Falling In Love | featured news

This Valentine’s Day, as our collective thoughts shift to tender cards, heart-shaped chocolates, overpriced bouquets and other extravagant gestures of love, I can’t help but wonder what really attracts us to one mate over another. Is it hot sex? Fairy-tale romance? Destiny? Or are we merely at the beck and call of our hormones and brain circuitry?

Americans take longer to fall in love than their Eastern European counterparts, according to a new study. The findings also showed that Americans frequently cited friendship as a key part of romantic love, while Russians and Lithuanians rarely mentioned it.

It's easy to see why bookkeeper Linda Mortimer moved to the Florida Keys 20 years ago: the impossibly blue water, the year-round sunshine, a lifestyle so laid-back that every day is like a Jimmy Buffett lyric. What Mortimer didn't anticipate was falling in love – and then getting divorced less than two years after taking her wedding vows.