Falling in Love
There are five key components that determine with whom you fall in love, and if your love will last. They are: proximity, familiarity, readiness, similarity, and reciprocity.
- Proximity: This means the state, quality or sense of being near or next to another person. That is not to mean that if you are next to somebody, you will automatically fall in love with him or her, but it does help. In order to move on to the next stage of familiarity, you must be close to them or have frequent interactions. Research has shown that a series of brief face-to-face contacts increase positive responses.
- Familiarity: Having close knowledge and shared experiences with another person leads to increasing familiarity. The better that you get to know a person, the better of a chance that you will fall in love with that person. At the same time, many months or years of familiarity can also be the reason why there is a decline in sexual passion and sexual activity in a relationship. Extensive familiarity can also lead to a decline in passionate love.
- Readiness: An important stage of falling in love is the readiness for finding love. A person needs to be ready in order to fall in love, and that can mean not being involved in another relationship at the time, or even psychologically ready to get into another relationship.
- Similarity: Long-term loving relationships are more successful when people have similar backgrounds and beliefs about various issues. Many couples initially decide to get together because there is a similarity in physical attraction. Similarity may be beneficial because we expect to be accepted by people who are like us.
- Reciprocity: A mutual give and take that involves many pleasurable experiences is condusive to love. It is best when two people give to each other equally. There can be an exchange of emotional rewards, physical pleasure, or anything of value, which is wonderful for a relationship, and of course, falling in love.
Miracle, Miracle and Baumeister (2003). Human Sexuality. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.