temporarily broken knees

perhaps falling in love does denote a sort of inherent struggle attached with the act. When one falls in love, one not only experiences the highs of love, one also experiences the lows like jealousy, hate etc, not to mention the ultimate tragedic "loss" of love. the act of 'falling' in and out of love is a subconscious cycle of struggle to balance between unconditional love and selfish love. maybe the word "falling" connotes that the person in question is lost, out of control, hopeless. its also curious that most stories of "lovers" retained in our collective conscious lore are tragic.

Because Real Love feels like a "free fall" flight from Heaven back down to Earth.

The "free fall" part is the funnest part of all, and the key is to get stuck there, as close to Heaven as possible.

my 2c..

its probably some sadist saying back in the early days....fallingequals pain equals supposed pleasure...i think the language should be changed....take the fall out

peace
falling
cause
people have had the physical experience of falling where-as rising is not really a bodily experience
when you fall you lose control of your self and its gravity that is taking a hold of you - falling in love is about the love taking you over like gravity

I bet, if you saw other languages, French, German Spanish, Russian etc - you wont find the term falling in love being translated literally.

Anyone here multi-lingual?

Just look at Urdu. "Piyar ho gaya" - its not a translation of "falling in love", so there you go.. ! That shows that atleast, there's nothing degrading about love.
Even if you rephrased your question and mentioned "English" only, it would still not be true. Assume your question refered to love in only the English way, which doesnt make sense, but for the sake of questioning if you meant that it was English only:

I think its just a term. It doesnt mean its degrading. I dont think "falling in" here has anything to do with the literal meaning of "fall" as in "fall down". Hey you could fall down on a bed of roses, its not a bad experience :D.
It just means entering a new state. The true and stronger connotation of "falling in love" is a positive and romantic one.

"She fell in love" - usually means a positive experience (at that instant atleast).

I cant agree with what AbShaw wrote below, which is:
"Thus people fall in love, meaning they are now forfeiting all rights to heart, life, money ... to the person they are falling for."

You're saying as if a person loses themselves when they're in love? If so: Thats infact co-dependency. An emotionally healthy person doesnt loose oneself when they fall in love. I'm not saying you're not emotionally healthy (hey niether am I, no one's perfect), but what I mean is - A person in good emotional health always puts themselves first, no matter what the circumstances are. That secures the relationship.

Its like this - you have to be an expert at meeting your needs and responding to your feelings, before you can meet the needs of your partner and respond to their feelings.

This is a very important concept. I think in our Desi societies especially, co-dependency is more common. Our film songs teach us that too. Our desi societies are generally less aware of emotional health issues but it will get better with time.

It is the inherent notion of giving first than the notion of a selfishness entity who likes to receive first. Thus people fall in love, meaning they are now forfeiting all rights to heart, life, money ... to the person they are falling for.

It is only in falling that you gain a person, whereas in rising you could only have a body. The notion of rising depicts competition, and as if there is a prize waiting at the end, love (if true) has to over look materialism and learn to happy in the happiness of the love

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