I asked ChatGPT today: is love possible if people are inherently selfish
This was its answer:
Yes—love is possible even if people are inherently selfish, because “selfish” doesn’t mean “incapable of caring,” and love doesn’t require perfect selflessness.
Here’s the clean way to think about it:
- Humans can be self-interested and still genuinely attached. We’re wired to bond. If loving someone is part of what fulfills us, then even a self-interested person can love—because love can be aligned with their own wellbeing.
- A lot of real love is “mutual benefit,” not sainthood. Healthy relationships often work because both people get something important: safety, meaning, joy, companionship. That’s not fake love; it’s how stable bonds usually function.
- Selfishness becomes a problem when it’s one-sided. If someone consistently protects their comfort at your expense—won’t compromise, won’t repair, won’t consider your needs—that’s not “inherent selfishness,” that’s low empathy or low commitment, and it corrodes love fast.
- The best test isn’t what people feel—it’s what they do under cost. Love shows up when it’s inconvenient: telling the truth instead of avoiding conflict, making time, keeping promises, apologizing, changing behavior. If those behaviors never happen, the “love” is mostly words.
A practical framing:
- If humans are selfish, love is possible as a disciplined choice: “I will protect this person’s wellbeing because they matter to me, and because I want to be the kind of person who does that.”
- The opposite of love isn’t selfishness—it’s indifference.
If you tell me what’s behind the question (a breakup? trust issues? fear that people only love what you do for them?), I’ll give you a sharper answer that fits your situation.
I responded: i don’t have a specific issue. I have noticed this in life, i disagree that love is mutal benefit. Many older couples show love even when one of them has medical conditions or is supporting the other. We increasily don’t show we are wired to bond, people love to be alone and have their own pleasure and that is the rise of divorce and the lack of empathy. people don’t want to do the work of relationships
Its answer:
I hear what you’re pointing at, and you’re right to use caregiving as a real-world counterexample. Older couples sticking through illness is exactly the kind of “costly” behavior that proves love can exist.
Where I think we’re talking past each other is what “mutual benefit” means.
“Mutual benefit” doesn’t have to mean transactional
People often hear “benefit” as “I get pleasure, therefore I stay.” That’s a shallow, modern version of bonding.
But the kind of love you’re describing (showing up through sickness, caretaking, sacrifice) still has a “benefit” in a deeper sense:
- meaning and identity (“this is my person; I don’t abandon my people”)
- integrity (“I keep my promises”)
- attachment (“their pain matters to me as if it were mine”)
- purpose (“I can carry this; it’s what love looks like”)
That’s not selfish pleasure. It’s values + attachment overriding convenience.
“People like being alone” doesn’t prove we aren’t wired to bond
Enjoying solitude and pleasure can coexist with being wired for bonding. What’s changed for a lot of people isn’t the capacity to bond—it’s the tolerance for discomfort and the availability of alternatives (apps, porn, entertainment, work identity, online validation, etc.). When short-term comfort is one click away, the “relationship muscle” atrophies.
So I don’t disagree with your diagnosis of behavior (“people don’t want to do the work”). I disagree with the conclusion that it means love is less real or less possible.
Divorce and low empathy: sometimes it’s decay, sometimes it’s standards
Divorce can reflect:
- avoidance and selfishness (bailing when it’s hard)
- or refusal to endure neglect, contempt, addiction, abuse, chronic cheating, or total non-effort
So “more divorce” doesn’t cleanly map to “less love.” It does map to “less willingness to stay no matter what,” which can be good or bad depending on what “no matter what” contains.
The hard truth: love is possible, but it’s not automatic
Love isn’t just a feeling. It’s:
- commitment under stress
- repair after rupture
- the ability to carry discomfort without punishing your partner
- choosing the relationship when your ego wants to win
A lot of people want the results of love without the skills and without the character.
If you want a practical filter for “will they do the work?”
Look for these, because they predict who shows up when it’s hard:
- Accountability: they apologize without spinning it back on you.
- Repair orientation: after conflict, they move toward resolution, not avoidance.
- Consistency: they do what they say, especially when inconvenient.
- Empathy in action: they change behavior when they see it hurts you.
- Long-term thinking: they invest in the relationship even when it’s not “fun” that week.
If you’re noticing a lot of people avoiding effort, you’re not crazy. But the conclusion I’d steer you toward is: love is real, but it’s rarer than attraction—and you have to select for it.