery lists. Coordinated schedules. No actual affection, but the algorithm ensures you won't kill each other.

Standard ($199.99/month): Includes Basic features plus Sexual Compatibility Module, moderate endorphin response, capacity for inside jokes (limit 3/month).

Premium ($599.99/month): Full emotional spectrum. Genuine laughter. The ability to forgive. That feeling when they walk into a room and your chest decompresses. Terms and conditions apply.

Society adapts with silicon valley efficiency.

Day traders develop emotional futures markets. Short your marriage before the third kid. Buy calls on office affairs. Harvard Business Review publishes "The Six Sigma of Heartbreak." LinkedIn adds a "Relationship Portfolio" section.

The Catholic Church offers Love Bonds. Pay now, redeem in the afterlife. Interest compounds eternally.

Divorce lawyers retrain as Depletion Consultants. "It's not failure. It's optimization."

A new genre emerges: Preemptive Breakups. Couples separate while there's still 5-10% remaining. Enough for a goodbye that doesn't require lawyers. They call it "conscious uncoupling," but really it's just selling before the crash.

Your brother does it. Posts the photos. Him and Jonah, smiling at brunch, raising mimosas. Caption: "Completing our journey at 7.3% remaining. No regrets, only gratitude."

The comments are immediate: So brave. So healthy. Goals.

You want to comment: Cowards.

You type it. Delete it. Type: Beautiful.

Send.

She looks at you across the kitchen table. The app glows between you like evidence.

"We could walk away," she says. Arranges the sugar packets by size, then color, then size again. "Clean break."

The refrigerator hums. The neighbors' love subscription auto-renews. You can hear the exact moment. A small sigh, like pressure releasing.

"Or," you say.

"Or."

You both know the math. Your combined income: $73,000. Rent: $2,100. Groceries: $400. Student loans: $650. Car payment: $310.

Premium subscription: $599.

You'll have to give up something. The gym membership. The guitar lessons you never attended anyway. The dream of saving for something that matters.

"We could do Standard," she says. "It's enough."

It's not.

You've seen Standard couples. They function. They carpool. They split checks evenly. They have sex on a schedule that optimizes hormone regulation. But they don't have that thing, that sudden lung-collapse when you see them after a long day. That specific frequency only they broadcast on.

"Premium," you say.

She does the math on her phone. "We'd have to sell the—"

"I know."

"And your mother's ring—"

"I know."

You subscribe.

The feeling is immediate. Chemical. Your spine straightens. Her face softens. The kitchen light hits her collarbone at an angle that makes you remember why humans invented poetry.

Thank you for subscribing to LoveLife™ Premium. Your next billing date is: 30 days.

Month one: You fuck like teenagers. Like the world is ending. Which it did. Which it does. Every thirty days.

Month two: You develop a system. Overtime on weekends. Plasma donations. Selling things on apps designed for selling things. Your vinyl collection. Her designer bags. The engagement ring you bought before the notification, back when forever meant forever.

Month three: The credit cards max out.

You take a second job. Night shifts at a fulfillment center. Packing boxes of things people don't need for people who can't afford them. She starts driving for an app. Moving strangers through the city while her own life idles in park.

You see each other in shifts. Morning bathroom. Evening collapse. The fifteen minutes between sleep and sleep deprivation. But those fifteen minutes... Premium makes them golden. Makes them worth the compound interest accumulating on your bones.

Your friend Derek announces he's going off-market.

"Solo subscription," he says. "Self-love package. $99 flat."

Everyone wants details. He looks lighter. Younger. Claims he's never been happier. Posts gym selfies. Meal prep Sundays. Books he's reading.

Three weeks later, you find him at 3 AM. Drunk. Tinder-swiping with airplane mode on. Practicing conversations with matches he'll never match with.

"The silence," he says. "It has a frequency. Like tinnitus. But for your whole fucking soul."

You drive him home. Premium means you can feel sympathy. Standard would have just been observation. Basic wouldn't have answered the phone.

Six months in. You're behind on rent. The car's been repossessed. You're eating rice and whatever's on sale. But when the renewal notice arrives, you don't hesitate.

Your subscription will expire in 72 hours. Renew now?

Your finger hovers. She's in the shower. Singing off-key. Premium includes the ability to find that endearing instead of homicidal.

You think about the math. How much a human heart costs per pound. The market rate for a soul. What loneliness compounds into over thirty years.

Subscription Renewed. Thank you for choosing LoveLife™ Premium.

She comes out towel-wrapped. Sees your face. Knows without knowing. The algorithm calculates her response: 73% relief, 18% guilt, 9% something unclassified.

"We could try Standard," she says. "Just for a month. To catch up on bills."

You both know what Standard means. Functional. Sustainable. Dead.

"Premium," you say.

She nods. Goes to dry her hair. The sound fills the apartment like static. Like the white noise machine you sold last month. Like the sound love makes when it's being manufactured in real-time.

This is how love goes now:

You meet someone. Check their subscription status. Calculate the ROI. Set alerts for renewal dates. Track your metrics. Optimize your arguments for minimal depletion. Schedule intimacy for maximum efficiency.

Some rebels go dark. Off-grid. Claiming they've found a way to generate organic love. Homegrown. GMO-free. They live in communes. Share everything. Look hollow-eyed but claim it's authentic. The algorithm can't reach them, but neither can anything else.

You stay subscribed. She stays subscribed. The bill comes every month. You pay it. Stop checking the balance. Stop calculating what else that money could buy. Stop pretending there's a choice.

Because here's what the algorithm never advertised:

Loneliness isn't zero-sum. It's compound interest. It's exponential growth. It's the only investment that always pays out, and what it pays is more of itself.