Ask Me Why I Chose You — Understanding Love and Love Relationships
Good Fit
- Readers who want to understand why romantic relationships trigger such powerful emotions, through a neurobiology and psychology lens
- Readers interested in attachment theory and how childhood trauma shapes adult relationships
- Readers who enjoy practical, plain-language pop-psychology books
- Readers looking for a framework to understand their own relationship patterns
Not a Fit
- Readers hesitant to accept sweeping "universal" mate-selection claims (like waist-to-hip ratio) between the sexes, or who see gender differences as socially constructed
- Readers who want strict academic citation standards for every claim — the book cites master's/doctoral theses, but the content is simplified for a general audience
- Readers who want direct "how-to" advice rather than existentialist philosophical digressions ("Who am I?")
In the Foreword, Harzadın draws on his therapeutic experience to argue that being left by a genuinely bonded partner, or divorce, often produces a more powerful emotional reaction than death, because humans are existentially beings that constantly want to change and grow.
He frames the book's purpose as helping readers understand their own choices and discover their own identity, rather than submitting to a "fixed, predetermined" life — a recurring existentialist philosophical theme throughout the book.
Chapter One ("The Feeling That Never Bores Us") explains what love is from a neurobiological angle — an innate feeling genetically present in the brain, though how it manifests depends on childhood experience and environment. From a psychoanalytic view, falling in love is the desire of a "half person" to unite with their other half.
The author stresses that falling in love largely happens unconsciously — people act without fully understanding why, which is why it's normal for people to repeat a mistake after vowing "I'll never do that again."
The "So Why Do We Fall in Love?" section shifts to an evolutionary-biology perspective — Harzadın argues men look for symmetry, average-sized facial features, and a 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio in women, while women are more selective, preferring socially dominant, physically strong partners.
- A warm tone that opens with examples from the author's own therapeutic practice and addresses the reader directly
- A hybrid style placing scientific (neurobiology, psychoanalysis) and existentialist philosophical frameworks directly side by side
- An extensive academic bibliography at the end (master's/doctoral theses) that formally backs up content otherwise simplified for a general audience
- Section headers phrased as questions ("So Why Do We Fall in Love?") — structuring the book around questions the reader is likely curious about
A similar pop-psychology book applying attachment theory to romantic relationships
A similar personal-growth/existentialist theme approached through a different (self-compassion) lens
A novel-essay taking a similarly psychological/philosophical approach to analyzing romantic relationships
While the opening only explains the nature of love, the rest of Chapter One covers sexuality, irrational beliefs/myths about sex, how men and women experience love differently, criteria for choosing a partner, the role of emotional intelligence, and how childhood trauma affects attachment.
Chapter Two ("Dating") moves on to the dating process, the neurochemicals involved in attachment, social media's effect on relationships, personal freedom within a relationship, privacy, trust, and recognizing emotions in a relationship — the book continues through a fifth chapter, covering nearly every aspect of relationships.
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