We’ve settled for calling it a chemical reaction and left it at that. Fine. But what is love actually for?
If you fall for someone, does that make them love you back more? Anything that becomes abundant loses its value — so if you shower someone with love and attention, doesn’t its value drop too? So what does that actually tell us?
But really, what is love for?
Don’t jump straight to “it’s just evolutionary sexual desire” — no, that’s not it either. Do we fall for a person’s body, or for their behavior, their actions? People assume we fall for the body, but that’s not quite right — you feel a physical attraction, and then you project certain behavioral patterns onto that unfamiliar person in your head. The moment you see they’re not actually like that, the spell breaks. So really, we fall for someone’s behavior. Looks just make it easier to get the chance to actually get to know someone in the first place.
Do you want the person you love to help you, or do you want to help them? I think you want to help them — you lose yourself a little in the process, and that’s fine, as long as they’re happy (maybe I’m idealizing this a bit too much?). Love is such an intense feeling that, naturally, it’s hard for it to last forever at that intensity. As you notice the gaps between the person and the idealized version in your head, that sharp, intense love melts into a warmer, steadier affection.
So what does love actually do?
We are not the idealized person in someone’s head. When we see someone close to that ideal, there’s a strange instinct that says: it’s fine if I disappear a little, as long as that person — the one close to the ideal — gets to thrive. In other words, love can genuinely be costly to the person feeling it. Don’t fall in love, then! Well — as if saying that actually stops it from happening. In the end, love isn’t something you choose. But the chance it might be reciprocated is such a huge jackpot that people dream about falling in love, believe in it, and never stop talking about it.
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