As humans, our main aim in life is to find someone we love and spend the rest of our time with them. But what is it you should be feeling? How do you know you’ve felt it?
According to psychologists, there are two types of love; passionate and companionate. Passionate love tends to be rich in dopamine, all hot and full of lust. This, however, tends to calm down after 6 months. Almost like the honeymoon phase of love and suddenly you look over at your partner and realise all their flaws.
Companionate love grows over a long time and has little to do with dopamine but more to do with security and trust. You don’t necessarily get a huge rush of feelings for this certain type, but whether it be a person, job or house, if it were to be taken away from you, you’d probably get a bit upset. This makes them become part of your life rather than just an activity.
It’s ironic really how divorces are lower in arranged marriages. They aren’t told how love is meant to be and just to experience it however they like. They tend to be happier than those in marriages where they had a choice of who it was. With Western cultures, they are more interested in individual satisfaction whereas in non-western cultures care more about the satisfaction of group-based goals. Basically, these marriages are working better because people are being less selfish.
Our culture has decided that the way love works is to be everlasting passion. Think of all the rom coms and stories where the couple have known each other 5 minutes and already saying ‘I love you’. And they live happily ever after, even though according to science that passion will only last 6 months.
And don’t get me started on the fact that in today’s society sending a message is easier than talking about your feelings face-to-face. Next thing you’ll know people will be proposing over text. Today’s technology seems to ruin the excitement of relationships.

Grace Hemphill x