The Dangers of Blind Love

You know the saying, “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder?” Well, what if the beholder is completely blind? You might be seeing something beautiful, while everyone else sees a disaster. Are you looking through the lens of blind love?

Everybody thinks that love is a precious thing that enriches the world, which could be true, but there are many different ways to love, and when we do it blindly, the consequences usually aren’t good. But don’t take it from me; this result has been arrived at through scientific study.

What does blind love entail?

The studies, done by a team at the University of London, showed that blind love exists, and the consequences can be very negative.

They also found that these situations can occur in both romantic love and parental love. Apparently, both produce similar effects in the brain. However, in the case of romantic love, the hypothalamus is activated, which results in a greater level of excitement.

This is the worst part of the love-is-blind bias. We’ll discuss the consequences of being blindly in love below.

The consequences of blind love

The biggest consequences of blind love revolve around social criticism. Our emotions are so strong that they block out pretty much everything else. When you can’t see your partner’s flaws, their misdeeds are reinterpreted, justified, or completely erased from memory.

If your partner is hurting you in some way, you don’t really care. When you suffer from blind love, you’re so focused on the other person that any kind of negative emotion associated with them is wiped away. They can do whatever they want, because you’re incapable of maintaining even the slightest objectivity towards them. Your mind is able to justify anything they do.

If your child is the school bully, you justify their behavior as self-defense. If they get bad grades, it’s the teacher’s fault for not explaining the material properly. If they talk back to you, it’s because everything they have to do is stressing them out. If your partner lies to you, it’s because they wanted to protect you. If they don’t want to hang out with you, it’s because they have a lot of work to do. If they cheated on you, it’s because you didn’t give them what they needed. When it comes to blind love, it’s always someone else’s fault.

In short, when you’re caught in the grip of blind love, you turn yourself over completely to the other person, and you forget much of what and who you are. They could be unfaithful to you or hurt you in some other way, but the deep love that you feel for them prevents you from doing anything about it.

More information about the study

The researchers at the University of London scanned more than 20 brains of people who had all been exposed to both maternal and romantic love. While the effects and reactions were similar for both types, there was a clear difference between the two. Romantic love produced a state of euphoria, due to the brain releasing more oxytocin and dopamine, which are chemicals associated with feeling pleasure.

So, since love is a feeling that produces a deep state of happiness and pleasure, if you’re blindly in love, your brain feels this pleasant sensation and wants to prolong it.

People who are blindly in love idealize their partners as a way to cling to this pleasure, to the point where their absolute adoration prevents them from being the least bit objective.

Love can be wonderful

In summary, love can be wonderful, but this study teaches us an important lesson: everything is beautiful in the right amount, but in excess or deficit, the consequences are usually negative.

Anyhow, the brain is unable to detect blind love. So if you fall into its trap, it isn’t easy to get out, since you become impermeable to criticism from other people and absolutely devoted to your partner. And you don’t do it consciously, because you’re ignoring your conscious awareness altogether. To you, what you think is real.

Is there a solution to this problem? The truth is, there aren’t any clear answers. And if you fall in love with a good person, then logically, they won’t hurt you and they’ll love you the right way. In this case, you wouldn’t be covering up serious wounds by being numb to the pain they cause. It becomes worrisome when they do cause damage, but being blindly in love has numbed you to the pain that would alert you of said damage.

That is, if you fall into the trap of blind love, you’re sort of lost in a way. But nothing in this world is forever. So enjoy every second of your life and let time and common sense put everything in its place.