Love Delusion

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. We have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from our branches we find that we are one tree and not two."

There are many of us who perceive love differently, either in the cynical way or highly romanticized or we’re just pratical in our approach.

So is love for real or is it a delusion.

Romantic love is an altered state of consciousness. We seem possessed by an alien force taking over our hearts.
Everything seems wonderful—especially the object of our love.

Our 'spontaneous' love-reactions pull us together
into a whirlpool of hopeless, uncontrollable, overwhelming passion.
'Falling in love' is like surfing on an ocean wave
—sliding down a surging force beyond our control.

Most of us emerged from childhood
believing that romantic love is a natural phenomenon.
When we 'fall in love', we seem to be possessed
by an irresistible passion, filling our hearts.
These experiences are really being in love with love.
Such 'love' is entirely an emotion, taking place inside our own skins.
Perhaps we remain basically closed persons,
intensely enjoying our own private, internal feelings,
using others as props or supporting characters in our grand love stories.

We might eventually become convinced that romantic love is an illusion
—a web of projected fantasies and artificial feelings.
We can abandon these cultural delusions and begin to establish
our relationships based on real information about each other
and genuine commitment toward each other.
Reality-based relationships might not have the same emotional high,
but, in the long run, truth is much better for us.
Instead of projecting our pre-existing fantasies,
we can get to know each other as we really are
—and as the persons we are becoming.
The wild, extravagant feeling of being head-over-heels in love
is certainly an enjoyable delusion while that emotional 'high' lasts,
but should we attempt to build relationships on fantasy feelings?

As for love, who could argue with Shakespeare's descriptions of it as "a smoke raised with the fumes of sighs", "a spirit all compact of fire"? Where's the intelligence in any of that?

It makes sense if you consider that beyond the purple prose and blue movies lies a psychological minefield. Poets may wax lyrical, but anyone who has been in love knows that romantic relationships are full of rhetorical spin, misleading half-truths and barefaced lies. This is a game of manipulation, and the stakes are high. Each date is a crucial interview …