Maybe you have just fallen in love? Well, make the most of it because love – romantic love, that is – only lasts about 90 days, according to one expert
SCIENTISTS have been trying to put love under the microscope for many years.
The latest study tends to show that it only takes a few minutes to fall in love.
Researchers at Ohio State University paired off students and followed the progress of their relationships. They found that in the majority of cases, those who became closest had known very soon after the first meeting that would be them outcome.
“Romantic relationships begin with people making judgments very quickly – literally within minutes,” says Professor Artemio Ramirez, in charge of the study.
“It shows that we gravitate towards people we like on the first meeting and our results suggest that three minutes is all you need to make a good judgment about potential partners.”
However, according to earlier research, if you have just fallen in love, you had better make the most of it because love – romantic love, that is – only lasts about 90 days.
That’s according to a study of romantic entanglements between students aged 18 to 40 at California State University. Head researcher professor Fred Meeker found, on that occasion, that passions started cooling after an average of just 90 days.
He found that the average length of a love affair was 18 months, and that the halfway line in romantic love is 90 days after the start. In another 90 days it decreases by half again, and so on until it ends.
But he also found that if passionate love tends to disappear in marriage, it is usually replaced by a non-emotional state called ‘companionate’ or ‘conjugal’ love – the warmth of a long-standing relationship.
Putting love under the microscope isn’t easy, admits psychologist Elaine Hatfield of the University of Hawaii.
“For one thing, the word ‘love’ can mean so many different things: from the thundering passion of hormone-drenched adolescents, to the quiet affection between grandparents.”
But, at least, she says that ‘love at first sight’ is possible, as the very newest Ohio study suggests.
“It’s all a question of neurons – brain cells,” she adds. “The early experiences we undergo in life lay down brain cell circuits controlling our emotions and behaviour. Circuits exist for all our emotions.
“So you look across a crowded room and see a man wearing a tie like Daddy used to wear, or with a haircut just like the boy you were wild about when you were 14. Your eyes transmit the date to the brain and – bingo!
“’This is it!’ says your number one neuron, known as the command neuron, and you are in love.”
According to researchers at Boston University, love not only makes the world go round, it also keeps away coughs and sneezes.
The study concluded that romance is the best antidote to the common cold.
“Dwelling on the positive experiences of loving or being loved appear to raise an individual’s concentration of munoglobulin – the body’s first line of defence against chest infection,” said Dr David McClelland who headed the study.
Another experiment offers an explanation for the symptoms of love.
When two new bridges appeared over the Capilano River in British Columbia, one was a narrow, swaying footbridge, 230ft above the rocks; the other was a sturdy, low, concrete span.
Most people faced with the choice chose the low, safer-looking one. But a few young, daredevil men went over on the dangerous footbridge.
One morning, men coming off both bridges were met by a very attractive woman. She said she wanted their help in filling in a questionnaire.
Her telephone number was clearly seen at the top of her pad.
Before the week was out, many of the men who had crossed on the dangerous footbridge had phoned the woman and asked her out for a date.
The whole thing – bridges, fake questionnaire and bold phone number – was an experiment by scientists to try to find the answers to ‘What is this thing called love?’
The men who crossed the swaying footbridge came off with pounding hearts, trembling hands and sweaty palms – their response to the fear involved.
But these are also the commonly accepted sign of someone in love.
So, when they saw the beautiful woman waiting for them, they sub-consciously concluded there were in love – and rang her up for a date.
