# Is love based on a fantasy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 10, 2001, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429 "2001-03-10T06:29:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![by-tor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/by-tor/32/266_2.png) [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2001, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/1 "2001-03-10T06:29:51Z")
Ok lets say I “fall in love with you,” what is really going on? It seems to me that I gather sensory and symbolic information about you, interpret that information, build an internal mental/emotional model of who I think you are, update the model continually and at some point chemical reactions happen in my body that produce the feeling of love. What am I in love with? My model of you is not you and never can be. A does not equal B. I have no idea what it is REALLY like to be you and your internal subjective reality and never can. Sure I can and do guess but in a real way your are unkowable to me and always being interpreted and reinterpreted through the filters of my nervous system and brain. I submit that I am in fact not in love with who you truly are but instead I am in love with who I think and feel you are-- my internal model of you. Don’t get me wrong. I like and value the feeling of love as much as the next person and I do care about the well being of many people even though I can’t really know them in an ultimate sense. My question is more philisophical than pratical. Thanks in advance for any comments, positions or opinions! ---
**Author:** ![StephenG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@StephenG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StephenG)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2001, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/2 "2001-03-10T08:16:38Z")
Madeline L’Engle, in her poem “To a Long Loved Love: 7” wrote: > [@](#): > > Because you’re not what I would have you be > I blind myself to who, in truth you are. > … > And yet in you, in me, I find a trace > Of love which struggles to break through > The hidden lovely truth of me, of you. Parts 1-6 of the above poem can be found [here](http://www.technomom.com/reading/lengle.html). and probably other places online, and certainly in her book [_The Weather of the Heart_](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0877889317/qid=984212070/sr=1-3/ref=sc_b_3/102-2178609-5362568) which I recommend, along with everything else she’s written. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2001, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/3 "2001-03-10T21:21:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Satasha \* > Ok lets say I “fall in love with you,” what is really going on? I have to disagree with your assessment. I believe I have free will, and that it is reasonable to assume that others have free will as well. As such, there would have to be something beyond the physical\chemical\biological plane which enables people to make free decisions, rather than act purely according to p\c\b laws. If this is the case, and in fact all people have this same freedom of will I am certain I have (though, of course, it is subjective – I can’t prove to you I have free will nor can you prove your free will to me) there would seem to be something – for lack of a less loaded term – spiritual at play. If this is true, and we all have a spirit or soul which hooks into the same plane of reality – then it should indeed be possible to truly know and love another human being far beyond mere impressions of shadows of illusions. I won’t debate all this as it is, admittedly, a house of cards. But I believe in romantic love – and anyone who does not because it is beyond the ken of science needs a hug. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/4 "2001-03-11T01:00:50Z")
“fall in love with you” If you ask everyone here what that means, no two answers are going to be the same. The same thing with the word ‘love’. Therefore, there is no set answer to your confabulation. ---
**Author:** ![JonScribe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3be4f8/32.png) [@JonScribe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonScribe)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/5 "2001-03-11T07:45:19Z")
“So much in love with us are we, you could kiss you and I could kiss me.” — Tommy Smothers ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/6 "2001-03-11T21:15:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Satasha \* > \*\*Ok lets say I “fall in love with you,” what is really going on? It seems to me that I gather sensory and symbolic information about you, interpret that information, build an internal mental/emotional model of who I think you are, update the model continually and at some point chemical reactions happen in my body that produce the feeling of love. \*\* You should write Hallmark cards! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mrblue92](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@mrblue92](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrblue92)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/7 "2001-03-12T21:49:58Z")
> [@](#): > > I submit that I am in fact not in love with who you truly are but instead I am in love with who I think and feel you are-- my internal model of you. Experience seems to show me otherwise. Even if love was empirical, quantifiable stuff, available in tablet form over the counter, I do not believe I would not be able to buy or induce the kind of connections that I have known. Especially in those circumstances when I would not have chosen to fall in love with a particular person if I had the choice. **jmullaney** makes the free-will argument that I tend to agree with. Asking one to prove the existence of spiritual love is tantamount to asking one to prove the existence of God. Yet, by intuition, many of us come to accept such unverifiable things. The hard-core skeptic would probably say that intuition is invalid, that love is a self-delusion, it’s existence resulting from evolutionary processes. I suppose you can choose to believe that if you wish. I, for one, refuse to. Call me an idiot if you wish for doing so, perhaps you would be right. But I would not want to live in a world where love did not exist as more than a complicated set of chemical reactions. ---
**Author:** ![dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f19dbf/32.png) [@dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dude)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2001, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/8 "2001-03-13T12:56:32Z")
Its the greatest thing in the world ! In your genes, sub conscious or whatever you call it your thinking 'wow, what ace genes for my kids ’ BUT who cares. I have a theory its the same feeling as a little kid cuddling a teddy bear BUT can’t prove this. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2001, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/9 "2001-03-13T19:59:43Z")
According to [Romantic love, the serotonin transporter and OCD](http://www.biopsychiatry.com/lovesero.htm), love=OCD. 🙂 I would agree that you don’t fall in love with the “true” person but with some combination of your perception of the person, and your perception of yourself in relation to that person. It’s not just a judgment of the other person, but of yourself and the two of you as a pair. Who knows if someone who is “the one” when you are in one life circumstance would still be magical at some other point in your life, if only because you have changed? ---
**Author:** ![Cyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@Cyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyn)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/10 "2001-03-14T04:30:39Z")
Every one defines and interprets love differently—everyone has different needs. Everyone recognizes love differently. Some people bring out the worst in me, some appeal to my softer side. I allow only certain people to see the real me, as far as I can show the real me. There is the self I display, the self you discern and the self that I am. The percentages change according to the situation I am in. Only people who are skilled in fooling themselves, and there are a lot of them, can fall in love and maintain that feeling for a fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/11 "2001-03-14T06:08:45Z")
I’ll say the same thing several times, in different ways. If any of you want to debate me, just cut & paste any of the following paragraphs after your post: Initially, perhaps yes, but love can not grow and sustain itself year after year as it has between Mr & Mrs Tove if it is based on no more than emotional hoo-ha. However, if it were not for those initial months of hoo-ha, who know if we could have survived all the bad times, including the destruction of the more immature elements of fantasy? Long ago, Mr & Mrs Tove were seperated by the Cold War and saw eachother a total of 20 days in 24 months. Over 500 multi-page letters were exchanged. We maintain no such elaborate correspondence anymore, but we do now maintain an elaborate 11-year old daughter. Here’s the short version: Falling in love is pure fantasy; staying in love is hard reality -but is impossible without that first fantasy. Now I’ll say the same thing with these words: I don’t think you can fall in love unless you are kidding yourself, because the natural tendency for survival favors keeping people at arms length. You need to find someone equally disposed to projecting false representations onto you while you do the same upon them. These misrepresentations will crash sooner or later, and you may break up, but if there was a strong enough value to them initially, and it was in equal strengths on both sides, love will abide this as well as the other natural blows that come along. Here’s the Hallmark-ish analogy: after all the sparks fly away, something very strong will have annealed in the crucible - but you needed that heat in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f19dbf/32.png) [@dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dude)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/12 "2001-03-22T13:04:43Z")
“Here’s the Hallmark-ish analogy: after all the sparks fly away, something very strong will have annealed in the crucible - but you needed that heat in the first place.” says it all really ---
**Author:** ![celestina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/258eb7/32.png) [@celestina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/celestina)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/13 "2001-03-22T20:56:07Z")
* * * Slithy Tove said: “Falling in love is pure fantasy; staying in love is hard reality -but is impossible without that first fantasy.” * * * Well said, Slithy! You are so right about how difficult it is to stay in love with someone. I believe that you make up your mind to love them because of their quirks and just the fact that they give you something that you need. True love is to some extent acceptance. However, we should also keep in mind that it is difficult to love others if we do not love and accept ourselves first. But now I’m thinking about other kinds of love, not necessarily romantic love. For example, I can’t explain why I love (and I don’t mean in a perverted way, so don’t start getting ideas) my doggy, Shnookums. I just do. At first when we got her, I didn’t want anything to do with that mutt. I had no illusions about the dog; I’m a cat person. I like cats because they are much more intelligent than dogs for the most part; although, Shnookums is pretty smart for a dog. I don’t know how it happened, but now we’re inseparable. Anytime I leave the house and don’t take her with me, she gets all despondent. I have no idea how she got under my skin. I play with her & hug her, and she walks all over me, and I don’t mind at all. 🙂 I’m a rational person, but when Shnookums looks up at me with those big brown eyes, I find it difficult to resist–a lot of time I can’t resist giving her what she wants. I don’t think it’s a chemical reaction. How do I explain this hold that Shnookums has over me? ---
**Author:** ![SuperNova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SuperNova](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperNova)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2001, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/14 "2001-03-23T04:42:19Z")
> [@](#): > > How Do I Love Thee? > by Elizabeth Barrett Browning > > How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. > I love thee to the depth and breadth and height > My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight > For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. > > I love thee to the level of everyday’s > Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. > I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; > I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. > > I love thee with the passion put to use > In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. > I love thee with a love I seemed to lose > With my lost saints,–I love thee with the breath, > Smiles, tears, of all my life!–and, if God choose, > I shall but love thee better after death. I don’t want to try and define love. I don’t think it really can be defined. The romantic in me wants to think that love is more than chemical reactions. Love is different for everyone. I don’t think this is a Great Debate. It should be in IMHO, because it’s something that is without a doubt an opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Procacious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Procacious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procacious)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2001, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/15 "2001-03-23T14:33:54Z")
I must disagree that love involves free-will. Yes, you can decide whether or not to act on love impulses, but the people you fall in love with seem to be chosen without free will. If you got to choose whom to fall in love with you would choose the most convient person. Why not choose to love that person that you know will treat you right? Instead you get stuck loving some other person that is wrong for you but you can’t help yourself. If you could choose your targets for love the whole process would be a lot easier. ---
**Author:** ![dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f19dbf/32.png) [@dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dude)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/16 "2001-03-25T15:01:54Z")
If someone stops treating you right then you can leave. We all have choices, hard though they may be. We are the sum of our decisions ( well, not totally, but ) so make them. My sister married a good looking man with a good job who then started having affairs, she tried to make it work, it didn’t - she made decisions and is now a lot happier. ---
**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2001, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-love-based-on-a-fantasy/57429/17 "2001-03-26T22:40:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Procacious \* > \*\*Instead you get stuck loving some other person that is wrong for you but you can’t help yourself. If you could choose your targets for love the whole process would be a lot easier. \*\* Well, that’s certaintly true. I wonder why the heck that is??