6 Theories Of Why We Seek Romantic Love (Since No One Knows For Sure)

All you need is love ... is a lie?

Have you ever wondered why we love? While love itself is a wonderful phenomenon, the journey to get there is full of all sorts of deterrents, from the trauma that comes with ghosting to the pressure people feel after seeing elaborate proposals on Facebook.

While social media and text relationships are contemporary, the question of why we love is one we've grappled with forever. As you'll see in the Ted-Ed video above, science does not have a definitive answer for why romantic love serves us, but humans have spent centuries in search of an explanation -- from the ancient Greek philosopher Plato to 18th century Chinese novelist Cao Xueqin to you, reading this now.

There are quite a few theories out there: Is love is a mere illusion that tricks us into confusing sexual desire with connection so that we'll have babies? Or does love infuse our lives with meaning, fulfilling our fundamental desire to integrate with another person? Watch the video above to hear 6 major unifying theories of love and tell us in the comments: Why do you love?

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