Reply to comment

I don’t think that there is an easy solution to defining love. I absolutely agree that it is a completely subjective experience dependent on the individual and situation. There are many different types of love. You love your family and friends differently from your significant other. Since these two types of love are so incredibly different from one another should they both even be classified as love? The drives, expectations, and feelings associated from different types of love are infinitely variable as are the factors influencing love in general.

A recent study found that the number of mate choices an individual is faced with directly affects what details that that individual uses in order to pick a potential mate. The study found that when individuals attended small speed dating events, the daters paid much greater attention to factors that could be thoroughly evaluated such as the person’s education level, type of job, and whether or not the person ever smokes, etc. At larger speed dating events, participants judged based on qualities that could be judged quickly such as height and weight. Basically, this study shows that these are the same brains in both scenarios. It is the power of environmental constraints to affect our romantic fate. The human brain, although quite powerful, is not able to evaluate everything at once, and when faced with many choices, the brain decides based on what it can evaluate most closely.

            Therefore, if the environment so greatly affects who we decide to fall in love with in general, wouldn’t this affect how we love just as strongly? If we are faced with a small dating pool we pick our interests based on different qualities then if we had a larger pool of options. Finding love with someone tall, dark and handsome may be a very different pattern of falling in love with someone who has gone to Harvard Divinity School. I guess the main point I am trying to get at is if there are infinite ways in which to fall in love, and love someone, why even bother trying to confine something bigger than any one definition? Maybe love is more like a personality. Personality isn’t localized to one area of the brain. It interacts between biology and the environment, among other things. We all have personalities, but we don’t have the same one. Perhaps it’s the same thing with love. Love is a not a singular entity, but is rater a function of many.