Valentine’s Day - What is Falling in Love ?Different Stages of Falling in Love

Falling in love is an enchanting and miraculous experience that occurs between two individuals. It is nature’s wonderful ways to maintain human species in this earth. Most of us at any point of our life might have experienced the magical touch of love. Just like love can bring delight and happiness to your life, losing it can cause much pain. While falling in love, one should be ready to embrace this unavoidable truth. But this does not keep people from falling in love. There are great stories that we hear time to time about love.

Before falling in love one should clearly understand the term ‘Love’. Love encompasses three components- intimacy, passion and commitment.

The ‘amount’ of love can be analyzed through the strength of each of these components. Similarly, the kind of love can be assessed through their relative strengths. Without the presence of the three components, one cannot predict the longevity of the love relationship. These three components mainly give rise to seven kinds of love relations.

• In Friendship, the individuals may find a mutual closeness and bondedness, which is present in intimate relations.
• In Empty love, only commitment is present, which is usually, seen a couple of years of most marriages. Here the above mentioned intimacy and passion are absent in relationship.
• In Infatuation, passion is the main factor of relationship.
• In Romantic love, passion and intimacy are both present among the partners.
• In Fatuous love, passion and commitment are the components present.
• In Companionate love, intimacy and commitment are the only factors present with an absence of passion, which are often noticed in long term marriage relations.
• In Consummate love, which is considered as the ideal love and seen among ‘perfect’ couples, all the three components- intimacy, passion and commitment are present. There are chances that Consummate love gets changed to Companionate love, unless much care is given .To maintain the Consummate love, ‘expression’ of love is very essential.

According to me, there are three stages of falling in love.

The first stage, lust is developed as a result of the sex hormones, testosterone and oestrogen.

In the next stage, there is an attraction between the partners, a stage where the partners are less bothered of what all happens around them. Here the neurotransmitters, adrenalin, dopamine and serotonin play a major role.

In the final stage, attachment arises, which helps to maintain strong relationships. The major hormones involved are oxytocin and vasopressin.

So get ready to fall in Love…