UPDATED: July 26, 2025
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I’m taking a light-hearted departure from my typically lengthy, reference-laden, quasi-scholarly articles, to explore a human malady that has afflicted most people at one time or another. If it hadn’t, there wouldn’t have been so many songs, poems, movies, TV rom-coms, and trashy novels written about it.
I'm through with romance, I'm through with love.
I'm through with countin' the stars above,
And here's the reason that I'm so free:
My lovin' baby is through with me.
~ Bye Bye Love — The Everly Brothers, 1957
Let me be perfectly clear: I’m not trying to prevent people from falling in love, or out of it. That would be impossible. My intention here is to help people avoid some of the adverse consequences that can result from making irrational decisions while in a state of temporary insanity.
About Love
Romantic love needs no definition. The only way to understand it in its entirety is to personally experience it. Scientists can put lovers in a lab and gather all kinds of objective data about them, but this many-splendored psychophysiological state has a huge subjective component that cannot be reduced to numbers on a chart or dots on a graph.
Though often celebrated, the early stages of intense romantic love share characteristics with pathological mental states, and can temporarily hijack reason, judgment, and self-control. The effects of romantic love resemble a state of temporary insanity in a number of its psychological, neurological, and behavioral aspects.
According to the American Psychological Association, sexual arousal (or lust) is an especially important feature of romantic love. The experience can be exhilarating, and its consequences may be perilous. New lovers, at least for a period of time, may not be entirely in their right minds.
Neurochemical Impacts
Romantic love, especially in its initial stages, floods the brain with a cocktail of neurotransmitters. Dopamine surges produce intense pleasure and activate the brain's reward center, similar to addictive drugs. Oxytocin and vasopressin create attachment and bonding. Norepinephrine heightens energy, excitement, and an intense focus that often appears obsessive. Additionally, serotonin levels drop, mimicking patterns seen in an obsessive-compulsive disorder. This helps explain the intrusive thoughts and idealization of the beloved.
Similar to insanity, this neurochemical state of emotional overdrive distorts perceptions and amplifies mood volatility. Both romantic love and high-cocoa dark chocolate produce similar effects upon the human brain, and in a sense, both can become mildly addictive. If you're hooked on that feeling, chocolate is much less likely to lead you astray than does falling head over heels in love.
Impaired Judgment
Studies show that romantic love activates brain regions linked to reward and motivation, but deactivates areas such as the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for critical thinking and realistically negative interpretations. This can lead to rose-colored thinking, impulsive decisions such as eloping, neglecting important responsibilities, and blind optimism. Much like certain forms of mania or delusion, romantic love can erode a person's rational faculties.
An Obsessive Focus
People in romantic love often think continually and obsessively about their new romantic partner. They engage in behaviors aimed at maintaining closeness, sometimes to the point of absurd irrationality. They can also experience extreme emotional swings; euphoria when things go well, despair when they don't. Much like temporary madness, there's are overriding preoccupations that crowd out other aspects of their life.
Risk-Taking and Self-Neglect
Romantic love can make people take unusual risks and ignore red flags that are obvious to others. They may neglect their friendships, go without sleep, miss meals, or even abandon their own values. Similar to a dissociative state, individuals may act out of character, and become disconnected from their usual emotional self and moral compass.
Identity Fusion and Loss of Boundaries
Lovers in the thrall of romance often report a sense of merging identities, as in “We are now one.” Lovers may feel as if they’ve found their soulmate, or have a fate-bound connection that defies all logic. This resembles psychotic delusions or neurotic mythical thinking, common phenomena in some mental disorders and drug-induced altered states of consciousness. During this stage of a new relationship it is hard to maintain a differentiation of self and a healthy balance between autonomy and emotional dependency.
The Biological Function of Romantic Love
From an evolutionary standpoint, romantic love functions in the service of human reproduction. It leads to frequent matings that help to ensure pregnancy, and to at least a temporary pair-bonding that produces cooperative parenting. For the first few years after giving birth, the survival of our prehistoric female ancestors and their infants depended upon their mate providing them with protection and food. Thus, this strange and uniquely human emotional state has enhanced our species' reproductive success and continued survival.
A Self-Limiting Malady
Romantic love can be intoxicating, irrational, euphoric, and obsessive. Fortunately, and unlike a true psychosis, it is self-limiting. The intensity of early romantic love usually starts to diminish after 12–18 months, when the crazy-making levels of our brain's neurochemicals stabilize, reality sets in, and our sanity is restored. Romantic love may be entirely absent after a couple has been together for a few years.
Cautionary Tales
Typically, this temporary madness gives way to a more stable form of love. Alternatively, after it has evaporated, its absence may result in a termination of the relationship. Be aware that loneliness can create an emotional vulnerability that is easily exploited by unscrupulous people. Consequently, looking for a romantic partner online comes with a certain degree of risk.
There are many scammers who pose as the “perfect” man or woman in attempts to lure in and exploit people who are looking for love. There are even AI chatbots who are so adept at knowing just what to say that people fall in love with them. Even after you’ve found the “right” person, while you’re still under the spell of romantic love you should be very cautious about lending money or making major purchases. It would also be prudent to delay any significant life changes, such as jointly purchasing property, getting married, or starting a family.
By all means, enjoy the thrill-ride while it lasts, but please seek some outside perspectives to prevent making ill-advised decisions while you're not thinking clearly. Consider consultation with an estate planning attorney and clinical psychologist. “Wise men say, only fools rush in.” Tales of woe following ill-fated romances abound.
Here’s what a widower had to say about his experience:
One would think that this irrationality would decrease or disappear in our older age, but at 79, I can tell you it's still there. About 18 months ago, I got caught up in an online romantic scam. Lost all rational thought. As a close friend described it after it was over, “You must have been in a brain fog. This is just not you.” That pretty much nailed it. And yet, I still look for love.
A divorced woman wrote about her bout of romantic love:
Your children should always come first, yet, when you are in the throes of a temporary madness, you might see things differently, and later regret some of the stupid decisions you’ve made. Romantic love can prove disastrous when you should have been there for your children, but you weren’t because you weren’t thinking straight. Some people are romantic love junkies. and possibly keep falling out of love so as to be able to fall in love with the next person. Like any addiction, it’s not a great way to spend one’s life.
Compatibility
Like our fingerprints, we all seem to come with a unique assortment of quirks, kinks, emotional baggage, and perhaps some psychopathologies. Among our fellow human beings we can discover those who have many similarities to us, and many more who have profound differences. We tend to think of compatibility in terms of similarities, but it can involve both like-minded congruity and differences in our psychological makeup that are complementary. For example, if one person enjoys taking the lead, while the other is perfectly happy to follow.
Being compatible in an intimate relationship means that the partners are aligned in their sexual and emotional needs, desires, fantasies, values, and communication styles, creating a mutually satisfying experience. It involves a lot more than an initial physical attraction. There needs to be a holistic understanding and a deep, heartfelt connection that ensures both individuals feel seen and heard, respected and appreciated.
What a very wise therapist taught me was that two people's deep-rooted psyches can be inherently conflictual. Although the subconscious friction could be what ignites the initial passion, it can also lead to the eventual demise of the relationship.
In contrast, when there is a complementarity of pathologies, passion is less likely to be a superficial feature of the relationship. The benefit is that sexual attraction won't get in the way of developing a great friendship. It is therefore important to understand who we are, and who our potential partner is, at a much deeper level, and that takes time.
A Healthier Alternative to Romance
Friendship is what builds a solid foundation for an enduring and mutually supportive relationship. According to research, it takes at least 200 hours to establish a close friendship. However, if someone isn't worth relating to for that amount of time, why on earth would you want to pursue a romantic adventure with them?
Contrary to our cultural conditioning about the importance of “chemistry,” you really can fall in love with a good friend. If the feeling is mutual, and you both are sexually adept, there can still be the same kind of fireworks that accompanies the romantic phase, along with its “crazy in love” feelings. The difference is that you'll both have a previously established friendship that can provide a grounded framework for emotional sobriety and day-to-day functional stability, something to which you might be able to voluntarily return as needed.
Jeopardizing a valued friendship by exploring its sexual potential, without any guarantees about the outcome, could be daunting. The risks of engaging in a sexual experiment with a good friend would need to be carefully weighed against its potential rewards, but the biggest rewards in life often involve some degree of risk-taking.
A hallmark of a great relationship is being able to honestly discuss the pros and cons of taking the plunge as lovers, and being able to collaborate on exploring reasonable and mutually beneficial solutions to the challenges that it might present. The bottom line: If romantic love might be seen as a malady, then first establishing a solid foundation of friendship could be considered good preventive medicine.
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