Page 407 - The Social Animal

Liking, Loving, and Interpersonal Sensitivity 389

“see a stranger, across a crowded room,” and “once I had found her,
[I would] never let her go.” I could then dance with her, hold her
close, and croon in her ear, “I was meant for you, you were meant for
me; I’m content, the angels must have sent you, and they meant you
just for me.”
My friends and I were not unusual; a lot of young people had
that belief then and many have it now. When you hold that belief,
the major task at hand is to find the person who was meant for you.
But think about it: There are nearly 6 billion people on the planet;
the odds against finding your “one and only love,” the “mate that fate
had you created for” are enormous. Just imagine that you live in
Fargo, North Dakota, and your true love lives in Yazoo City, Missis-
sippi (or, more problematic yet, in Sofia, Bulgaria). Chances are slim-
to-nonexistent that you will ever bump into each other. And if,
against all odds, some enchanted evening your eyes happened to
meet across a crowded room, how would you know that this was re-
ally love and not merely a fleeting infatuation?
How, and with whom, do people fall in love? Well, it turns out
that people love one another for some of the same reasons that they
come to like one another. A considerable amount of research shows
that the major factor is proximity.These findings make a shambles of
the romantic myth that there is one and only one person (perhaps in
Yazoo City!) waiting out there for the right one to come along. The
incontrovertible fact is that the people who live and work far away
from each other are unlikely to fall in love with each other. Rather,
those who are geographically nearest to you are most likely to become
dearest to you, as well. From ancient times to the present, people have
been and are most likely to love with and live with those who are in
a nearby cave, a nearby home, or who study nearby or work in the
same store, office, or factory. The second most important factor is
similarity. Most of us fall in love with people who are similar to us in
many ways: We fall in love with people who look like us and who have
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similar values, attitudes, beliefs, and personalities. That fundamen-
tal finding underlies the basic operations of match.com, JDate.com,
and the many other Internet match-up services.

Defining Love Given that liking and loving share some of the
same major antecedents, does this mean that love is simply a more
intense version of liking? Isn’t there something special about love?
Are there many types of love or is all love basically the same?