Love Quote by Paul Eldridge

Jealousy, in Eldridge's framing, isn’t proof of devotion; it’s the mind staging a performance review. The sting comes from an unspoken assumption that affection is a prize handed out for good behavior, attractiveness, usefulness, or moral worth. If love is payment, then someone else’s attention feels like an audit, and every rival becomes evidence that you’ve failed to “deserve” what you have. Eldridge cuts that premise off at the root: love doesn’t track merit. It’s a passion, which is to say a force that moves through us with only partial respect for logic, fairness, or resumes.

The intent is quietly corrective, almost pedagogical in the best sense. As an educator, Eldridge isn’t romanticizing irrationality; he’s trying to de-personalize rejection and de-escalate the ego’s need to turn desire into a ranking system. The subtext is bracing: if love isn’t about your merits, it also isn’t guaranteed by your virtues. Being “good” won’t save you; being “flawed” doesn’t disqualify you. That’s both destabilizing and liberating.

Contextually, the line pushes back against a culture that constantly moralizes intimacy: self-help mantras, dating-market logic, even the casual language of “leagues.” Eldridge suggests jealousy thrives where love is treated like a referendum on your value. Understanding love as unrelated to merit doesn’t make loss painless, but it removes the extra cruelty of believing it’s also a verdict.