READERS GUIDE

1. If “inventionism” is what we do in order to make sense of or bring order to complexity (Love Languages, for example, according to Rosenbaum), have you ever invented for your own understanding?
2. Rosenbaum asks “Why am I so concerned about number crunchers devouring works of mystery and beauty?” in relation to love. Why do you think, as an artist, the breakdown of love into a biochemical reaction would bother him?
3. Does gender influence the perception of love? Does Fisher’s “four constellations” of traits continue binary stereotypes?
4. Do you believe that love and evil can be explained and or understood fully? 
5. When it comes to anthropology and romantic love, why is it important to have representation of love from different cultures?
6. Rosenbaum cites numerous literary and musical masters, from Shakespeare to B.B. King. How does art capture the experience of love, especially romantic love? Is this a case of “art imitates life” and vice versa?
7. What do you think the author meant when he asked: “Has sex become too good for its own good?” Can love and sex live autonomously without devaluing one-another?
8. On Page 42, Rosenbaum says, “Love is not binary but forever both on and off”; do you believe that love evolves with us, or for us?
9. When referencing century’s old poetry and classic literature, love seemed easy to explain and something profoundly novel; has modernity affected portrayals of love? If so, how has that affected our realistic ideas of love?
10. Research has shown that, particularly young adults, experience extreme loneliness after COVID’s isolation period. Does this epidemic of loneliness influence the way the modern world perceives and seeks love?
11. Can love be narrowed down to an algorithm, such as dating apps? Is love also not being expanded thanks to dating apps, as we have such a broader scope of finding it? 12. Does trying to deconstruct love make it less special? Is it human nature to try to explain the unexplainable?