The Quantification of True Love

You’ve been there butterflies in the stomach, sweaty palms, an insurmountable excitement when you receive a text from them. You caught feelings; a good amount of us have. As the months pass, your feelings develop into deeper more meaningful emotions. Some may call this feeling love, and others may struggle with that word. A hopeless romantic myself, I enjoy discussing relationships and how wonderful love can be. Longing to meet my true love and spend the rest of my life with them, a personal goal of mine. 

What if you do not believe in true love though? Or do not know when you’ve found it?

Recently, I got into a discussion on how you can tell if love is true love. I offered statements such as, “Well you spend your life together; until death do you part” or “True love is bringing somebody soup if they are really sick and holding their hair back if even sicker.” I was thinking about true love emotionally, though. So, my very logical and data-driven friend asked me how one could quantify that.

I struggled to answer his question. True love can’t be defined by the longevity of the relationship, or the number of hours put into it. So, how could it be quantified? 

Maybe it could be measured in the amount of chocolates bought for each other, or the number of hugs given, maybe the amount of times one says, “I love you.” Yet, ultimately every relationship is different, and many have different views regarding true love. So, can you put a statistical value on an emotional construct? 

Is this a question for statisticians, psychologists, maybe neuroscientists? Should we even attempt to measure love, or just let it happen? 

Perhaps, a combination of both emotions and logical analysis can be used to satisfy both parties proposing the question of true love. Quantifying actions and measuring reactions to it could be a start, but everyone acts differently in their own relationship. So, how can there be a set standard of measurement?

Instead of trying to quantify true love, maybe it should be taken day by day. Feelings are free flowing and often hard to understand let alone analyze and measure. How does one measure the unmeasurable? 

Next time you feel butterflies in your stomach count how many you feel. How much faster does your heart race when in the presence of someone you love? On a scale of 1-10 how excited do you feel when you see someone you love? How quickly would you rush to see that person? 

That’s about as close as I can get to quantifying true love. I know everyone’s take on love is different, so let me know what you think or if you would quantify it differently! 

But to me, some things may be best left unquantified.