Dear Shrinks,
I am a fourteen year-old and I have a question for you. Why do people fall in love?
My older sister is crying all the time because her boyfriend died a couple of months ago in Iraq. My parents often have really big arguments that end with my mother crying and my father storming out of the house. As far as I can see nothing causes more pain in life than loving someone, so why do people do it?
Sick of Love
Dear Sick,
You’ve asked a great and wise question. We advise you to take our answer with skepticism. Others would give you very different answers.
On one level there is evidence that we are genetically designed to fall in love. We are certainly designed to be able to love, whether we love our parents or pets or siblings or our land. Humans have this bundle of feelings like fear, anger, sorrow, joy, and love, which we have the capacity to experience. Some neurologists consider that people first sense and feel events before they actually think about them. And, since we are social animals, yes, one of our primary emotions is love. This emotion is the glue that holds relationships together. Most people find falling in love one of the most pleasant of all feelings.
You are correct in your observation that one of the most painful experiences most people ever experience is the loss of the person loved, or the gradual erosion of the love once felt so strongly. As psychotherapists we sometimes meet people who have decided (consciously or unconsciously) to never allow themselves to fall in love, a decision which seems to follow experiencing or witnessing great pain.
Allowing oneself to fall in love always leaves one open to the sharp pain of loss. However, it is also true that not allowing yourself to fall in love guarantees that you will feel the continuous dull ache of an unfulfilled and lonely life.
