Love is a concept that no one is neutral about as its meaning varies among individuals. Nonetheless, since it is a frequent source of pleasure and pain, there is one thing that cuts across all the notions on this intricate issue.
Individuals often feel attracted to one another, to animals, or to innate materials all in the name of one concept: love. Thus, throughout all the ideas of love, it is evident that individuals often yield to the demands of their emotions and psychological temptations as they move from a feeling of neutrality towards another person and start falling in love.
The idea of falling in love is part of the natural selection. Transforming ones emotions towards a person to that of love takes place naturally.
The concept of “falling” means that it is not expected or planned and it is totally out of the control of the person. The term “fall” in this aspect is used in the same way just as in the phrase “falling down into ditch. People often get in love without even realizing what is happening to them. Some individuals have wrongly perceived that it is possible to go through life without having the feeling of love towards a person.
As they have discovered, getting through life without falling in love is an impossibility because as humans, our physiological make up is tuned such that we have to enter into a love relationship with someone in the course of our lives on this planet. Further, the science of love exhibits to us that falling in love is in fact ingrained in our physiological makeup and as a natural component of our being, we cannot help to fall in love with other people.
The design of the human physiology, as elaborated by evolution and natural selection, makes it possible for people to inevitably, uncontrollably, and irreversibly, fall in love with others. It has been argued that since human beings are social animals, who need the company of one another to continue to exist, then people have naturally developed a natural need to fall in love so as to be able to exist comfortably in the community with others.
On the other hand, some people claim that evolution and science have no association whatsoever with the idea of falling in love. They hold that people are subject to a mystifying, inexplicable compulsion that makes them to want to match up with the right individual for them. Further, this theory maintains that humans cannot resist falling in love due to the fact that things are designed to take place in a particular way.
Therefore, there is escaping the fact that one would ultimately get engaged with his or her perfect partner someday. However, it is important to point out this theory disregards the reality that often takes place. One cannot refuse to fall in love. Thus, escaping from this reality is a fruitless attempt. The more effort one puts in trying to escape from it, the more ones natural physiology says a big no! Falling in love is an inescapable reality that cannot be left for destiny to decide.
Studies done by various scientists have revealed that there are changes that take place in the brain when someone is in love. In a research study, scientists took functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brains of seventeen teenagers to examine the changes that take place when someone in love, and although they found certain gender differences in the brain activity of such people, they discovered that feelings of intensive romantic love were associated to the activity of the right caudate nucleus and right ventral right ventral tegmental areadopamine (Carey, para. 14).
These areas of the brain usually have increased concentration of dopamine hormone, which is a brain chemical that generates emotions of contentment and pleasure.
Further, scientists have observed that falling in love is developed from a form of three primary brain networks that evolved to mammalian reproduction, and these are “the sex drive that evolved to motivate individuals to seek sex with any appropriate partner, attraction, the mammalian precursor of romantic love, that evolved to enable individuals to pursue preferred mating partners, thereby conserving courtship time and energy” (British Broadcasting Corporation, para. 17).
And, lastly, “the brain circuitry for male-female attachment that evolved to enable individuals to remain with a mate long enough to complete species-specific parenting duties” (British Broadcasting Corporation, para. 18).
According to the Alberoni Theory, the idea of falling in love is the same as that of a religious or political loyalty and that individuals mainly enter into a loving relationship when they are ready to change or commence a new chapter in life (Redmond and Holmes, 22).
The socio-psychological theory maintains that falling in love is a quick process of destruction-reorganization termed as the nascent state, which is a state of pure creative energy in which the person no longer considers his or her previous identity to be important and becomes highly vulnerable to enter into a fulfilling relationship with another person.
After merging, the new unit thus created is considered to be highly charged with shared aims and eroticism; therefore, they develop a shared life project and a common perception of life.
People in the nascent state have to encounter various challenges to win the love of one another, and the idea of falling in love is not a regression, but it is an essential stepping-stone for establishing future fulfilling relationship. Thus, this theory suggests how the idea of falling in love is important for people to partner up in life.
Falling in love is important for the purposes of procreation. Since the continuation of the human species is realized by means of a sexual relationship between men and women, this implies that the men will usually go for women who are most fertile and that women will go for men who are have the healthiest seed for nurturing children.
This idea explains several things about our sexuality, including why males and females search for and mate with one another and why certain qualities are desirable (Jacobson, para. 6). The primal force of the need to exist has made the human sexuality to evolve to a level of sophistication that meets humanity’s desire to perpetuate their existence.
Thus, in conclusion, currently, people do not want to be regarded just as production machines to rear young ones. Therefore, to allure two individuals to become a unit, evolution and biology have worked together to instill the sexual act both with the feeling of satisfaction and with an air of mystery that moves people along the romantic expedition.
Works Cited
British Broadcasting Corporation. “How the brain reacts to romance.”News.bbc.co.uk. BBC News, 12 Nov. 2003. Web. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3261309.stm
Carey, Benedict. Watching New Love as It Sears the Brain. Sensualism.com. The New York Times, 31 May 2005. Web.
Jacobson, Simon. “Why do we fall in love.” Chabad.org. Chabad-Lubavitch Media Center, 2011. Web. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1211/jewish/Why-Do-We-Fall-in-Love.htm
Redmond, Sean, and Su, Holmes. Stardom and celebrity : a reader. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2007. Print.