Board index › Coping in life › Love and Dating

Love, Friendship and Nationality

Page 1 of 1 [ 5 posts ] 

Previous topic | Next topic

Henbane
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Apr 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 6,071
Location: UK

22 Aug 2011, 5:52 am

According to this article, people from the USA take longer than those from Eastern Europe to fall in love.

Additionally, Americans placed a much higher emphasis on friendship in the relationship.

While Eastern Europeans tended to see the 'in love' stage as short term and unimportant.


What do you think?

Is friendship essential in a relationship? Do you fall in love quickly? Is 'in love' a short term illusion, or something lasting?

And what terms do you associate with romantic love?



http://www.livescience.com/15641-americ ... lowly.html

http://www.livescience.com/15671-cross- ... -love.html - List of terms each culture associated with love.


Quote:
Americans take longer to fall in love than their Eastern European counterparts, according to a new study. The findings also showed that Americans frequently cited friendship as a key part of romantic love, while Russians and Lithuanians rarely mentioned it.

The study found that about 90 percent of Lithuanians reported falling in love within a month of meeting one another, with 39 percent falling in love within a matter of days. By comparison, 58 percent of American participants indicated they fell in love within two months to a year.



Quote:
The idea that romantic love was temporary and inconsequential was frequently cited by Lithuanian and Russian informants, but not by U.S. informants," the researchers write in the journal Cross-Cultural Research. The Eastern Europe participants also referred to romantic love as "a stage," "unreal" and a "fairytale."

Furthermore, while Americans frequently cited "friendship" and "comfort/love" as requirements for romantic love, other participants either seldom or never mentioned these requirements. In fact, the word "friendship" is absent from the more than 500 terms elicited from the Eastern European samples.



keira
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Feb 2011
Age: 40
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,420
Location: misplaced

22 Aug 2011, 6:56 am

Just a bit on the research:

I think that one of the reasons the results are so different in this research is the misconception in terms. In Lithuanian language the term "in love" is used to describe the same state that Americans call "a crush" or "infatuation". It's a primary state of feelings based on chemistry and physical attraction more than anything else. It may sound strange but when we say "in love" we don't talk about love. We talk about butterflies and rush of joy, and strong attraction, and silly smiles and all the other little things. So naturally we understand the state of being "in love" as temporary and things like friendship, connection and mutual understanding are not always necessary for it. These things become important when the "in love" state of mind passes and the feelings of love start developing or not.
So I think this difference in terminology might have influenced the results more than cultural differences.

But that's just my opinion. I've never been a typical Lithuanian. :roll:



Grisha
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Oct 2009
Age: 58
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,336
Location: LA-ish

22 Aug 2011, 7:26 am

Henbane wrote:
Is friendship essential in a relationship? Do you fall in love quickly? Is 'in love' a short term illusion, or something lasting?


As (almost) always, I think what Keira said is largely true.

I develop crushes/infatuations at the drop of a hat, but "falling in love" is extremely rare. I'm not really sure if I even have words to describe what being in (romantic) love is like, but I definitely know it when it happens.

and friendship is definitely a pre-requisite...



hyperlexian
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Jul 2010
Age: 52
Gender: Female
Posts: 22,023
Location: with bucephalus

22 Aug 2011, 9:04 am

Grisha wrote:
I develop crushes/infatuations at the drop of a hat, but "falling in love" is extremely rare. I'm not really sure if I even have words to describe what being in (romantic) love is like, but I definitely know it when it happens.

^^^this is like me, exactly. i crush out on people all of the time, but real love is exceeding rare.

Grisha wrote:
and friendship is definitely a pre-requisite...

also true for me. i have crushes on people i hardly know, but real love can only happen once i have friendship too.


_________________
on a break, so if you need assistance please contact another moderator from this list:
viewtopic.php?t=391105


Knifey
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

User avatar

Joined: 19 Aug 2011
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 324
Location: South Australia

22 Aug 2011, 10:32 am

"five love languages" book helped me understand that there is a 2 year lust limit in every relationship that most people call "in love" and after that love is a choice, you make a decision to work at it. I do love my wife and I will always love her.

edit: in my personal experience as an AS male, it never takes me anywhere near 2 years.