What does it mean to 'be in love'?

my lover asked me this question, so I wrote this email to her in response... let me know what you think

thanks

hi  

what does it mean to be "in love"? 

i guess the best place to start is by asking what love is. we live in a culture that glorifies and elevates 'love' to a level that more often than not, causes mortals to be disappointed and devastated by it. throughout history, the arts have been devoted to expressing love in many forms, some of which present love as something that is beautiful and desired, while some present it as a much more practical expression, such as being partners or as a couple. behind the imagery, the concept of love itself, as i understand it, seems to to mean very different things to many different cultures. to some, it is an expression of respect more than it is an expression of lustful desire, while many cultures seem to be quite happy with the idea that love and sex are the same thing. i do not hold to either position.

for me, love is the reaction of hormones in our brains as we are drawn to someone else. 

well, it is more than that, but ultimately, that is the basic mechanism is the same in all of us. 

so, the real question of being in love, is far more interesting to me. i can love ice cream and hockey, but i can't be 'in love' with either of them as the idea of being in love by its very nature, requires there to be a person who is capable of returning those same feelings to you on some level. i love my kids, but i won't be in love with them ever! so, they must be very different things.

when we start to examine being 'in love', we must look first to the romantic notions presented over the 1000's of years of recorded history... well, maybe not that far back... but we must not ignore that for all of the time humans have 'felt' love, it has been something welcomed, and often, the cause of pain and torment to those who indulge its charms. i think that for the most part, the concept of love has been tied directly to the concept of the 'soul' that has become so prevalent in western and some eastern cultures. i won't get into the religious aspects of love but to say that most that rely on a deity, ascribe love to that deity (let's not get into the polytheistic war gods and the like but stick with the concept that we created gods to give us a sense that we were not alone and that the deity gives us some sense of being loved that is ever present and beyond the need of human interaction...) so that we could have this outside presence in our lives that would be a source of constant affirmation as well as a source of terror when we made mistakes. it is that fear/terror/love notion that i think is the source of much of the problems we have as humans to actually understand and express what we mean when we say we are in love or simply that we love someone at all. 

to be in love - that elusive mix of emotions, reason, passion, lust, respect, loyalty and many other things that seem to have nothing to do with love and how we attempt to define it, yet without these things, love seems pointless and often hollow. why is that? how do these things and many other things, all converge in the chemical burn going on in my head and the head of anyone who claims to be in love with me. this is the heart of the issue. if we stick to a naturalistic view of humanity, then there can be no 'soul mate' out there as we have no souls as described by the greeks and many of the religions out there that love to assert this to condemn it to some form or eternal torment if we don't accept their religious claims, but i digress...for hundreds, if not thousands of years, societies have held up love, or 'true love' as some ideal that need be sought after and clung to, often to the detriment of the society seeking it. we hold the view that love is some standard that is somehow not simply a common reaction to those we tend to keep close to us for various reasons. we love them, we enjoy someone, we respect and desire to be near someone. all of these things can be a part of what we call loving someone. how is this different from that elusive 'being in love' feeling? let's look at this.

when two people look across the crowded room at each other and their eyes connect, what is actually happening to cause either or both of these people to get aroused on one extreme, or utterly repulsed by what they see. how can something so seemingly innocuous elicit such powerful at times or, on a lesser scale, spark some sort of interest in each other. how does this work? why does this work?

well, to get all sciencey, we as a species, in general, have an 'attract-o-meter' that is triggered within 7/10ths of a second of viewing someone whether in a picture or across a room. why do we have this? what could it be for? well, from my understanding of it, it is a natural device that is the defining drive we have to desire a mate or to, simply put, want to have sex with someone. how does that explain or relate at all to 'being in love' you ask? well, as i see it, this is, at a primal level, how we interact from moment to moment every day of our hormonal induced post-adolescence years. we don't simply have sex with everyone we want for a lot of reasons, and our societies have been structured, for the most part, around the family and furthering our off-spring into the future as we watch the cycle of life continuously go round and round. we have determined, that for the most part, we thrive in social groups and structures as opposed to being on our own. we need the structure of a group to support and rely on for many things. within this context, we have developed, as most mammals and other forms of animals have, a form of ritualistic mating that consumes most of our adult lives. 

it is from this framework, we have, over the millennia, decided that being 'in love' carries with it some special status that is revered and regarded so much, that entire industries are built around the day two people formally announce and declare their love to each other and express vows to each other and those around them in often glowing and eloquent terms. to what end? is there some 'extra' meaning in reality to the idea of being 'in love' with one (or many in the case of polyamorous people...) person at the exclusion of all others as many vows say in some form. what is it about being in love that drives such responses from all of these things? why does being in love inspire riveting passion and sometimes deadly jealousy? do we somehow ascribe to 'in love' such powerful emotions that it can end in deadly force when encroached upon? from what i can see and understand, humans in general can be very territorial (thank you chimps for that) and that often extends to 'possessions' (not saying a wife is a possession, but for many years, it was that way.. and still is in some parts of the world...) including any spouse they hold. the word chattel applied to female spouse in many western divorce laws and still is on the books, so this is a deeply entrenched concept in our society. so, what does being in love have anything to do with this? well, here is the core of my thought on this. we use the term 'being in love' to describe the process by which we allow ourselves to let the hormonal rush we feel in a 'new' relationship, or perhaps, when feelings change for a good friend over time, or the love at first sight situation. this can happen quickly or can take years, but basically, as i see it, being in love is taking the raw emotional and hormonal responses and making serious and conscious choices to desire to keep the object of those emotions near to us. within this context, we can act on our lust, or we can develop aspects of the relationship in other ways. we desire to be with this person, we desire to see our lover grow, learn, be happy, feel loved, cherished, wanted, craved, hungered after... and all those other things we apply to the base rush we feel. this is why relationships are difficult to maintain over time as the hormones fade and the relationship becomes work. without a solid base of those other things, like honour, respect, loyalty, honesty, compassion, all of which are nurtured and held dearly to those who desire to live in a loving relationship with someone(s). 

so, to me, being in love with someone is an act of my will and a focusing my emotions on one (or more) partner(s) as we move together to support and care for each other while still loving those others in our lives and holding them dearly in a different way, but loving still the same. for me, this is a very powerful declaration of intent and desire to express myself to my partner and not some glib statement made like 'i love ice cream'. it embodies every fibre of my being and is a revelation that i acknowledge the special place my partner has in my life and that i do not want to NOT have that lover in my life. the feeling of being in love is that which fuels my passion to nurture, inspire, care for, desire and many other things that i am more than happy to direct at my partner in any way i can. being in love in not about sex or sexuality as they are not necessary at all to express such love.

to be in love with someone is perhaps the most powerful natural human response of them all, perhaps even stronger than the ones we direct at our kids which is saying a lot! to be in love is often an all-consuming fire in our being that can inspire the artist, change the course of humanity and be the most enriching yet most destructive force there is. sadly, society has sold it as something that seems cheap and and often vulgar as it seeks to equate it directly to sex and our sexuality. it is far more than that. as such, it does need to be held in high regard, but it also needs to be expressed in our society as something that we can all experience and something that needs to be celebrated as the vital starting point of any relationship we choose as we move to some form of intimate, loving relationship with our lover, our partner - the one we allow to capture our emotional volcano and hope they return theirs to us.

this, to me, is what it means to be 'in love' with someone or partners.