We want to stay in what I call the “merge cycle” and why wouldn’t we?
It feels so magical.
They invent a language of their own that nobody else can understand.
They share jokes with punch lines that are funny only to them.
Within the perceived safety of the bubble, their merge feels at once total and eternal.
Of course, not everyone experiences the “urge to merge.”
Some people never feel it at all.
Or they enjoy an initial hit of ecstasy that quickly dissipates.
Still others focus on similarities based on ethnicity, race, religion, education, class and life goals.
Indeed, in many cultures, selecting a mate has little or nothing to do with falling in love.
We await the hero or heroine who will kiss us awake.
Ibn Sina, tenth-century physician and father of modern medicine, viewed obsession as the principal cause of lovesickness.
We now know that he was right.
This fixation and preoccupation are what others find tiresome about the love-struck.
People roll their eyes and think us temporarily insane.
Which, of course, we are.
Once, he told me an anecdote about the first time he got drunk at age fourteen.
The sun would rise and the longing set in.
I craved the next drink the way my friends longed for a girlfriend."
This recent discovery brings to mind the old adage: magic is science not yet understood.
What we do know, however, is that the craving associated with romantic love is very real.
Greek mythology provides us with imaginative and amusing ways to describe the felt intensity of romantic love.
Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, had a son named Cupid.
We now know that the “hit” of romance can be partially explained by biochemistry.
Napoleon Bonaparte, for example, once wrote to Josephine, “I’m coming home.
c’mon don’t wash”.
This cocktail infuses us with euphoria and extraordinary energy, which is why sleep and nourishment seem unimportant.
To fall in love is arguably a passive process .
For love to last is not.
Copyright 2014 by New World Library.