In the spring of my eighteenth year I had this fascination
with trying to analyze and explain love. Though in all honesty it was more for
the purpose of convincing myself that love is not all bad and is something that
I want and deserve. Now the love I am talking about is people love, the love
either between two people, or the love one person has for another not the kind
of love someone has for say their favourite food. From there I catagorised love
in three different ways: Social, Familial, and Romantic.
Social love is the kind of love you have in association to
social relationships “friendships”. The love shared between close friends, the
friends that you can tell anything to, rely and depend on, the friends that you
are not afraid to be yourself around because that’s what they expect of you.
Familiar love is that which pertains to family. It is almost semi-obligatory
sort of love, because no matter how mad they make you, or even if you claim to
hate them, you still even if it is only subconsciously you always love your
family. Now I should clarify or add that this is within reason I am not saying
that every family has love in it, also I should mention that family transcends
blood because there’s more to being family than sharing blood. Finally,
romantic love, now I don’t mean the overly media saturated physical “love”.
This is one of the problems in today’s society, love is an overused word also
often misused meant to either receive physical gain or as some sort of
manipulation tool. The media also has transformed romantic love into something
that is needed to be happy, where as you don’t, you can easily be happy without
being in a romantic relationship. But romantic love is just more than the love
of friends, more than the obligatory love of family, because romantic love is
not obligatory or compulsory it is a very natural and involuntary action. To
paraphrase John Green “falling in love is like falling asleep: slowly, and then
all at once.”
Now let’s
talk about falling in romantic love, to be precise the physical effects and
sometimes dependency in relation to falling in love. The results could end up
being an addictive substance, not by any means comparable to caffeine, tobacco,
controlled and illegal substances or alcohol (Yes, I do consider alcohol to be
an addictive substance). Basically it is in the same category as any substance
that has an effect on one’s neurochemistry. When it comes to falling in love it
is the addiction to a combination of three specific chemicals that effect neurochemistry.
-Phenyl ethylamine: speeds up the flow of information between nerve cells.
-Dopamine: feel good chemical.
-Norepinephrine: stimulates adrenaline production, makes heart race
faster.
This blend of these chemicals is what is known commonly as the “falling
in love” stage of romantic relationships. The stimulation of that chemical
combination can actually override the part of the brain that controls logical
thinking. I have an issue with the addiction to this chemical concoction, and
how this makes people almost dependent on being involved in romantic
relationships to make themselves happy, and as a result when they aren’t in a
romantic relationship they lose their sense of “self”, all they want is to be
in a relationship and there can be no substitute for them having that feeling. These
people hop easily from one relationship to another only ever getting through
this first stage of a relationship. This helps promote the societal view that
to be happy you need to be in a romantic relationship, which is completely
false. The possible results of this are that they much like any other addict
want more and then once it reaches the point in which the feelings change and
the “high” wears off they believe that they have “fallen out of love” or they
go the other way and they continue on with it, allowing the relationship to progress
past the initial stage. But this could result in the relationship being either
co-dependent or one member being heavily emotionally dependent on the other,
whereas in a healthy relationship should be neither, but they should be independent
partners.
Now, that could have seemed very negative and I have yet to discuss the
power that love holds. If there is no power in love then it would not have anywhere
near the same effect on us that it does. But perhaps the power love has is all
due to us giving it that power. When you think about it, love can give you
strength to do many things; inversely love can break a person beyond repair,
and then turn around and fix it all. “Because when you love someone there’s no
limit to what you can accomplish.” This quote from the TV show Kyle XY implies
that there is some hidden power in love. This further explains how much power
love holds, this shows that love has the power to make mountains crumble. Now,
let us look at the saying “Time heals all wounds,” now in many ways this could
very well be true but as I see it this does not apply to “firsts” (To be clear,
firsts, first person you’re in love with, first person to break your heart, and
first person you sleep with). This is or
course within reason but, you don’t generally forget your “firsts” because they
are the ones who set down the initial framework for the future. Forgetting
and/or getting over your “firsts” is one of the hardest things a person can go
through in the scope of romantic relationships, and yet what is implied is that
what it takes for this to happen is time. Now how I see it is not time that helps
get you over your “firsts” but what really helps if finding that one person. But
I want to be clear that finding that person should not be your driving force or
ultimate priority. Because even though I said that finding that one person will
help you finally get over your “firsts”, friends will help greatly and being
with your friends a whole lot easier than finding a new person to be in a
romantic relationship with.
The questions of love.
Is love for me? Can I even be in love? Or will I just hurt them as they
try to love me? Is this what I want? Do I really want to open myself up for pain,
depression, anger or sadness all in hopes that it turns out differently.
The decision to choose to love or allow yourself to be loved belongs to
each person.
Post Script: Love is a natural force much like gravity, we as people
cannot limit it. We should strive to let love flow, not try to control it, but adequately
navigate it. As if we were a leaf in the wind getting.