The Final Post...for now

Wow, the last post already! I wish I could continue exploring my question because I feel like there is more to be known, but for now it has to come to a conclusion.
In my very first post, I discussed the main question that I planned on researching. "What is love?" I set out on a mission to find out exactly what love is. In my second post, I went with a web page titled "What is Love? Five Theories on the Greatest Emotion of All." In short, this page gave me five different theories from five very different writers. This interested me immensely, so much so, that in the same post I used another strategy to find out more about the physicist's view on love. I researched the definitions of pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin and vasopressin. I only researched the chemical meaning to these chemicals. They weren't directly obviously related to love but chemically, they are all released during a relationship.
For post #3, I used one source titled "Why We Fall in Love: The Science of Love". It was all about the stages of falling in love. It detailed three steps, the first one being lust, the second one being attraction, and the third one being attachment. In the attachment stage, it gave a little bit more detail about the chemicals involved within your brain.
And, in my most recent post, I decided to dig a little deeper within the "stages" of falling in love and I decided to do a men vs. women topic. After reading through my comments, I realized that my post seemed to center around same-sex couples, and I apologize if that offended anyone! I did not mean for the post to be "stage one in just a man-woman relationship", it was just supposed to be a general idea of how the genders act differently while falling in love. With that cleared up, I used two different websites for this post. I had to summarize and use a couple different ideas from other sites to help me narrow it down to strictly five stages. For the men, I used this site. For the women, I used this one. Overall, I found the stages to be relatively similar but the usage of words was somewhat sexist. (Ex. "Butterflies" for women and "Appreciation" for men), but that's just my opinion. But, I did agree with most of the stages that women go through.
Reading over these posts again, I realized that after the second one my thinking leaned more towards the emotional thinking of love. I learned that people of all kinds can and will love differently, and I don't believe that any two people will experience love the same way, whether it is physical love between a couple, love between friends, parents, children or love between you and an animal. The topic fascinates me and I still do not feel like I have found an honest answer to my initial question. What is love? Love is blind. That's the one answer out of hundreds that I've discovered. Thinking over this for the last time (for now), it makes me want to search more into topics of love other than love between couples. I'd like to know more about love between father and child, and mother and child. The love shared between two friends that have known each other forever. The love between a human and an animal. There are lots and lots of unanswered questions about this topic and I hope to explore them more in the future! In the weeks ahead of me, I might start to ask my family or friends their opinions on love, not only between couples, but within the other relationships in their life. Hopefully this will continue so I can further explore my topic!!

Men Vs. Women

After my last post was basically the "stages of chemical love", I decided to go in the opposite direction for this post, the stages of emotional love. Now, when I googled "emotional stages in love" I got a bunch of magazine links with cute, flirty headlines and quizzes to find out "DOES HE REALLY LOVE YOU?" So it took some digging. After reading around and reading over my last post, I decided to narrow it down to the stages with men, and the stages with women, and I wanted to compare and contrast them. This is what I came up with for this post;
The Stages of Falling In Love: Men (left) Vs. Women (right)

For the stages of men falling in love, I used this source, and for the women falling in love, I used this source. I've seen a lot of posts similar to these websites while scrolling through Facebook, but I've never thought about them like I did while writing this. What makes the genders so different that there are assumptions and stereotypes about it? The thing that got me, is that they used the word "Appreciation" for the men and "Butterflies" for the women. Women don't always get "butterflies"when they see the one, and sometimes men can get "butterflies" too!
But, on the other hand, being a woman and having fallen in love once, I can say that I do agree with it for the most part. Since its been a while since I've been in "love", I don't remember the exact feelings and the time frame to match it, but I vaguely remember it resembling something like the stages of the women falling in love. I'm curious to see if the men's viewpoints are similar to a man falling in love. But, assuming that the same women in my class will comment on my post again, I probably won't get a man's take on this. Anyhow, this post really made me think about how we are brought up around "love." What did your parents teach you as an individual about love? How is it similar and different throughout cities, states, countries, and cultures? Until next week...

The Science Behind Love

After reading through the comments that you all gave me on my last post, I decided to pick a side.
In this post, I'm going to research why or how love is chemical. I used this link for my research.
"Falling in love is getting into a beautiful trap set up by nature, a natural occurrence we cannot fight." They say that it takes your mind between ninety seconds and four minutes to tell whether or not you are struck by love. In this article, it goes into detail the three "stages" of falling in love. The three stages are list, attraction, and attachment. There are some sub-groups within those three as well.

• Stage One: Lust
  The initial Stage of getting involved with love
  This feeling is backed up by the sexual hormones
  Oestrogen and Testosterone are the hormones present in men and women that excites the feeling of lust
• Stage Two: Attraction
  This is the phase when the person starts to "feel" the love
  Adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin play a role in attraction;
  Adrenaline: You will experience stress responses, increase in adrenaline and cortisol, and an attitude reaction.
  Dopamine: In a study, there obvserved a new couples brains. Both the male and the female had large spikes of neurotransmitter dopamine. That releases the feeling of pleasure.
  After discovering that, they said both of the couples' minds were equally high as if they had taken cocaine or a similar drug.
  When dopamine is released, you will feel a surge of energy, a decrease in hunger, needing less sleep, and better focus.
  Serotonin: This chemical basically makes you think about your lover and nothing else. Men in a study in 2012 had lower levels, and women had higher levels. The people in this study said to have thought about that person 65% of the day.
• Stage Three: Attachment
  Scientists found two hormones that are invloved with attachment; oxytocin and vasopressin.
  Oxytocin: the "cuddle hormone"This formulates the depth of love and attachment for your partner. It is released during sex, and the study shows that the more a couple opts for sex, the more substantial the bond of attachment is.
  Vasopressin: Anti-diuretic. This is termed at the hormone to promote long-lasting relationships. In a study in 2012, Biological Psychology tested 37 couples. When vasopressin was present, they had less negative communication, more attachment, and greater support for each other. 

Overall, there are studies that show certain hormones getting released without our knowledge. "Love is blind" because you never know when your brain will feel love. 

Source: http://examinedexistence.com/why-we-fall-in-love-the-science-of-love/

Blog #2: Research

The first thing I googled when I opened my browser was "what is love" and the first thing that popped up was a video titled "Haddaway - What Is Love [Official]" so I knew I needed to be more specific when looking on the internet for a good source.
After a little bit of scrolling, I found a page titled "What is love? Five theories on the greatest emotion of all." This interested me, so I opened it.
This online source gathered up five writers to get their take on what love is. There is a small excerpt from each writer and here is a short summary of each of those writers' views:

The Physicist: "Love is chemistry"
Love is a neurological condition like hunger or thirst. The brain releases many chemicals including pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin and vasopressin. Love can also be used as a survival tool, to promote feelings of safety and security.

The Psychotherapist: "Love has many guises"
The ancients had several variations of love; Philia is a deep, non-sexual intimacy between friends and family. Ludus is a love that develops over a long period of time that includes commitment, compromise and understanding. Agape is more generalized, like a love for all humanity. Philautia is self love. And eros is a sexual-type of love. "Love is all of the above. But is it possible unrealistic to expect to experience all six types with only one person. This is why family and community are important" (Philippa Perry)

The Philosopher: "Love is a passionate commitment"
Love is more than a strong feeling because it comes into our lives uncontrolled. "Without the commitment, it is mere infatuation. Without the passion, it is mere dedication. Without the nurturing, even the best can wither and die." (Julian Baggini)

The Romantic Novelist: "Love drives all great stories"
Love to you is where you are in relation to it. It is the driver of all great stories, but not just romantic love, but love of parent to child, for your family, or for your country.

The Nun: "Love is free yet binds us"
"The paradox of love is that it is supremely free yet attaches us with bonds stronger than death. It cannot be bought or sold; there is nothing it cannot face; love is life's greatest blessing." (Catherine Wybourne)

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/13/what-is-love-five-theories (this is very interesting to me because I didn't consider these things when thinking of my initial question)

Reading over the first writer's viewpoint again, I decided to learn more about love, but in a chemical way. I searched all of the chemicals he mentioned in the Merriam Webster online dictionary.

Pheromones: "A chemical substance that is usually produced by an animals and serves especially as a stimulus to other individuals of the same species for one or more behavioral responses" Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pheromone

Dopamine: "A monoamine C₈H₁₁NO₂ that is a decarboxylated from of dopa and that occurs especially as a neurotransmitter in the brain." Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dopamine

Norepinephrine: "A monoamine C₈H₁₁NO₃ that is a neurotransmitter in postganglionic neurons of the sympathetic nervous system and in some parts of the central nervous system, is a vasopressor hormone of the adrenal medulla, and is a precursor of epinephrine in its major biosynthetic pathway." Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/norepinephrine

Serotonin: "A phenolic amine neutrotransmitter C₁₀H₁₂N₂O that is a powerful vasoconstrictor and is found especially in the brain, blood serum, and gastic mucous membrane of mammals." Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/serotonin

Oxytocin: "A pituitary octapeptide hormone C₄₃H₆₆N₁₂O₁₂S₂ that stimulates especially the contraction of uterine muscle and the secretion of milk." Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oxytocin
And finally:
Vasopressin: "A polypeptide hormone sectreted by the posterior lobe of the pituitary gland or obtained synthetically that increases blood pressure and decreases urine flow - called also antidiuretic hormone." Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vasopressin

So, not many of these were not obviously related to love, but more research will have to come to show how they are.

What is love?

What is love?  My main research question is “what is love and does it really exist?” and I’ve decided to narrow my topic down to just “what is love?” I like this question because it is something that I am truly curious about and I think it is something that many people will be interested in reading. I am planning to find out exactly what love is. Some people may argue that it is just a feeling and state of mind, and some people may argue that it is something chemically happening within your body. I am planning to research this question through the internet, and possibly ask close friends or family what their opinion on the matter is. Some questions that I will specifically research include; what are people’s viewpoints on love, what is love (as the broad question, just to see what I get), is love chemical, and many more. I’m really looking forward to this project and I’m excited to research a topic that I got to choose!