WHEN LOVE HAPPENS

No one can claim to fully understand what happens to them when they fall in love.

I am an ardent believer in the school of thought that love does not play an active role in the success or failure of a relationship or marriage. It is a "nice to have," but it cannot take the place of a vitamin. Love in a relationship is like the third television in your house. It solves no real problem, but it is nice to have more than two TVs in one house. I think love facilitates heartbreaks even more than it doesn't. Think about it.

Think about all the times you fell in love with a person, then proceeded to ask them out and start dating them. Now, compare the period you loved that person outside a relationship and the period you loved that person in a relationship and ask yourself which was less stressful. The moment you attach love to a relationship, there is mutual understanding and that mutual understanding results in expectations. When these expectations are not met, it results in heartbreak.
It is always advisable to stay out of relationships with people you already are too deep in love with.

Be friends with them and, hopefully, if that friendship lasts long enough, it could morph into a romantic relationship or not. But, if you push for a romantic relationship based on love, you could be blinded by the sentiment of love to even notice that there is no compatibility between you and the person in question. Many people get into marriage, for example, with people they should just be acquainted with because they thought they were in love. It turns out; they were not.

What we often regard as love is mostly chemical reactions in the brain to specific actions/gestures, features, or words. Sometimes, you think you love a person because they are caring. But your brain is merely reacting to the introduction of a level of attention that is not familiar. I'll put that in perspective; when a guy who has been in two relationships in the past where he was never appreciated for his physical features [I assure you, that's not me] starts getting compliments from a beautiful girl for his looks, he may begin to think he is in love with her.

The brain is merely reacting to the introduction of a new level of attention that it isn't used to. It's very much like when your immune system increases your body temperature to fight new bacteria, and you begin to think you have malaria. Then you start popping pills when you really should say thanks to your immune system and move on with your life.
But, is love not crucial in relationships?

Of course. Love is one of the essential things to sustain a relationship. Love comes with some great features, and one of those is that it covers a multitude of sins. We all know that for a link to survive, there has to be a lot of sacrifices made by both parties; a lot of excesses have to be ignored or forgiven. None of these can be achieved where there is no love in the relationship. But there are cases where even love is not enough. There has to be understanding and respect and emotional intelligence. Love helps you hold the relationship together for long enough, the others keep you sharp to know when to run away from the relationship.

There is a lot more that is important, depending on the individual sentiment; financial stability, work-life balance, respectable family, religious compatibility, health provisions, etc. My point is, before making love your priority, consider all the other more important factors.

But, don't take my word for it. After all, what do I know about love or science? The only reason I have the time to process this thought is that I have no one to send silly love texts every morning.