Falling In Love, A Tour Of Our Mind
He has loved her secretly for years. However, he is unaware of what will happen when he meets her. Far from imagining that he would discover that falling in love is an action of our mind.
I always saw her in the halls of the faculty. I tried to sit next to her in class to admire her beauty. Her face conveyed an image of peace, serenity. Her long, dark, wavy hair had an almost hypnotic effect on me. His physique was perfect. She was the kind of girl I had always looked for.
Sometimes we would exchange looks or greetings. In those moments, my voice was shaking and I didn’t really know what to say. I understood that I was falling in love very intensely. What I didn’t know yet was that falling in love is a magic trick triggered by our mind.
Patricia was the girl I had been waiting for for years. And we were there, in the same place every morning. When I passed her, a delicious scent invaded the air and I was totally bewitched by the smell. When we passed each other and she said “hello” to me, my legs would shake.
By my side
I imagined myself walking with her through the streets of the city. We would give our take on the most beautiful, weirdest buildings and whatever else we would see. We would sit on a bench, talk and laugh together. Then we would go eat somewhere and continue to have a good time. One day we would kiss and hug each other. Every time I looked at her in college, all of these thoughts came to haunt my mind.
One day, while eating with a friend in the faculty cafeteria, she moved in with us. How was this possible? It seems that they have known each other for a long time and that I do not know about it. So I was starting to feel anxious. The woman of my life was right in front of me. She was magnificent. Everything about her was perfect. I was more and more in love and I was afraid to disappoint her.
The illusion of a special connection
From the day we ate together, we started to share the meal more regularly. We talked about a wide variety of things and laughed together. We always ordered a menu. She was drinking soda and I was drinking water. She liked salads very much and I preferred pasta. For dessert, I usually had a piece of fruit and she a flan. I looked her in the eye and imagined myself with her on a heavenly beach sunbathing and swimming in crystal clear waters.
Each time we saw each other more. Patricia seemed to be looking for me. I had been in love with her for over a year and a half. One day, we met outside the faculty and we had a coffee together. It was very pleasant. We had very different passions, but that didn’t matter, we were surprisingly very complementary. I saw in her signals that let me know that a special connection existed between us.
And the moment came
This winter afternoon, Patricia sat down next to me in the faculty cafeteria.
– I have to tell you something, she confessed. At that moment, I started to tremble. The time had come.
-Okay, tell me, I replied.
– I’m in love. I haven’t told you this before because I don’t like to talk about myself much about it, but I’m not really sure what to do.
-And what’s the problem? Isn’t that reciprocal ? I asked, wishing to listen to his answer.
– Yes, if it is … she replied.
-Then ? I asked him impatiently.
– The boy is not from here, he lives in another city, we see each other very little and you know that many say that long-distance relationships are complicated…
At that moment, I stopped listening to what she was saying to me. I was plunged into a deep black hole and the light went out. I stared at her and even started to feel anger that I hadn’t felt for a long time.
Why wasn’t the boy me? She had given me signals! What was happening ? It couldn’t be real, I had to please him and not another. I had loved her secretly for too long without being able to confess to her and now that she was by my side she was falling in love with another.
I didn’t want to continue listening to him. In fact, I didn’t even want to see her again. My happiness had collapsed and I found myself lost and disappointed. I was overjoyed to imagine a fulfilling future relationship, but no options were available anymore. I loved her but she loved another. Nothing made sense anymore. I even ended up thinking that she had laughed at me by giving me false signals.
What really happened
A few months later, I met an elderly man on a bus trip home. We were side by side. The trip was an hour and a half and we had time to chat.
Speaking of everything and nothing, I ended up telling him about my story of disenchantment and to my great surprise, the old man looking at me full of tenderness and affirmed with a smile:
-The problem is that you weren’t in love with her.
-Sorry ? I replied. I loved her for over a year, how could I not be in love?
-You can’t love someone you don’t know, at least in a romantic sense… You were really in love, but not with her, more with your expectations about her, he replied. Falling in love is not love my young friend, don’t confuse these concepts. Falling in love is a trick of our mind …
We were silent for a few minutes. Falling in love is a trick of our mind? I didn’t really understand what he wanted to tell me. While I still wondered what expression to put on my face, the old man was grinning as he watched the scenery through the window. He turned to me and said:
– You will see, this girl must have activated in you a certain excitement because of her physique. It made you imagine a happier life by her side. It was nothing more than that, excitement and expectation. But in reality, you didn’t know her at all . The only thing you knew about her was related to the few encounters you had together. So you started to idealize him more and more.
Maybe he was right
-Moreover … continued the man. When you started to delve deeper into it, you chose only the aspects that you liked and you underlined them excessively, deliberately forgetting those that you liked less. That’s not all, you thought she would make you happy, you left your happiness in her hands. I’m sorry to tell you this little one, but this is not love, it is attachment. It is for this reason that you felt so much disappointment. Love is real, love is genuine, in love you do not wait for the other to do something for you, you seek by yourself to make the other happy.
He continued.
-You wanted to interpret the signals as proof of falling in love because that’s what you wanted to do. You were the director, the guide and the actor of the film that was created in your head. The question is that you believed in him and that you attached him to reality. But do not worry. It happens to all of us. We generally fall into the trap. If you really felt love for her, you would like her to be happy, with or without you, no difference. So next time ask yourself the question. Do you fall in love with your thoughts and your expectations of the person. If so, you feel genuine love.
Fall in love, turn our minds
-I’m going to tell you something, added the man, as José Ortega y Gasset said, “One of the most characteristic qualities of falling in love is the concentration of consciousness on the loved one, at least to limit , or even to prevent, the correct use of reasoning, the mental concentration necessary for the execution of various cognitive tasks . ”
– Nice sentence isn’t it? It took me a while to learn it, but it touched me long enough that I could not forget it. Now it will be for you.
The journey ended. I say goodbye to the old man. I got home, said hello to my parents and lay down on the sofa. I thought about everything I had been told. It was information that at first glance could be on the order of madness. But if we analyzed it objectively, it seemed totally truthful.
In fact, I had never liked Patricia. It had all been a creation of my mind. I still remember the sentence the old man told me before leaving: “If you really love someone, you want him or her good, you want their well-being, their happiness, you don’t look at what this nobody can do for you, but you do things for them. If you see her in pain, you help her. This is what love is all about, helping others and making them happy. If this person feels real love for you, I promise you will have the most wonderful love relationship that can exist ”.
What i remembered
It all made sense to me. I started to read about love and falling in love and I came across an interesting article from Choliz and Gomez (2002) in which they claimed that attractive people have advantages over those who are not because they push us. to be interested in them and to fall in love. The simple fact of being attractive allows them to elicit in us the attribution of desirable characteristics. In this way, they benefit from more cordial relations.
So after hearing this old man’s words and reading, I was convinced that falling in love is a trick of our mind. For this, we must pay attention to the expectations that we put in place.
After this experience, every time I met a girl and a great emotional activation occurred in me, my mind would send warning arrows at me. Falling in love is a trick of our mind. It echoed in my head for quite a while. “ The fact of falling in love is a trick of our mind, the fact of falling in love is a trick of our mind…”.
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