Do we choose who we fall in LOVE with? Or is it a mystery? Opinions please!

[netrie]

I'd LOVE to hear the male and female points of view on this!

 

Be safe and have a great weekend,

 

Netalia

[ycart]

hi

 

i dont think we choose i think alot of it is fate im a great beliver in whats meant to be will be i dont know about soul mates though thought id found mine now not so sure

 

x

[Splatty]

As a guy I kinda think we choose. You meet lots of people, when you find one that you enjoy and have alot in common with you have the chance to fall in love. I guess meeting the person could be fate though.... guess I am no help.

[honey2005]

I think it's just something that happens. I guess we do have a little bit of control over it, like if we get dumped we can make ourselves stop loving that person, but I don't think we can make ourselves fall in love with someone.

[edgecrusher96]

As a female I think that we do choose who we love. We all have a mental 'script' of a person that we'd like to have a relationship with, and also who we'd never consider having a relationship with. Meeting a particular person may be a twist of fate, but loving them is something we choose to do, hopefully because they have a lot of commonality and affinity with us.

 

Yes, I firmly believe that people love (or not love) by choice. If a person seems to be irresistable then it's probably just lust or infatuation, for example when you think the person is hot and makes you go weak at the knees when you first meet them. It's unfortunate that many people believe that love is not something we do by choice and that we can't control who we love. This way of thinking has crept into our language, when we say that we are 'falling for someone' or 'crazy about someone'. Why the need to equate love with descent and insanity? A crazy person might not know what they're doing, but a person in love shouldn't be like that.

 

I might be a female but I do have brains, I'm not one of those women who only feel and don't think. It's a shame that so many people account for their feelings of love by an 'I can't help it' kind of mentality.

[moimeme]

What you said is true of love, but not of infatuation or 'limerence':

 

The primary characteristics of limerence can be summarized as intrusive, perhaps obsessive thinking about the limerent object and acute longing for reciprocation. Clinically, this state is marked by decrease of serotonin neurotransmitter, which leads to increase in emotional sensitivity and instability. People can become very irrational, almost insane. In particular, the desire for reciprocation can produce irrational beliefs ("she only had me arrested because her love is too strong for her to stand") and behavior ("if I cut off my ear she will see how much I love her"). Limerents often feel real physiological effects, including a physical pain in the chest ("heartache") when reciprocation seems unlikely, and euphoria when reciprocation seems evident. If love object does not reciprocate and does not handle the situation with care, people in this state can suffer severe depression, sometimes committing suicide - unrequited love is one of the major causes of suicide in the younger population.

For great info on love and limerence: http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/l/lo/love.html

[dyermaker]

Yeah, be careful about using the word limerence in your essay though--evidently it's not a real word.

[moimeme]

Pshaw. Guess we have to get people using it more so the dictionary gurus will take it on.