How Do You Know if You’re in Love?

By: burgundy bug

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Pink Rose

Source: Pink Roses 03 | Penelope Peru Photography P3

A flush as red as roses paints itself wide across your cheeks. Nervous giggles force themselves through your smile as your lungs beg for oxygen.

That’s love.

… Right?

Earlier in the month, we talked about what happens to your brain when you’re in love. Your body is flooded with a rush of hormones including dopamine, oxytocin, and vasopressin; resulting in euphoria, a sense of connectedness, and a level of obsession.

While this explains why love makes us experience certain feelings and changes throughout our body, it leaves out a rather large and important piece of the puzzle.

How Do You Know if You’re in Love?

Cosmopolitan offers a few anecdotal signs that may indicate you’re in love: a sense of security and comfort, a level of spontaneity, and the ease of the overall relationship.

Psychology Today reports very similar indications: a level of addiction to your significant other, a desire to integrate them into your social circles, positive self-developments, and perhaps even a bit of jealousy.

Although these are hallmark traits of love that have been reaffirmed by countless songs, TV shows, movies, personal accounts, and research throughout history, they still remain very subjective accounts of romance.

Give Us the Cold, Hard Facts, Bug!

That’s not to say these articles or the endless stream of media across globe since the very dawn of time should be discredited. The level of subjectivity is just something that should be kept in the back of your mind while binging on web-based love tests or pleading for insight from the relationship gurus on Yahoo Answers.

It’s hard to talk about love without subjectivity, perhaps even impossible. The four-letter word carries an immense amount of weight. Although it is defined in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary as:

• “a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties”
• “attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers”
• “affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests”
• “an assurance of affection”
• “warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion”
• “the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration”
• “a beloved person”
• “unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another”
• “a god or personification of love”
• “an amorous episode”
• “the sexual embrace”
• “a score of zero (as in tennis)”
• “to hold dear”
• “to like or desire actively”
• “to thrive in”

All of these definitions mean something a little different to just about everyone who’s ever loved or been loved.

It becomes an even bigger grey area when discussing the experience of being in-love.