Recently, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about different theories of love, two of which Ned graciously parsed for me on Philoblog. Thinking about love in purely scientific terms simultaneously gets me off and makes me depressed. I love reading the cut-and-dry ways people describe really hulking, emotionally charged subjects like “falling in love” on Wikipedia. There’s something amusing and almost charming about trying to define these really undefinable concepts in scientific terms.
Wikipedia describes “falling in love” as “the process of moving from a feeling of neutrality towards a person to one of love.” How clinical! Granting only scientific credence to a concept that dominates so much of our drive to live is sociopathic in some ways. Love is chemical, sure, but I refuse to believe that the men that I’ve loved–the people that I’ve loved–have only etched their meaning into my life because of the way my brain reacts to them.
I’m really attracted to the Alberoni Theory of Love, which states that “people fall in love when they are ready to change, or to start a new life.” In this way, falling in love is really a choice. We tend to think that “the heart wants what it wants,” which is true, but you have to be willing to let the heart want in order for it to want! You don’t necessarily choose to love, but you choose to be capable of loving. I have dated far too many men who have refused to make this choice.