Dissecting Love

I'm just so fascinated by how I fell in love with you. It's kind of weird to call it love. I think we, as a society, have instituted certain protocols for love. An important protocol is you shouldn't call it love until both of you agree that it's love.

You have to go through the motions of dating, courting, the sexual and emotional tensions, and all that jazz -- go through the rituals of falling in love to call it love.
But what even is love? I think it's all about intentional choosing. But what do I even mean by intentional choosing (using fancy terms, clearly I am becoming an academic)? One big part of it is physicality. Pretty face, nice body, cute nose, and all that. And I guess the other big part is commitment. I don't imply commitment from a heteronormative sense. But more like a moral responsibility of choosing to care the loved one, the responsibility of making them happy, giving them pleasure, just making this existence in the world a bit more bearable, actually not just bearable, more enjoyable.

I think most of us are easily capable of doing this, and I don't think it's that hard, to be honest. I think the hardest and most difficult bit is the motions of falling in love. And reaching the stage of agreement that two people are in love (again not exclusively).

I think there is a big difference in being in love and falling in love. I argue that being in love comes from more individual humanly instincts (maybe not, this deserves a different exploration) whereas falling in love is more sociological.

This might sound clinical but falling in love, from an evolutionary POV, is more of a process of choosing your mate, right? Like you want to choose someone who gives you a sense of safety and security. From this evolutionary POV, the sense of safety and security is immensely important. We want to feel valued in the society and that our existence is not inconsequential. I am sure someone has theorized this already, but we are kind of trying to choose a person who will make your position secure and valuable in the hierarchy of society. And this sense of security and value is subjective to an extent, shaped by our lived experiences with subconscious undertones of evolutionary impulses, which are quite deceiving. However, from this POV, I think the attachment theories make sense in implying how our sense of safety is shaped by our childhood experiences. Our experiences are shaped by the society. That's why I argue that falling in love is sociological. Falling in love is the yearning for a person who embodies traits and qualities that you wish you had.

I think I know why I fell in love with you. I yearned for the person I imagined you as in my head. You might not be that person but I think that's okay. I guess that's where the whole process of dating and getting to know the person comes in, right? Where one tries to confirm and clarify if that is really the person that they had imagined to be.

But unfortunately it's a time consuming two-way process that's more cerebral and shaped by the 'acceptables norms and practices of dating.' Stupid stuff.

Anyhow, I loved what you were/are(?) in my head. I once in a while wonder if our potential connection could have been something. Not from a heteronormative lovey-dovey relationship sense. I think/thought we could have been great friends with lots of fun - both physically and intellectually. My stupid brain is just so good at imagination. But yeah, nothing is real until it happens. However, most things also happen just in our heads. I think the love we imagine in our heads is often just so beautiful.