A Memory-Based Approach to Model Glorious Uncertainties of Love

TL;DR

This paper introduces a minimal model for romantic relationships using complex variables and memory effects, revealing multi-stability and aperiodic dynamics that make predicting relationship trajectories inherently unpredictable.

Contribution

It presents a novel complex-variable model incorporating memory effects to explain the unpredictable and multi-stable nature of romantic relationships.

Findings

Multiple stable solutions exist for different initial conditions.

Memory effects lead to aperiodic and unique relationship trajectories.

Predicting relationship outcomes becomes inherently impossible due to multi-stability.

Abstract

We propose a minimal yet intriguing model for a relationship between two individuals. The feeling of an individual is modeled by a complex variable and hence has two degrees of freedom. The effect of memory of other individual's behavior in the past has now been incorporated via a conjugate coupling between each other's feelings. A region of parameter space exhibits multi-stable solutions wherein trajectories with different initial conditions end up in different aperiodic attractors. This aligns with the natural observation that most relationships are aperiodic and unique not only to themselves but, more importantly, to the initial conditions too. Thus, the inclusion of memory makes the task of predicting the trajectory of a relationship hopelessly impossible.