Love across longitude

Is there any more talked about phenomenon in life than falling in love? Films, books, songs, and television shows are built around the phenomenon of two people meeting and finding themselves embroiled in a spiralling fountain of ecstasy and transcendence. The phrase itself, “falling” in love, suggests that there is an element of the experience that is out of the control of the participants, as if there is some “higher” power involved that is beyond the normal run of things. This is why “eros”, passionate love, is often portrayed as arriving with a thud, sent by an arrow-wielding Goddess or God of love.

If love is such a mysterious inexplicable force you would expect that it would be beyond reason. Unfortunately for ultimate romantics however, new research has supported the idea that love is different across the longitudinal divide between East and West, suggesting that it might be less mysterious and more rational than you would like to think.

The new study examined how men and women from the United States, Lithuania, and Russia defined romantic love.

They found that subjects from all three countries listed “being together” as their top requirement for romantic love. That agreement however, seemed to be where the similarities ended.

Both Lithuanian and Russian participants felt that romantic love is temporary and inconsequential. This was not the case for those from the United States who rated romantic love as highly important. United States participants also frequently used words like “comfort”, “love”, and “friendship” to describe romantic love whereas these words were seldom or never used by their Eastern counterparts.

There were also differences in how those from East and West fell in love. Americans reported that it took two months to a year to fall in love, whereas the Lithuanian and Russian participants almost universally reported falling in love within a month.

Whatever love is then, be it a mystical bolt fired from the Gods or a type of temporary insanity, it is different depending on where you are born.

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