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Plus how long that love lasts.
By The Good Men Project — Written on Dec 15, 2022
It’s been a while since I’ve written about love, my favorite topic.
As a follow-up to my posts on this subject, I’ve never actually addressed the hows of love. I’m thinking specifically about the duration of time it takes to fall in love.
A study was published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. The aim of the study was to have passionate love and to compare and contrast it with other types of love (such as maternal love and unconditional love for persons with intellectual disabilities).
This is how long it actually takes men to fall in love:
The 2010 study found that it takes all but one-fifth of a second after looking at someone for euphoria-inducing chemicals to be released in the brain—the same effect as a hit of cocaine.
These chemicals affect 12 different areas of the brain and are complex enough to give way to different types of love: Primarily, passionate, and companionable love.
Passionate love is the initial rush to the head (literally), and companionable love can actually grow between couples over time. This means that falling in love, at first sight, is actually feasible: the same hormones released upon first looking at your significant other are also released when simply thinking about them.
I remember meeting someone and feeling blown away at a simple glance. Speaking in cliches, it was like time stopped and my life fast-forwarded with him front and center. It took almost no time to start talking.
Never had I experienced love at first sight. I never believed in it. He invited me out for a date the following weekend, but we talked non-stop until then. I felt like I’d fallen in love by the time our date came to a close some seven days later. Everything was fast and furious, much to our fear and partial attempts to slow down. Why slow down when it felt so right? At this point, I’d known him for one week.
For the next six or eight weeks, we were inseparable and it felt amazing. We traveled and went to concerts and ate dumplings. We confided in each other about vulnerable topics. I felt like my heart was whole.
Around the end of two months, some big things happened for him and we grew apart. He needed some space, and I didn’t understand his communication.
At this point, real life came back to remind us that the bubble we were floating in would pop. I was devastated and could not understand why. All the why questions went unanswered, my speculation getting the best of me. It was best not to talk often. When we did, we inevitably had another setback.
We needed time. He went out of town for a while and I dated someone else. When we started talking again, the circumstances were different. I found a friend in him, and yet my affection for him grew. The love changed to companion love—with electronic communication being the vehicle for a new development in our relationship.
When we FINALLY saw each other again, I had that same screaming in my head. It exclaimed “don’t pass this up. Go for it.” Butterflies flipped and danced in my stomach, and I have smitten again, still. It was a chemical reaction over which I had no power.
As we agreed to spend more time together, the love I felt was passionate, friendly, trusting, companionable, silly, and fun. I wanted nothing more than to see him often, to develop something, and to plan our lives together.
This took a little more than eighteen months, from the date we met.
Remember being a kid and reading Choose Your Own Adventure novels? Well here are two possible endings for my love story.
The two types of love:
1. Option one
And then I messed it up.
In the interest of privacy, I can’t go into the specific details that are usually told in love stories. I will say that I betrayed his trust by omitting some details and it broke our connection. He was stuck trying to forgive me but ultimately could not move past the facts.
And that’s, unfortunately, where the story ends. I wish I had a happier ending, but this is how it ended. This major love took eighteen months to flourish and a brief conversation to end. I still feel it.
2. Option two
We decided to go all in!
We’re now fully committed to each other. The relationship is better than I could have dreamed. As awesome as the first couple of months felt, this new phase feels stable and real. I didn’t know what it would be like to feel supported and seen in this way, and I’ve found someone who accepts me.
To reach this point, we were very honest with one another and talked through some misunderstandings. I now know what open communication means, and it’s remarkable. We’re moving forward in our love with each other, and I know without a doubt, he’s The One.
Just to close this out tidily, Option One is what really happened. I wish Option Two had a fair chance.
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Nina Rubin is a psychotherapist in Gestalt Therapy, with a focus on movement and relational connections.
This article was originally published at The Good Men Project. Reprinted with permission from the author.