[Love Series] Infatuation

This is one big concept amongst growing teens. Most teenage love fall under this category. The main actuator for this type of love is passion – in every ramification of the word. Passion drives infatuation.

This is a continuation of Love Series.

First, some biology. Passion is a very strong emotion. We cannot talk about passion without touching on the subject of emotions. All emotions emanate from the amygdala in form of direct signals that bypass logic processing to our motor neurons (or/and other parts of the body that may be concerned). See, the human body constitutes of much super junk the mundane intelligence is illiterate to or oblivious of. The pre-frontal lobes of the brain sits behind your forehead and does most of our logic processing – reasoning. The amygdala bypasses this to make us do stuff. That’s why when we react almost simultaneously to impulses and we are asked why we reacted so, out only logical response, “I felt like it”. Read this for more on emotions. Infatuation is the most biological of the types of love that exists.

Now, while the biology is done and gone, how does this apply to infatuation? In terms of love, infatuation in itself is the process of amassing passion for an individual. Most times, what they do excite you, the way they look gives drops cocoons in your stomach which turns into butterflies in your belly in a matter of seconds. Bottom line, Infatuation is self-centred. One who is infatuated over another does not care about the world. To him (or her) the world is a straight line originating from them and ending at their love. You learn more about (or stalk) your love, tend to know everything, if not most things, about them. Passion comes from the greek word, πάσχω (paskho), meaning to suffer or to endure. Notice that when you are infatuating over someone, their flaws, shortcomings and things that naturally will anger you or leave you irate will not become trite. You will find no reason to take offense.

How do you now if you are being infatuated on? (Pardon the last two words of the previous sentence for I know not if that is a viable phrase in English). You may not explicitly know if someone is infatuated over you. Most times, they come to limelight with their intentions – this may take longer for introverts as compared to extroverts.

Sex fuels infatuation. Another biological phenomena known to man since his beginning. Before sex, emotions are aroused. This is often referred to as heat – in humans and animals of lower intelligence. Fascinating, because if you measure your temperature at that point, it remains normal. After sex, hormones are blaring and this is often mistaken for love. As blood drains from your brain to your genitals, you have less options to think through your action. The amygdala kicks in. It is possible that sex can exist without love as sex is only a biological phenomena but vice versa is impossible – “the fire/flare runs out“. Sex, when carried out for the right reasons, spawns commitment; however it should not be the basis of love.

My perspective? Infatuation can lead to other types of love. As stated earlier, it is most rampant amongst teens. Many of them grow together and discover new types of love, commitment and maturity and this helps broaden their scope. It is good to infatuate a little. Dont dwell on philosophy for love, lest you become the wives of Plato and Socrates and Aristotle. I would like to end with the following quotes.

1. Sex is emotion in motion. – Mae West
2. To love someone deeply gives you strength while being lived by someone gives you courage.