She's an old-fashioned feelin'
She's an old-fashioned song
How do you know if you are falling in love? That might be a different question from "How do you know if you love someone?" which I think is easier to answer. Simply put, if you love someone, their happiness becomes more important to you than your own. Perhaps, then, falling in love means that the happiness of another person is becoming progressively more important to you.
In September of 1984, I started my sophomore year of high school, and there was one person who was becoming more and more important to me. On the first day of school, for reasons that I do not recall, Julie sat down in front of me in my math class, and she was as nice and friendly as she ever had been. Having her there in the desk in front of me for an hour or so every day was very different from sharing a few dances at the occasional stake dance.
At the end of the first week of school I was walking home when I spotted Julie walking ahead of me. She looked back, saw me and stopped to wait for me to catch up. I can still see her, with her blonde hair -- now shortened -- highlighted by the mid afternoon sun. I can see her smile and the light in her eyes as we talked about surviving high school and other things. I thought Julie was beautiful, and I enjoyed spending time with her.
Perhaps Julie was just being friendly, but I thought she might have liked me, too. She would later say that she was just trying to be neighborly. But no one else had ever been as nice and friendly to me as Julie had been. It is easy to see things that are not there, and it is certainly possible I saw more than friendship in her kindness. Falling in love is a natural thing, especially during those halcyon days of youth. I would have asked Julie to the Homecoming Dance, except that I wasn't yet sixteen, and still had a few months to wait.
A few weeks later my stake put on a street dance. I danced a few times with Julie, of course, but I also danced with other girls. I had a special feeling as I danced with Julie that I did not have with the others. I thought that I was in love, but was I?
These were magical days, when everything was wonderful, but they would not last. Later, when things had turned sour, when I told myself that I was still in love, I could not have been. Later, at least, I was not putting her happiness first. But in these early days could I have been in love with Julie? Perhaps I would just like to remember it that way.
It seems that the use of the word "fall" is a metaphor. To develop feelings of love for someone is risky, and a certain vulnerability is implied. Proximity, similarity, reciprocity, and physical attractiveness are factors that contribute to the notion of falling in love.
If one wants to get scientific about it, there are two chemical reactions in play when you fall in love, the increase in oxytocin and vasopressin. Oxytocin is human peptide hormone and neuropeptide that plays a role in social bonding while vasopressin is a neurohypophysial hormone that has a very short half-life between 16 and 24 minutes One person has suggested that "when we fall in love we are falling into a stream of naturally occurring amphetamines running through the emotional centers of our very own brains."
Timing matters, too. There might be a crystallization period of, perhaps, six weeks, involving obsessive brooding and idealization, followed by a period of doubt and then a final crystallization of love. Additionally, it may be that men fall in love earlier than women, but women are likely to fall out of love quicker.
In love or not, I did something stupid. In trying to impress her, I told her something that wasn't true, and when she found me out I was naturally filled with feelings of guilt. I thought that I had ruined everything. A couple of years later I talked to Julie about what I had done, but she said that she did not remember it. Even so, the guilt I felt may have had the effect of deepening whatever feelings I was having.
I figured at the time that I must have been nuts about Julie, but I loved it. I loved the feeling I had when I was around her. Still, I thought I had blown it with her. I began to feel worse and worse with each passing day. Alas, time passed and eventually I forgot about the incident, or I at least got to the point where I wasn’t constantly thinking about it.
Julie's in love now, but love has gone
It's a natural thing
One day I heard a rumor that Julie was going with another guy, someone she had met at a dance, and I was devastated. Whether it was true or not did not seem to matter. It seems that my feelings may have been less than healthy, but I was just a kid.
Oh, she was old-fashioned feelin'
She was old-fashioned song
Finally, in late December I turned sixteen, and in mid January I asked Julie to the Junior Prom. In retrospect, a prom might not have been the best idea for my first ever date with a girl. In any case, after three days, Julie said yes. Could we recapture those early days when all was magical?
Winter and moonlight
It's an old-fashioned song
Julie's in blue jeans
Now her love has gone
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