{"id":70,"date":"2009-07-03T17:28:33","date_gmt":"2009-07-03T17:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/an-analysis-of-love.html"},"modified":"2009-07-03T17:28:33","modified_gmt":"2009-07-03T17:28:33","slug":"an-analysis-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/an-analysis-of-love.html","title":{"rendered":"An Analysis of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Ah love. Love with the capital L. It’s great, isn’t it –the natural high, the bliss, the warmth that comes from finding someone to
\nlove. Until you experience the lows – the breakups, the heartbreak, trusting your
\nhappiness in someone else’s hands. Well, what if you could anticipate and
\ndefend against those lows? What if you could find your “perfect” match
\nscientifically? One writer, A.J. Jacobs, chronicles his part of an intriguing
\nexperiment aimed at dissecting that very human emotion called love.<\/p>\n

The article, “Do I Love My Wife? An Investigative Report,” <\/a>takes
\nyou through the 3 systems that supposedly intertwine to form the feeling of
\nlove: the Sex Drive, the Romance System, and the Attachment System.\u00a0Oh, and it turns out Jacobs does love his wife — just not in a “she makes me tremble” kind of way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The study of love also looks at the chemicals that make us more or less faithful. That would be handy, wouldn’t it? It would be nice if they could create an injection to help the Mark Sanford’s<\/a> of the world find their soulmate and stick with her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As fascinating
\nas I find the idea, I have to wonder if we’re meant to dissect a force so
\npowerful. Love drives us in so many things that are essentially human. By
\ndissecting it are we taking away its essence?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s not that I’m against scientific exploration; but I do agree with Jacobs’ friends who told him, “Nothing good can come of
\nthis.” Part of our addiction to love comes from the unknown, and while
\nwe’ve all experienced the heartache that makes us wish we had just known
\nbetter<\/span>, I don’t believe humanity is better off planning for love the same we
\nplan for retirement.<\/p>\n

Must admit though, my awkward 12-year-old self was all<\/span> about\u00a0Sandra Bullock’s love potion no. 9.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah love. Love with the capital L. It’s great, isn’t it –the natural high, the bliss, the warmth that comes from finding someone to love. Until you experience the lows – the breakups, the heartbreak, trusting your happiness in someone else’s hands. Well, what if you could anticipate and defend against those lows? What if…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-padmini-mangunta"],"yoast_head":"\nAn Analysis of Love - Everyday Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/an-analysis-of-love.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Analysis of Love - Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ah love. Love with the capital L. It’s great, isn’t it –the natural high, the bliss, the warmth that comes from finding someone to love. Until you experience the lows – the breakups, the heartbreak, trusting your happiness in someone else’s hands. Well, what if you could anticipate and defend against those lows? What if…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/an-analysis-of-love.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-03T17:28:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Padmini Mangunta\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"An Analysis of Love - Everyday Ethics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/an-analysis-of-love.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"An Analysis of Love - Everyday Ethics","og_description":"Ah love. Love with the capital L. 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In addition to writing for a various print and online publications, such as Parenting Magazine and iVillage, she was the Website Manager for the Henry Street Settlement, a social services and arts organization serving Manhattan's Lower East Side. Most recently, she worked on the Thai-Myanmar border as a writer for the Burma Human Rights Yearbook. Her curiosity about human nature, coupled with duel streaks of idealism and Midwestern pragmatism, developed into an ongoing discussion with friends, family and strangers on ethical quandaries. When she's not asking \"Why?\" you might have trouble finding her, as her hobbies include nosing around used bookstores, exploring the world (near and far), meeting new people and occasionally twiddling her thumbs while daydreaming.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/pmangunta"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}