Well, we all know that love is a weird thing. Less of an emotion, more of a concept. It can break you apart just as easily as it can build you back together again. But why do we fall so deeply for each other? It’s a beautiful thing, but what’s the psychology behind it? How does it contribute to our personal development?
In a month like February, love is truly in the air. We see actions of love shutting down third floor hallways, cameras in the hands of lovers capturing the beauty of others and random lifelong memories with our companions. What motivates us to give our all into the ones we adore?
Senior Rahi D’Rozario finds that even just the presence of that person that you really like is really what love is all about. You just want to be around them all the time, even when it doesn’t always work in your favor. And poetically, that’s one of the main points of love. Even when you are the only one giving into the connection, love persists.
And oftentimes, all we really need is some reciprocity. Sophomore Annarose Bova believes that without that strong foundation of love from both parties, there’s no home to return to each night or shoulder to cry on when you’re down.
Additionally, senior Nyla La Rose thinks we should all be ensuring that you fall in love with the person instead of the potential that they bring to the table. This way, we never set ourselves up for disaster.
As they say, love makes you do crazy things. According to junior Enrique Rodriguez, when you let past traumas or heartbreak incite aggression and disaster, it’s very easy to develop “violent tendencies or motives.” That lack of trust in love or maturity to see your own faults can be your downfall.
Contrary to pretty much everyone else who was interviewed, junior Mia Sandoval doesn’t believe you need that love surrounding you to heal and recover. And while she admits it may sound selfish, when you’re “alone at night in your bed thinking about life,” there’s always one person you can depend on: yourself.
And when you love yourself, you maintain stability even through heartbreak. This rings especially true when the love is genuine, persisting through the challenges and tribulations that we see in everyday life. Then we see a couple like Jayden Montrose and Eros Brown.
The senior and junior duo have been together for quite some time and are bound to know a bit about this thing called love. The real secret? Letting go of your past instead of letting it tear you apart.
There’s a special kind of foresight in looking at love with the same person, just through a different lens. You won’t ever be at 100%. Sometimes, you are at 20, which is why your partner is at 80.
And when you spend a lot of time in chaotic romance, you normalize it. “It was nice to find and be immersed into a love that works through issues and fixes and tackles them from the root instead of attacking and accusing,” Jayden shared.
We spend our entire lives looking for true, tangible adoration, but you can’t love one person forever if you haven’t moved on from everything that occurred before. And the only thing that matters is your ability to remain in love through the hardest struggles.
As they both emphasized, one of the most emotionally draining things you could possibly be a part of is a relationship. So give yourself and your partner grace. Because being in love is about seeing life not through the eyes of others, but through the pure and unadulterated perspective of affection.
