Is love blind, or are we?

A quick search on Amazon reveals approximately 1100 guides, essential guides, coaches and the like – for love. And yet most of us, men and women, alike are dismally unsuccessful at it.

I don’t claim to have any spectacular insights on the subject. But, I found something Rihanna said, in her recent interview on the Diane Sawyer show, very interesting. The chart topping singer of ‘Disturbia’ was in the news during the earlier half of the year for being physical abused by her boyfriend with whom she subsequently reconciled with. However, she has now broken up with him.

I’m not qualified to judge her actions or motives. I'd just like to examine a statement she made on the popular talk show. She said, amongst many other gloomy things about love, that love is blind. It is not uncommon statement. It has been often used to justify many a questionable union.

However, is it really love that is blind?

An article in the economist on attributes questionable unions to the release of hormones. It also mentioned that in a research study in 2000, Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki of University College, London, located the areas of the brain activated by romantic love. They took students who said they were madly in love, put them into a brain scanner, and looked at their patterns of brain activity. To briefly conclude – the study found that the brains of people deeply in love do not look like those of people experiencing strong emotions, but instead like those of people snorting coke. Love, in other words, uses the neural mechanisms that are activated during the process of addiction.

So, even if there is a chemical reaction to blame for bad decisions and blindness, what happens when the effects of the chemical wears out? As Cocaine loses it’s high, so does oxytocin (the love hormone). It would seem, that the physiological explanation to long bad relationships is moot here. I am sure there may be various deep seated psychological explanations behind an individual’s choice to stay in a relationship which appears obviously harmful to other people.

But, the blindness of love is not one of them. Love is not blind to people’s failings - at some point for whatever reasons - we just choose to turn a blind eye.