Two heart beats

what happens to your brain when you're in love.

Love. Just four letters, yet they have driven people to madness, made even the brightest minds forsake reason, and altered the course of history. Love has ignited wars, toppled nations, and rewritten destinies.

From the moment we enter the world, love is introduced to us. Parents whisper it to us as we sleep, cradle us in its embrace, and teach us that it is something warm, something safe.

Then, you grow up to be a teenager with a couple bumps in your face whose heart start to rush when you see that special person, you can’t explain why though.

Alas, at random gatherings people start asking you if you have someone in your life, who you came with and why you’re laughing at your phone.

You love your family, you love your friends, you might even love sushi, but this? This is different. It isn’t the same safe, predictable love. It’s something else entirely, something that makes you physically react, something uncontrollable.

I’ve often wondered; have I ever truly loved anyone in that way? We’re told that love is inexplicable, something beyond comprehension, something too vast for the human brain to fully grasp. To love and to be loved, an experience so many claim is the pinnacle of existence. But how will I recognize it when it comes? So, I set out to find an answer. If I could understand what happens to a person when they fall in love, maybe, just maybe, I could decipher it for myself. I didn’t want the poets romanticized verses and sonnets. I wanted the scientists cold, hard facts.

It turns out, they’ve been just as desperate to define love. A force so powerful, so intoxicating, that it mimics the effects of a drug—euphoria, obsession, withdrawal. Love is a puzzle even to those who have devoted their lives to studying it.

At the very first stage of love, your brain and nervous system are in shambles. You see him. Your heart beats faster, your breath shortens, your palms grow sweaty. -What’s happening to me?- You force yourself to act normal, to smile, to say your name without stammering, but your brain is in chaos. Every sensory receptor is in overdrive, trying to process this new feeling -Why am I acting like this ?-

The truth? Your brain is rewarding you. A cocktail of hormones is flooding your system, reinforcing the experience, making you crave more. You didn’t see the time pass,
"Already 12 PM? How did we get here?" you say nicely suprised.
"I have no idea" he says while chuckling.
You guys have talked about so much yet you know so little about each other, you just wish you could enter the other persons brain. As you guys separate, you can’t help but to think of what just happened. Your heart is calmer now but your brain has been injecting dopamine straight into you and now you can’t stop thinking about that person. How he smiled, how he says your name in his own way, he’s pretty funny isn’t he? You spend hours analyzing your interaction, wondering when you’ll get another chance to relive it.

In just about two hours, love has taken you from anxiety to passion to pure, unfiltered happiness. Scientists say love isn’t an emotion but rather a combination of neurotransmitters, a chemical reaction. But that explanation seems insufficient. What you felt was more than that. And so, you dive deeper.

You start talking more often.
- Hi I had fun the other night!
- Me too, we should see each other sometime.
- How about Friday?
You jump a little in your room at the sight of that message. You can’t help but smile. Friday. Just a few days away, but it suddenly feels like a lifetime.
You see each other again. At this point, you’re getting attached to this guy and heck he’s even cuter than the first time you met ain’t he? Love has now made you attached and attracted, this all happened without you realizing it. You were just laughing with him—it was innocent, wasn’t it? And yet, something inside you has shifted.

Weeks pass. You spend time together. You talk, you laugh, and though you know him better now, your cheeks still flush when he compliments you.
-You’re beautiful. He says as he admires you.
Then, something changes. The air feels different. He looks at you with an intensity that makes your heart race. His heartbeat matches yours, a synchronized rhythm neither of you planned. He leans in. Your breath catches. And then, it happens. A kiss. A connection. A silent conversation of two souls meeting in the space between heartbeats.

Your bodies sync. You breathe in unison. Your brain, overwhelmed, floods you with its most addictive drug—love.

Lust. A word many refuse to acknowledge, yet it is an undeniable catalyst. That kiss? It confirmed compatibility. And in response, your brain imagines futures, possibilities, a life intertwined with his. The more you picture it, the more you convince yourself that it could be real. And your brain celebrates at the mere thought of a us.

For many, the story truly begins here. The brain introduces vasopressin, the glue for long-term bonds for a long term relation. This person who was just a mere stranger only weeks ago seems like they were made for you to love. Your forever lover. Now, when you meet, your stomach may not flip but your brain might get that shot of dopamine. When you guys touch, you might not jump at it but perhaps you might savour it like a sip of sweet tea. That’s it, your happily ever after in a comfortable love, one that grows with you but never grows old.

For others, this is where the story ends. When the effects of your own brain tricking you from its own hapiness pass, you start to open your eyes. See, love really does make you blind. All of those chemicals are not being produced at the rate that they were, therefore you start to notice that he’s rude to people, which you hate. You start to realize that your palms do not really fit together well and neither your lives. You have been lied to you, not by him, by your brain. And so, you let go.

So there it is—love, defined by science, experienced by the heart. Is it enough? Not really. But maybe now, I’ll understand that sweaty palms don’t mean I’m dying under someone’s gaze—maybe I just want to melt in it. Maybe now, I’ll recognize love when it finds me.