Why Do You Love Me?

Maybe there is no good reason to love someone.

Think of your romantic partner, if you have one. Why do you love them? I mean, what are your reasons for loving this particular person? Why do they love you?

As odd as these questions might seem, you might be surprised by how often they come up. But many of us have difficulty explaining the reasons why we love someone.

The usual answer is a list of traits: they’re kind, intelligent, funny, patient. You might have thought of something similar yourself.

It makes sense, until you remember that we regularly meet others with those same traits. Maybe not hundreds, and not dozens either, but most people meet plenty of them. So why this person? Why them, and not someone else just as kind, funny, or thoughtful?

Psychologists have long tried to explain the concept of love through several perspectives, from evolutionary theories to the neuroscience of love, from attachment theory to the idea of different types of love. They all provide plausible explanations for why and how we fall in love or form romantic bonds. There have also been attempts to explain why we’re drawn to certain people, such as the similarity-attraction hypothesis: the tendency to feel more connected to people who share our values, beliefs, habits, or preferences. Shared traits often create a sense of safety and familiarity. If we vote the same way, believe in the same things, or dislike the same foods, we tend to feel more positively toward them and might assume we’ll get along.

But what still remains a bit of a puzzle is what makes one person, among several similar others, stand out. You can meet many people who share your background, sense of humour, or outlook and feel nothing. Then someone else comes along, and for reasons you can’t fully explain, something shifts.

This is where the idea that love is built on reasons, especially those based on personal attributes, starts to loosen. Of course, having reasons can make love feel more secure. Without something to point to, love can feel arbitrary or fragile. Most of us look for reasons to anchor ourselves. Being told you’re loved for your humour, patience, or the way you show up in hard moments gives love a sense of structure. Reasons help us name what we value in each other and what we hope to rely on.

But the search for reasons also shapes how people approach dating and relationships, and not always in helpful ways. When love is tied too closely to traits, people begin chasing an impossible standard. They think, if I can just be funnier, thinner, more agreeable, less anxious, then I’ll be loved. If love is something you earn by being a certain, predefined way, it’s natural to feel pressure to present a curated version of yourself. You downplay the parts you think won’t be liked or accepted and exaggerate the ones you believe are attractive. Nobody wants to be rejected for being difficult or ordinary. But over time, this kind of self-editing becomes exhausting. And isolating. If someone falls for the version of you that’s been carefully constructed, what happens when you stop performing?

By Jean-Baptiste Deshays. Courtesy of National Gallery of Art, Washington

I’d argue that the answer to “Why do you love me?” can surely be “I’m not exactly sure.” That might feel unsettling, as if it offers less security or reassurance. Some even hear it as a kind of insult: “You don’t know why you love me? How dare you!” But the reason we love someone is bigger than a set of traits. It’s a particular way they exist: the way they’re with us, the way they respond, the way they move through the world in a manner that feels unmistakably theirs. It includes their flaws, their quirks, the things that don’t quite fit, and yet somehow feel essential to who they are.

That’s not the same as listing personal attributes. It’s harder to define, but it looks more like their presence. Their being.

I have no intention of turning love into something mystical or entirely without reason. I’m not saying it’s noble to be loved for no reason, or that love should overlook character or behaviour. It’s not about purity, or moral superiority. I’m also not suggesting that just the absence of a clear reason means we should stop growing, give up on compromise, or unconditionally accept everything about our partners.

What I’m pointing to is that what we call love often resists tidy explanations, no matter how many traits we list. Maybe the reasons we search for, or the traits we name are just convenient, post-hoc rationalisations for something we didn’t entirely expect and don’t fully understand. There’s something fundamentally unreasonable about loving another person. You can admire someone’s intelligence or generosity, but those qualities alone don’t explain why you miss them when they’re gone, or why you forgive things you wouldn’t in anyone else, or why the thought of losing them feels larger than logic allows.

Interestingly, parents often understand this instinctively. Ask a mother why she loves her child, and she won’t say it’s because he’s clever or polite. She’ll say, because he’s him. That kind of attachment isn’t based on behaviour or merit. It’ not rooted in some sort of evaluation or appraisal. It’s rooted in being. Even when a child is thoughtless, difficult, or unremarkable, the love continues. It’s a connection to the child’s particular way of being in the world.

When it comes to romantic love, though, we tend to reach for reasons—as if a convincing enough list might protect us from doubt or change. As if, when a partner can’t name the right reasons, their love might not be real at all. As if they don’t understand what it means to love another.

I see this often in people I work with. They ask, “Why so they love me?” And even when their partner gives a thoughtful answer — because you’re kind, because you understand me, because you see me clearly — it rarely settles the anxiety. Deep down, most people know they’re not always kind or patient. They remember the sharp words, the distance, the moments they made love difficult. So if love depends on reasons, what happens when those reasons fade, even for a while? Or when someone else comes along with the same qualities, only steadier or easier to be around?

If love were based on traits, then a “better version” of your partner (someone even kinder, funnier, or more emotionally attuned) should be more lovable. But that’s not how love tends to work. You wouldn’t leave your partner for their sibling just because their sibling is objectively better or more beautiful. Love doesn’t function like a ranking system. Its logic is less like choosing the best product and more like recognising something particular and unique.

The fact that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to stop loving your partner and start loving their sibling in an instant seems to imply that love is not based on the personal qualities of a person as other responses to people’s perceived value are, such as admiration or dislike. Instead, love feels tied to something deeper and more specific; a unique connection that can’t be easily replaced or switched off like a preference for certain traits. It’s not just about what someone is like, but about who they are as an individual, and this makes love feel necessary, and somehow, involuntary rather than a simple choice.

Think about what happens when a partner becomes seriously ill. The traits you once loved — their humour, confidence, energy — might disappear. And still, you stay. You go to appointments, take care of them, absorb their frustration and sadness. You keep loving them. It’s not about what they’re offering; it’s what remains when so much else is lost. That sort of love endures when the reasons fall away.

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This isn’t a call for unconditional love. I’m not even sure that exists. But we do need a more honest picture of how love tends to operate: inconsistently, imperfectly, and often without clear justification. We don’t just admire someone’s traits; we prefer them, sometimes without knowing why. Traits matter, but they don’t account for the weight and specificity of our love. That part often escapes explanation, no matter how badly we want it to make sense.

There’s often something else at work: a kind of attachment or fit that doesn’t reduce to a list of qualities. And when we tie love too tightly to reasons, we make it fragile. We begin to believe affection can be withdrawn the moment we stop performing the right version of ourselves.

Maybe it’s a relief to admit we don’t need a “good enough” reason to love. Letting go of fixed explanations doesn’t mean love becomes vague or meaningless; just less brittle. Reasons have their place, but when we expect love to rest on a stable checklist, we set ourselves up to mistrust it the moment things change, which, inevitably, they will. The harder we try to pin it down, the more we risk turning love into something that has to be earned over and over again.

But that doesn’t mean we stop doing the work. Letting go of tidy reasons doesn’t let us off the hook from care, effort, or growth. If anything, it asks more of us — not to prove we’re lovable, but to stay engaged, open, and responsive to who the other person is becoming. Love may not need a clear reason to exist, but the relationship still needs tending.

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