Hmm. Going home soon, so will try to keep this short. But it depends on your definitions. It always boils back down to definitions.

If it's just the 'love-at-first-glance' BOING kinda thing, then no, one cannot help it. This is an instinctive reaction from your carnal self to some kind of stimulus - visual, auditory or smell. More like lust, I guess, but like I said, definitions.

If you're talking about getting to know someone else, and *gradually* falling in love, then yes, that is entirely within your control. Just leaving physically/geographically would work. This is an act of will, which sadly quite a number of people seem to lack.

Has anyone noticed that Gregory keeps odd hours? ;)

Al Stewart's right. You can't choose who you fall in love with.

But you can choose who you associate with. Because that's the pool one will choose one's mate from.

Well, I'm on at GMT +8, after all. But I do stay awake at that time, my local time, so your comment remains true :)

I thought you might. You'll note that I responded awfully quickly, and I'm in L.A. . . .

You can't choose who you fall in love with.
But those restraining orders can make love difficult.

I sleep around the clock so I employ trained monkeys to respond to things like this.

Ya know, Darrell, *sleep* and *Internet* are not mutually exclusive terms, necessarily...

/has laptop next to bed
//not only for fapping purposes
///but primarily, yeah
////so far, nothing's shorted out yet...

Even the love-at-first-sight form of falling in love has a greater footing in individual choice than most people like to think.

Come on. How can it be that the one species on the planet which must, in some way, LEARN how to reproduce, can have sexual (and therefore romantic) behavior that is utterly instinctual?

You can and do choose who to fall in love with. Love is built on the kind of person you are, and to a large degree you choose that, and you make those choices long before spring is ever in the air.

It's like taking an exit on the interstate in heavy traffic; it is often necessary to get into the correct lane miles before the exit, or you wind up going the wrong way. The choice to miss the exit is made when you decide to wait a while before changing lanes. The unanticipated consequence of a choice is still chosen.

I saw him live too, in the mid-nineties. He played at a fair in Ventura County. Ah, those time passages . . . .