Love is a losing game
The cliché “love is pain” has long been howled at the moon by jilted lovers, heartbroken teens, and more than a fair share of songwriters. By the time you make it into adulthood, chances are you’ve been on the sharp end of Cupid’s arrow, and even if you’re not currently drowning in break-up anthems and Dashboard Confessional, the sting that lingers is often vulnerability.
Because being in love isn’t a single wound or heartbreak, but the ongoing exposure of yourself to another person. Even in a healthy relationship, moments of vulnerability cut through daily life like little reminders that Cupid doesn’t miss, he just leaves scars and scratches.
Which is part of why I say love is a losing game. Not losing in the tragic, hopeless sense, but losing as a condition of staying in love. Like a three-legged running race you’re going on with you’re lover that has no finish line or a boardgame that continually evoloves with more and more turns. You never really win, in a way you’re continually losing.
Jean-Paul Sartre once said the definition of true love is that two people can torture each other like nobody else. A little dramatic, sure, but there’s truth in it. When you love, you hand the other person sharper weapons. They know where you’re soft. They know the parts of you that could break. That’s why falling in love can feel terrifying, because even if it works, the potential for pain multiplies.
Theodor Adorno wrote it beautifully, “Love you will find only where you may show yourself weak without provoking strength”, or we could say “you are only loved when you can show weakness without provoking strength in the other.” In other words, love is not simply about showing up at your best, it’s about being allowed to show up at your worst, to reveal fears without them being turned into ammunition and weaponised against you. Love, in this view, is the refusal to exploit vulnerability. It is the space where masks can come off and façades can dissolve without punishment. It’s the process by which you become more fully human because you can be vulnerable in front of someone else.
Think about small daily conflicts in a relationship. Nobody ever wins an argument in love. Even if you score the rhetorical point, you’ve still lost. You’ve turned intimacy into competition, connection into a tally sheet. Winning in love is a contradiction in terms, because the moment you seek to dominate you’ve broken the conditions that make love possible.
Which brings us back to the losing game. Because to stay in love is to keep surrendering. You lose the fantasy of total independence. You lose the illusion that you can remain untouched by another. You lose the safety of isolation. But it’s in that losing that a relationship breathes, stretches, survives the seasons. Paradoxically, in the losing, something is gained. A relationship that lasts across seasons is not one that is “won,” but one that is sustained through ongoing losses. The loss of ego, certainty and the desire to dominate.
This vulnerability, the losing game, is also why people stay in stale relationships or avoid relationships altogether. It is easier to maintain the boundaries of the self untouched than to risk transformation. But when you preserve the self in that way, what you end up with is not intimacy but transaction. Relationships become commodities rather than connections. Two individuals trading resources while keeping the armour on.
To risk love is to accept the possibility of change. To remain untouched is, in a sense, to remain unloved.
Love is a losing game, but not in a futile way. It is losing as surrender, as exposure, as a practice of giving up the fantasy of certainty. There’s no way to win love, because love is not a victory. It is an ongoing rhythm, a repetition that sustains across the shifting seasons of life.
Perhaps the paradox is that in the losing, we find something enduring. In the willingness to give up control, we discover the possibility of being held. In the loss of self-sufficiency, we find a way to build a life together.
And maybe that’s the point, love is a losing game because in the losing we find a life lived otherwise.
The cliché “love is pain” has long been howled at the moon by jilted lovers, heartbroken teens, and more than a fair share of songwriters. By the time you make it into adulthood, chances are you’ve been on the sharp end of Cupid’s arrow, and even if you’re not currently drowning in break-up anthems and Dashboard Confessional, the sting that lingers is often vulnerability.
Because being in love isn’t a single wound or heartbreak, but the ongoing exposure of yourself to another person. Even in a healthy relationship, moments of vulnerability cut through daily life like little reminders that Cupid doesn’t miss—he just leaves scars and scratches.
Which is part of why I say love is a losing game. Not losing in the tragic, hopeless sense, but losing as a condition of staying in love. Like a three-legged running race you’re going on with your lover that has no finish line, or a board game that continually evolves with more and more turns. You never really win. In a way, you’re continually losing.
Jean-Paul Sartre once said the definition of true love is that two people can torture each other like nobody else. A little dramatic, sure, but there’s truth in it. When you love, you hand the other person sharper weapons. They know where you’re soft. They know the parts of you that could break. That’s why falling in love can feel terrifying—because even if it works, the potential for pain multiplies.
Theodor Adorno wrote it beautifully: “Love you will find only where you may show yourself weak without provoking strength”. Or we could say: “you are only loved when you can show weakness without provoking strength in the other.” In other words, love is not simply about showing up at your best; it’s about being allowed to show up at your worst—to reveal fears without them being turned into ammunition and weaponised against you. Love, in this view, is the refusal to exploit vulnerability. It is the space where masks can come off and façades can dissolve without punishment. It’s the process by which you become more fully human because you can be vulnerable in front of someone else.
Think about small daily conflicts in a relationship. Nobody ever wins an argument in love. Even if you score the rhetorical point, you’ve still lost. You’ve turned intimacy into competition, connection into a tally sheet. Winning in love is a contradiction in terms, because the moment you seek to dominate you’ve broken the conditions that make love possible.
Which brings us back to the losing game. Because to stay in love is to keep surrendering. You lose the fantasy of total independence. You lose the illusion that you can remain untouched by another. You lose the safety of isolation. But it’s in that losing that a relationship breathes, stretches, survives the seasons. Paradoxically, in the losing, something is gained. A relationship that lasts across seasons is not one that is “won,” but one that is sustained through ongoing losses: the loss of ego, certainty, and the desire to dominate.
This vulnerability, the losing game, is also why people stay in stale relationships or avoid relationships altogether. It is easier to maintain the boundaries of the self untouched than to risk transformation. But when you preserve the self in that way, what you end up with is not intimacy but transaction. Relationships become commodities rather than connections, just two individuals trading resources while keeping the armour on.
To risk love is to accept the possibility of change. To remain untouched is, in a sense, to remain unloved.
Love is a losing game, but not in a futile way. It is losing as surrender, as exposure, as a practice of giving up the fantasy of certainty. There’s no way to win love, because love is not a victory. It is an ongoing rhythm, a repetition that sustains across the shifting seasons of life.
Perhaps the paradox is that in the losing, we find something enduring. In the willingness to give up control, we discover the possibility of being held. In the loss of self-sufficiency, we find a way to build a life together.
And maybe that’s the point: love is a losing game because in the losing we find a life lived otherwise.