How Long Does It Take Someone To Fall Head Over Heels In Love?

Love. The most baffling concept in the history of mankind. (Because I’m not allowed to talk about String Theory here.) It has left many a great men (and women) flabbergasted, lost for comprehension. ‘She Walks in Beauty’ by Lord Byron. ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You' by Stevie Wonder –It has inspired poets and singers to attempt recording their own interpretations, creating history in the process. It has led to the construction of one of the seven wonders, the Taj Mahal, because nothing lesser than that was apparently enough to express just how much the king was in love with his queen. And although no monumental artefacts are being made right now, people still remain as flabbergasted as their ancestors. Songs still get written, albeit slightly adapted to the new age, talking about loving the “shape of you”, and “missing more than just your body”. Yet, when you ask someone, what is love? What does it mean to fall in love? Most of us will still struggle to furnish a definitive answer. Most of us are still really trying to figure out what love is all about. It’s not like we are alien to the feeling of love. In fact, most of us are privileged enough to be surrounded by love in all directions. We might have experienced it from the selfless and all-sacrificing care of a parent, the rock solid support of a sibling or the unexpected warmth of a friend when we thought we had no one in our life. In spite of that, when it comes to the romantic kind of love, we are still always questioning ourselves if it really is love that we feel ourselves falling into. Why are we so unsure in spite of being familiar with the sentiment of love?

Because love is a feeling. It is an abstract notion. Something you can’t see or hold or touch and yet manifests in your life in a very real way. And terrifyingly, it can be the cause of both your bliss as well as your doom. Falling in love, therefore, has a bit of a scare attached to it. We are afraid that if we misjudge or misinterpret what we feel, we might end up being hurt. That is why every time we feel like we’re falling into a state of bliss, we want to take a step back and try to see things clearly as they are, instead of the rose-tinted glasses that love tends to put over your eyes. At the same time though, the seduction of the blissful state that love brings with it seems just too hard to resist. In spite of all your promises to yourself saying, “I’ll never fall in love again”, the very next instant you are found reasoning with yourself, “But this time it feels so right; how can I go wrong with this?” This confusing nature of the sentiment of love creates this back and forth psychology wherein you want it but you don’t want it. Falling in love feels like the best journey you could ever embark upon, but one that possibly leads you to the most dangerous destination ever. It’s a bitter-sweet experience, but what’s even more interesting, it’s one where you can’t be 100% sure; you’re mostly taking a leap of faith. Blindfolded.

Let’s get this out of the way. There can never be any one definition of Love. It is much like The Mirror of Erised from Hogwarts. It is what you make of it. Merely a perception. Given that every person is different from the other, and there are roughly 7 billion people in the world right now, there can be as many as 7 billion definitions of love. Maybe even more, as love can feel different in different situations to the same person. It naturally follows from there that love is subjectively experienced. Each person sees and feels it differently. Each person writes about it differently, speaks about it – you guessed it, differently. Falling in love, therefore, can’t be an action sprung from a formula frozen and canned for generations to refer to. It simply can’t. And hence, every aspect of falling in love is as subjective as love itself. The amount of time taken to fall in love included. And herein lies the confusion. Exactly how do we know if we have fallen in love if we cannot so much as determine the time taken for someone to fall in love? Is it even possible to find out exactly how long it takes for someone to fall head over heels in love with someone? Because it is mystery which, if left unsolved, can lead to all sorts of mistakes and heartbreaks. The answer is, yes, it is possible to find out how long it takes to fall in love. But since love is more akin to a rose with many layers than anything else less complex, the answer is also multi-fold in its nature. Let’s walk you through the steps that help determine how long it takes for someone to fall in love.

Alright, let’s start with the most basic types of perceptions that people have about love. Basic because it is not possible to analyze all the 7 billion perceptions! Perhaps the easiest way to find out just how diverse the opinions on the subject of love is, is to first read some of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” for example) and then referring to Nicki Minaj’s ‘Your Love’. Just to be clear, there is no judging anyone here, because you can’t when it comes to love. That is exactly what we are discussing here. People are different, and the way each person experiences love is different. And this is not a discussion on artistic talents either. So the bottom line is, no one is really wrong about their perception on love. After all, it is their own personal experience. You can’t dictate their course of journey and they can’t dictate yours. Of course, we judge each other on our sensibilities all the time and that’s okay. You have the freedom to judge just like you have the freedom to fall in love. But the point is, you can’t stop anyone from deciding whether or not what they feel is love. That decision is theirs to take. So if your idea of love is lots of flowers and chocolates on Valentine’s Day but your bestie prefers to keep it simple between the sheets (I’m hoping you are of age to know what I mean), you both are right. Yet others see real love as commitment. For others, love is an adventure to dip their toes into. Guess what they all have in common? Yup, there are all right. The thing that goes unsaid though, is that every perception is a different journey and therefore, leads to a very different destination. That is, your idea of love can be whatever the ef you want it to be, but it’s going to have consequences.

Remember when we likened love to a rose? Well it is because falling in love happens in stages. And that’s the aspect that creates all the confusion and messes with your psychology. Exactly what level of love is this? Is this even love, or just infatuation? I’m attracted to him/her, sure, but is this going to last beyond the physical? Will we still like each other as much as we do now, after years together? Sometimes you start off with a bang (pun fully intended), like everything is so in sync between the two of you, you feel you guys were meant to be. But it fizzles out before you even started putting any thought into it. And thus casual affairs, summer flings, etc. are born. Other times, something starts very lowkey like you’ve been literally set up by a well-wishing friend, but eventually you find newer, deeper feelings within you that makes you fall for him/her with each passing day. And then there are those almost-perfect love stories we’re all so envious of (and hopeful of having for ourselves someday). The ones where you meet for the first time and instantly feel like soulmates. Turns out you were right. The type of love that makes you want to cry because you never knew you would find someone who fits so right. In all of these instances, have you ever tried understanding how long it has taken you to enter and exit each stage? Has the process been completely uniform? Shoot me if the answer is yes.

Now let’s address an oft-asked question: Does love at first sight actually exist? Is it even love? Or are the people who say they fell in love at first sight kidding themselves? The short answer, yes, love at first sight is a real thing. Here’s the long answer: Refer to the part where we said love is a journey individually taken. And our psychology works in the way that every person creates his own explanation of what their feelings are and name them accordingly. No matter what age you are right now, you probably have someone who is special to you – a friend, a pet or a crush. Try and understand how intense your feelings are for them. Now you might have developed that feeling for them over a period of time, but it is possible, very possible for someone to develop that same intensity of feeling for a person they’ve just met or have known only a short while. If they decide to call this feeling love, who do you think would disagree? You’re right, no one. Of course, there are other feelings that are closely related to love but aren’t quite there and it is equally possible to mistake one of these feelings for love. Infatuation, for example. Or a crush. To know the difference, it is important to understand that a deeper feeling like love can only foster from deeper interaction than just, say, looking at a picture. Therefore it is possible to fall in love at first sight if there has been substantial amount of interaction between the two people, whether sexual or platonic, but intimate nonetheless. A fixation on Harry Styles from watching him on his music videos though, might not be the same thing.

In spite of everything, not everyone is ready to subscribe to the sentiment of love at first sight. Some live for the hope that they eventually will find what they are looking for: a deep, meaningful affection that inspires pages after pages of poetry. But this is not just love we are talking of anymore. There is more. Like mentioned earlier, it is possible to fall in love at first sight, but in order for it to grow richer and deeper, there needs to be a deeper connection. And that connection, no doubt, takes a lot of time to build. The kind of love that happens fast constitutes of such attributes as attraction, lust, admiration and compatibility. Those attributes are like the flowers of the tree – the things that make your relationship beautiful. You can cut flowers off their branches and they will still live for a few days. And they will still be beautiful and fragrant. Love can thrive even when it is just a few days old. But without their roots, they are going to wither. Their beauty and fragrance will both fade. The qualities that form the roots of love are trust, loyalty, empathy and the likes. And cultivating these roots is process that takes time and patience. That kind of love is not to be had in a few days.

And now for the fun part. What is the science behind love? How can falling in love be scientifically explained? Love, as we know, is a feeling. Scientifically speaking, a feeling occurs in the brain as a result of various roles played by hormones. Therefore, it can be said, scientifically, that love is merely the result of hormones in action. Here’s how different hormones affect our psychology and get us through the different stages of love: At the onset, the sex hormones, testosterone and estrogen create the feeling of a strong physical attraction, or lust. Next, the chemicals adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin play the catalysts for developing the awestruck attraction you have towards someone where you simply adore them. These neurotransmitters are primarily the reason why you feel the three-way feelings of excitement (adrenaline), happiness (dopamine) and mood swings (serotonin), especially when you are newly in love. Over the long run though, there are other hormones at play that, scientifically speaking, cause you to bond with your partner. The most popular among them is Oxytocin, known as the love hormone or the cuddle hormone. This hormone is released during and after certain activities that denote bonding, like sexual intercourse and breastfeeding. This, along with another hormone called Vasopressin, cause the attachment between two lovers that is much needed for long term commitment and a long-lasting affection towards each other. Therefore, all poems and songs aside, we were really just scientifically composed to fall in love, and in different ways too. The end game is that love is ultimately nature’s mechanism of keeping humans alive and reproducing.

Tired of hearing love is subjective and can’t be measured in definite terms and all that jazz? Here are some numbers for you: The psychology of love can be summed up with one scientific deduction that was made years ago: Psychology experts and scientists believe that a person typically takes between 90 seconds and 4 minutes to decide if they like someone. That’s right, that’s how little time is required to initiate the process of falling in love. Quite the contrary to what we’ve always known: it takes ages to find the right person. However, there’s a little caveat. This is the time taken to like a person, not fall head over heels in love with them. To that end, it could take anywhere between those 90 seconds to ages, like we have rightly heard. It all depends, like we have discussed earlier, on your perception of love and at what stage you have decided on your own that you are in love. As already mentioned, your journey of love is going to be unique every time you fall in love or fall out of it, and therefore is only up to you to decide. And the same goes for the other person. If you have recently developed a crush on someone and are hoping to find out how long it will take them to fall in love with you, unfortunately, the answer lies only with them. If both of your hormones play their roles in sync with each other and the timelines of your stages of lust, attraction and admiration match, you’ve already begun the journey together!