Love is a Chemical

Scientifically, love is a combination of chemicals in your brain. The feeling of “butterflies in your stomach” is actually caused by adrenaline. The rush you feel when you meet the love of your life is really a mix of serotonin, dopamine, and adrenaline. These may be reputable facts, however, the dictionary definition of love is still “an intense feeling of deep affection.” Seventh grader, Patrick Thomason, described what he thinks love truly is.

“It can be a chemical because it’s inside your body, you feel affection for another person but it’s a feeling because as you get to know the person you get close to them and feel that affection,” Thomason said.

While the initial question asked was whether love was a chemical or feeling, a select amount of students believe that love is something else entirely. Eighth grader, Ella McDonald, explained what she believes about love.

“Love doesn’t exist,” McDonald said. “We’re all gonna die because of people who think it’s real.”

The debate of feeling vs. chemical is ever-present, but common ground can be found. In fact, 20 out of 50 students believe that love can be both a chemical state, and an expression. Eighth grader, Alan Roth, shared his thoughts on love.

“Love is both, because it starts as a feeling, and ends as a chemical, because of dopamine,” Alan said.

There hasn’t been extensive research into emotions. There’s still a lot we don’t know about the chemicals in our brain. Mr. Johnson stated his opinion on what love is.

“We don’t understand emotion that well,” Johnson said. “Love is not matter. The way we feel has matter to it, but love is an idea.”

There has been much debate over whether love is a chemical or a feeling. Mr. Kagan explained what love is.

“Love is physical like your skin or something like that so I won’t consider it a matter, because I think we express [it]. [Love is] something we talk about,” Kagan said. “It’s definitely a feeling, but it’s also energy. Now energy is not matter, but it is something that energizes. We got these neurons firing off in our brain and chemical messengers being sent across. Neurons telling us to do crazy stupid stuff when we’re in love.”