Why do we love a person? Well, what can I say... Seven centuries ago, Doctor Paracelsus expressed the opinion that love is independent of neither the brain nor the heart. Love is the work of the whole organism. And, as with everything else, there are completely logical explanations for the appearance of this feeling. So what do representatives of different scientific fields say about this?
- Doctors consider love a mental disorder in the good sense of the word
- Biologists call it an evolutionary trap for successful reproduction.
- Neurophysiologists believe that changes in some areas of the brain are to blame.
The last theory is especially interesting. According to it, love can suppress areas of the brain that are responsible for fear and criticism. This explains the fearlessness, generosity and “blindness” of lovers.
What is love?
Love is not a feeling, but a choice.
If you ask Google this question, it will answer that love is a feeling of selfless heartfelt affection. On this I absolutely agree with him: love is difficult to compare with any other feeling. Moreover, everyone will have a completely individual love. But is this just affection?
Personally, I think not. Many people say: “Love must be blind and deaf...”. Why? If you are not a 14-year-old teenager, then you need at least two more conditions for love. Responsibility and respect.
How can you love a person without respecting him? How can you love without feeling responsible for the feelings of another person? Will it be love?
How to attract mutual love into your life?
In fact, if we consider the issue of love in more detail, we can see in it a thousand different lines on which this very love depends:
- Hierarchy of values.
Agree, if you say that you love a person, but instead of coming to him for an important match (let’s say he’s a football player) you can’t miss the episode of “The Bachelor,” will that be love?! That is, love implies that a person is in the top positions in the hierarchy of your values.
- Communication.
Just don’t say that your love doesn’t depend on whether it’s easy to communicate with a person. People rarely step over themselves in this. Yes, this is impossible: if you feel a huge gap between yourself and your partner, what kind of love can we talk about?
- Worldview.
Answer right now and honestly: could you love a person whose views on life are radically different from yours? As for me, this sacrifice is completely useless here. If I want to create a strong love union, then I am looking for a person close to me in spirit. No other way.
- Space.
It just so happens: if people love each other, they want to reduce the space between them and become closer. Is it possible to say that if there is no opportunity to reduce this space, either physically or spiritually, people will not love each other? Yes. If people live on opposite sides of the planet and don’t see each other for years, their feelings will begin to fade. No matter how categorical it may sound, I don’t believe in love at a distance.
- Personal qualities.
You can't go anywhere without this. If by nature you are an angry, closed and complex person, it will be difficult for you to accept another, to love him (and, especially, his shortcomings). If you are harmonious, live in harmony with yourself, you will be able to love.
And to finally complete my cynical image, I will say this: love is not a feeling, but a position. It's a choice. When my beloved, after a hundred years of marriage, ceases to be handsome, cheerful, fit, smelling good, it is difficult for me to love him, no matter what. But I choose to love him along with all these “bonuses”.
Of course, there is a share of emotions and feelings in this, and quite a lot. But I am convinced that you won’t get far on feelings alone.
Androgynes
The ancient Greek philosopher Plato in the dialogue “The Feast” tells a legend about once-existing creatures - androgynes, who combined both masculine and feminine principles. Like the Titans, they became proud of their perfection - unprecedented strength and exceptional beauty, and challenged the gods. The gods got angry... And as punishment they divided the androgynes into two halves - a man and a woman. Cut in two, they could not find peace for themselves; they lived in constant search for each other. A fairy tale, but it contains a hint of why a person loves a person. Love is the constant pursuit of wholeness. However, here too there is a certain paradoxical pattern - having found our soulmate, we merge in a close embrace, with every breath, with every cell feeling the harmony of unity, even a certain monolithicity - “one-single-whole-indivisible-eternal”, we again strive for chaos - to the loss of each other, so that our soul again plunges into torment, torment, suffering for what was lost and gathers on a new journey to love.
At first glance, it seems that this is a vicious circle, meaningless and merciless. But let's return to the myth about androgynes. Having become one, they fell into pride - narcissism and self-praise, which only leads to decline and degradation, and therefore to a complete stop and disappearance of the continuity and infinity of life. Heaven is fruitless and meaningless without hell, good without evil, life without death. Each time, setting out on a new journey to love, we learn a new facet, a new law of love, we give one more of the infinite number of answers why a person loves a person, thereby providing new super-powerful energy for the work of the perpetual motion machine of life.
Can everyone love?
Not everyone can truly love.
Let's start from the fact that love is a heartfelt affection. Can everyone become deeply attached to another person? I think no. Is this normal? I think no. However, it is true: if you do not have a number of factors, you will not truly love. What are these factors?
5 steps to learn to live without love
| Factor | Meaning |
| Self love | “Wow, how selfish!” - you thought. But let's look at the world realistically: if a person does not love himself, then how can he love another? No way. In such a relationship there can be anything: respect, affection, material or mental dependence, but not love. People who love themselves are capable of empathy, self-confidence, and the courage to express their feelings in front of their partner. |
| Moral health | Can you imagine how deep this question is?! Moral health implies the absence of any neuroses associated with the divorce of parents (and hence the thought “All men are assholes”), the presence of a correct family model in childhood. It is also worth highlighting the issue of sexuality, but not external, but internal. Anyone who has problems with self-identification as a woman also has problems in love relationships. |
Important: I would like to return to the question of what love is and give the most comprehensive description possible. Love is a bright, bright, but emotionally draining feeling. That is why it happens 1-3 times in a lifetime. That is, it turns out that we do not fall in love 100 times in our lives not because it is not given, but because it is an “emotionally draining feeling.” Let's take care of ourselves, so to speak. This means that love is a conscious choice.
How do we choose a partner?
Well, we have already destroyed the idea of love as a gift from above... It's time to do the same with another theory.
“Matches are made in heaven” – I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything more baseless in my life. Even if there is someone in heaven (and I stubbornly continue to believe that there is), do you really think that they have nothing better to do?! Do you think your spouse was sent from heaven? No. In fact, the choice of a particular person is nothing more than the result of a previous life.
Here's what psychologists say:
- In each of us, from childhood, a certain archaic ideal “ripens”, which guides us in finding our partner.
- We are looking for a person who would be similar to who we ourselves would like to be.
- Your partner attracts you to him because he is similar to one of your parents or, conversely, is fundamentally different.
No matter how sure you are that marriages are made in heaven, there is a clear fact: we look for a partner based on our own criteria, which unconsciously live inside us. By the way, Sigmund Freud said that we meet those who already live in our subconscious. I agree with this idea one hundred percent.
5 signs he has that love has passed
What do we look for in a partner:
- Emotional connection.
For the first time we encounter an emotional connection in our relationship with our mother. That is why in adulthood most of us are so eager to repeat this experience. It is in childhood that the need to be in emotional contact with someone and not to feel loneliness arises.
- Reflection of yourself.
This is already a proven fact: we need a partner who will motivate us morally. He should be like me, but only better. Then, looking at him, I will think “How cool I am!”
There is another story when we unconsciously look for a person who magically combines absolutely every single defect that we have. And his teeth are crooked, and he’s afraid to speak in public, and...his nose is small. In this case, my personal shortcomings no longer seem so catastrophic to me.
- "Search for Oedipus"
Have you heard of the Oedipus complex? It was introduced by the well-known Freud. The concept defines unconscious sexual attraction to a parent of the opposite sex. The Oedipus complex is characteristic of us in childhood, but even when we grow up, we reap its benefits. How? Very simple!
In adulthood, we look for a man who will either be very similar to his father, or, on the contrary, completely different from him. By the way, the case when a woman is looking for a partner who is completely different from her father suggests that in childhood this girl was subject to sexual violence (not in all cases, but in the majority).
- Healing old wounds.
Many people who have experienced some kind of violence, felt humiliated, trampled, are looking for a partner who would help heal old wounds. Thus, the person seems to live through an unpleasant situation (which may have occurred in childhood) and emerge victorious from it.
One feeling for life
The world is endless in its diversity, as is love. A person can love one person’s entire life, parting, finding each other renewed again, betraying, forgiving, living under one roof, or, conversely, all their lives at a distance from each other, and thereby coming to love, to harmony through the soul of one person. In our minds there is an image of ideal love, one for life. We dream about it, we strive for it, and even the most callous cynics carefully keep this bright picture from the cover of a magazine under their pillow so that no one will ever guess or even dare to think about what is really going on in their souls. Where this idea of love came to us from, whether it is true or a utopia is unknown.
TOP 5 factors why you can love a person
I think you already understand that I’m unlikely to answer “No way, they love you just like that and blablabla.”
This is true. But that doesn't mean I don't believe in love. How can you believe or not believe in something that you yourself control? Just don’t talk about “spark”, “frenzied heartbeat” and similar things that speak about the inability of this feeling to be controlled by a person. “Not being in control” is just the effect of falling in love. And falling in love, in turn, is a game of hormones. That's all romance. No, after all, feeling all this is much more pleasant than describing it... So, why can you love a person?
I would rephrase the question: “Why can you feel affection for a person?” Probably for all the good we receive from him:
- Support.
We all know firsthand how important it is to feel the support of a loved one. This motivates, gives confidence in one’s abilities, and makes one go towards the goal.
- Help.
This is especially true for married couples when there is, as they say, too much to do. My husband picked up the child from kindergarten, washed the dishes, washed the clothes, and we are already feeling this practical help.
- Care.
Affection, care and tenderness are what most people cannot live without. I must say that all these people are morally healthy. Those who do not need care/affection at all are not mentally healthy. They most likely are not capable of expressing such feelings themselves.
- Reliability.
Show me at least one family that lives in absolute instability (in every sense: financial, spiritual, etc.) and calls itself happy. Well, okay, maybe there will be one. But, you see, reliability is one of the most important conditions in a love relationship.
- Development.
Ideally, a partner should instill in us confidence and a desire to move forward. Or, on the contrary, there is eternal competition in relationships. This is not normal, but can contribute to personal development.
Love also has its fair share of emotions. However, they reach their peak in the first few years of marriage, after which they rapidly decline. But what remains?
What happens after falling in love ends?
If you believe psychologists, then after love fades away, the couple faces three possible paths of development of events:
- The relationship ends.
When the play of hormones stops, and we get so used to our partner that we stop noticing him, separation occurs. This is true for those couples who, over the years of living together, have not managed to create something that would keep their union afloat. No matter how strong passion, love, or attraction may be at the beginning of a relationship, you need to understand that this is just a reproduction instinct programmed by nature.
- Codependent relationships.
This model of relationships is very relevant in our time. Love passes, but the fruits of this love remain: children, jointly acquired property, a dog, in the end. And then the couple decides to be together, without feeling anything at all.
- Partnerships.
This relationship model differs from the previous one in that in such a couple the spouses feel respect for each other, a sense of duty, and gratitude. It is fundamentally important that in partnerships people do not encroach on each other’s freedom: they respect the personal boundaries of the partner and do not make claims in the style of “You’re not listening to me,” “You’re not giving it to me.”
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Advantages and disadvantages of falling in love
Falling in love is one of the brightest emotions. Let's not devalue falling in love and the romantic period of relationships. Let's weigh all the pros and cons.
| Advantages | Flaws |
| Euphoria. In a state of love, we seem to put on rose-colored glasses, and this world seems beautiful to us. | Addiction. Often the state of love borders on addiction. This is a painful condition that makes a person lose himself. |
| Self confidence. In the initial stages of a relationship, every pleasant little thing from a lover makes our self-esteem skyrocket. | Jealousy. As soon as we realize what happiness has fallen on our heads, we immediately begin to suspect everyone of wanting to take this happiness away. It's painful. |
| Stability. We begin to feel like a self-sufficient person who has created ideal relationships and is ready to develop them. | Anxiety. Along with stability comes a feeling of anxiety. And there are just a lot of reasons for him: “Why doesn’t he introduce you to his parents?”, “Why doesn’t he ask you to marry?”, “Why doesn’t he say words of love?” |
How to understand that you love a person: step-by-step instructions
How can you understand that you are experiencing love for a person, and not a fleeting infatuation?
| Steps | Description |
| Step #1. Assess how often you want to spend time with him | Do you know what is the most valuable resource in the world? Time. Therefore, if you are sincerely ready to spend it with a specific person, this says a lot. |
| Step #2. Rate how often you think about him? | Our thoughts can reveal a lot about relationships. At a minimum, if you often think about a person, it means that you experience a sincere feeling of affection for him. |
| Step #3. Answer the question “Am I ready to sacrifice my interests?” | I absolutely agree that the main sign of love is the desire to give freely. It is impossible to love and, at the same time, not be ready to compromise. |
Spending time together
If a girl wants to fall in love with a young man, she needs to spend time in his company more often. It is unlikely that you will be able to evoke feelings for a stranger, so you should try to get to know the candidate better. It’s great if you manage to discover common interests and start a joint hobby. Such a pastime will certainly lead to rapprochement, and more topics of conversation will appear that are of interest to everyone. Joint attendance at social events, watching films, performances, and so on is also useful.
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Perhaps it is also worth deciding on a joint vacation, especially if people have known each other for a long time. Seeing a lover outside of usual circumstances, you can look at him in a new way, experience an interest that was not there before. Of course, a joint vacation in a romantic setting that evokes the right emotions is welcome.
