Take This Simple Quiz To Find Out If You're Genuinely Falling In Love

Figuring out if you're genuinely falling in love with your true soulmate can be fraught.

The early stages of dating and new romantic relationships tend to be a bit confusing, but in the quiz below, there are specific questions to ask yourself in order to help you find your answer.

Am I in love?

Feeling as though you are falling in love brings an overwhelming sense of intensity into your life.

Suddenly your mind is distracted as love strikes you out of the blue and changes everything. This is because love really does change your brain chemistry, releasing dopamine, a neurotransmitter that enables us to feel good, and joy about life.

As reported by graduate student Katherine Wu at Harvard University, "High levels of dopamine and a related hormone, norepinephrine, are released during attraction. These chemicals make us giddy, energetic, and euphoric, even leading to decreased appetite and insomnia — which means you actually can be so 'in love' that you can’t eat and can’t sleep."

Falling in love, therefore, really is its own kind of high.

Love opens your heart to new possibilities. Falling in love can be the gateway to a whole new perspective on who you might become and how your life may develop. It shouldn't be surprising that it makes you feel strange and different. And if you try to resist, you may be closing down a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for meaningful change.

If Cupid’s arrow has hit its mark, you will find yourself being drawn more and more to the object of your affection.

Think of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, who is struck by the thunderbolt of love while hiding out under a secret identity in Sicily, risking everything in order to meet Apollonia Vitelli. It is this sense of instantly falling in love that changes everything for him.

The puzzle comes in figuring out how to tell if those thunderbolts you feel are passing twinges of excitement or the start of something meaningful. Some people feel like they are falling in love frequently, while others find the sudden sensation of powerfully intoxicating emotions entirely alien and unrecognizable.

To help you decipher which is true for you, here's a simple quiz with 12 questions to ask yourself in order to determine whether you are truly in love.

Take this quiz to find out if you're genuinely falling in love:

1. Have your typical routines and patterns begun to shift?

Love tends to draw people out of familiar patterns and routines. When you fall in love, the rush of hormones can be quite overwhelming.

The excitement makes you want to take risks, spend more money, eat meals at fancy restaurants, dance in the rain, and behave a little crazily.

2. Do you long to be with this person all of the time?

When you fall in love, you tend to become somewhat obsessed with the person. They are all you can think and talk about. Your friends may note that you keep going on about the new person, and you bask in the reflected warmth of their comments.

Then you continue to say even more about them.

3. Are you doing new things?

Are you listening to bands you wouldn't normally follow because this person does? Do you want to see the art films your partner loves, even though you are typically strictly a romantic-comedy or action-adventure lover?

4. Do your feelings have an unusual and powerful intensity?

Are you full of passionate feelings about this person? When you are dating people casually, it tends to be fun, but not much more.

When you are falling in love, you feel alive with passion.

5. Do you want to tell the person that you love them?

Normally, you wouldn't think of saying something as serious as that, but now you can hardly stop yourself.

Usually, you are more into casual dating, but now you want more and more of the person, and you find yourself biting your tongue to stop from saying, "I love you."

6. Do you find yourself buying books or reading articles they've mentioned?

When you fall in love, you become attached not just to the person, but to the things they are attached to and interested in as well.

7. Does your relationship feel easy?

Often, dating can feel like hard work, but when you feel like you are falling in love, it can feel as natural as falling off a log.

8. Do you want to send them cards and buy them gifts?

You might find yourself bored and distracted, then thinking of how nice it would be if they were with you and wanting to send them a message or buy them something small to make sure they know they were on your mind.

9. Do you find yourself not worrying about whether you are risking your heart?

Often, people will be cautious about how they behave with a new partner, whereas when you fall in love, you're more likely to cast caution to the side rather quickly.

Falling in love tends to bring out the more spontaneous side of human nature.

10. Do you find yourself planning for things you want to do together in the future?

When you are dating someone casually, you may not give much thought to future plans and arrangements, whereas when you fall in love, you may find yourself pulling all kinds of ideas together.

Your whole level of interest and availability is different when you're falling in love.

Even if you usually behave in a fairly unattached manner, now you are anything but.

11. Have you noticed changes in your appetite?

Falling in love tends to take your mind off of food, as your mind is occupied with thoughts about the new person.

Your fork twirls distractedly in your pasta, and you leave most of it on the plate because you're just not thinking about your stomach, but rather, about your heart.

12. Do you miss them as soon as they are gone?

When you fall in love and the dopamine and norepinephrine flood your system in the presence of your boyfriend or girlfriend, it becomes difficult to bear even the shortest absences.

If your answer is "yes" to most or all of these questions, you can rest assured that you're probably falling (or have already fallen) in love.

This new relationship may be presenting you with a singular opportunity for change and development — with your genuine soulmate by your side.

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Toby Ingham is a psychotherapist, supervisor, writer, and speaker with over 20 years experience of working with people who are trying to transform their lives. He has been featured in The Times, The Guadian, The Telegraph, You magazine, and more.