I know many of you have heard time and time again… be careful love is blind, but is it really?? If it is , WHAT makes it blind? So MANY questions that need answers! I am here to find those answers!
Love is blind in the sense that most lovers often only see the positive in their significant other, and are blind to the negative traits. Lovers tend to “love the idealized object rather than the real one” as Psychology Today suggests. It has been reported in numerous cases that people tend to fall in love with either the idea of love , or the positive vision of their significant other. They hardly ever fall in love with the actual reality of their lover.
The reason us humans created idealized visions of our lovers is simple, our brain loves to process the positive traits that we admire in our significant other’s. Were more inclined as humans , to a person we’ve evaluated positively! It’s also some sort of “defense mechanism” which allows us to “partly justify” our whimsical choice in mate. It’s sort of like when you’ve bought a car, and you see it all the time , and you look at all the advertisements that feature YOUR car, but you make sure to stay away from the other cars that you could of chosen. This is how ,we humans, are with men. Idealizations are most commonly seen in situations like “love at first sight” and the honey moon stage of a relationship. This is actually how many people end up divorced, when they marry to fast, because they come down from that high of being SO in love , and start filtering the negative aspects of that person. Lets get one thing straight before we go any further, idealized visions are not misperceptions… it is just a person choosing to only evaluate the positive traits of their significant other.. not taking in the negative qualities, and even though I mentioned that people do get divorced after stepping back into reality , it is not EVERYONE!! There are people who can love an evil , selfish , arrogant person and filter these negative traits.
Although , I don’t believe an experiment could be conducted in order to actually test this theory. I do believe that an observational study could be administered. Scientist could study different types of couples and their relationship. They could first provide a survey to get an understand on which couples were suffering from idealized visions , and then ask them to participate in the study. The study would be held over a couple years , so we could see what happened when one or the other person began to evaluate the negative traits of their significant other. Then record the findings. I think that would be a good/ interesting study.
In my opinion, without any study having been conducted on this topic is YES I do believe that love is blind especially in the beginning stages, because in the beginning of relationships it always feels like you’re walking on clouds , you’re always happy laughing , and you just love everything about the person. Then a year into the relationship you start realize how annoying the person can really be, and you start thinking can I really deal with this on a daily basis? So yes love is blind in my opinion!
This is a really interesting topic, could the reason that we think love is blind is because of the attachments we form with our loved ones. For example, an individual that is addicted to cocaine sees is so attached to the drug that even though it is putting their life in danger, they refuse to stop using it. I think love could be a drug and the Oxytocin Makes individuals blind to problems
Wow this is such a great post and I am sure the majority of girls can relate to it. I totally agree with you that in the beginning stages of the relationship (the honeymoon stages) you are so infatuated with that certain person that you overlook their negative qualities. Or maybe they have not even shown their negative qualities yet. People can just be in love with being in love. I love the car example that you related this to. Another example is that if you move into a new house. In the beginning you are so obsessed with it then it starts to become familiar and more boring. I think that familiarity can be a factor also. We start to get bored with the same old thing and especially when two people start to get bored or familiar with each other than their negative qualities come out. I think that although experimental studies probably would not work here, an observational study (like the one you described) would work great! That way you could check on people’s real lives instead of setting it up in an experiment, which probably would not be legitimate.
I have learned not only from my own relationships but from watching other peoples that love is in fact extremely blind. A particular scientific study may be a little challenging to do but hey, you could even observe for yourself your friends relationships and different factors that you see as an outsider that they might not see. You can always see something from the outside looking in, it gets a little more tricky when you are the one on the inside experiencing all the different emotions.