Have you ever wondered why we love the people we love? This question has been on my mind lately and then I thought perhaps God wanted it that way. Do you remember what Genesis 2:24?
Have you ever wondered why we love the people we love? Love is a force of nature that we cannot command, demand, or make disappear.
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh.”
The Bible states “Man” to mean both sexes therefore answering our question. If we are to leave our parents’ homes and start our own, to whom are we going to start that life with?
Love is a force of nature that we cannot command, demand, or disappear. We have to learn to live with it. But you see some couples and you think what a mismatch! Why did he/she fall for that person? And what baffles me the most is that the two are happy with each other.
I know a couple where the man is Rasta, listens to all sorts of reggae, has dirty dreads, always in those sleeveless shirts but yet he is dearly loved by an intelligent and humble lady who I would say was brought up to be a King’s wife. She is faithful, kind-hearted, very loving and friendly to mention but a few.
So I’m left to wonder about what mysterious force drove her into the arms of this man she loves while she pushed away the other suitors who appeared to be equally desirable to any unbiased observer.
Professor Emeritus of John Hopkins University says we choose our suitors through the “love map”- a group of messages encoded in our brains that describes our likes and dislikes. It shows our preferences in hair, in voice, smell, and body build. The map also records the kind of personality that appeals to us, whether it’s the warm and friendly type or the strong, silent type.
This means that we fall and chase people who most clearly fit our love map. The map is largely determined in childhood when the pattern for our ideal mate begins to be drawn into our brains.
Other studies have shown that we tend to love people who have similar characteristics with our parents. Women will get mates that have characteristics of their fathers and the reverse is true because they are the first loves of our lives and parents leave ineradicable impression that we are always looking for in our partners.
We look for body types, personality, facial features and even sense of humor that are close to those of our parents. This means if let’s say our mother was strong and even-tempered, we are going to be attracted to a fair-minded strength in our mates.
This helped me realize that my friend I mentioned earlier did not fall for the Rasta man but the characteristics he shares with her father that are not known to the outsider.
It is said that just as mothers influence their son’s general feelings toward women, fathers influence their daughter’s general feelings about men. If a father shows love towards her daughter and shows her that she is a worthwhile person, she’ll feel very good about herself in relation to men.
However, if the father is cold, critical or absent, the daughter will tend to feel she’s not very lovable or attractive.
This dear friend explains “why we love who we love”. We should not judge our friends and families for loving who they love but support them and wish and above all be happy for them.
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