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From: jkr@gitpyr.UUCP (John Kenneth Riviere)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: How Do We Love?
Message-ID: <1110@gitpyr.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Nov-85 00:15:49 EST
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.1110
Posted: Thu Nov 28 00:15:49 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Nov-85 00:03:22 EST
References: <26600148@uiucdcs>
Reply-To: jkr@gitpyr.UUCP (John Kenneth Riviere)
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 43
Summary: We love due to shared experiences.

In article <26600148@uiucdcs> kaufman@uiucdcs.CS.UIUC.EDU writes:
>While this net has gone over (with predictable results) the question, "What is
>love?" I don't recall seeing anyone discuss the question of how people become
>in love with each other...  Specifically, how does it become that one person
>attains a high degree of commitment to another?  

I have heard a theory that a period of intense, shared experiences is what
causes people to fall in love.  I once heard of some psychologists or some
such folk who were attempting to study this theory.  They paired up their test
subjects and gave them some difficult tasks to complete which would cause
them to work together closely over a period of weeks (of course the test
subjects had no idea what the true purpose of the study was).  However, after
a few weeks the researchers abandoned all aspects of the research ... many of
their subjects were dropping out of the program to get married!  This 
supported their theory but frightened the researchers who had not intended
to be causing such long term effects on their test subjects.

Think how natural this type of progression is when presented in a story:
hero and heroine endure hardship together (perhaps despising each other at
first) but after triumphing over adversity *together* they realize their
true love for each other and etc. etc.  This cannot seem too absurd or it
would not be such a common theme in literature.

I know that in my own experience I and my wife shared a very traumatic year
together during which time we became very close friends.  While no romantic
interests arose at the time (we were still in elementary school), when we
contacted each other many years later we wound up engaged within three months
and were married within another three months.  (oops!  I just realized, am I
not supposed to post to this group since I'm not single?  :-)

>A related and interesting converse is the question, why does one's 
>commitment to another sometimes decrease sharply?

This I haven't heard as much about.  I hope my wife and I don't wind up 
experiencing a significant decrease in our commitment anytime soon. 

>Ken Kaufman (uiucdcs!kaufman)


-- 
J. Kenneth Riviere   (JoKeR)
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
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