FALLING IN LOVE: DO WOMEN FALL IN LOVE FASTER THAN MEN?

In one of my classes, I remember raising this same question to my first year college students as to who has the tendency of falling in love first, would it be women or men. And as what I have expected, women would say it’s the men and vice versa. Well, sometimes it’s easier for us to pinpoint the opposite in order for us to hide the reality among ourselves. What does it mean when we say, “falling in love”?

Before answering the question, I would like first to give my definition of “falling in love” so as to have my bases on my answer for our main question being raised upon. Falling in love is not an act of our will but rather it is a discipline I could say that controls the experience of falling in love but it cannot create the experience itself. What I mean is, we can choose how to respond to the experience of falling in love, but we cannot choose the experience itself.

In answering the question, I would like first to know my audience, my listener or my reader. Nowadays, for many young people love has become synonymous with sex. To love another means to be passionately attracted to her and to bring her to bed with me. This equation of love with sex has led to the idea that friendship is not love, that when two lovers break up, they may settle down for friendship as if friendship were inferior to love. Having this kind of thought, I could then say that men fall in love faster than women.

I would like to define falling in love in another way. Falling in love is to be attracted to the good qualities of the other. Sometimes this is earned to the extreme of attributing attractive qualities to the other even if they are not there. Falling in love here has come to be equated with admiration. Having this kind and line of thinking, women tend to fall in love faster than men. Would these disgrace women of being as such? Absolutely not, in fact these would simply mean that women are much more matured on looking at things especially with the matters of the heart.

Many of the women of today still have the tendency to equate love with romance. The words falling in love rings a sweet melody to the ears, brings to the imagination of the image of two lovers whispering sweet nothings to each other in the park or on the telephone, unmindful of the rest of the world as if only they matter and exist at all. I don’t know where I get this though I am sure it’s from a book that the author there also points out what makes women falls in love faster is the importance on being loved rather than on loving itself. Another thing is the emphasis on the object loved rather than on the faculty of loving. And lastly, the confusion between the initial state of falling in love and the permanent standing in love. This makes the difference because mostly men look at it differently than women when it comes to issues like this, women are more emotionally inclined than men.