Understanding and dispelling the magic behind love

[Hellishfish]

I want to compare aromantacism to a magician performing a trick. When this magician does said trick, we can be amazed, feel wonder, and be intrigued by the mystery. Once the trick is learned however, it changes. The trick may still indeed be impressive to perform, but that compelling magic is gone. Now to the human brain. I feel that, at least in my personal case, the magic of romantic feelings, or love, has disappeared because its trick has been learned.

What is love beyond a complex cocktail of brain chemicals that compel us to develop relationships and procreate? We were selected as a species to build strong relationships. strong relationships increased our chances of success as well as the chances of success for our children. I feel that love is a coercion of nature, a drug that we evolved to help us survive. 
The above is all I can think of when I begin a relationship. I can’t tell a person that I love them when I know that love is an evolutionary magic trick. It’s fake. Obviously I still care about and care for my partners, but the connection never extends beyond a physical one for me. 
 

Anyways, if you’ve taken the time to read this, give me your thoughts. 

[Alaska Native Manitou]

From Prelude to a Kiss:

Peter (Alec Baldwin):  The way you make me feel--it's like a drug.

Rita (Meg Ryan):  It is a drug.  To snare us into mating.

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

What is anything but a complex cocktail of brain chemicals that compel us to do things? 

[nonmerci]

Any emotion you have is a complex cocktail of brain chemicals. Joy, sadness, fear... You experience things and brain give a chemical response that leads to these feelings. And I suppose we can talk about evolution here too. Surely, someone who would response to danger by a feeling of joy was likely to be eaten, contrary to someone who fears it. I'm pretty sure even the kind of like of meal we like is link to evolution (a guy who likes the taste of poison had a more risky life than a guy who would throw up immediately because he could not bare it). Even apparences : like giraffs who have long necks because they could eat higher leafs and go stronger. But no one you say their high necks are not real.

That just how brain works in fact. It doesn't mean the emotion are not real for me. This is just the way they are created. It would be pretty depressing to think everything we feel is fake.

[DeltaAro]

9 hours ago, nonmerci said:

Any emotion you have is a complex cocktail of brain chemicals. Joy, sadness, fear... You experience things and brain give a chemical response that leads to these feelings.

I don't think that can be stated as a fact; or how could reductionist materialism be proven? While it may be the simplest theory, I don't even think it should be automatically preferred, because of its internal contradictions. Not that I especially care. It's just that putting forward an actually very radical thesis and then acting like its truth wouldn't change a thing, is very disappointing.

9 hours ago, nonmerci said:

Even apparences : like giraffs who have long necks because they could eat higher leafs and go stronger. But no one you say their high necks are not real.

That just how brain works in fact. It doesn't mean the emotion are not real for me. This is just the way they are created. It would be pretty depressing to think everything we feel is fake.

"Fake" doesn't necessarily mean "not real" in the sense of an illusion, i.e. lacking existence in an important way (like a Fata Morgana). It suffices that something deceives us to attach wrong ideas, value and meaning to it: A fake banknote is really there and exists just as well as a genuine one. Still it's fake.

And that would be the case for a lot of meaning attached to emotions; this meaning doesn't survive them being regarded as mere epiphenomena of purposeless, purely mechanistic processes. Maybe that's not bad, though.