Synthetic Love

            In our modern world many things are synthetic: latex, human organs, and even reality. All these things were created to replicate natural occurrences. Along with these things, and many other material objects, another thing that can be synthetically created is human emotions. Most of these synthetic emotions are created because of some drug, such as alcohol-induced depression, or happiness and relaxation due to some medication. Some emotions are not automatic, and must be forced. Love is not a natural human emotion, but a synthetic, culture-driven emotion.

            I am referring to modern love, established in the early 1100s. That is not to say that the idea of love was not developed before this, but at this period similarities to love in the 20^th and 21^st century began to immerge. The greatest evidence of this would be the first love songs composed by William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, after the crusades (Ackerman 447-48). Men have written love songs for women ever since. In some cases the man actually writes the song specifically for the woman he loves. But it seems more prevalent today that men learn an instrument, like guitar, that it will get girls to like them. Which from personal experience I can say does not work.

Another alternative to writing love songs for romance is the money. Many musicians, rappers, and boy bands sing about some generic girl who is the most special girl in the world, and whom they will always love. These records sell because every teenage girl desperate for “love” buys them thinking the artist is really speaking to her.

            My case is best aided with the statement from St. Paul, “… they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn” (qtd. in Ackerman 447). According to St. Paul fornication leads people away from G-d. In a sense this is the core of my argument. Young men hit their sexual peak around the ages eighteen to tweny-four, which is also when they are becoming mentally and physically mature. Although men want to have sex at this time in their lives, they do not want to be stuck with the stigma of being a fornicator. Granted, it was a far greater taboo to have sex before marriage 900 years ago, but it is still frowned upon to some degree today as well. As assumed most men, and some women, have a base desire to engage in sexual activity, but since they cannot have sex without marriage, there is the middleman: Love. People tell themselves they are in love when they are not to get married, in order to have guiltless sex.

            Such stigmas are present today as much as they were in the middle ages. The only difference is now it is acceptable to have all the sex you like, but you will get an odd look if you are over thirty and still not married. This is predominately shown in television shows. There are many episodes of the famous comedy Seinfeld in which the thirty-something characters attempt to fall in love or even just get married. Perhaps a more contemporary example would be the series Sex and the City, a show watched by the majority of females I know. This series is a depiction a four single women in New York City who have more sex in a week than the average person has meals. One character in particular, Charlotte, is obsessed with falling in love on more than a physical basis. The show lasted six seasons and within the second season Charlotte had fallen in love, or at least thought she had. This character, like many real people, told herself she was in love. Not because she was in love but because she wanted to be in love, or at least get married. This topic was dealt with in the series, as her marriage crumbled under its own falsehood.

This social construct of love is also evident in movies. I strongly agree with Chrys Ingraham, who claims that watching these movies is brainwashing individuals about love (455). Although brainwashing is a harsh term, it does fit, because viewing a movie dealing with the subject alters one’s expectation of what love is. These films, no matter how comedic or cute, always end the same: it all works out for everyone. This is a poor depiction of reality, and adds to what I like to refer to as the love myth.

The love myth suggests that being in love is the greatest feeling in the whole wide world, and it is always worth fighting for. This provides false hope and the wrong ideals. As previously stated, not being married is the new premarital sex, in the sense of social stigmas. That, combined with the love myth, is what may have led to the extremely high divorce rate. People get married for the wrong reasons, such as falsely thinking they’re in love.

It has been said that women use sex as a weapon in relationships, but it could also be said that men use love to counteract that weapon. Advertising suggests to women that objects represent love, while implying that men buy them for their significant other. This works against both sexes. If a woman questions a man’s love, or hints that she would like a thoughtful (a.k.a. expensive) gift, then that man must buy that gift to further prove his love, or else he will be seen as not committed to the relationship. However, if the man purchases the same gift for her of his own volition, then he has shown his love, and most likely expects his partner to show her love in return, most likely in a physical sense. It is a rather unscrupulous means of achieving a physical relationship, but I would imagine it occurs frequently. Love’s falsifying effects are as far-reaching as the world economy. Gold is a very soft metal with no practical purpose. Yet it is one of the most precious materials on the earth, simply because it is desired for its look. A gold ring is the symbol of marriage, and ultimately love, sometimes. A ring of stainless steel would look exactly the same, except for the color, and would never bend or tarnish, but gold is desired for no other reason than the fact that it is so expensive and precious. But it is only so expensive and precious because it’s desired. In a sense it’s a love catch-22.

The most interesting articles concerning these subjects deal with what occurs in the brain during the time of love, and what causes these reactions. I had always heard that love was nothing more than a chemical imbalance, but never took it too seriously. Helen Fisher classifies love as a web, consisting of categories including lust, romance, and attachment. But these “emotions” are triggered by chemical releases in the brain; lust comes from testosterone; romance is merely the result of norephiphrine, dopamine, and seratonin; and attachment is caused by oxytocin and vasopressin (427). These reactions add to my point about love being a pseudo-emotion, because one must question love. Some would argue that such chemical analysis shows that love is an emotion because it is created in this manner. Love is a lasting feeling, like happiness. You can feel happy by actions like smoking a cigarette or exercising, both release dopamine, which cause happiness. Though someone could smoke and be happy for the moment, most would prefer to just be happy all the time, in which case happiness is caused by being content with oneself, not because one’s brain is constantly pumping massive amounts of dopamine into the body. Love as most people see it, is a lasting thing, not a quick feeling.

When you are happy, you are happy; when you are sad, you are sad; but when you are in love you have to question it nearly every step of the way. Do I love this person? Do I love this person enough not to break up with her? Do I love this person enough to have sex with? Do I love this person enough to marry? If love was an instinctive emotion, these questions would be obvious, but there are many mitigating factors. When such things as chemical releases in the brain are taken into account, the idea of actually falling in love seems to be a teleological analysis of the situation (Fisher 426).

David Buss contributes two articles on the field of love, cleverly titled “What Women Want” and “Men Want Something Else.” The first article appropriately deals with what women are looking for in an ideal male, while the second describes the preferences men hold regarding women. The articles are as generic as their titles in that the things Buss describes for each sex are more common knowledge than some new development in the field of inter-gender relations. According to Buss, women prefer many things, most of which stem from the romantic idea of an older, maturer male. Such things as economic capacity, intelligence, dependability, and stability all tend to grow with age.  These things lead to the assumption that women prefer an older man, though some factors are inversely related to a man’s age. These include good health, size, and strength. As age increases, these characteristics of men often subside. Which would make it difficult to find the “perfect” man. Contrary to women’s views, men’s ideals about women almost all surround superficial features including, youth, physical beauty, and body shape. Men, however, strongly prefer women who practice chastity.

I like to see Buss’ analysis as a sort of love-by-numbers, with each category of interest being a variable. N is the number of necessary categories to consider loving someone based on personal preference, and X is the number of categories possessed by one’s partner. While Y is the number of categories they don’t possess, then if X minus Y is greater than N, one could be considered in love. This equation supports my claim that love is something that must be figured out and questioned, rather than felt like other real emotions.

Today, love seems to have gone the way of chivalry and the buffalo. It seems “Generation Y” has cast off the shackles of the love myth, and established hooking up. I would like to think there is some degree of consciousness in their action, but it seems more likely that the whole idea of searching for one’s lifelong love has just been replaced with searching for one’s night-long fling. Dinner and a movie have been replaced with meeting at a party and hooking up (English 510). The term “love” has even been cheapened by its own overuse, as kids will say it to each other during a moment of ecstasy, when what they mean to say is “I love your body, and only for right now.” It is very difficult to find love now, not because the definition of it has changed, but because it is in fact a synthesized emotion, and most people don’t feel the need to make it anymore.

All of these ideas support my claim that love is a synthetic emotion. The idea that it was created in the 1100s shows that it was created for the masses, while other points like the chemical signals in the brain show how love can be synthesized at the micro level as well. Love is as fake as the people who claim to truly feel it.