Love or Money?

Okay, so I was asked the simple question today of if i had the choice. Would i go for money.. or love?
My friend said Love, and I said money, which i think she found a bit odd? But the thing is, love isn't really for me?! I feel like love is perhaps.. More of a word and less of a reality. Now I think that most people would go for the Love angle of things... Me, not so much. As much as people go on about love in songs and books and poems. I feel maybe its gone on about too much! And in consequence of this the word loses its meaning becomes just another over-used word in our vocabulary and loses the emotional meaning people have attached to it.
We've been brought up in life thinking that what we are aiming for is to find love, i don't want to say that i don't believe in it, but all I'm saying is I've never seen a healthy, loving relationship stay the way it was intended. For what i have witnessed, love is a rumor. A myth. A dream. A wish for something that isn't just yours to hold. Because with love, its gotta be two way-ed. Without the love of the thing our loving, your left without love! If your giving what you have in your heart and not receiving it, your in turn left with a hole.
I know it was a simple question, but with me - nothing is simple. I over analyze everything to come up with what I feel would be a perfect answer! Its how i did well in English GCSE's. Maybe, or I'm just good at bullshitting my way through things. So anyway. I'm going to look at love, maybe it would change my mind.

On the science/phsycology side of love, "Love" is the chemical reaction in your brain. The emotion we have attached to love in our brain, isn't love. It feels like love, but its just natures way of helping us carry on our genes. The chemicals related to love are just the same as they are in lust. Hence why I've never believed in love at first sight, as its lust. How can you fall in love with someone you don't even know. The chemicals in your brain sense the attraction, sense the good genes in the good looks and release a sex driven hormone... testosterone or oestrogen. Oestrogen in females gives off feeling they are in love, where as with testosterone in the male its more of a sex drive. This is why woman tend to fall in love more easily, feeling with their heart and not thinking with their brain/penis!
Helen Fisher explained that there were 3 stages of 'Love": lust, attraction and attachment.
Lust... easy to explain, feeling the need or the wanting to sleep with the other person!
Attraction, also simple, finding them attractive. But also, having the chemicals adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin, being released. Adrenaline would be the increase in blood. So if your falling for someone you'd get the sudden rush of a heart beat, lose in breath and sweating. Dopamine is likened to Cocaine, in which the user experiences a rush of pleasure. And then Serotonin which is important and explains why when you feel your in love your love interest can keep popping into your head. So its what the other person looks like that can release these reactions.
The last stage is Attachment. Its the bond that the two people share which means they could stay together and raise a family. It also includes two chemicals, oxytocin and vasopressin. Whats interesting about this is that these two chemicals are realised during orgasms. Sex deepens the feelings of attachment and makes couples feel much closer to each other, and its been studied that the more a couple have sex, the closer they become. So this vital part of falling in love, is due to sex. Therefore... due to lust.
All these chemicals could also explain the pain we feel when a "love" is lost, because we've had so much of the emotion and so more of the chemicals are used and then subsequently lost! So Love Sick, could be a real killer.
Professor Arthur Arun did a study on falling in love, he asked his subjects to carry out these 3 steps:

• Find a complete stranger.

• Reveal to each other intimate details about your lives for half an hour.

• Then, stare deeply into each other’s eyes without talking for four minutes

After he found that many of his couples felt deeply attracted after the 34 minute experiment. Two of his subjects even later got married.

Overall love is fleeting, its emotional, and emotions can change everyday. Given a bad situation, the fleeting feeling is lost. You can love someone, but that's different to actually being in love with someone.
I'm not saying that i cant love, or that I'm incapable of it... but the love that people for years have been going on about... Its not the real love that we should feel. Love is a drug, a cocktail of emotion in which anyone can take a sip. But not everyone can become love-drunk as you need the other persons affection, which you don't always receive. The chemicals in love are also released from taking drugs.

I do believe in love and I have a form of love for different things. But i get confused as to where the love of a friend would form a relationship and become the love of a partner. And induce Romantic Love, because, the way i see it - that's lust. And love would just be the close attachment i would have with my close friends. Without the sex.... And now I've confused myself!!! Totally, bewildered!!! Back to the question....

Given the choice of love or money, for now I'd go with the money, I'm dirt poor, plus I'll always have the love of my friends and family. But as for Romantic love... I've gone without so when i have the money.... There's always lust! =P xx