How Many Times Do We Really Fall Passionately in Love?

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Songs have been written about it, movies have been produced about it, and if you’re lucky, you’ve even gotten the chance to experience it: passionate romantic love.

But how likely are you to experience intense love over the course of your lifetime?

For the first time, a study has found the answer to the age-old question. How many times do we really fall passionately in love?

How Common is Passionate Love?

A new study out of the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University aimed to measure people’s romantic, intense love experiences. Researchers surveyed 10,036 adults in the United States, aged 18 to 99. Each study participant was asked one simple question: “In your lifetime, how many times have you been passionately in love?”

The findings? The average person only reported experiencing passionate love about twice in their lifetime.

Twenty-eight percent of participants reported being passionately in love once in their lifetime, while 30% reported experiencing it twice. Another 17% experienced it three times, while only 11% reported feeling passionately in love four or more times.

And the percentage of people who had never experienced passionate love? 14%.

Some Key Considerations

The study found a few things about passionate love. For starters, age matters. Older adults were more likely to experience it than younger adults. This suggests that passionate love can happen later in life, even though we might think youth and passion are linked. Sometimes, it takes time to come across the person who will light a fire within you. That can happen in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond.

The researchers also found that sexual orientation didn’t make a difference, and gender differences weren’t large. Heterosexual men reported slightly more experiences with passionate love than women, but the numbers were comparable across groups.

Not All Love Involves Fireworks

Passionate love isn’t the only type of romantic attachment. The majority of relationships evolve into compassionate love, which is steady and stable. It might not come with the same intensity as passionate love, but this doesn’t make it any less meaningful. It’s the type of love that partnerships and marriages are often built on.

What This Study Tells Us About Passionate Love

Despite cultural assumptions that passionate love is common, the reality is that it is rare. Some people might not even experience it at all.

Understanding how uncommon passionate love is can help us set realistic expectations in our relationships. It can help us see that love doesn’t always come with the same level of intensity as what we might have once experienced or what we’ve seen in the movies — and that’s okay.

If you’re lucky enough to experience passionate love, enjoy it while it lasts. Because you may (or may not) experience it again.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.