A Chaos Theory of Love and Relationships

The flap of a butterfly’s wing that starts a hurricane, the wave that moves a note in a bottle across the ocean, the person on the other side of the subway car who saves your life.

Mathematicians have a way of describing complex systems in the universe like the path of a storm, or the creation of sand on a beach, or the growth of wildflowers in a field. It’s called Chaos Theory. It’s a theory that explains how one event, one meeting, can have extraordinary consequences: the flap of a butterfly’s wing that starts a hurricane, the wave that moves a note in a bottle across the ocean, the person on the other side of the subway car who saves your life. We don’t have a theory to explain the fate of our relationships with other people but I think this one comes close.

We meet a finite number of people in our lifetimes, and who we come into contact with determines the course of our lives: how happy we are, how safe we feel, whether or not we find love. We all want to be a part of a community. We all want to belong. Human connection really is a matter of survival. The search to find the people who understand us is a problem of greater importance than the most advanced questions in astrophysics. The desire for companionship is the hope that gets us up in the morning and through the hum of our days. But love and companionship are not problems we can readily engineer and solve. Laws of probability alone cannot explain who we will meet and how. They cannot describe the feeling we have when we meet someone who truly touches us. They cannot predict how one person might change our lives.

Human connection really is a matter of survival.

But I’m confident that with effort and ingenuity and good design, we can make it a little bit more likely for the magic to happen. That’s why I’m building the human network: a place built on loves, not likes, that connects you with people who share your passions. Communities of like-minded enthusiasts, where what you share is seen by people who love what you love. That is how you light a few sparks, so that you can make new friends and then share the things you love together in the offline world too.

In the real world, there’s no scientific method for finding love and starting new relationships. Sometimes things just happen in strange and extraordinary ways. But there is one thing you can do, which might change your life forever: say hello. You never know what might happen when you make such a simple and friendly gesture. It could be the start of something new and beautiful, something you could never even imagine.

There is one thing you can do, which might change your life forever: say hello.

So what are you waiting for? There are so many people out there just like you. Sign the petition for a more human internet, and think of one person you’d want beside you in a better online world. Send them your card. Say hello, and love your world.