Love as Calculation: The Internalized Rationality of Digital Intimacy and the Erosion of Social Flow

Abstract

As neoliberal rationality permeates private life, romantic relationships are increasingly managed as calculated projects rather than spontaneous, autotelic bonds. Drawing on Self-Determination Theory (SDT), this study examines how calculative subjectivity is associated with diminished social flow—the state of dyadic synchrony—within intimate relationships in the context of contemporary societal involution, a state of hyper-competition and intense social comparison. Analyzing data from 402 Chinese digital natives via PLS-SEM, we reveal that calculative subjectivity demonstrates a substantial negative association with social flow, statistically mediated through internalized cognitive rationalities (regret aversion, sunk cost sensitivity, self-monitoring) and external behavioral distractions (partner phubbing). Specifically, the “market-in-mind” correlates with a substantial cognitive barrier alongside the physical interference of the “device-in-hand.” These findings are theoretically consistent with the philosophical critique regarding the “agony of eros,” suggesting that a prominent barrier to authentic intimacy in the algorithmic age is not merely technological mediation, but the internalized instrumental rationality that colonizes the human mind.