It’s normal to see people fall in love for one person or another, and yet for such a common thing, it is surprising how most are not aware of how it works, why it happens, or what it implies. It is easy to think that we know how things work based on our own experiences, but a person cannot tell by him/herself what is going on behind the scenes; that is, in our brains. The problem is not recognizing that we feel things, it’s knowing why. When someone is in love, and they feel an impulse to kiss whoever they are in love with, the person is aware. However, what the person probably does not know is what causes these impulses. There are more than enough claims of people saying that love and science do not mix, and their opposing claims saying love isn’t real and it’s just human instinct. Both extremes would be wrong in this case. Love is a combination of many things like actions and emotions, so this is meant to help you understand love and how it works, help you have a healthy and loving relationship, and tell you why some relationships fail and some ways to notice if yours will.

 So then, what is love? Simply put, it is your primal instinct of reproduction evolved to feel affection for the partner stronger enough to create emotions for them as well. However, there is much more to it than just instincts and evolution. Love is separated into three stages, being “lust”, “attraction”, and “affection”. Lust is a stage where sex hormones are produced at a faster rate, leading to a sexual desire for the other person, even though there isn’t an emotional attraction. The second phase, attraction, is the stage where you develop feelings for the person, and they start invading your thoughts. The three main hormones developed at this time are dopamine, which is a pleasure hormone, adrenaline, which causes your blood pressure to rise and makes you actually heat up when around the other person, and serotonin, which is what makes you think of the other person to stimulate your brain, and a lack of it can lead to depression. Because of the dopamine, love is actually addictive, since being around the one you love produces it and being away creates desire. During this stage, some changes in the brain occur. When in love, the brain starts behaving much like a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder with them, the effects of love resemble effects of cocaine, and it can often cause more stress and anxiety hormones to produce in the body. These can make someone very impatient to see their lover again when not with them, and when they are around, they give off the same effect as adrenaline, making any experience a little more thrilling. The third and final phase, affection, is where your relationship is so intimate and close that you are finally ready to settle with them forever. When we are attracted to someone, often times our thoughts and our words do not match, and we act dumb around a crush that we are not fully comfortable with, and this is actually because areas of the brain responsible for decision-making and other similar factors are less active.

Knowing what is happening in our brains and bodies while in love helps us understand what we are going through, but it’s not enough to tell anyone some things that could potentially make a relationship longer, or how to start one in the first place. Everyone has that friend that always picks the perfect outfit to go on a first date, fixing their hair for hours, just to impress their date. However, sight is not the most important sense when it comes to love; surprisingly, it is actually smell. Liking how someone smells makes a person much more prone to falling in love than a pretty dress. This dates back to way before we were fully evolved humans. Someone’s natural smell is what determines whether a person is compatible with another, so to speak. By compatible I mean how healthy and smart your children would be if you were to have them with this person. After scent are sight and sound Many people think that what you say to the other person matters a lot, and yet it actually only makes up for 7% of communication. 38% is the tone and speed that they use to speak, as opposed to the words, and the other 55% is actually body language. As stated earlier, it is easy to mask a scent, so the next most reliable test to see if a relationship will work out is sex. Of course, this has the included risks of pregnancy and STD’s so it is very important to be responsible and be safe. If the couple enjoyed the sex, statistically speaking the relationship is more likely work out. Additionally, it makes the relationship more intimate, making the bond closer. For the people who haven’t found love yet, there is a rather successful experiment that someone called Arthur Arun created to see if he could make people fall in love. His method was simple and involved simply three steps. The first one was to find a complete stranger, then second was to talk to them and share some secrets and intimate details for half an hour, and finally stare deeply at the other person’s eyes for four minutes nonstop. Most of his subjects ended up in a long lasting relationship, and two of them actually got married.

There are many reasons for a break up, not just one. For example, I earlier stated that scent makes you fall in love with another person. Yet, this creates a dilemma, because most people wear perfume or cologne as well as deodorant, masking their natural scent and being attractive to nearly anyone, which is one explanation of why some relationships may not work. By wearing any perfume of any sort, you will undoubtedly attract more people and this could be seen as a good thing. However, you may also be attracting people who are not even slightly compatible with you and eventually this will end in either a breakup or a very forced relationship full of dishonesty. While using perfume isn't a bad thing, it can lead to getting into relationships that aren't meant to be. I also talked about sex and how it helps determine if a relationship is good, and obviously if it is not enjoyable it won’t work out, but there is another problem. Some people want to wait until marriage to have sex, but this can be a problem because sex is still an important part of a couple and to find out after waiting this long that it shouldn’t happen could cause problems. It is important to note that no one should ever force someone else into having sex, even for this reason, but it is also important to be flexible and open to ideas. Other than sex, there are still many reasons for a break up. If you are having trouble with your relationship, it is usually because there is either a lack of trust and honesty in a relationship or because of lack of communication, which are both very similar problems and have the same roots. Some reasons are that people stop loving the other person as much as they once did, falling in love with another person, or even people wanting to get revenge on their partner for something they did. Another more recent reason is that because of social media, we set our standards much higher than they should be, making us more stubborn and liking less people, limiting your options greatly. These are just some potential reasons, but there are many more.

 The decisions that you make in a relationship are what will shape it. Being dishonest results in a sad and broken relationship, and many times we are this way with the people we don’t truly love. Intuition in this case is just as important as reason, because if you feel like you don’t truly love someone, it probably means you don’t, and it is better to save yourself a broken heart and aim for people who you feel like you truly love. In the end, love isn’t really a state of mind or a feeling. It is a combination of actions and emotions that solidify your bond with another person, until the bond is strong enough to remain together forever. There may be many tricks to make people fall in love with you, but in the end, fake love will always end with a broken heart.

Sources:

Brogaard, Berit. "11 Reasons Why We Fall in Love." Psychology Today. N.p., 12 Jan. 2017. Web. 3 Apr. 2017.

Johnson, Amy. "7 Reasons Why Some Relationships Don't Work." Lifehack. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2017.

Krauss, Susan. "The Eight Reasons that People Cheat on Their Partners." Psychology Today. N.p., 18 Sept. 2012. Web. 3 Apr. 2017.

Sanoff, Rachel. "What Happens When You Fall in Love?" Bustle. N.p., 29 May 2015. Web. 3 Apr. 2017.

"The Science of Love." Your Amazing Brain. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2017. .