One four letter word has the power to impact everything you do on a daily basis for the rest of your life: love. With so many different interpretations of love, one can love anyone or anything: a boy, a girl, a pet, a family member, a chocolate donut, you name it.

“There are two different types of love. There’s romantic love and platonic love. Romantic love is the love you feel for your partner, versus platonic love, which is the love you feel for your family members and others,” George McNalis, AP psychology teacher, said. “Generally, love is an emotion that incorporates feelings of belonging, happiness, and reward. It’s also a very social emotion because it requires someone or something else to be involved. We look at love on a spectrum of emotions, and it is typically a combination of joy, acceptance, high arousal, and happiness.”

Those feelings of happiness are all thanks to dopamine, the generic pleasure neurotransmitter in the brain. Dopamine can be released not only by being with the person you love, but also just by seeing their picture.

As a romantic relationship progresses, the chemicals begin to decrease as opposed to their high activity when the relationship first begins.

“We do see a leveling off as far as the different chemicals in the brain, which is fairly common,” McNalis said. “Throughout a period of time, there will be an ebb and flow of these. But over time as you begin to get comfortable with someone, those early feelings calm down a bit.”

In early stages of love, dopamine levels are highest, so ideally one would be happiest during that time period.[ According to Psychology Today’s website, love is one of the best antidepressants because one of the most common causes of depression is feeling unloved or unwanted.

“When we look at depression, we look at mood. There are specific chemicals that go with mood, the most common one being serotonin. The more serotonin you have, the happier you are. A lot of antidepressants work with serotonin levels and try to keep them high,” McNalis said. “If you’re in love and that love is being reciprocated, your mood will improve; however when we use the word antidepressant we are talking about chronic depressant. So love as an antidepressant is related, but they’re kind of a separate issue.”]

Although all people are capable of loving and feeling the effects love has on themselves, love can be processed differently from person to person. Teens and adults, especially, perceive love in their own way.

“The teen brain as a whole isn’t as completely done developing as adults’ brains. We do see more of an emotional rollercoaster with teens, and also just the fact that they have less experience with everything because they’re younger. When you combine all of that, I do think the teen experience of love is going to be different as the adult experience of love,” McNalis said. “When you look at the population in general, our brains develop differently, so emotions will be processed differently.”

Kelly Beigl, junior

1. In your own words, how would you define love?
2. [In high school], love is caring about someone on a higher level, also a lot of lust and just the idea of having someone as more than a friend.
3. What experiences have led you to think of love this way?
4. I think we’ve all had our fair share of little relationships in high school, and I can definitely say I’ve had my heart broken before. I think that’s where I come up with the idea that a lot of it has to do with just lust because people our age are so curious, and as we get bored of what we have, we want to explore other things.
5. What do you think about love at first sight?
6. I think you can fall in love with someone’s physical features at first sight, but as far personality, that’s something you don’t see in someone when you’re first meeting them.
7. Do you think you have one “soulmate” in life or multiple?
8. As you grow up and you meet people, you have soulmates for different part of your life. When you’re in high school and dealing with a lot of stress, you can find someone who can help you through that part of your life. As you grow up and begin experiencing new things, you find someone who is experiencing similar things to you.
9. What is the difference between passionate and compassionate love?
10. The way someone would love their family, you can’t really describe a love like that. I don’t think you could sit there and be like, ‘I love them because they look like this or do this,’ [you love them because] you grew up with them. Versus someone who you’ve fallen in love with or connected with where you love them for the things that they say and do and the person they are.
11. Do you think love can be an antidepressant?
12. Definitely. With one of my first relationships, I used it as something to make me happy. It’s one of those things where it can keep you happy for so long that you get addicted to it, and once it’s gone you’re more lost than you were before. I think that’s why people hold onto [relationships] and that makes them so much more emotionally invested because they think without them, they don’t know what happiness is. It’s sad that we’re like that, but it’s just the way we are.

D.J. Postilion, senior

1. In your own words, how would you define love?
2. Love happens when you develop feelings for someone and you can be totally comfortable around them and always want to be with them.
3. Do you think you have one soul mate or many?
4. I think you have one soul mate. Soul mate is such a deep term that you can only feel that way about one person. It’s someone you can be so close to, be yourself around, and know they’ll always love you.
5. Do you think love can be an antidepressant?
6. Yes. Especially in high school, people think they can only be happy with someone. They think one person can make their life better and just make them happier.
7. What does it feel like when you’re in love?
8. It’s feelings of happiness. You’re very protective and affectionate. You know you’re in love because when the other person hurts, you hurt too. You just really worry and care about them.
9. Will you ever find a love as powerful as your first love?
10. No because it’s a lot harder to find that with someone else. You experience so much with that first love that it takes a lot to compete with that. I do think you become more mature after your first love. Your first love teaches you what real love is.
11. What tips would you give to someone in love or who wants to fall in love?
12. Don’t fall in love. Nothing lasts forever. You’ll just get hurt in the end. I mean love is nice, but the break up is horrible and takes forever to get over.
13. Is there a difference between teen love and adult love?
14. Adult love is more real, while teen love is more of a puppy love. They pretend they’re in love but don’t really know the meaning of love. Teen love is like an amusement park. It’s so much fun, but they don’t deal with the real parts of love, like finances and kids and all of that. When you go through all of those things with someone and still love them and want to be with them, that’s adult love.