Why people do fall in love - Common Sense Analysis

Oxford dictionary: from the Latin amor: strong affection that drives us towards the object of our desires; inclination of the soul and heart; affection; passion; exclusive inclination; theological grace.

Why do people fall in love, or claim to have fallen in love?

...I was wondering this morning in my 40 minutes walk to work.

First of all I remember my Greek studies and thought of those geniuses who had three words to designate love. Eros, Philos and Agape.

Eros is the healthy love between two persons that justifies life and perpetuates the human race. AKA: Sexual love

Philos is the sentiment of affection we dedicate to others. AKA: companionship, affection.

Agape, which contains both Eros and Philos, goes far beyond “liking” someone. Agape is total love, the love that devours those who feel it, AKA: Love with the Capital L.

Now that this has been clarified, I got to thinking of various reasons for which people believe, want to believe, want to make other people believe that they are in love.

1. To recover from a break up, people do fall for the first person crossing their way and who likes them - this is related to the ancestral fear to remain alone and unwanted after a break up, embracing the thougth of  'it could be now or never'.

2. People do fall in love simply because they are ready to love, and are lucky enough to meet a Soul Mate -  this is pure love, it happens rarely, especially in the course of one life.

3. People do fall in love with other people who already love them - this is self-induction to love, and preserves people from getting hurt by refusals.

4. People do fall in love because they want to, they don't want to be alone, they need someone near and they meet someone that asks them, indirectly, to fall in love with them - this is a sort of indirect manipulation not to lose someone, usually that only person able to stay next to us.

5. People fall in love also because everyone says they should, therefore without even knowing what falling in love truly means - this is the quiet living idea of love, the convenience of love.

6. As for point 1, people do fall in love with random people just because they fear the 'now or never', so whenever someone compatible shows up they are reluctant to let him or her go, just fearing to be alone - this is the 'last chance' of love, for insecure people who need to feel appreaciated and are just contented to be with someone, anyone with whom they can share ordinary things.

7. In order to defeat solitude and to have someone whom they can call more than just a friend, and as in point 6, with whom they can share ordinary things, people do also fall in love as if it was a sport activity - this is perpetual falling in love with whomever comes around.

8. Moreover, people do fall in love because they believe in love and they genuinely think that someone can be meant to be his/her Soulmate - this is the most painful love once rejected or once it ends, and sometimes questions people's beliefs.

9. People do fall in love because they project on someone their needs, basically seeing someone as he/she is not, but firmly believing that what they see is true - this is desperation in love.

10. People do fall in love for someone who is inaccessible, someone who could never love them back for various reasons - this the sweet pain of loving someone who can never be yours.

11. There are the dreamers, those who want a story that no-one else can understand, and they prefer difficult love to no love - difficult love seems better love (this was a suggestion by a friend :))


12. Finally, for now at least,another suggestion by the same friend, there are those in love with love, always needing to be in love for love's sake - those are those who can never be truly faithful to themselves and that can cheat at every sight.

Some of you (me included) may think that all these points refer to forms of falling in love which are not really and truly 'falling in love'.
But please do remember that people who experience all the above do call ALL OF THEM 'falling in love.

As for scientific analysis

In the year 2000, researchers Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki, of University College in London, located the areas of the brain activated by romantic love by using a series of students who claimed to be madly in love. In the first place, they concluded that the zones affected by the sentiment are far smaller than they had imagined, and are the same as those activated by stimuli of euphoria, such as in using cocaine, for example. Which led the authors to conclude that love is similar to the manifestation of physical dependence provoked by drugs.

Also using the same system of scanning the brain, scientist Helen Fisher, of Rutgers University, concludes that three characteristics of love (sex, romanticism and mutual dependence) stimulate different areas of the cortex, and further conclude that we can be in love with one person, want to make love to another, and live with a third.

When it comes to Poetry instead

we have Oscar Wilde on one side

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves

By each let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword."

(Ballad of Reading Jail, 1898)

and Emily Dickinson on the other side

"...that love is everything, it's everything we know about love..."

Ah, Fooling Romance.