Sincere Relationships

Why do fools fall in love? And when we do fall, why do our faculties of reason--and decency and self-respect and even right and wrong--sometimes not come along? For that matter, why would anyone reciprocate the love of a partner who has come so romantically unhinged?

The thought of a loved one can turn our wits upside down, ratchet up our heart rate, impel us to slay dragons and write corny songs. We may become morose, obsessive, even violent. Lovesickness has been blamed on the moon, on the devil, but whatever is behind it, it doesn't look like the behavior of a rational animal trying to survive and reproduce. But might there be a method to this amorous madness?

During the decades that the concept of human nature was taboo in academia, many scholars claimed that romantic love was a recent social construction. It was an invention of the Hallmark-card poets or Hollywood scriptwriters or, in one theory, medieval troubadours extolling the adulterous love of a knight for a lady.

For anyone who has been under love's spell, these theories seem preposterous, and so they are. Nothing so primal could have been created out of thin air as a mere custom or product. To the contrary, romantic love is a human universal. In 1896 a Kwakiutl Indian in southern Alaska wrote the lament "Fire runs through my body--the pain of loving you," which could be the title of a bad power ballad today. Similar outpourings of passion can be found all over the world from those with broken hearts.

Romantic infatuation is different from both raw lust and the enduring commitment that keeps lovers together long after their besottedness has faded. We all know the symptoms: idealized