The Brain in Love Video
Love Addict Test
Dr. Helen Fisher's Attraction Test
Watch "The Brain in Love" video and take the self-quizzes at the links above and see what personality type you are and if you are a love addict. Now that we know that love creates dopamine in the brain similar to many drugs like cocaine and meth, we can now understand how many can become addicted to being in love.
Why do you think some people fall in love and become love addicts while others fall in love but do not? Do you think that it's a matter of biology? Life scripts? Attachment styles? Self-esteem? Etc.
Love seems like such a subjective "idea" to start off with. The reason i say that is because i feel like most individuals do think differently about other under the word of love. But I think some people become addicted because love in my mind equates to value, and while there may be many ways in which we have value, love trumps them all. And maybe those that do not get addicted feel they have value elsewhere. Now that is a huge generalization and there are tons of possibilities and scenarios in which this could be incorrect. But "matter of biology? Life scripts? Attachment styles? Self-esteem?" are all possible reasons for someone to be a addict or not, some more than others.
ReplyDeleteI'm primarily a negotiator and secondly a builder. It says that I am a die- hard romantic and I must have depth and meaning in my relationships. It says that I have a big heart and that I'm very intuitive and sensitive to other people's feelings and needs. This profile seems eerily accurate! I do not believe I am a love addict though. Life scripts, self-esteem, and attachment styles all play a part in how you fall in love, even whether or not you fall in love period.
ReplyDeleteLove is an emotion that we tend to commit fully to before we even know what it encumbers. Some people that are very needy and seek attention fall in love quickly because they need attention.
ReplyDeleteLove is like having a box in front of you and 99 out of 100 times there's a turd in there, but that one time there is a cookie in there and its the best cookie youve ever tasted.
ReplyDeleteEveryone falls in love. I think that it is a matter of being confident with yourself and your significant other that depends on if your an addict when you fall in love or not. You are either yearning for that love and once you get it, you can't get enough; or once your in love with someone you know it and don't need to thrive on it any more. Biology, life scripts, and attachment styles all play a role, but i think self-esteem is number one.
In my opinion i think most people are "in love" with the idea/thought of being in love with someone that when they find a partner they immediately think she or he are in love with their partners but in reality they just started going out so there is no way possible to be in love that quick. Especially those who say they believe in love at "first sight" in my perspective i think thats BS. you may love what you see or what's in that body but not emotionally. I have been in love and i've been with lots and lots of relationships, well... they were not all relationships but we knew our deal between us. With that being said i feel like most people think too far ahead of themselves and call it love without realizing that is such a strong word. i personally think it takes time to really appreciate and love everything that special person does for you.
ReplyDeleteI believe that there are people that are just obsessed with the idea of love.It's been implanted into our minds since childhood (through princess stories and fairy tale endings) that love leads to a lifetime of happiness. A person who is surrounded by committed relationships feels as if they too NEED to find their soul mate...How addicted people are to love depends on many factors, but I believe that attachment styles play a large role in how addicted one person becomes. One person seeking love they never had will become obsessed with making a realationship work. On the other hand a person may want to recreate the same loving committed relationship their parents had... We all just want to be wanted by someone who will show us love.
ReplyDeleteI think it all depends on the person you are. We all have either seen or been in relationships where one person seems to care about the other. a good amount to point it out at least. It might be about the attachment styles, because it is very possible for a director to be in love but not a love addict and a negotiator to be in love and a love addict. I am not very sure about the biology and life script part though.
ReplyDeleteI think that whether a person falls in love too easily or not depends on their personality, which can be broken down into things like self-esteem and attachment style. Usually, a person with low self-esteem latches on to someone way too quickly, because they do not want to lose that person, thinking that they have no business being associated with them or thinking they are better than them. Love itself is a word that I believe is flirted with way too often. As a society, we have seem to forgotten that true LOVE is something that married couples share. I'm tired of hearing about people who have been in multiple relationships and claiming to have "loved" every person. Personally, even having been in many relationships, I have never told a girl I loved her. I came close once, but other than that, I take the word love seriously. Moreover, I even had a couple relationships end because I refused to say it back. Oh well, but my goal is to say the magic "I love you" to the girl I plan on marrying. That would be ideal.
ReplyDeleteTo me love is when you would do anything to make the other person happy, just to see them smile, or that you would do anything to keep them with you, but if they don't love you or want you,then what is really there? Did they ever really love you, or was it what they thought to be love, but it turned out that it wasn't.Everyone has there own view of what love is to them, you may have had the same thoughts of it at first, but maybe the other changed what they thought and now it inst working out.I don't think you should stay with someone to try to keep the relationship going if the other doesn't feel the same way. Instead of trying to patch it up you need to let go and find another later along the way.
ReplyDeleteTrue, I wish I had that logic before I ended up being irreparably damaged from my last relationships.
DeleteI would think it has alot to do with there self-esteem, for the reason that people with self-esteem issues feel like they are worthless. They need there significant other telling them how much him or her cares, or loves them. where as a confident individual wouldnt need a person building them up to feel good about themselfs. Because of this i feel as though they wont be as addicted to love, where as a low self-esteem individual would crave for love, attention, and affection.
ReplyDeleteThe personality quiz said I am a builder/explorer. It was accurate, but on some main points it was off. I think that I am not a love addict. I have only been in love once and I don't find love elsewhere or look for it. I enjoy love and it's a good feeling. It gets me "high" I guess, but I believe I'm not addicted to it.
ReplyDeletefirst of all that love video thing on how their temples "kiss" and what not, was a pretty dope story. I personally think that how people fall in love , addicted or not, is completely personal. for me personally i get attached a little easy and it has screwed me over so many times, so im working on changing a few things i don't like about myself. I think it depends if a person is in the middle of change is a huge factor on how they feel towards their partner.
ReplyDeletemy primary personality was a builder with my secondary being a negotiator. it described me pretty well minus being good at talking. im socially awkward as hell.
I think that the reason some people become love addicts is because they have a low self esteem and when they find that one person that loves them for who they are and boosts their self esteem and makes them feel like they are at the top of the world they are not going to want to let them go, and they will sacrifice a lot just to get them to stay. Love should be a simple thing, where two people care about each other and just want to make one another happy . I think that if a person feels good about themselves and they learn to love themselves first then the relationship can be a healthy one where there are no love addicts.
ReplyDeleteI believe everyone has the capability to fall in love. Just like you can love your family, you can fall in love with someone whom will make you feel loved. In my opinion it all goes down to loving yourself first and then finding the right person. I mean we are all different, we all love differently and show our affection in various ways. But to me there no doubt that anyone can have the heart to love and feel loved. How you were raised and your lifestyle may have an impact in these things.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm not addicted to love, seems that i may be heartless.It turns out I'm an Explorer/Director my main chemicals are Dopamine/Testosterone. I am attracted to a mate who is also intellectually and physically adventurous and interested in dissecting this complex, tangible universe. I particularly like imaginative and theoretical people, a "mind mate." And I like a partner who is sexual, because I seem to regard sex as an important part of a relationship. I'm decisive and direct. I'm you drawn to people who can balance out my highly independent and tough-minded spirit--people who are novelty seeking, yet compassionate, verbal, intuitive, trusting, flexible and emotionally expressive.
ReplyDeleteAnyways I realize love is real it can happen out of now where with someone you wouldn't expect to love, love is selfless and compassionate. Though I'm not sure love is for everyone, only those who truely desire love. Everyone can be in love but whether or not they get it back depends on if they will wait for their partner to feel the same or move on. But if the relationship ends badly the one partner may never have felt the love the other might have felt so passionately. Causing one partner who felt love for the other to forget, or feel worthless and continue to seek love elsewhere. I think being rejected might contribute to love addicts, when they don't get the results the search for they keep exploring to feel what they want to get the high they felt before.
I agree with Claudia that one must love themselves before they can love others. I would also like to say that I believe that people in today's society are a bunch of love addicts. They don't care if it's real love or fake love, people only want to be with someone else because of the fear they have of being alone. They then get this silly notion that they are "in love" when all it's really brought up to be is a huge infatuation that, after dealing with for a while just doesn't cut it if there's nothing real there. I'm sorry to say but I'm a huge pessimist and I hate this generation I've been brought into. It really is harder to find and romance someone who isn't desperately wanting there idea of "love". However, I do believe there is a true love for every individual out there. Sure it doesn't happen like in those cheesy romance movies but people can find there true love if they put themselves out there and deal with having to find the right person. 6.6 billion inhabit the earth and I'm more than positive if you don't become a love junkie you can find your "soul mate".
ReplyDeletePersonally I think that people just like the idea of being in love. They want someone to be with and feel the constant need to be with someone to make them feel good. Me? I think love doesn't really exist. Maybe its because I've never actually been "in love" or maybe I haven't met my "soul mate" but I honestly think its just this idea that everyone has in their head that there is someone out there for us all. I think that the way we were brought up might be the cause of why we think the way we do. All my life my mom has always told me that I don't need a man to make me happy and that there is no such thing as love. Eventually you will both just get sick of each other. Heartless? Eh maybe I am, but i can guarantee you that no man will ever break my heart. I will never go through that heart break that people feel. And I blame it all on my mother for putting the image in my head that no one will ever be good enough.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the whole concept of being "in love" is something that is used to describe the companionship between any two given people. I personally do like the idea that there is someone out there that is supposed to be my "other half" but I strongly believe that you can have these feeling for many different people. When it comes to choosing a partner though i feel that many are too oblivious to come to terms when someone becomes or is detrimental to their life; they are content/happy with simply having someone there for them, and I believe that's where divorce, and relationship problems later down the road arise.
ReplyDeleteI think that some people fall in love out of loneliness or at least they think that they are in love. It can also be that they are not really in love with someone but with the idea of being in love. I have heard of people being in love, and in the first sign of trouble the love disappears. In my opinion the real love is when you accept the person the way it is without trying to change it. Do I think that biology, Life scripts, Attachment styles, and Self-esteem, have something do with it. They might do, in one way or another.
ReplyDelete16 out of the 40 questions on the first quiz were yes's.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what that means.
I don't think it would make much sense for me to be a "love" addict. I've only been in one relationship and that didn't end well. Then again, despite that horrible experience, I still wouldn't mind having another. So I guess in that respect, it probably would make sense to consider myself an addict. Love is my heroin. Only tried it once, it sucked, but I can't help but crave the same fix again (just not with the same "needle")
I personally think "Love" is different for everybody. Drawing from observation, teenaged girls are far more interested in the idea of being in love rather than actually loving. It's in their upbringing. The average American girl is brought up being told stories about princess's and "true love" and along with Barbie, they also play with Ken Dolls: A young female's introduction to male manipulation. Ken: every woman's ideal man-puppet. Love seems to be more of an ego thing with women. Ever notice how most songs about heartbreak are written and sung by males? I'm thinking there's some significant reasoning behind that.
As for myself, I think Love is more chemical than anything. The effects that particular emotion has on me (which will not be disclosed) are similar to that of drug addicts. I think I might be a romantic lightweight.
Although, admittingly, I believe self-esteem is also an issue here. I've always seemed to have a longstanding relationship with rejection. And that tends to affect my self-perception a bit; inevitably making me more cautious and having that bite me in the ass when someone better comes along and sweeps the girl off her feet.
But that's probably just the Negotiator in me talking.
Love sucks.
A bottle of Jack for 1 costs less than a dinner for 2.
Greg, your posts are always so witty and one of my favs!
DeleteThe Love Addict Test might as well have asked me if I was a Twilight Girl. Of course I did answer yes to a couple of them but some of these questions seemed to be very sad had you answered yes to them.
ReplyDeleteA love addict is truely someone who is lost in their own soul. I've seen a couple of these "love addict's" in action and it isn't necessarily something to smile and say "aww" at. It's actually quite sad and sometimes annoying. These people obsess over something that is risky and can often times lead to eras of hurt. Of course love is like a drug, and just like anything else, if you have too much of it, it can kill you! Just like too much cocaine can kill, too much love can kill who you are on the inside.
I think people become addicts because they like that sense of feeling needed and that comfort of knowing that there's someone there that needs them. Finding love seems to be the only thing they care about, and once they find it, it's all they talk about. Obviously it can be bad in that you can become so desperate for love that you kind of force yourself into a relationship with someone that might not be right for you. But being the addict that you are, you don't care, you have someone, and you just may be in love. If things aren't working out, you fix it by changing, even if deep down you feel that it's wrong. Yeah, some of it sounds beautiful, but mostly rediculous. I can tell you from experience that this is the case almost all the time. My experience with a love addict hasn't been good. Needless to say, they're god damn crazy. All they're concerned about is maintaining love in their life when there is so much more to life than just that.
As for those that don't become addicts, good for them. Love is not something to obsess about but definitely something worth having in your life when you know it's right. I've learned that people that aren't addicts typically have a brighter outlook on life and are more caught up with being themselves rather than trying to be the person everyone wants to know. It's all about self-esteem and confidence in yourself to be able to be dependant on yourself and not on the high of love.
Certain individuals are susceptible to becoming love addicts because of a low sense of self-worth. While others with high self confidence and a strong moral foundation do not. whether people become love addicts or not has to do with a combination of factors. Certainly people are born with different biological make-ups, and this is evident in the different personalities and attitudes of people we come across everyday. Also, past experiences have a great impact in sculpting our way of thinking and behaving, which then can cause one person to become a love addict and another person not. However, we as people are constantly changing and developing a different mindset, so we have the power to chose what type of character to develop. Love, happiness, and anger are all choices, and we have the power to chose which to live out.
ReplyDeleteI think there are many different factors to why people fall in love. Becoming a love addict, I think would be mostly down to personality. Everything plays a factor into who you are individually, so yes biology, life scripts, attachment styles and self-esteem play roles into how you fall in love.For some people, it never happens and for some people it happens all too often. Each person and each experience is different so it is hard to really point out a specific reason on why people become addicted to love.
ReplyDeletePeople become love addicts because they fall in love with being in love. Personally I believe its a love style, it all begins when one is a small child. Watching all the fairy tales while your younger, teaching little girls that one day your prince charming is going to come for you... Total lie! Not to be a dream crusher, but this is reality. Love is a game that one has to be tough through out the entirety. So for women, they keep in the back of their minds that one day they will find prince charming. So in order to find this "prince charming" they become love addicts. As for men, I don't know their story!
ReplyDeleteIs love our drug? Well Ke$ha seems to believe so. For the common addict, drugs are a necessity and can't be ignored. Love is a mixture of what I would say "different ingredients" that some to most people crave and feed on. Is it normal? I don't see why not. A lot of people have emotional needs, whether its happiness, or compassion, or affection. Love brings these all together in to one big emotional addiction. And a lot of people ask how this happens. Most people know the answer to this but are afraid to admit it. Ever heard the term "You are the way you are by the way you were raised." That can play a very important role in this. If somebody was never loved, they search and search for that emotion as if they are running out of time and attach themselves to whoever they can. And it can work the other way; if somebody was really loved, they are going to need that attention all the time. Another term for this is "attention whore." (pertain my language) or a lack of self-esteme. Some people just don't fall under either of those categories. And there's nothing abnormal about that. Call this biology or scripts or whatever. Love is an endless, hopeless, clueless emotion.
ReplyDelete"Attention whore" hmmmm, I'm gonna have to steal that term Robert!
DeleteAs an eros style lover I am a very passionate person. I think love is an incredibly important part to life and that it can be constructed in many ways that are individual for each person. Love to me is completely open to interpretation; I believe that biology does play a part and that your mind, body, and soul nurture the biological creations (dopamine, etc.) into the altruistic caring nature that we view as love.
ReplyDeleteI think love is a beautiful thing and that some people may not wholeheartedly agree with me on that. I believe love makes the world go around, but quite possibly so because of my life scripts and self-esteem. I work on myself to create a better person for not only myself and the world but for a perfect lover to embrace that with me; my confidence/self-esteem enables me to find what I deem “the right” kind of guys.
Alternatively, I have seen a lack of love for me to know that not everything is perfect sometimes it is simply empty, (my Mom is on her third marriage)this is what keeps me stable enough to know that I will not attach and put up with things like agape style lovers might for extended periods of times; I frankly do not want to waste my time seeing this empty feelings and reliving them myself.
I am not a love addict according to the test, which might come as a surprise but I do cherish EVERY aspect of love in its entirety.
On a side note, I have actually done research on the biology of love and I would love to share my essay with you if you would not mind, Mrs. Wilking? I also have written a poem on my idea of love and the fact that it can be entirely what the individual makes it, possibly you'd like to see that? Anywho, I am a builder and an explorer and I think the quizzes categorized me fairly well. I really love this class so far and I look forward to utilizing the knowledge I acquire in my own personal love life.
I would LOVE to read your work Gabi! Bring it to class Monday.
DeleteAwesome! Will do :)
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