Infatuation and love.

When does a person begin to realize that he is in love? When you can’t stop thinking about a beautiful stranger for a week or imagine asking a pretty co-worker out on a date? Love gives us clues. Scientists have long set out to find out what happens in the brains of lovers. They discovered a unique chemical composition that distinguishes love from feelings such as lust or affection. These dizzying signs may be part of falling in love.

All thoughts are concentrated on this person

When you are in love, you are able to attribute special, unique qualities to that person. In your eyes, he is the kindest, the bravest, the strongest and the most beautiful. This blind faith is produced due to increased levels of dopamine, a chemical that is responsible for attention and focus on a specific object. That's why you don't notice anyone around. For you in the whole world there is now only one person.

Idealization

People who are in love tend to focus on the positive qualities of their partner, while for some reason they tend to belittle their own abilities. They love to collect objects around themselves that will remind them of their loved one: photographs, cute souvenirs and gifts. This keen attention to detail is also developed by increasing levels of dopamine and norepinephrine, a biologically active substance produced in the adrenal glands. Scientists have linked norepinephrine to increased memory capacity in the presence of new stimuli.

Emotional and physiological instability

As you know, love takes away people's peace. A person in love experiences powerful mood swings. Now he is happy and smiling, a minute later he is worried and excited, and by nightfall he cannot fall asleep. When he sees the object of desire, he feels euphoria and a surge of strength, and in separation he feels anxiety, panic and a feeling of despair. In addition, lovers are no strangers to loss of appetite, trembling knees, increased heart rate and rapid breathing. You will be surprised, but similar mood swings are observed in drug addicts. Scientists conducted the following experiment: they showed lovers photographs of their chosen ones. The scans showed that this activates the same part as in drug addicts - the basal ganglia of the brain. This means that falling in love can safely be considered one of the forms of addiction.

When adversity brings you closer

When you go through fire, water and copper pipes with another person, it brings you closer than ever. From a scientific point of view, the increase in desire can again be attributed to a familiar neurotransmitter that activates the reward center in the brain. When people have dealt with adversity together, dopamine-producing neurons are sent to the medial cortex.

Partner Obsession

Did you know that 85 percent of lovers' thoughts are focused on the object of their desire? This means they think about their partner most of the time. This form of obsessive behavior is called intrusive behavior. This may be caused by a decrease in serotonin levels in the central nervous system.

The desire to be near you all the time

Lovers regularly show signs of dependence on their relationship. They are characterized by wild jealousy, a desire to control their partner and be close to him all the time. In addition, they develop some phobias. For example, they are afraid of being rejected and cannot stand separation. Even after a breakup, the abandoned partner will retain feelings of tender affection for some time. Functional magnetic resonance imaging has shown that this phenomenon is facilitated by the activation of several parts of the brain, including the cingulate gyrus, which plays an important role in the formation of cravings for cocaine.

Dream of dying on the same day

The emotional unity with your lover is so great that your dreams of a future together flourish. You see yourself getting married, raising children, then grandchildren, and inevitably dying one day. This can be explained in evolutionary terms as part of the reproductive strategy of humans. These dreams are based on primitive neural states: reward and euphoria. This allows you to put romantic interest on a par with other survival systems.

Sacrifice

Lovers feel strong feelings of empathy. This allows them to feel another person's pain as their own. This makes it possible to make any sacrifice for the sake of your loved one.

Desire to preen

Falling in love can streamline your daily priorities. You begin to pay more attention to your clothes, preen yourself, change your habits, and your manner of speaking. All this is aimed at better synchronization with your lover. To some extent, you try to copy the behavior of your significant other. But in fact, the best choice would be the desire to remain yourself, because your chosen one is unlikely to like having his exact copy nearby. At least the chemical processes in the brain are oriented towards the search for opposites. For example, testosterone-dominant individuals (people who are highly analytical and emotionally dry) often seek connections with individuals whose brains have high levels of estrogen and oxytocin (sensitive, nurturing, trusting, sensuality.)

The desire to be the only one

Those who are deeply in love also feel an unbridled sexual attraction to their partner. There are strong emotional components attached to this phenomenon. For example, passion develops a sense of possessiveness, the desire to be the only partner, wild jealousy and even suspicions of infidelity. This feeling could also develop due to evolution, when a person in love pushed other suitors away from his passion in every conceivable and inconceivable way. Thus, he received guarantees that the connection would not end, at least until the moment the child was conceived.

When emotional connection is paramount

Nevertheless, for lovers, not everything rests on sexual relations. The most important is the desire for emotional union. One scientific study found that 64 percent of lovers of both sexes disagree with the statement that sex is the most important part of a relationship.

When everything gets out of control

Often lovers declare that their passion is involuntary and uncontrollable. When psychologist Dorothy Tennow asked 400 Connecticut men and women to answer a questionnaire containing 200 statements about love, she found the following. Many participants agreed with the feeling of helplessness that can spontaneously overcome them. They noticed that their obsession had no logic at all and often appeared against their will. People note that someone seems to be controlling them.

Attachment

Unfortunately, love, like everything in this world, cannot last forever. Its main goal is to create a couple and procreate. This is why so many marriages fail. But unions are still not uncommon when love develops into long-term affection. It is worth noting that if for some reason there are physical or social barriers between lovers and they cannot see each other on a regular basis, then the love phase lasts longer.

Falling in love, and... Russian spelling dictionary

love- falling in love... Dictionary of the use of the letter E

Falling in love, falling in love, falling in love, falling in love, falling in love, falling in love, falling in love, falling in love, falling in love, falling in love, falling in love, falling in love (Source: “Full accentuated paradigm according to A. A. Zaliznyak”) ... Forms of words

LOVER, oh, oh; yeon, ena. Experiencing passionate love, attraction to someone or something; full of love. Madly in love. Meeting of lovers (noun). V. look. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

LOVE, love, many. no, female The state of being in love, being in love. “And love was calling and did not let me move away from the window.” A. Blok. Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

love- see lover; And; and. Youthful love. The atmosphere of love... Dictionary of many expressions

love- (3 f), R., D., Ave. falling in love... Spelling dictionary of the Russian language

And, well. Status by value adj. enamored. Katya was insulted and ashamed that her love was met with coldness, almost ridicule. A. N. Tolstoy, The Lame Master... Small academic dictionary

Acute emotional experience, attraction to the object of sexual choice. In contrast to the more permanent and stable feeling of love, it tends to quickly become saturated and fade away. Amorousness is an individual characteristic of a person,... ... Sexological encyclopedia

love- Love … Dictionary of Russian synonyms

Books

• Falling in love, Marina Burlakova. Marina Gennadievna Burlakova is an elegant person, her spiritual organization is delicate, her posture is aristocratic, and each of these epithets is reflected in her main talent - writing... eBook
• Falling in love, Alexander Ilyich Osipov. About young people falling in love. The first steps of a young couple, which lead to rapprochement and falling in love. From falling in love to love, the last step remains to be taken...

They dream about her, they yearn for her, sometimes they fear her... They wait for her, but sometimes she never comes. Love! Many people believe that without love there is no happiness in life. If you don’t know what it’s like to fall in love, then we will tell you about it from the point of view of physiology and psychology.

What is falling in love?

This is a strong feeling, positive, joyful, aimed at another person. Falling in love is characterized by a narrowing of consciousness when the object of passion is assessed biasedly. All his positive qualities are artificially exaggerated, and all his shortcomings seem to not exist. All the lover's attention is focused on the beloved, nothing else matters. Falling in love is associated with strong emotional stress, it is stress for the body, so this state cannot last long. As a result, falling in love develops into love or leads to disappointment.

Physiology of falling in love

Scientists examined the brains of people who were passionately in love. They noticed that the state of lovers is radically different from the state of people who simply experience sexual attraction, or those who are in a long-term relationship.

The lover exhibits the following physiological signs:

• dilated pupils;
• increased sweating;
• cardiopalmus;
• concentration of attention and memory decreases;
• loss of appetite;
• insomnia, anxiety;
• the whole body is in an excited state, as if after taking strong drugs.

Hormones of love

Our body produces special joy hormones, which are released into the blood and give us a feeling of joy and euphoria. It is these hormones that are actively produced during the initial phases of falling in love; it is they that prevent a person from soberly assessing the situation.

• Adrenalin. There is a large release of the hormone adrenaline, the stress hormone, into the blood; it is this hormone that inspires lovers to incredible feats. For the sake of their loved ones, they are ready to move mountains.
• Endorphins. During physical contact with a loved one, endorphins are produced - hormones of satisfaction and joy. The more endorphins are produced, the happier the person is.
• Dopamine. This hormone of determination, which is produced at the beginning of falling in love and forces a person to take active actions to attract the attention of the object of passion. Dopamine causes the desire to possess what will bring us bliss and pleasure.

Behavior of lovers

As already mentioned, the behavior of a lover is not logical and meaningful. From the outside, such behavior may look strange and inappropriate. The person seems obsessed with his feeling. 90 percent of a lover's thoughts are occupied with the object of his affection. What is it like to fall in love? This means sharing all the thoughts and feelings of your partner. Behavior and your whole life depend on your loved one - if your loved one is cheerful, so am I; If my loved one feels bad, I suffer too. There is an obsessive desire to be close to your lover every minute, to constantly control his life.

If you have already fallen in love, then you will try in every possible way to please the person you adore, to do everything that he likes. Lovers exhibit some kind of sacrifice - they are ready to do everything to make their loved one feel good, including sacrificing their own interests. All this indicates that falling in love is a relationship of deep psychological dependence on a partner. Over time, this dependence can develop into a feeling of love or fade away.

It is a person’s belief that the experience of falling in love is love. We experience such strong emotions, are ready for actions so unusual for us, that it is difficult to discern the differences. Nevertheless, they are there, and sometimes it is useful to see them. What is the difference between these feelings and how to distinguish love from infatuation?

Read about the six most striking differences that will tell you which direction to take your relationship. You will learn why true love is devoid of selfish desires. Feelings as a game of hormones or the result of a conscious choice? Why do we fall in love with the wrong people? And is it true that passion is not responsible for the development of relationships because it is afraid of the future?

True love involves responsibility

When you really value a person, you are interested in his health and development, you worry about the future, and you are ready to take on obligations to protect your partner from danger. Your love is expressed in action, in the desire to help, guide, protect, inspire.

Falling in love does not have such a caring attitude towards the object of sympathy; on the contrary, you are ready to take any steps to completely own a person. You can encroach on his personal space, dictate your rules of the game to him, even destroy his life for the sake of your personal ideas. And this is a significant indicator.

Love, unlike passion, is always a conscious choice

Many describe the state of falling in love as an obsession that appears out of nowhere, not always at the right time, not for the most suitable person. It turns out that you are not responsible for yourself, there was just a revolution inside, the hormones rebelled, awakening animal instincts. If you look into it, you may not like this turn, you and your chosen one have so little in common! But the eyes are covered with a veil, it is impossible to discipline yourself.

Love is the result of a conscious choice, when you are perfectly aware of your feelings, clearly see a person’s shortcomings, but are ready to put up with them. Your eyes are open.

Love looks to the future with a smile

When two people find comfort in each other's arms, it is wonderful because it helps them live in the present. However, such a “placebo” also has a side effect - falling in love can become an attempt to escape from reality, a pressing past or a frightening future, a way to fill an inner emptiness.

True love does not anesthetize, but it heals. You accept your past and are not afraid to make far-reaching plans. Fears and complexes go away, illusions subside, this helps partners trust in life and decide to make important changes.

Love is free from criticism and labels

When you are romantically in love, you dream of subordinating your partner to the system of your demands and ideals, adjusting his appearance, and imposing the “correct” dreams. You are a harsh critic, but you justify this preoccupation with other people's happiness by the fact that you love! Alas, you can’t hear your partner.

True love will not impose its picture of the world on a person, will not limit his capabilities, suppress his will, or make judgments. A lover understands that he has no right to tell another how to live, what to feel and in which direction to develop, but he can always support the best aspirations of his half. Love does not press, it encourages.

Love is devoid of selfishness

Attachment to a person creates dependence; it seems that if he leaves, your life will lose meaning. You get hooked on endorphins, internal anxiety appears: what if he leaves, betrays, cheats, stops loving? And jealousy turns on inside, a desire to control another, a demand to love more or to provide evidence of one’s devotion (“why don’t you give flowers?”, “either me or your friends”). This is a selfish feeling, real extortion.

True love does not seek to bind anyone, does not keep count of mistakes and obligations. You are simply happy, filled from within, and you want to give in order to see the same joy in the eyes of your loved one.

Love is a long-lasting state

Feelings that ignite with great speed tend to quickly burn out, leaving a scorched desert in the soul. Just yesterday you swore allegiance to each other, and today you desperately take revenge on the first person you meet, without thinking about the consequences. Joy gives way to anger, passion to hatred, desire to disgust. You look at your ex and don’t understand what you saw in him then. This is love. When we love, there is not that intensity of passions, that crazy pandemonium of emotions, but something warm and bright burns inside you, a spark that eventually grows into a flame. The longer you are together, the more good you discover in each other. And if the relationship for some reason did not work out, there is no anger, there are warm memories with a bitter taste, a desire for the person to do well.

So, we tried to briefly tell you how to distinguish love from falling in love, but here’s what’s much more important: both feelings are wonderful in their own way, and it’s even better when you manage to experience them with the same person! Attraction lives by feeling, love by action. What do you choose?

Among all the misconceptions regarding love, the most common idea is that love - it is too Love or at least one of its manifestations. The illusion is created because feeling falling in love, as bright as the feeling love. When a person is in love, his feeling is expressed by the words “I love her (him).” But immediately, two problems arise.

Firstly, love –this is specific, sexually oriented, erotic experience. We don't fall in love with our children, although we can love them very much. We don't fall in love with friends of the same sex unless we are homosexually oriented. We only fall in love when sexually motivated, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s realized or not.

Secondly, feeling of falling in love very short term. No matter who we fall in love with, sooner or later this condition goes away if the relationship continues. I don’t want to say that we definitely stop loving the person we fell in love with. But the ecstatic, stormy feeling, actually love, always passes. The honeymoon always ends quickly. In order to understand the nature of the phenomenon falling in love and its inevitable end, it is necessary to understand the nature of what psychologists call ego boundaries.

Where it all begins.

In the first months of life, a newborn does not distinguish between himself and the rest of the world. When he moves his arms and legs, the whole world moves. When he is hungry, the whole world is hungry. When he sees his mother moving, he perceives it as his own movement. When the mother sings, the child does not know that it is not she who sings. It does not distinguish itself from the crib, room, parents. Animate and inanimate objects are all the same. There is no difference between "I" and "you". There is no difference between me and the world. There are no borders, no partitions. No personality.

But after a short time, the child begins to feel like a certain entity, separate from the rest of the world. When he's hungry, mom doesn't always show up to feed him. When he wants to play, the mother does not necessarily want the same. The child begins to understand that his desires do not control his mother. He becomes convinced that his will and his mother’s behavior are separate. The sense of “self” begins to develop. The interaction between the child and the mother is the soil from which the sense of self as an individual grows. If the relationship between the child and the mother is greatly distorted, for example, when there is no mother or no one to replace her, or when, due to her own mental deviation from the norm, she does not care or is interested in him at all, then this child grows up with a deeply distorted sense of personality. Personality I left and forgot to come back.

When a child learns that his will is his own will, and not the will of the entire universe, he begins to notice other differences between himself and the outside world. When he wants to move, his arms and legs move, but not the crib and the ceiling. It is in this way, during the first year of life, that we learn the most important thing: who we are and who we are not. And, by the end of this first year, we already know: it is my hand, my leg, my head, my tongue, my eyes and even my point of view, my voice, my thoughts, my tummy pain and my feelings. We already know our size and physical boundaries. These boundaries are the boundaries of our ego.

The development of ego boundaries occurs throughout childhood, adolescence and even into adulthood, although the later the boundaries are established, the more mental (rather than physical) they are in nature. For example, between the ages of two and three, a child usually discovers the limits of his power. Although by this time he has already realized that his desire does not necessarily control his mother, he still feels that he can control her and feels that he can subordinate her to his desires. Because of this feeling, a two-year-old child often behaves like a domestic tyrant, trying to boss around parents, siblings, and even pets. And, God forbid, if you do not obey his dictates, anger will fall on the heads of all household members. This age of a child is simply terrible for all parents.

By the age of three, a child usually becomes kinder and it is easier to come to an agreement with him. This happens because the child begins to perceive the reality that he is helpless. That he is not so omnipotent. But still, the possibility of omnipotence remains his sweet dream, and he has no strength to completely abandon it, even after several years of painful experience of his own powerlessness. And, although, by the age of three, the child has already accepted the reality of the limits of his power, for several more years he will escape into the world of fantasy, into the world of supermen, where omnipotence (especially his personal) still exists. But, gradually, towards adolescence, a young man (girl) realizes that he (she) is an individual with his own body and very limited power, a relatively powerless organism that exists only thanks to the cooperation of a group of similar individuals - society. There are no particular differences between individuals, but they are still different from each other due to personal characteristics and boundaries.

Dubbing in adulthood.

Beyond these borders it is lonely and sad. Some people, who are called schizoid in psychiatry, as a result of traumatic childhood experiences, perceive the world around them as hopelessly dangerous, hostile, and deceptive. Such people feel their boundaries as protection and comfort, they feel safe, in their own solitude, in their own world. But most of us perceive loneliness painfully and strive to go beyond the walls of our lives. personalities, are looking for ways and conditions where and how it will be easier to unite with the outside world.

Feeling in love , allows us to do this - temporarily. Essence the phenomenon of falling in love is that at some point, the boundaries of the ego collapse, and we can merge our personality with the personality of another person. A sudden release of oneself from oneself, an explosion, a union with a loving being, and an end to loneliness. Most people experience all this as ecstasy. Me and my beloved (beloved) are one! No more loneliness!

Sometimes, fall in love– this is a step back, regression. The feeling of unity with a loved one is a memory of early childhood, when, in infancy, we were one with our mother. In the process of merging, we again experience the feeling of omnipotence that we had to give up during the period of parting with childhood. Everything seems possible! By uniting with our beloved, we feel capable of overcoming any obstacles, moving any mountains. All problems will be solved, or rather, for some reason they do not exist at all. The future looks extremely bright. The unreality of these feelings when we are in love is of exactly the same nature as the unreality of the feelings of a two-year-old domestic tyrant, with unlimited power over the family and the whole world.

They have seen the light, so they say.

And then reality hits. A little earlier or a little later, under the pressure of daily problems personality reminds me of myself. He wants sex, she doesn't. She wants to go to the movies, he wants to go fishing with friends, which means he doesn’t love her. He wants a car, she wants a fur coat, and he wants to go to the sea. She wants to talk about her work, he wants to talk about his. She doesn't like his friends, he can't stand her girlfriends. And each of them, in the depths of their souls, begins to painfully understand that he is not the only one who belongs to his beloved being, that this being has and will have its own desires, tastes, prejudices and habits. Gradually or quickly, the boundaries of the ego are restored, gradually or quickly, these two realize that they have fallen out of love with each other. And, again, they turn out to be two separate individuals. And then either the destruction of all connecting threads begins, or the long labor of true love.

Topic "true love" , needs to be discussed separately, deeply and comprehensively. There is a possibility that after the crash falling in love may begin real love , but it must be emphasized that the roots true love - unable falling in love . Vice versa, real love , often arises precisely under such circumstances when falling in love no, when we act as a loving being despite the fact that we do not experience feelings of love.

Love is not the result of conscious choice. She may pass by, or she may appear at a moment when she was not looked for, when she was not expected, when she is unwanted and inopportune. Falling in love with a person with whom we clearly have little in common is just as likely as falling in love with a person who is closer and matches our character. We may not have a high opinion of the object of our passion, and it happens that we cannot fall in love with a person who we deeply respect and who, according to society, suits us in all respects. This does not mean that we cannot exercise self-discipline when in love. We can choose how to react to the state of falling in love, but we are not given the choice of this state itself.

Love- this is not an expansion of our borders and limits, it is only a partial and temporary destruction of them. Expanding the limits of personality is impossible without effort - love requires no effort. After the moment has passed falling in love, and boundaries personalities will recover, this personality, perhaps, will get rid of illusions, but no expansion of boundaries will occur. If the borders expand, then, as a rule, forever. Real love is an experience of continuous self-expansion. Falling in love does not have this property.

Able falling in love, the person does not develop and does not set any goals. The only goals during this period are the desire to end your loneliness and consolidate this victory with marriage. Of course, we have no spiritual development in our thoughts. And in fact, after we have fallen in love, and have not yet fallen out of love, we feel that we have reached the top, and there is neither the opportunity nor the need to move higher. We do not feel any need for development; we are quite satisfied with what we have. We do not see any desire for spiritual development on the part of our beloved. On the contrary, we perceive him (her) as a perfect being, and if we notice individual shortcomings, we regard them as small quirks and cute pranks, as some additional charm, seasoning for relationships.

Today it is already known for sure that love - Not Love, but what exactly it is, no one knows until the end, except for a temporary, partial destruction of the boundaries of the ego. However, the sexual specificity of this phenomenon suggests that this is a genetically determined instinctive component of mating behavior for the continuation of the human race. To put it more bluntly, falling in love is a deception, a trick that genes play on our minds to fool us and lure us into the trap of marriage. Often the trick does not work - when sexual urges and stimuli are homosexual, or when external and internal factors: parental control, one's own beliefs, mature self-discipline, interfere and interfere with this connection.

But, on the other hand, without this deception, without this illusory and inevitably temporary (if it were not temporary, it would lose its meaning) regression to infantile omnipotence and merging with a beloved being, many of us, being today in a legitimate state - happy or unhappy - marriage, would retreat in pure horror before the reality of marital responsibility.

It's not over yet.

Sincerely, Tatyana Mamai