Love Is Not A Real Emotion (Inside Our Loveless Marriage)

In this episode, we delve deep into the concept of love, challenging the traditional and culturally popularized ideas surrounding romantic love. We argue that what is often labeled as 'love' is actually a bundle of separate emotions such as admiration, attachment, arousal, and fondness, and not a single profound, unique emotion. By exploring various scientific, genetic, historical, and cross-cultural perspectives, we aim to demystify and deconstruct the concept of love. We discuss the biological markers and chemical reactions associated with love, the societal constructs that influence our understanding of it, and how different cultures historically viewed relationships and love. Join us as we debunk long-held beliefs and provide a fresh, rational take on love and marriage.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello, I'm excited to be here with you today. If you read this title and you're familiar with the way we do title cards, you probably think that this is some sort of bait and switch.

It is not a bait and switch.

Simone Collins: No.

Malcolm Collins: This is, this is with the, the, the core point I'm gonna be arguing in this episode. Is that some groups may feel love, but I suspect for the vast majority of humans at, at least given myself and with my wife, you know, I, I came to her the other day and I was like, I wasn't sure if you were gonna be mad at me.

'cause I, we always end this show. I was like, I love you and everything like that. And I was like, Simone, I'm gonna be honest. I don't feel some separate distinct emotion that I can categorize as love like, and, and I think that what's really cool is if love is a myth. Yeah. Most people don't feel that they can say that.

They can go out and say, Hey, this is a myth. Yeah. 'cause either they're not in a deep, you know, satisfying relationship. Mm-hmm. So they're in this position where people will just be like, oh, well you haven't found love yet.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Or they are in [00:01:00] a deep, satisfying relationship and people will say.

Wait, does that mean that you don't really care about your wife? Does that mean you don't, you know, it, it disconfirms being the person, the whistleblower on love to, to beat all these people. Like, Hey, I'm not sure this is a real thing and we're gonna be going through the receipts on it. Yeah. Is quite a costly thing to do unless you're in an incredibly secure position with your relationship.

And so people know us, they know that. I literally have no negative thoughts about my wife anymore. Like there are times in a relationship where like, I had like minor beast with you about this or that. I drive you a

Simone Collins: little nuts on some fronts. I don't

Malcolm Collins: even have minor beasts. The, the, the primary emotion that I feel towards you, like if I was going to categorize the primary emotions that I feel towards you is admiration.

And a sense of debt for everything that you've invested in our family and aligned future.

Simone Collins: Oh, same dude.

Malcolm Collins: And I have other feelings. I have a [00:02:00] feeling of attachment. I have a feeling of fondness. I have a feeling of sadness when you're not around or like a desire to be with you again. That's sort of like an addiction.

I have arousal from you. I think that you're a very attractive woman. But dude, I can name all of those things. Yeah. These are all separate and

Simone Collins: distinct things

Malcolm Collins: and, and, and I don't feel something other than these things that have a very commonly known name. And so I think that me coming out here and saying this is saying something that is sort of like.

And I, I will note, I do think that quote unquote love is a real thing. But what I mean by that is I think that what we are calling love is a bundle of other emotions that have easily nameable names. Yeah. It's either new relationship energy is often mistaken for love when you're starting to date.

For people who don't know, this is common in like the polyamory community. Mm-hmm. In it sets. Special feeling you get when you're dating someone you're excited about. Yeah. That [00:03:00] dies down your chest

Simone Collins: in your belly. The tingly.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, the tingly. But, but new relationship energy is obviously not love.

Simone Collins: No.

Malcolm Collins: People call it love early when, when somebody says like, do you love me or do you not love me? They're typically asking like, how much new relationship energy do you have for me?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The second thing that has often caused a love, and this is in relation to children, right? Is and by the way, when I say like.

This is what people are calling love, like this bundle of emotions. This is why when I tell my wife I love her at the end of every episode, I'm not lying to her. I am, I am telling her I have this emotional set that other people are calling love. But with children, I think what is often called love is a bundle of emotions, but predominantly the emotion.

The psychologists call attachment. And in psychology especially child development attachment is treated as a unique emotional state. A child does not just like their caregiver, they feel a deep existential distress when separated, insecurity when near except for our kids. And that defines attachment distress when separated.

[00:04:00] Security went near. But that's not love that nobody would say, oh, but it means our children

Simone Collins: don't love us, Malcolm, I swear to you.

Malcolm Collins: No, no. I, I mean, I don't think they do.

But I think a lot of people, they may hear this. And they'll think this is really a semantic argument, right? You're being like, well, you have these emotional states, but they're not. And I'm like, actually, not only is it not a semantic argument, it's a very big deal that this misconception has had.

And it's a very big deal because a lot of people, like if you look in at the, the sort of normal western relationship development, there is the moment when the partner says, I love you. Right? And so somebody could be like, well, you know. You're saying that, you know, loveness loving is really just , a word that means fondness and attachment and arousal maybe, right?

Mm-hmm. And it's like, well, if that is actually what everyone else means when they're saying the word love, then why do we have this ritual in relationships where people who otherwise like each other in all other formats like two [00:05:00] people will be dating for a long time, like years sometimes, and one of them won't say, I love you to the other one.

And it's supposed to be this like big step in the relationship when they say, I love you to them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And the other partner says.

Malcolm Collins: Thanks. Yeah. Or, or I love you too, or whatever, right? But, but suppose they say this and, and what love really means in our society is just fondness, arousal, and attachment.

Right. And maybe respect in, in most of the instances in which I've seen, a person doesn't say, I love you in a relationship, and it's like a big deal within our media or something like that. They have all of those emotions.

So clearly it's explicitly sort of demonstrated to people that this word means something in addition to those things. Well, and I think it causes

Simone Collins: conflict. Like I think one of the reasons why people don't immediately say I love you too, is because they think that there's some social contract that's being initiated when one partner says, I love you.

But they're really not sure what that means. Like, okay, does this mean that you expect me to propose in four months? 'cause for some people that kind of does, and I [00:06:00] remember. Also feeling this way because your family, you, you grew up using, I love you as a way to end a conversation. And I think you might've learned that from your mom.

And your mom has, like other people in her family had started to adopt it and then they would start ending calls with, I love you and I as like the daughter-in-law who wasn't. Like, I, I didn't know if I should say I love you too. So like I know that feeling. I think a lot of people can really identify with that feeling of like, oh God, like what am I into now?

Like,

Malcolm Collins: I

think so, no, but the point here being is think about the damage this could cause to a young person's relationship. Ugh. They're dating somebody. Girls,

Simone Collins: girls have brought, I mean, this sounds like the kind of thing she'd post to Reddit. You know, should I break up with my boyfriend because he refuses to say he loves me too.

Well, course's, just

Malcolm Collins: trying to be honest. Yeah. He's like, I don't feel some new emotion that is materially different from the way I felt about you up until now. Yeah, like from day

Simone Collins: one.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So what, what [00:07:00] do you mean? Like, yeah. And then there's this, this, this secondary issue, which is so the person who's trying to be fastidiously honest ends up never saying it and hurting somebody else, right?

Mm-hmm.

Or. They eventually break like most people do in our society, and then just say it. And then they believe that they're lying to their partner and they're living a lie. Yeah, that's not good. I wanna start a relationship on that, right? Like, this is not a small thing. If it turns out that this is not an, an other emotion.

And it's not a particularly profound, like really, really loud emotion and I should say. We are in a uniquely good spot to talk about this. Not just 'cause we're in a solid relationship but also because we tick all of the boxes that people say break love. Like I was the first person you slept with.

You know, I was the first person you'd seriously hooked up with. I was the first person, right? Like, all of these things which are tied to like these bonding chemicals in women, like the oxytocin and everything like that. Mm-hmm. Which create attachment you have been [00:08:00] exposed to. Right. It's, it.

It's not just the quality of our relationship, it's, it's literally check every single box.

Simone Collins: It should produce the, what people say is pure love. So you're saying some people would argue that the problem many people don't experience love is that they've had too many partners or something like that, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Yes. They'll say. And we do know this lower the amount of oxytocin, which causes the collection of emotions that people call love this sort of attachment. Which, which we have, but it's not like a super profound emotion. It's like, I miss you when we don't talk, but it's not like all of a sudden along with that, missing you.

Some other emotion that felt really awesome came up and hit me as well. There's some

Simone Collins: weird, like poetic longing. There just seems to be this poetic element to the this that I just don't.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

And note here if it is a real emotion and all I have found is just by coincidence, neither my wife or I feel it. , What this means is that there are specific individuals out there who can be perfectly happy. In fact, my marriage is better than I ever could [00:09:00] have. , A imagined, a marriage.

Being, , who can have perfectly happy and satisfying relationships without this extra emotion being a part of it, and that nothing will ever trigger this emotion in some people. If it is true that other people are having this emotion and we're just anomalies, which is another important thing to note.

Malcolm Collins: And I, I, I want to demystify this concept because what love has become was in our civilization is the, basically it just means emotions that are above reproach.

And so people will say things like, Lex Friedman will come in and be like, but what about love, Mr. All of his degrees are from Drexel. I will never stop mentioning that. My God, welcome. He, he is not an MIT professor. He taught my

Simone Collins: podcast. RIP Your chance of ever being on his podcast. Hey,

Malcolm Collins: look, he, he didn't let me online.

He didn't get back to me. This is his fault. You know, he, he also, I don't like when people like are pur purposely going out there and basically defrauding people like through the reputational fraud. You know, if you're not smart, just [00:10:00] admit you're not that bright. Okay. That's funny. Well, you can

Simone Collins: be bright and go to Drexel.

But Right. Being misleading, I mean, it, it implies a level of insecurity or just like, I don't know, whatever. But

Malcolm Collins: anyway the, the the, the people like him, sorry Simone. You can't be smart and ever respond to somebody. What about love? That's like the ultimate basic be take. Yeah. But true,

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins: guess.

That is, I have never heard anything more basic.

Speaker: You refer to your friends as your boys. You love bacon so much that you ruin it for everyone else.

And your preferred topic of conversation is how much you drank last night. Four beers, two shots of Jack, one Red Bull buck. This is very serious, Gerald. Very seriously basic. The good news is we caught your basicness early. If you can wean yourself off the guy's only poker nights and stop referring to your basement as your man cave. You might be able to salvage a personality.[00:11:00]

Speaker 2: Uh, actually I haven't. I haven't told you everything. I've noticed a strange feeling like this area. I think I have a crutch on Emma Watson. Oh my God. That's basic.

He is trans smart. He is someone who identifies this smart. Um, and therefore we need to affirm that identity. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: No, but I, here's the thing

Simone Collins: though, and like to, to your point about being afraid of, of being a whistleblower on the scam of love I, I think that a really big issue at play here is that. We have, there are people, and we have friends who are like this too.

Like, you know, we have our model of friendship and we believe there are only three types of friends. There are convenience friends who are like neighbors and colleagues who you're only friends with because they're literally there and convenient. There are character reinforcing friends who are literally the supporting character that you need to prove yourself, that you are the character you want to be.

And then there are utility friends who provide useful information or connections, or they have the best video game content. And, and they are useful to you and so therefore you're friends with them. [00:12:00] And we have some friends who are like, but what about the people who you just love for their own inherent value?

And who, like, we have people who say that to me, multiple different people. I think where we are with that is there's a lot of people who see themselves, like they, they. They see themselves as loving and, and that they respect humans and that they, they literally could not reconcile what you're saying about love because it would break their sense of self.

So I don't think it's necessarily a sign of stupidity. I think it could also be a flaw in their character design and that they're like, literally, they would have to admit that a huge part of their identity is just. Of sort of performative life? Fraudulent.

Malcolm Collins: Fraudulent? No, I think that people who base a lot of their character identity, and I will say that there is an emotion that is misidentified as love.

Mm-hmm. That can exist towards like the world as a whole or society as a whole. There God or any. Yes. It, it, it's [00:13:00] an emotion that is generated when you think about something that is complicated and not fully knowable. That gives you a sense of comfort. And that is, is also like not fully grable in the moment.

Mm-hmm. Like the all of reality, like when you think about the true nature of the cosmos and, and how big it is or the, the true time links of all of your ancestors and everything they went through, or God itself, right. Or himself. Sorry. I don't wanna be somebody who implies that God is a. Genderless.

You get this, this, this feeling that people call a a form of love, and I'm like, yeah, but this is clearly not what we're talking about when we're talking about like romantic love, right? Like. This is obviously some other and, and quite a trite and easy to trigger emotion. You, you can trigger it whenever you think about something that is vast and gives you a sense of security.

And, and that is complex slightly more complex in your understanding. So it's a feeling you might get when you like, contemplate the [00:14:00] nature of the Trinity. 'cause the Trinity is intrinsically not understandable. And so you'll get this feeling

mm-hmm. Or

contemplate the nature of you know, consciousness or.

Or all of humanity or the Gaia like Earth and all of the biomes that are, make it up. But this is obviously not what we mean when we're talking about love as like this magical thing that bonds you to somebody. It's, it's clearly this like easily triggerable and hackable emotional state that isn't magic or anything like that.

So what I wanna do is I wanna go through. One, the science around this, what creates love? Ooh.

Okay. I wanna

go through because some people are born with different genetics that cause them to express emotions like lust in love differently. That's interesting. Yeah. Just

Simone Collins: tell like. Some people taste the bitterness in broccoli and other people literally can't.

And you can see if you have that gene. Yeah, I don't, yeah, it would make sense. Love would be experienced differently too. Of course.

Malcolm Collins: We're gonna go through the history of this and I'm gonna show you that the concept of love as we understand it today is something different from. [00:15:00] Arousal or attachment or fondness started very specifically and easily traceable to the court culture of courtly love to the culture of chivalry.

This was a culture that was if you go to books of this time period. They were written by either horny, troubadour, or celibate monks very frequently by celibate monks. Yeah, they were, no, they were basically the Intels of the time writing stories about romancing some woman. That's great. That's great.

And, and the problem is, is that because they were godly men and stuff like that, they couldn't say. I have this hole in my life and this hole is lust and attachment and the desire to possess someone. And and so I. I'm going to define the emotion that I feel for them as above reproach, and I am going to call this, this new emotional state love.

And what we will see, because I'm gonna go through this, is that [00:16:00] actually this isn't a common concept cross-culturally and where it is seen cross-culturally, it's usually seen as a negative emotion.

Simone Collins: Ooh, okay. The

Malcolm Collins: idea that you would. Feel an attachment to somebody outside of like the best interest of both of your families is seen as a negative emotion.

And while there have been studies, and I'll go over these studies that say that like 88% of cultures have some concept of love, if you look at how they're defining love, they'll say it's like a fondness. Like I'd be sad if they died. I'd be sad if they were away from me. Bro, I feel that way for my wife.

Right. And I'm admitting that I don't have this separate other emotion. So clearly those aren't what love is. Yeah. What love is is this secondary overwhelming and clearly distinct emotion that we have made up in Western culture and, and very strangely, it's become like this weird thing in relationships.

Like they haven't said they love me yet. Like it's this weird Oh yeah. It's this weird performative

Simone Collins: thing of when do you say I love you, and do they say, I love you back right away.

Malcolm Collins: I am [00:17:00] putting this on the table, you know? Yeah. It, it, it's like this weird emotional thing. And we might get a chance, I don't know how much time we're gonna have in this to go over some other emotions that I think are mostly made up.

Ooh. Two of which I think are jealousy. I think jealousy is mostly made up.

No.

What have you ever felt, I'm not talking about like your partner sleeping with somebody else, but have you ever felt distinct? You, you may have felt like this person unjustly has a lot of stuff that I wish I had. No, no.

Simone Collins: That's you're describing envy. Jealousy is when you're trying to protect a thing that you think someone else is gonna try to take from you. Like a jealous lover. No, it's not. Yeah. Envy is when you want something. You don't have jealousy. No.

Malcolm Collins: Jealousy is when you want something that somebody else has.

Simone Collins: No, that's envy

Malcolm Collins: and and it makes you dislike them as a result of this.

That's

Simone Collins: envy.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, well I'll let you AI this while I keep going, Simone. Yeah. Yeah.

Hmm. Oh, did the AI not [00:18:00] agree with you? Oh, hold on. You go Princess. Are you trying, are you trying to get it to agree with you now because it didn't agree with you.

Simone Collins: Jealousy is wanting what someone else has envious this told you I'm wrong. Oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: Told you. So, but, but no, but jealousy has a secondary implication, which is not just you want what somebody else has, but this wanting makes you like.

Dislike them or angry at them. Mm-hmm. And I think that that's just like a social construct that we that's just you

Simone Collins: choosing to be a jerk

Malcolm Collins: if you're jealous. Yeah. It's like you choosing to be petty and a jerk. And I think you could just choose to not be jealous. Yeah. Not hard to like understand. The

Simone Collins: world's not fair.

Malcolm Collins: The other one I might talk about is, is forgiveness. I don't think forgiveness is a real concept either. I'm with

Simone Collins: you on that.

Malcolm Collins: Either like, like nothing changes in the moment. I'm j I'm just like, oh, I'm choosing to not hold this against you anymore. But that's just like a choice. It's not like an emotion or a

Yeah.

But anyway, to keep going here, because I wanna go into the [00:19:00] ancient Greeks because people will be like, well, the ancient Greeks had this concept.

Okay.

Okay. The linguistic evidence is particularly compelling. Many languages don't have a single word that maps onto the English love. Which they would if this was a widespread human emotion.

Ancient Greece has multiple words, which I think is more honest about what it is. 'cause remember I said I think that this is multiple distinct emotions that have other words. Yeah. Aeros desire. Okay. Or what we would call lust.

Yeah.

Ilia. We, we would call friendship storge, what we would call familial affection.

Certainly not love. Agape which is universal compassion. This is the agape. Remember I said that this is this emotion? Oh yeah. Like, I love the world things.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That sort of baba yet too feeling. Exactly, exactly.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Suggesting they saw these as fundamentally different experiences.

And note here, to me, this is pretty strong evidence that a lot of humans don't feel this emotion if the entire Greek civilization was able to get by without anyone thinking this emotion needed a name. And them being able to have debates where they [00:20:00] clearly talk about, and we'll go into these debates later, , marriage and the way I feel for my wife while describing something very different than what the modern concept of love is.

Malcolm Collins: And I'll go into Plato's Symposium because in that they, they talk about what, what is this emotion that you feel or this bundle of emotions that you feel.

You know, when you're, you're married to somebody and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Mm-hmm. And so, it basically had different speeches that gave different iterations on what this may be, and I think that they're pretty good at describing it. Posse's speech, he explicitly divides arrows into vulgar.

So this is the concept of lust, right? Okay. Into a vulgar, tied to physical arousal and body gratification, often indiscriminate. Yeah. And heavenly, a virtuous intellectual bond between partners focused on character and wisdom. Rather than just desire, affection. Oh, I

Simone Collins: guess sapiosexual.

Malcolm Collins: Well, not even sapiosexual.

I mean, I think that would describe our relationship, right? Like an intellectual bond between partners focused on character and [00:21:00] wisdom rather than desire or affection. Totally. But I don't think that that's this distinct, magical emotion. It's, it's, it's more like. Admiration is the closest word I, I have to it.

And I think that it is a form of admiration. Mm-hmm. This distinguishes between love as a moral elevated state and not merely luft or, or fondness. Heavenly love inspires self-improvement in the beloved beyond attachment, which we've always talked about in our relationship is self-improvement as a core goal.

And I would say that this, this heavenly form of the vulgar or, or of, of, of aeros is. Not even in the category that most people consider love, even though I would consider it to be the highest form of an emotional attachment. Yeah. You even

Simone Collins: had an ex-girlfriend who left you because she felt like you primarily loved her for the intellectual engagement you had.

Yes. And she wanted you to like. Vulgarly lust after her.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. She's like, you, you, you always call me beautiful and whatever. Actually, this is two different girls who had one broke up with me of [00:22:00] this. The other had issues. One just been like, you only liked me for my brain. And I was like, yeah, the nerve, the nerve I mean, you're hot, but like, I primarily like you because of your intellect.

And this other guy liked her for her body, I guess. And good for her. I, I'm sure anyone who saw what's, what's happened in my life would probably prefer to be married to me. But, i'm glad that that worked out for her. She broke up with the guy shortly after, by the way, so it didn't, didn't even, this isn't college freshman, sophomore year of college for no.

Freshman year of college. And then the next one, by the way, securing a good girlfriend freshman year of college. That's hard. 'Cause that's when you Yeah, I, I don't

Simone Collins: dunno if I'd want my kids to settle down with their freshman love.

Malcolm Collins: My brother did. That's who he married.

Simone Collins: That's true actually. Okay.

Nevermind. I stand correctly there. Solid freshman

Malcolm Collins: in college. Yeah. Yeah. Then the, the second one this was the one who was at our wedding as a, a groomsman actually. This person didn't transition or anything, it's just that she was my friend. And so we had her in a suit and everything and I consider her very [00:23:00] close friend.

But anyway, so she she one day got mad at me 'cause she goes, you always tell me hot and. What was it? No, it was beautiful. She's like, you always call me beautiful. And you never call me like hot or sexy or anything like that. And I, I, I feel like no one ever sees me that way. And like, actually, if you've seen her, you get it.

I don't know if you like, know the difference between like beautiful and hot and sexy. But she definitely is like beautiful above all else. Well, that's,

Simone Collins: so the problem is she's extremely classy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: And there's, there's a level of class at which you just can't. Sexualize someone.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, she's at that level of class where it's very hard to sexualize.

She was Daisy Buchanan level of class. Like Daisy Buchanan isn't sexy ever. Right? Yeah. Like, oh, I mean,

Simone Collins: and like, not to say that she isn't sexy, but like, you won't sexualize her because she, you're too busy admiring the beauty. Like yeah, there's something, there's something very, like if you're trying to like max up the sexuality, [00:24:00] dial on someone.

There is kind of this trashiness thing that you also, like, there's, you have, you have to put in trashy points. Yeah. Like, you can't be maximum sexy if you're not also a little trashy. Agree, agree. Also, you know what? I think part of it is that, and you can see this in a lot of erotic material that men watch.

A, a big part of being sexy is like really enthusiastic. Like, I need you like, I'm so excited to suck on your, you know what and a classy woman. Is a little bit too aloof for that kind of

Malcolm Collins: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That

Simone Collins: element of being sexy. And so they can't be 100% sexy because that's like a good, at least 30 plus percent of what sexiness is in a woman, I think.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, to continue, aristo Fame's speech. So this is the next one. In the the Plato thing, love is mythologized as a deep existential longing for one's other half after humans were split by Zeus portraying it as a drive for wholeness. In union that causes emotional [00:25:00] turmoil, but isn't just arousal, it's not always sexual or attachment.

It's obsessive and incomplete without the partner. This frames love as a unique psychological state, a binding of partners separate from casual fondness. And I would say that again, this is an accurate thing that I feel for my wife. But I do not think that this is a love that other people are talking about.

No, this desire to be a single entity. And we often talk about this where if you look at other people where like they. See marriage as like a combining of two individuals. And we don't like, like when, I mean like two people who stay individuals. I see the primary unit of self as the family. Yeah. Secondary unit of self is me plus my wife.

Tetra unit of self is me as an individual entity for sure. But this is a recontextualization of what it means to be me. And what is the most important instance of me was in reality, I am a, a, a cell was in an organism that I exist to serve. Yeah. And the cells doesn't matter [00:26:00] exactly. But that's not love.

That's just a recontextualization of identity that's healthy to happen after marriage. And then you have later Aristotle three 50 BCE in Nyman and Essex. He differentiates Elia, a form of love akin to deep friendship, into types, utility based, practical attachment, pleasure based arousal, fondness, and virtue based, the highest mutual and reciprocal fostering.

Moral growth. Hmm. Which again, we talk about as like in a Pygmalion relationship or something like that in our, in our book, but that's not what other people are talking about when they're talking about love. They don't, in fact. Our modern culture is antithetical in its conception of love, to love applying to moral growth.

Because the most common thing that you hear within our modern culture is, I hope you love me as I am. I want somebody who loves me as I am without growth. If it implied moral growth, it wouldn't be an as I am phenomenon. Yeah. Whereas with us, actually when we got married, [00:27:00] we didn't even promise to love each other.

'cause I was like, I can't control my emotions. Not all. And we

Simone Collins: explicitly said as much in our.

Malcolm Collins: Wedding vows. Wedding vows. But I said that I will push you to improve every day, and I, I know that you care about me because you push me to improve every day. Which is, I think a very different thing from modern, if we were gonna recontextualize love as being with somebody who pushes you to morally improve every day and improve yourself every day.

I'm like, oh yeah, I can get behind. Like, like, that's a real emotion I have towards my life. 100%. Yeah. That's not what other people, that's not what Lex Friedman is talking about when he goes, what about love? Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. He's talking

Malcolm Collins: about an emotion that is defined by its ir, approachability and sacredness, and the fact when people are like, God is love.

And, and,

And note for those who want to say that this argument is just semantics, and we're just using different definitions here, we are absolutely not individuals when they say something like. But what about love? They're clearly not talking about these fairly trivial emotional states. , Like attachment, like just feeling, you know, irritated when you're not around someone or something like [00:28:00] that.

They are talking about some alternate emotional state, which feels near transcendent and is irreproachable, and we are saying that emotional state does not exist, at least as an output from , relationships.

well, no, I, I almost

Simone Collins: feel like it's kind of, it's, it's downstream of this chivalric love fantasy that was created in. In, in, in Cell Monk fan fiction basically that no, it is that like never really existed and that it, it implies this like poetic performativeness of like, oh my, my darling love and I, you know, this pining and like all this weird stuff that isn't, is neither productive nor realistic.

And it was literally by people who lived. In, in single gender environments with

Malcolm Collins: no,

Simone Collins: no interaction,

Malcolm Collins: no relation. And then you've got vid. So who, who then tackles this subject? This is in, in Rome, so 48. Okay. Three B, c, e to 17 C. [00:29:00] And Roman literature, like AM Maura, R is am love is depicted as chaotic, obsessive emotion involving jealousy, pursuit, and emotional turmoil.

Often satirized as a disease or an artful game is distinct from pure lust, which he treats separately as carnal or fondness, casual liking. Mm-hmm. Emphasizing psychological manipulation and longing that binds lovers in dramatic, sometimes tragic ways. This is, I think, closest to the modern concept of love.

We've just removed any implication that it could have these negative effects. Where it's like, oh, well yes, love is this thing that causes you to act. Jealous. IE like overly protective of an individual. This is a modern concept, right? Or gives you the right to act that way, you know what I mean?

Like, again, I don't believe jealousy, the thing. I think it's a social contracts of a set of rights that you believe that you have. And no, when I say I don't believe jealousy is this thing. We'll get to this. If we get to this that this, not to say that you do not feel something when your partner sleeps with someone other than you, but this [00:30:00] is an evolved state that is not n.

What people mean when they say jealousy. It's more like a sense of disgust and anger that is like, obviously useful from like a reproductive capacity perspective. But this sort of like, I. Manipulative iteration of love is, I think, closer to what the modern person means when they say love. And most other cultures saw it as as quite negative.

I will note that before courtly love, you get some sort of like prototypical. Ideas of this modern concept of love from early Christian thinkers. So, you've got St. Paul in 50 to 60 ce in letters like Corinthia Law one Corinthians one Agape is unconditional sacrificial love, ig patient kind and not envious, modeled in Christ's self-giving.

Which I think is sort of this proto love. It's like, whatever. Whatever Christ felt towards humanity is this emotion that we're gonna define as love.

Simone Collins: But it sounds [00:31:00] more like maybe what a parent too would, would feel for their child.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly. So it works well, but it's more like if, if you just look at, it's.

More just self-sacrifice. Mm-hmm. Like, I don't think that that's something different than self-sacrifice for something that you either for ideological reasons or for attachment reasons, feel attached to. Right. Then you have St. Augustine and 400 ce he emerges aeros and agape into carteris, a yearning for God.

As the ultimate good, but applies it to human bonds is a pass to eternal fulfillment. It's portrayed as restless, ascending desire. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Separate from capitus worldly lust for fondness or transient emphasizing a spiritual union over physical or habitual.

And note here the words that he's mo. Mixing here, or agape, which is like, that word I said is like, love for like the universe or love for like, remember I talked about like that word that you feel when you're dealing with like these complicated [00:32:00] concepts Yeah. With arrows, which means lust. So he is saying weird.

Weird.

Simone Collins: It's like, I wanna, I wanna mind.

Malcolm Collins: F God, screw you.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I think that

Malcolm Collins: some I'll, I'll put here the scene from South Park, which is I want to get down on my knees and start pleasing Jesus.

Simone Collins: Oh gosh. Okay.

Speaker 4: I wanna get down on my knees and start please Jesus. I wanna feel his salvation all over my face. The CD is filled with instant classics. Who doesn't remember the body? Christ. Everybody up, body up I my own.

Simone Collins: Oh, there you go. Okay. Which

Malcolm Collins: is kind of, by the way, I don't know if you know this, but when Matt and Trey Parker wrote these, they had actually planned under a pseudonym before this to attempt to create a Christian rock band that became popular.

But they wanted all the songs to be of this category of song, right. It sounded like the first thing was actually like in love with God. Yeah. Or Jesus. Um mm-hmm. And, and, and they were like, we wanted [00:33:00] to see how long we could stay on recovery. Why didn't they, they decided it was too much work. And I'm like, this is so sad that that didn't happen in our timeline.

That is really sad. That's Stone and Trey Parker take over the Christian r scene with songs about Damn. Pleasing Jesus. I wanna, I wanna get done on my knees and start pleasing Jesus. I wanna feel his salvation all over my face.

Simone Collins: Oh, lost opportunity,

Malcolm Collins: lost opportunity to be in that timeline. But now here, you people will be like, well, you see it in some other places, and just courtly love, like what about Muslim writings?

And this I think is really interesting because I think he does a good job of breaking down the way people actually feel about their partners versus this magical love emotion, which is proposed. And some people probably feel pretty. Insecure about not feeling because they don't realize that everyone else is just pretending.

And we're trying to break the, this is gonna come back to haunt us. Some article's are gonna be like, they don't even love each other. And I'm gonna be like, Hey, we, whatever you guys are calling [00:34:00] love. We're just honest and secure enough in our relationship to be like, pull. Everyone else is just diluting themselves shenanigans.

This isn't real. That guy when he says, I love you, he's just waiting as long as he can to decide when he needs to say that to get to f you or whatever. Right? Yeah. Like, or to continue the length of the relationship. Yeah. To, to, to basically ef face himself by our cultural standards. But he probably doesn't feel some new emotional state towards you.

Simone Collins: No. No. And well, the funny thing though is I feel like there's this tacit understanding. That that's true. It's just people are really uncomfortable admitting that. 'cause I think people think they'll be branded as a sociopath or unfeeling or unkind if they do that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so this is written in Southern 22 ce.

The Ring of the Dove. The Arabic treaties systematically describes romantic love ishka as a psychological and emotional process with stages. And I think this is accurate as well, right? Like it's not a a, a [00:35:00] distinct emotion, it's a set of emotions that come on in stages that have other names.

Mm-hmm.

Specifically attraction, obsession, jealousy, sleeplessness, and even chased devotion or unrequited suffering. Ivan Harms drawing from personal experiences like his in situation was a maid note, by the way, here. He got this for a maid that he was infatuated with. It is not what we would call love.

Right.

Okay.

Portrays it as a noble soul binding of fiction that can be pure and elevating, not just lust, which he separates at the base and again, or fondness. Casual affection. And note here, what you often see when people have love is they have lust in new relationship energy. For an individual who they know they're not supposed to be with.

And so they then rebranded as something above the approach.

Okay.

For example, very

convenient.

He discusses love signs like gazing and secrecy, framing it as a distant [00:36:00] malady of the heart that unites lovers spiritually, even if Unconsummated. And some scholars have seen this as a progenitor to the courtly love concept.

So, European literature did create its idealized, almost spiritual concept of romantic love that was quite different from earlier views of marriage, primarily as an economic and social arrangement from an but. I will note here, this is the biggest pullback on all of this. It is actually kind of weird that evolution didn't build a love emotion that it seemed to just grab a number of other emotions and tie them together.

And so we'll, like you

Simone Collins: say in all our books, evolution's a lazy programmer. Whatcha gonna do? Oh,

Malcolm Collins: she's a lazy programmer. Just takes what's already there.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So, a combination of emotion that drives the American Psychological Association defines love as a quote unquote, complex emotion involving affection, tenderness, attachment, and sometimes arousal researchers like Carol [00:37:00] Izard.

So right now, I'm just going over with the various, like scientific fields say on this. Have noted that love can be joy combined with interest in another person. Note again, this, this is what the scientists who study this say, none of these are what our pop culture would say as love. No, we define

it

as this other magical emotion that like you'll know it when you feel it, right?

I mean, these people are like, no, it's just joy with fondness, right? And it's like, okay, well clearly I have that for my wife. Yeah. But I don't have this other magical emotion that warrants people. Like let's Freeman saying, but what about,

Simone Collins: but again, when you, when you express any doubt around it, you are completely pill.

Like there's this famous interview between. A journalist and the newly married, or maybe engaged Prince Charles and Princess Diana where they're like, oh, are you in love? And she immediately says Yes. And he's like, whatever that means, whatever that means.

Prince Charles: And I suppose in love, of course, [00:38:00] whatever in love means too,

Simone Collins: Which is so honest. It's so true. And yet he just like, he will never live that down.

Never.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Because everyone's like, oh, this, oh, he doesn't have the, but he's, yeah. Oh, he doesn't

Simone Collins: love her very. He was the first

Malcolm Collins: whistleblower in the world of love. Yes, yes, yes. Never forget. Yes. So Helen Fisher's work frames romantic love, but not as an emotion at all, but as a motivational state overlapping with systems for lust attraction.

And attachment which again is not what other people call love. Yeah.

And

then review by Adam Bode, and, gosh, Krishna echoes this calling romantic love, a suite of adaptations, including cognitive, emotional and behavioral elements for made choice bonding rather than a singular feeling. Ru row. But let's go into the neuroscientific backing.

Okay. Brain scan, show love activating multiple systems or war dopamine [00:39:00] for a high. This is like what you get from drugs like heroin, attachment, oxytocin for bonding. This is the attachment system. And even obsession, which again addiction. So what people are describing here is a combination of an addiction system and attraction system.

Sorry, an attachment system. But not a unique love center. . , One of the most cited studies here if a 1992 paper that showed love appearing at approximately 88.5% of cultures created by the anthropologist, William Je and Edward Fisher examined theologies of these cultures.

Mm.

But what did they, what did they. Call love. Like how did they determine whether or not these cultures had love? Yeah. Well, did they have songs about passionate longing? Did they have songs about unrequited love defined as one person wanting another partner?

Mm-hmm.

Or did they have f**k folk tales of lo lovers eloping?

Again, that's not love as we mean it today, or evidence of that. No, no. Or unloving over unrequited love. Or [00:40:00] unrequited wanting somebody else? Is that a thing? Well, I mean Romeo, Julie. Yeah. It's like a thing. Oh. But yeah, this is like a this is one of these things where it's like, I can't see, like if I didn't have a bunch of kids with you and you died, even without this emotion, I would almost certainly un alive myself.

But we have a lot of kids and I have other responsibilities now. Yeah, you're super

Simone Collins: not allowed to do that, by the way. I understand,

Malcolm Collins: but I'm just saying that's very much the way I would feel about the world even without this emotion, right? Mm-hmm. Hmm. That's not evidence that a culture has this emotion.

And so when you look at these studies that find this in other cultures, what you realize is the things that they are defining as this is something that people. Normally have, if they're in a long-term relationship with someone, they have a deep admiration for even if, and have intertwined their WI lives with even if they don't have this separate quote unquote magical emotion on top of that.

Hmm.

A 2018 study on core [00:41:00] features of romantic love models found culturally universal elements like altruism and intrusive thinking about the beloved alongside variables like sexual exclusivity in est theological data from multiple regions. Yeah. But the problem is, is I have all of those things too, and I wouldn't say I have this separate love emotion.

No. Yeah. That's not evidence for it. Mm-hmm.

More recent large scale surveys such as a 2024 study against 90 countries showed people worldwide are generally unwilling to commit to a long-term partner without whatever they defined as quote unquote romantic love. What they really just meant here was liking the person and it's like.

Well, okay buddy. That's an easy thing to have, right? Like, that's not, that's not this se