Falling passionately in love is one of the most talked about human experiences, celebrated in songs, movies, literature and art across cultures. Passionate love is widely considered a hallmark of romantic relationships and has well-documented psychological and behavioral effects. Yet until now, research has overlooked a surprisingly basic question: How many times do people actually experience passionate love over a lifetime?
A new study from researchers at the Kinsey Institute offers the first population-level answer. Published in Interpersona: An International Journal on Personal Relationships, the research is the first large-scale study to quantify how often passionate love occurs, providing new information for this central feature of romantic life.
Surveying 10,036 single adults aged 18 to 99 from across the United States, researchers asked participants, "In your lifetime, how many times have you been passionately in love?" On average, adults reported experiencing passionate love about twice in their lifetime (2.05 experiences). Notably, 14% had never experienced passionate love, while 28% experienced it once, 30% twice, 17% three times, and 11% four or more times.
"People talk about falling in love all the time, but this is the first study to actually ask how many times that happens across the lifetime," said Dr. Amanda Gesselman, a scientist at the Kinsey Institute and lead author of the study. "For most people, passionate love turns out to be something that happens only a few times across their entire life."
The study also examined experiences of passionate love across demographic groups, finding only modest differences, if any. Overall, experiences of passionate love were similar across heterosexual, gay, lesbian, and bisexual participants. Older adults reported slightly more experiences of passionate love than younger adults, indicating that while most people experience it in younger years, passionate love can still occur later in life. Men also reported marginally more experiences than women, a difference driven specifically by heterosexual men compared to heterosexual women. Importantly, any differences were small, suggesting that passionate love is a shared human experience. These findings may especially help clinicians and therapists contextualize romantic experiences by highlighting both the infrequency of passionate love and the value of other forms of love.
Romantic love remains a major priority for many people. Singles in America data from Kinsey Institute research with dating company Match show that 60% of U.S. singles describe themselves as very romantic, and a majority endorse ideas like love at first sight and destiny. Better understanding how passionate love emerges across the lifespan provides important context for how people think about romance and the expectations they hold around relationships. This is especially important given 51% reported feeling more pressure to find love compared to previous generations, and 73% think romantic media has at least somewhat set unrealistic standards or expectations for their own relationships.
