Absence is what makes the heart

Since the human experience is a shared one, it's only natural that our expressions of emotion will overlap with one another. However, many believe that it was Thomas Haynes Bayly who brought the notion to life in his poem titled Isle of Beauty which appeared in his two-volume work Songs, Ballads, and Other Poems in He wrote:. Absence makes the heart grow fonder; Isle of Beauty, fare thee well! When we hear the phrase, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder", we think of our personal emotions for those we love.

In Bayly's poem, he's referring to a particular place that he held dear. Of course, there's an indication that he misses the people there as well, but the title Isle of Beauty suggests that absence was making his heart grow fonder for a beautiful stretch of land. We tend to recognize this phrase as a reference to long-distance relationships or lovers who don't know when they'll see each other again. It is also used to refer to families or friends who are separated. For instance, maybe while your home is being treated for pests, you have to stay in a hotel for a few days.

Here are some example sentences using the expression absence makes the heart grow fonder :. You may also hear the phrase as absence makes the heart fonder without the verb grow or the variant distance makes the heart grow fonder. However, we have some theories. Over the years, many poets and writers expressed the idea that absence makes the heart grow fonder, without using these words exactly. Interestingly, although his song was published some time around the mids or , he actually died a while before then, in The expression absence makes the heart grow fonder is a proverb.

A proverb is a short, common phrase or saying that imparts advice or shares a universal truth. Synonyms of the term proverb include adage, aphorism, and maxim. Here are some additional examples of well-known proverbs:. Blood is thicker than water. A picture is worth a thousand words. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There is no shortage of anecdotal evidence that friends and lovers can feel a closer bond when they are apart.

But what of hard scientific evidence? Is it really the case that humans feel a greater bond when they are away from their friends and lovers? Today we get an answer of sorts thanks to the work of Kunal Bhattacharya at Aalto University in Finland and a few pals who say they have searched for evidence to support the proverb by data mining mobile phone records.

And they say this clearly shows that humans invest more in relationships when there is a risk of this relationship weakening. First some background. Anthropologists have long noted that many primates invest more effort in relationships after individuals have been forced apart. For example, baboon mothers spend significant time feeding their young and so have little left for the social task of grooming other adult baboons.

But when the young ones are weaning and the mothers have more time on their hands, they invest even more time than usual in grooming in an attempt to repair any social relationships that have begun to weaken. In other words, absence clearly makes baboon hearts grow fonder. The same pattern of behavior between individuals who have been apart can be observed in many other animals, including bonobos, elephants, and even hyenas.

Nevertheless, good evidence to back up this hypothesis has been hard to gather. One factor changing our ability to study human communication behavior is the advent of large data sets associated with patterns of communication.

In particular, the data associated with mobile phone use has become a rich source of empirical evidence about all kinds of human activity, such as travel, wealth distribution and mating patterns. Now Bhattacharya and co have mined this rich vein for evidence that absence makes the heart grow fonder.