Falling in love

Poststructural Pub
1

Falling in love is one of the best things in human life, according to the songs.
And we write poems about it too. And we swear undying loyalty.

But it goes on in other species, for instance, in birds, some of which mate for life.
There seems to be an internal mating program in many animals. It gets triggered
by seeing somebody who appears to be nubile and situated so as to be
a healthy egg layer or whatever. Then a built-in pattern of behaviour
kicks in, it’s largely innate, it drives one closer to the other critter,
there’s a dance or anyhow some form of courtship that brings
the two closer, leading finally to sexual intercourse that creates
a deep attachment.

We’re
no exception.

The point is that this is a psycho-biological syndrome.
We can’t stop it from being triggered–one sees her and it kicks in, one
can’t get her off one’s mind.
But it can be interrupted by some seriously disruptive event or
discovery (she turns out to be much older that I thought). But once
it really gets rolling it’s very hard to stop,
there is a sense of being out of control. That lack of control,
of being swept off one’s feet, is part of what makes us love
falling in love.

The syndrome seems to atrophy or at least weaken with
advancing age, especially when one is too old to reproduce.

So falling in love is an innate animal behaviour that got selected for because
it’s our way of mating, which increases the prospect that our progeny
will survive and our genes stay in the gene pool. That is, having a mate,
which is what the process ends in, means the optimal situation for
the survival of offspring. In birds, in humans…

Note that, when this happens, it isn’t just sex, indeed, though
it leads to sex it’s much more oceanic emotionally than
mere physical desire.

Once the process ends and you have a mate, the ‘falling in love’ part of it
generally ends. It’s done its biological work.

Maybe I’m confused but I find it strange that the most meaningful
thing in human life is a quasi-instinctual syndrome, innate, over
which we have little control, that got programmed into us
by natural selection because it increased the prospect
of our offspring’s survival.

I suppose the birds are singing
‘They say that building a nest is wonderful,
It’s wonderful, so they tell me…’
Maybe birds are in ecstasy when they build
that nest.

We’re like that.

2

That’s an awfully big assumption to be starting off from. Aren’t you supposed to prove these sorts of things, or provide corroborating evidence?

djm

3

I think that is open to debate.

Was it not Rudyard Kipling who said “A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke”?

4

I don’t value love. I value achievement.

5

Love means never having to say you’re sorry. BTW many, many species of birds in comitted relationships, well they ain’t always so faithful if ya get ma drift.

6

Like dwest says, a lot of species described as “mating for life” were victims of wishful thinking on the part of the original, innaccurate, observers.

Now let me think. Who was it who said “What is this beautiful daughter of your but a bag of excrements”? :smiling_imp:

7

Not the most meaningful thing in human life.
But certainly the one that generates the biggest wallop of emotion for many people. Hence the
music theme, because I suppose most art springs from sublimated emotion.

afaic, the most meaningful thing is relationship, but not necessarily the emotional sweep
of in-loveness, and not even necessarily romantic relationships. It’s just having people.

8

Quite.

9

Had 'em. Got rid of 'em. Lotta excess bagage.

djm

10

The TV ad for Verizon Wireless shows a fairly large group of people standing nearby while the subject of the commercial comments, “I’ve got people”. I’ve got more people, too, since I married my wife, who has seven brothers and sisters with many aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandkids, etc. I thinking that having a group of supporting people in an extended family, church, or interest group goes a long way in helping us stay sane in a world with its many trials.

11

I think there is a point where there can be too much of a good thing. My immediate family consists of 23 individuals, that’s one parent, full siblings with spouses and spawn. Add half siblings with spouses and spawn and step-siblings with spouses and spawn, and I just can’t keep up. On top of that there are the families of in-laws, and the families of some in-laws spouses, many of whom are integral members of this family, it just too many people! Our birthday card budget is over extended, I have to sing happy birthday into an answering machine about three times a month, I have accidentally sent the same anniversary card to the same family members three times in a row. On some weekend days I barely step outside because I’m on the phone non-stop! This is sanity? Yeah! I don’t think so! :laughing:

12

Flow charts help.

djm

13

OK, OK, I amend ‘the most meaningful thing in human life.’ It now goes
‘widely considered one of the most meaningful things in human life.’

Consider that falling in love is at the center of so much art, so many movies,
sooooo many songs, so many poems. Consider sayings like ‘Love makes the world go round.’
Nobody sings ‘They say that having a large support group available in times of need
is wonderful, it’s wonderful, so they say…’ There are few songs to achievement.

It’s the thing that sweeps us off our feet, that makes life (for awhile anyway)
magical. And the point is that it’s an involuntary syndrome! One finds oneself
being dragged willy nilly into an unexpected and not necessarily prudent
emotional and physical intimacy with a stranger. I’ve often found it a bit scary.

Mating season, campers!

It’s interesting that, in many cultures, married people often meet for the first time at their wedding.
Marriages are arranged and generally the parents of both young people are far more successful
at picking a suitable mate than the kids would be. Falling in love plays no part in it.
People sometimes fall in love after they marry.

14

Well…people are critters. What can you say? We just like to express our critterness in all kinds of fancy, wordy, creative ways.
Throw into the stew that we have the means to utterly bewilder ourselves via existentialism and you get something that
really doesn’t know how to deal with itself.

15

:laughing: :thumbsup: :laughing:

16

I’ll stick with testosterone, estrogen, pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin, and dark chocolate. All that mumbo jumbo about love just confuses me.

17

Sorry, but this is nonsense. The same cultures forbid divorce, or make it ridiculously difficult to obtain, especially for the woman, who is routinely beaten to a pulp, which is also often a cultural more for these peoples. How does this make a marriage “successful”?

djm

18

It might help to think of this the way evolutionary biologists do, which is to separate “proximate” mechanisms from “ultimate” ends.

When we see a puppy playing, it looks like it’s having fun. Sometimes you’ll hear people say, “no, the puppy is not having fun, it’s learning skills that will help it become a better hunter or better socialized in the pack.” That’s wrongheaded, though, because it provides an ultimate answer to a proximate question. Yes, the propensity of some animals to play is perpetuated because it makes them better at capturing food or living within a social group. That’s the ultimate reason for play. But the proximate reason for play is that it’s fun: it provides the animal with immediate pleasure. The sensation of pleasure or enjoyment is a mechanism that ensures we engage in behaviors that have an ultimate evolutionary advantage.

Similarly, you can dismiss “falling in love” as an evolutionary ruse to get us to procreate. But the proximate mechanism of love itself is just as wonderful and distracting as all the songs and poems say it is.

The other thing to keep in mind is that not every trait in our physical or emotional makeup is acted upon by natural selection. Some things just go along for the ride. Hair color, for example, isn’t something that has a clear selective advantage except maybe in extreme climates. So while I believe that the feeling of falling in love is probably something that is maintained by natural selection (people who don’t fall in love are not likely to pass on their genes), the specifics of falling in love and our specific responses to falling in love are not necessarily pre-programmed.

19

To DJM:

I was thinking about India, where I lived for several years. Especially the last year, when I
was teaching in Calcutta, many of my colleagues were women. I became good friends
with some of them, I visited their homes, and they told me about their lives
and their marriage. Sometimes they first set eyes on their husband under the marriage
canopy. These marriages were very happy. It is often observed by foreigners
who get deep into Indian society that Indian marriages are happy.

The husband/wife relation in India is a professional role. Basically you do your job
and nobody can have any grievance with you. As people don’t marry for love,
the fact that they don’t love each other isn’t a reason for dissatisfaction or
divorce. Emotional expectations are low, hence demands are low, hence
people often come to love one another who wouldn’t have a chance
in a Western marriage. One colleagues husband was a refrigeration engineer,
she a philosopher, and he didn’t have a philosophical bone in his body.
So she had her circle of friends, he his, and they loved each other
enormously, raised children happily. He had been a good husband,
she had been a good wife, and that was enough for them.

Indian families tend to work very well, partly because they are extended
so that child rearing is shared among a number of people. People are
extraordinarily close and sons and mothers usually love each other very much.
An Indian mother usually knows exactly the sort of girl who will
make her son happy. So Indian arranged marriages are much better
at pairing compatible people than those arranged
by Cupid.

As a nod to modernity, young couples scheduled to
be married in arranged marriages get to meet.
These interviews typically happen in ice cream parlors.
A shy boy and girl are sitting at table, the empty dishes
before them. They are telling each other about
themselves, the first time in their lives they ever have done such a thing.
The young man, after an awkward silence,
blurts out: ‘I collect stamps!’

20

I have a number of good friends who are from India including my former climbing partner who might as well be family. His marriage was arranged before he was twelve, only he didn’t know it. He met a girl here is the States that he fell for only to be told by his mother that she had selected a wife for him. Being the dutiful only son he followed his parents wishes and broke his own heart. He respects his wife but is not, nor has been in “love” with his wife. His mother and wife tried to make the same type of arrangements for his daughter and he finally put his foot down. Another friend came to the States for school, met a girl he wanted to marry, parents said no way, his older three brothers said do it. His parents never spoke with him again, never saw his wife or children. Another two friends who are married, each came from parents who had arranged marriages, their parents thankfully broke with the tradition, her parents were married when they were 12 and 10, of course they didn’t live together until 18 and 16. Our friends met here in school, they are both from Punjab, he is Sikh and she was Hindu, I suspect that couldn’t have been an arranged marriage back in India.