Love Poll Results And Nine Love Facts

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By Grace Tzeng

First off  I want to thank everyone who voted in the first poll, "How many times have you been in love?"

Before the results were calculated, I predicted that there would be people who have never been in love before.  But it turns out that everyone who voted had been in love at least once.

It’s good to know that we all have such tender hearts.  And we have all been through the exhilaration and pangs of love.

I also predicted that the majority of people would vote that they had been in love three times.

I imagined that most of you who went to a co-ed high school (unlike myself who had to wear plaid for twelve years -- elementary school included) would have had a high school sweetheart, a girlfriend or boyfriend after high school, and perhaps married a third person after that.

But it surprised me that 45 percent of those who voted said they had been in love more than three times. 

How many times have you been in love?
Answer: 1 time	7 people responded	31%
Answer: 2 times	2 people responded	9%
Answer: 3 times	3 people responded	13%
Answer: more than 3 times	10 people responded	45%
Answer: 0	0 people responded	0%

I’ve been reading different sites and people make good points.  One person who was a twenty-eight-year-old was confused about the definition of love.  He/she was trying to differentiate between infatuation, love at first sight, or the real thing. 

I think love happens when you see all the unpleasant traits in a person and you still want to be with him or her in spite of all the negative traits the person possesses.  You see the goodness that is within your partner; and you want to talk, to laugh, to be in the presence of him or her. In my eyes, that’s love. 

I think love takes time.  It takes more than two dates to learn about a person's dreams, opinions, and habits.  That's the mystery and fun about falling in love, getting to know somebody.

Since we're on the subject of love, I did some research and I want to share a few love facts I got from randomhistory.com.

• Researchers predict that most people will fall in love about seven times before they marry. (I read on FoxNews that a person falls in love six times in his or her life -- six, seven, that's close enough.  We're not doing accounting here folks.)

• Some people who have never fallen in love suffer from hypopituitarism, a rare disease that wreaks havoc on the hormones. 

• There's actually a term called ‘frustration attraction.’  Who thinks up these names?  So after getting rejected from the object of your desire, you end up wanting the person more and more (hopefully not going into the stalker realm). 

• The word ‘love’ comes from the Sanskrit lubhyati, which means ‘desire.’  So we're not falling in love,  we're actually falling into desire -- ooh how passionate!  

  

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• When a person falls in love, something happens in the brain that triggers more dopamine.  The same effect happens when someone takes cocaine. So literally, you can be "high" on love, and probably addicted no doubt. 

• Okay, this one's kinda creepy.  Some psychologists believe that we fall in love with someone who is similar to the parent with whom we're mad at from childhood.  I guess subconsciously we're tying to fix the problems that we couldn't when we were little. 

• A heterosexual man is more visual when it comes to picking a partner because he has to see if the woman he picks as his wife is physically capable of having children.  It has to do with evolution and mating.  A woman who's picking out a future life partner uses memory to help her select the ideal mate.  She makes mental notes about whether he'll be a responsible family man. So if a girlfriend says, "Remember the time you said those awful things on the way back from..." it's her nature to do that. 

• Romantic love lasts a little over a year.  The brain can't handle that much excitement.  So then "attachment love," which is a more mature and stable love, kicks in. Don't worry about the passion dying; just do more creative, fun, and thrilling activities together.  (But don't take my advice too literally.  Don't say, "Grace told us to go couples skydiving; that's how I broke my leg and my boyfriend hurt his shoulder and his butt.") 

• Women often feel loved when speaking face to face with their honeys/lovers.  Men feel more attachment when they work, play, or talk side by side with the one they love. I would have thought it would be face to face too, because men are supposed to be more visual.  

So those are the facts about love and the percentages of your fellow blog readers.  Now I hope that you understand yourself and the one you love better.  It's interesting to know that a lot of our responses have to do with evolution and physiology.  The more we all understand about our brains and love, the better. Keep on falling into love, I mean "desire" as many times as you would like.