We live in a culture that creates very high expectations for people about love. Expressions such as "love at first sight", "they were made for each other", "two halves of an apple"; Romantic movies, TV series, and stories about great loves cause us to expect too much from the experiences of romantic relationships. As Otto Rank said, people attribute to religion; They are currently waiting for love to add meaning and purpose to their lives. So how can we define love?
We can define love as a deep affection for the existence of another person. According to Freud, love is an emotional state that enables sexual, physical and motivational impulses to become socially acceptable. We can express love in its most general form as a sharing or interaction experience that allows the individual to unite with a person outside himself, get closer, and allow certain capacities within the person to grow and develop, while preserving his own personal self and independent identity.
Sternberg has three main aspects of love. indicates that it has a component. These are intimacy, passion and commitment. The presence or absence of these components reveals various forms of love; Just as a relationship that only involves closeness can be described as liking. It expresses that love with these three components is the love closest to perfection.
We can state that there are three basic conditions for falling in love; The socio-cultural environment that creates the expectation of falling in love, a suitable candidate (in terms of appearance, personality, background and values) and a stimulus that deserves the label of romantic love.
So how do people fall in love with whom? Many researches and theories written on this subject show that we do not fall in love with someone by chance, and that even the one who seems most unconscious actually goes through many eliminations. According to Freud, our romantic choices are greatly influenced by our childhood experiences, and this shows different characteristics for each gender. According to Freud, when we fall in love, we often idealize our love. While we see the wonderful features that our partner may or may not have; We do not see the negatives that are obvious to others. The reason for this is that the person in love reflects his ego ideal onto the beloved. In other words, the value that exists both in the superego and that the brain hopes to acquire and finds superior. s are projected onto the lover and treated as if they were from him.
According to Object Relations Theory, falling in love is the unconscious selection of a repressed, divided part of the self as a partner. For example, a woman who thinks and feels that she was not loved as a child will probably choose a man who does not show his love. This situation is caused by things brought from childhood. However, if the child's relationship with the parent is warm and loving, that person separates from his family and becomes capable of establishing mature, satisfying love relationships.
According to the theory of evolution, gender differences in romantic attraction arise from the fact that both sexes have different requirements for their survival. While evolution requires men to prefer traits related to women's reproductive ability, such as youth and beauty; It requires preference in women for characteristics related to men's ability to acquire resources, such as money-making potential and status. In other words, women need a man who will be attached to them and their offspring and provide for them; Men, on the other hand, look for a woman who will give birth to their offspring.
These are some of the theories about who people fall in love with and why. Apart from this, many theories have been put forward about how people fall in love. The most important of these belongs to Bernard Murstein. Accordingly, the first stage of falling in love is "warning". At this stage, external features such as appearance have the most important impact; In the second stage, the "value" stage, the emphasis shifts to similarity in values and interests. In the last stage, the "role" stage, the couple questions whether they are functional as a couple with their roles regarding their identities.
Another theory that I think reflects the process of falling in love well is that falling in love consists of four stages. During the attraction phase, past experiences and the physical characteristics of the partners are affected. In the review phase, spouses review their social and emotional compatibility. In the third stage, self-disclosure, deeper negative or positive thoughts emerge between partners and intimacy increases. In the last stage, the mutual expectations stage, both parties learn the other's expectations (economic, emotional, social and sexual). and makes a conscious effort to meet these expectations.
Erich Fromm defines love as an answer to the problems of humanity and the source of active and creative power in the person. According to him, loving is an art. In a romantic relationship, it is healthiest for two entities to become one but still remain two separate entities.
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