23/05/2025
How to Know How Much You Love.
We fall in love with people we find interesting. It starts like this: they walk into our life, and something about them pulls us in. It could be their smile, their voice, the way they think, or the energy they carry. We feel alive in their presence.
But what we often call “love” in those early stages is really fascination—an emotional high triggered by novelty and stimulation. The brain loves newness. It rewards us with dopamine, the pleasure chemical, when we discover something—or someone—that excites us.
This is why falling in love feels euphoric. It’s not just the heart; it’s the brain bathing us in feel-good chemicals. But dopamine doesn’t last forever. It’s built for reward, not for routine. Once the novelty wears off, the chemical high fades.
Suddenly, we’re not as interested. Not because the person changed, but because we did.
Now, here's the twist: when our interest fades, instead of accepting it, we shift our focus. We stop being fascinated by them, and we start obsessing over how fascinated they are with us. We want their attention. Their love. Their validation.
And when we don’t get it the way we want it, we say love hurts.
But love doesn’t hurt. What hurts is wanting to be loved back in a specific way. What hurts is our demand for their response.
We don’t suffer because we love someone. We suffer because we want that someone to love us back, exactly the way we imagine.
Here’s what’s happening in the brain when that pain hits:
There’s a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex—it lights up when we feel social rejection or emotional pain. Interestingly, it’s the same area that activates when we feel physical pain. That’s why heartbreak can feel like a punch to the chest. Like something broke inside.
So when we say, “Loving them hurts,” what we’re really saying is: “My desire for them to love me back isn’t being fulfilled.”
Example: Imagine you give your partner a compliment from the heart, and they respond flatly. You feel hurt—not because you gave love—but because the love wasn’t returned the way you hoped. That moment of hurt? It wasn’t the giving that hurt. It was the silent expectation.
This is where real self-awareness begins. Ask yourself:
Am I still curious about who they are?
Do I still see them as a person I want to understand?
Or have I turned my love into a scoreboard of what I gave vs. what I got?
Love, when pure, is not about control or return. It’s about presence. It’s about seeing someone, again and again, even when the novelty fades. It’s about interest. Deep, soul-level interest.
If you’re suffering in love, ask yourself: Do I truly love this person, or am I just addicted to how they once made me feel? Because once love becomes performance, it becomes prison.
And in that prison, both people slowly die.
Truth Reminder: You don’t lose love. You lose curiosity. And you don’t get hurt because you love. You get hurt because you want to be loved back, in your way, on your terms, in your timing.
And that... is not love. That’s ego in disguise.