Love, Theoretically

The impacts of people-pleasing form a central theme of Love, Theoretically, especially as they pertain to the effects Elsie’s personality switching has on her personal life and self-esteem. Elsie has been a chronic people-pleaser for nearly two decades at the beginning of the novel, and she has perfected the art of assessing what a person wants from her and becoming that version of herself. Elsie mentions that her Halloween costume throughout middle school was the duality of light, which she loved because she knew that “light could be two different things at once, depending on what others wanted to see” (15). Much like the duality of light, there are numerous different versions of Elsie that she performs, thinking it is for the benefit of others and that it will get others to like her better. As few people notice that Elsie is different around everyone she meets, her APE strategy has little negative impact on anyone but herself until Jack Smith sees two of her different personalities in two disparate settings. Not only does Jack’s discovery of her people-pleasing and personality-switching jeopardize her career, but it also forces Elsie to question her intentions behind the act. Though Elsie considers her actions code-switching and thinks it helps those around her, Jack is the first one to tell her that “Code-switching has nothing to do with erasing who you are and twisting what’s left of you [.