Tired of falling in love?

Just keep your phenylethylamine in check

Manila Standard, 23 August 2001, p.24

 

Several articles ago, I outlined the mechanics of a game most of us play. My editor called it the “boy toy” game (only because I am a girl). The male population can likewise play the game but with their own “girl toys.” Yeah, yeah. I have been criticized by friends for calling human beings toys. But honestly, it really is a term of endearment on my part. I did love my toys when I was a kid. I admit that I have developed a certain level of affection for my boy toys.

 

The boy toy game is basically what most single people play when they find someone mildly or, sometimes, immensely interesting enough to have fun with. When married people play the game, the stakes are definitely much higher. When a single plays the game, the loser only either breaks a heart or loses the ability to think straight. When a married person plays the game, he already loses even before the game starts and might end up losing his or her entire family as well.

 

At any rate, the rules of the game are fairly simple. We have all probably played it one way or another. It is the game we play before we actually go into a serious relationship if the games goes well or before a heartbreak if the moment of attraction and ends, abruptly or otherwise, the moment one of the players fall in love or no one falls in love at all.

 

If both players fall in love, the real relationship begins and both player wins. If they don’t, they call it quits and no one wins. If only one falls in love, the player who does not fall in love wins the game. The difficulty with the game is that you sometimes cannot figure out if the games have already begun. You just realize you are playing it when it hits you right between the eyes.

 

Well, recently, realized I have been playing this game for about two years now. Honestly, I am getting tired of it sometimes. Although I hate to admit it, I have been earning, losing, and sometimes, even shaving points. I also hate to admit I am definitely behind my opponent. I am not sure if I should call it quits, bow out, and declare myself loser before someone (Read: I) really gets hurt. But then again, games are for fun and maybe I should keep it that way, even just so I could have some form of recreation in my so-called “love life.”

 

As I have said, the game comes to an end if at least one of the players falls in love or both realizes there is no love at all, in which case the efforts is just not worth the points. To decide whether I should continue playing the game or quit while I still have some pride left, I have become obsessed with finding out the technical definition of “falling in love.” How do we know if we have fallen? Why the heck is it called “falling” in the first place?

 

Without the more scientific research materials, I could easily define falling in love as “discovering the inherent foolishness necessary to risk pride just to achieve a greater feeling of contentment and satisfaction.” But the phenomenon has been studied over and over by scholars in an attempt to explain a “feeling” that seemed inexplicable.

 

It is no secret that most of us, especially those who are still single, yearn to fall in love. So I believe that it would be a big help if we all know what we mean by it. Couple Allan and Barbara Pease, authors of the book Why Men Don’t Listen & Why Women Can’t Read Maps, tried to explain the “chemicals of falling in love.” Quite an interesting read, the book tried to explain the basic differences between the genders, substantiating such differences with hard scientific evidence.

 

“Neural evidence shows that the phenomenon of ‘falling in love’ is a series of chemical reactions taking place in the brain that cause mental and physical reactions,” they wrote. Say that again? In other words, they said, all our emotions—love, grief, happiness—are all biochemical and are caused by neuropeptides, a string of amino acids that float around the body and attach themselves to receptors. They said that the feeling of “falling in love” is caused by PEA or phenylethylamine, a chemical found also in chocolates. No wonder a friend of mine described the sensation we get from falling in love as akin to eating lots of chocolates, which is probably the whole point behind the movie Chocolat. I was so intrigued with the theory I consumed an entire bar of milk chocolate as part of my experiment. (Not a very good idea, really.)

 

The Road Less Traveled author Dr. M. Scott Peck also described falling in love as a misconception for it is not really love that we feel when we fall in love. He said falling in love is specifically a sex-linked erotic experience. It is fairly easier to fall in love than to stay in love. He further suspects that it is merely a “genetically determined instinctual component of mating behavior.” Whoa! How unromantic!

 

But please explain, dear experts, how do we identify and pick the one person we fall in love with? Why can’t we just pick the ones who can love us back so that less hearts will be broken?

 

The Peases explained that women, in particular, could detect the pheromones and musk-like odors, allowing her to decode the state of a man’s immune system and determine if the system is complimentary to or stronger than her own system. She is then attracted to men whose systems are stronger than hers.

 

Logically, women do not get attracted to men whose immune systems are weaker than theirs. The book didn’t spend much time explaining how men fall in love. I wonder why.

 

It’s very easy to get lost in all the explanations about love, let lone the scientific data that are being offered to rationalize in the most logical way feelings that are very common to us. While we get a better understanding on how our brains and bodies work, I really doubt if it would help us control our emotions.

 

If falling in love is indeed “chemical” and “genetic,” then maybe I have fallen in love. Maybe my toy’s “immune system” is stronger than mine. Thus, the attraction. I guess if it is biological, then there is not much we can do about it, right? Maybe if the pheromone scent wears off, I may be able to snap out of this delusion and declare the game over. Who will win it? I don’t know. All I know is that everyone who intends to find real love must go play my boy toy game or “the game of falling in love.”

 

But no matter how much we know about the things we feel, we still cannot keep ourselves from feeling. Well, at least now we know why we are feeling what we are feeling even if we have absolutely no way of determining the level of phenylethylamine in our bodies. But definitely at some point, we have to accept realities or make decisions to take this chemical reaction further towards real love. No book nor scientific data can really tell us which way to go. Que sera sera.

 

(Thanks to my friends Ambo, Rubin, and Celeste for the company and interesting discussions while we were stranded due to floods courtesy of typhoon Jolina.)

 

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