Love

Is it logically possible to consider yourself in love with someone after a short duration of time? Say, three weeks? Or is this too short of a time period to be able to determine something of such great importance? Ashley S.

Comments

It is logically possible to consider yourself Dracula or Cleopatra (people do it), and considering oneself in love after three weeks is surely no less possible. Some consider themselves in love with Schwarzenegger and have never met the guy!

So I assume the question you're really interested in is whether it is actually ("empirically") possible to be in love after knowing someone for merely three weeks.

Of course, this depends on what it means to be in love. Let me propose that being in love does not mean having built a relationship of love together, but merely something weaker: being emotionally ready and personally committed to build such a relationship with this person.

This can surely happen in the space of three weeks. For one thing, you may easily have spent 100 hours together -- more than you spend with your closest friends in the space of a year. And many of these hours may have been extremely intense (compared to shooting the breeze or watching a movie or going swimming with an ordinary good friend). So, yes, it is possible to be in love after knowing someone for merely three weeks.

Your last question leaves me a bit puzzled. Is the "something of such great importance" you seek to determine whether you are in love or not? If so, why is this so urgent? If you are unsure whether you are in love or not, then you can just wait a few weeks until you see things more clearly (but maybe you just can't wait to know).

Or is the "something of such great importance" you seek to determine some other big decision -- e.g., whether to get engaged to this man or whether to break up with your present husband or boyfriend? If so, that's hard to think about without more information.

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