Why do we fall out/in of love

This is a post responding to a dear friend. Love has been an age old topic.

Love entails from a biological stand point an excess of dopamine and oxycotin. Chocolate releases some hence the reference in the movies about "love being nothing but an excess of chocolate" or something like that(Al Pacino). Biologically we could go deep in the feeling of love but unfortunately, to my knowledge there are only half baked theories.

Bring in non biological stuff. Beginning from Freud; Love is a narcisstic need. It evolves around Eros. If one looks at various stages eros changes from one attachment  to another. A child vs an adult has different love objects, hence the stages of freud (oral, anal, genital, latency etc). Freud would say that id and superego play a big role in modulating our love. Id being our sexual impulses and superego being how we harness them in to something that is "ideal". Many a people struggle with their ideals and being able to "fall in love". Object relations (Melanie Klein) took it further. One of the examples is imagining a sofa in a black room. It is only valuable to a person and recognizable by a person, based on what kind of attributes they attach to it. If it is red and comfortable, it is not the sofa that is comfortable or one's favorite color but the ourselves projecting on to inanimate object. So it does revolve around us. Being able to love is about being able to love oneself. There is an existential view about it as well. Sartre says that there is no such thing as "falling in love". It is merely choices that a person makes that make him/her fall in love. Like a person who has made a decision, consciously or unconsciously that he needs to find a mate because of xyz reasons, is more likely to court a wo/man. There happens to be an overlap between between existential and mystic tradition.

The mystic tradition is all about love. But it is only about a transcendental love that it talks about. As Eckhart Tolle says that (paraphrasing) that only thing worth loving is one that you will never be bored of, if you are bored of it, it is not worth loving". You can put whatever you want in the category of being worthy of being loved. Ferrari, I think I will get bored of it, maybe in one year or maybe even two years. A partner I will be bored of, if I do not see the essence of the person. The invisible cloak that is mentioned in the above link is a great idea. It does give a person perspective. However that begs the question, should love be reciprocated to survive between partners.

I think not. True love is in the image of true love of the universe. Not asking anything and being content with what is given. In relationship with partners, however that deficiency does tend to become a problem because at the end of the day, we measure our satisfaction based upon the mirrored love of our partner.

Lets say I married a wo/man because of true love. Things go bad and s/he ends up divorcing me. Do I blame myself or blame her. True love does not blame. It does not expect. It gives. It is like a comfortable blanket that is thrown everywhere around the beloved. S/he shirks it off so be it. It is only ego and narcissism that hurts us. Giving and not expecting, never hurt anyone because of lack of expectation.

On the opposite end, cognitive behavioral theory actually calls it a distortion of thoughts that a person loves another person unconditionally without a balanced thought. Realists do believe in that. However the fault that I find in it is that, is that with all its balance it escapes the true essence of human existence. Focus of cognitive theory (Beck) does revolve around compromises with the outside world and treatment of those individuals who are "distorted" revolves around surrender of their idealism. Idealism makes a person function and to take away that from a person through CBT is brutal.

I believe in agape, and hence all the human encounters that a person has, have to molded in that. Otherwise, this topic does become a distraction and not something to live for.