Loving someone who doesn’t love you in return makes us feel wretched – can science explain why we must suffer? Parental love makes perfect evolutionary sense but romance just seems to have it in for us time after time. CrowdScience listener Leja wants to know why we fall in and out of love.

Marnie Chesterton discovers the irrational things, the impulsive things and the financially ruinous things BBC World Service listeners have done in the name of love and meet the rapper who turned herself into a science subject in an effort to flush out thoughts of her ex-boyfriend.

We delve into our ancestral past and into our brains to find out why romantic love is so central to the human experience.

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton

Producer: Louisa Field

(Image: A loving couple hugging each other, the woman holding a rose. Credit: Getty Images)