THE ROMANTIC LOVE TEST
How Do We Know If We Are In Love ?
By James Park
LOVE (Psychology)---THE ROMANTIC LOVE TEST---26 QUESTIONS---by JAMES PARK
The following questions should help us determine whether our feelings correspond with the conventional experience of romantic love.
Answer each question "yes" or "no"—agree or disagree.
Keep a count of your "yes" answers.
The scoring is explained at the end of the test.
A. Romantic love arises from pre-existing yearnings.
3. Did I enter the 'love-market' with strong expectations of what love was supposed to feel like?
B. Romantic love begins suddenly, creating instant intimacy.
6. Did I 'fall in love' with _____ when I first met him/her?
C. Romantic love is blind.
13. Was I temporarily blinded by an intense flash of love so I could no longer see who the other person was?
D. Romantic love is often one-sided; it loves from afar.
16. Do I have obsessive day-dreams about a distant love-object? Do I imagine how it would be for some distant person to notice me—and 'fall in love' with me? Have I worked out a whole story of how I might meet
my love-object and begin a long life together?
E. Romantic love watches for small signs of reciprocation.
23. Do I interpret any response as a sign that he/she really notices and cares about me? Do I sometimes keep a 'love' going for a long time, sustained by mere crumbs of hope?
F. Romantic love is often uncertain and fearful of rejection;
it is exclusive, possessive, and jealous.
28. Do I often ask "Do you love me?" —perhaps phrasing it some other way?
When my beloved tells me that he/she loves me, do I wonder what that means? Do I want something more than mere words to convince me that my beloved really loves me?
G. Romantic love is a fantasy-trip,
a prefabricated emotion projected onto others.
43. When I think of us together, does it sometimes seem like a fairy tale?
Am I clinging to an illusion, something that was never really there?
H. Romance creates an illusion of oneness.
51. Can I see directly into _____'s soul? Is communication no longer necessary because we have become one person?
I. Romantic love depends on imagination.
55. Did I have elaborate love-feelings before I found a target for them?
J. Romance is being in love with love
—attempting to actualize a feeling learned from others.
65. Am I enjoying primarily my own internal feelings of love?
K. Romantic love sometimes depends on manipulation.
67. Do I sometimes wonder what I should do to make my beloved 'fall in love' with me? Do I strategize various things I could do or say to bring about the response I want from my beloved?
L. Romantic love is like watching a movie.
72. Do I feel I am re-enacting a movie I once saw? Am I sometimes trying to re-create a story I saw on TV or read in a novel?
M. Romantic love is an ecstatic feeling.
95. Is being in love the happiest experience of my life? Does it feel so good to be in love that I want to return to love (or remain in love) for the rest of my life?
N. Romantic love is an altered state of consciousness.
98. Does the intensity of my emotion sometimes surprise me?
O. Romantic love sees the beloved as perfect.
106. Do I overlook his/her faults or interpret them as charming?
Do I sometimes transform the negative dimensions of my beloved into positive attributes?
P. Romantic love causes violent mood-swings.
110. Do my feelings for _____ seem like a roller-coaster ride —momentary weightlessness at the peak of feeling, followed by crushing pressure at the bottom of the slide?
Q. Romantic love causes preoccupation and distraction.
116. Do I want to be with _____ every moment—day and night?
Would I like to spend the rest of my life linked with _____ like Siamese twins?
R. Romantic love causes intrusive thinking.
121. Do these compulsive thoughts keep coming back even tho I try to dismiss them and get on with my life? Does my mind seems to have "a mind of its own" —so that love-fantasies take over—like the wrong radio station
breaking into the program I was enjoying? When I am involved doing other things, do thoughts of my beloved come crowding into my mind?
S. Romantic love causes compulsive, neurotic, dependent thoughts and feelings.
129. Have I spend hours going over a simple encounter, attempting to make it mean something that it does not obviously mean? For example, do I sift and re-sift the fragments of a conversation for evidence of what my obsessive mind wants to find —either proofs of love or proofs of infidelity?
T. Romantic love is an overwhelming experience.
142. Am I swept along by a surging power I could never control?
Is love like riding the crest of an ocean wave?
U. Romantic love is the most important thing in life.
147. Has my passion become so strong that all previous concerns have fallen by the wayside? When I am in love nothing else matters.
V. Romantic love includes suffering.
150. Does my emotional attachment to _____ cause me to overlook conflicts, unhappiness, and even abuse?
W. Near its end, romantic love clings to any shred of hope.
163. When I feel love slipping away, does my heart ache?
When I believe that he/she has 'fallen for' someone else, do I feel sick?
Do I get other psycho-somatic reactions whenever I get some sign that our love may be over?
X. Romantic Love is temporary—lasting 18 months to 3 years.
168. When I have 'fallen out of love', does it seem that scales have fallen from my eyes, so that I can see the one I used to love as he/she really is?
Y. When romantic love is over, it sometimes becomes hatred.
172. After love is gone, is my emotional orientation reversed: Do I then exaggerate every fault I can think of? Does it seem that nothing about a former lover is good? Am I somewhat disgusted by the one I once 'loved'?
Z. Romantic love resists analysis.
179. Do I fear thinking too deeply about love because questioning any part of the myth may cause the whole house of cards to collapse?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scoring:
More than 20 yes-------You are in romantic love.
13-20-------------------------You are only half love-sick.
7-12---------------------------You are recovering from being 'in love'
or you were immune to this disease.
less than 7----------------You are emerging from the illusion
(or you were never deluded by romance).
And you might be ready
for loving beyond romantic illusions.
----
ZZ. Romantic love makes one saying "I want to die" and indeed some people die because of it.