The Sheldon Cooper Love Experience.
What everyone should know is that love isn't really real. Love is just a chemical reaction in our bodies, what our hormones make us feel. Lust is driven by testosterone and estrogen. Then adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and vasopressin do the rest. It's not something magical, it's just science.
Sheldon Cooper has always known that. He's known that what inferior people call love is nothing more than our hormones trying to make sure that the human race doesn't end up extinct. He also knows he's not as much of an exception as he wishes he was. So he can't say that he's surprised when he realizes that what inferior people call 'falling in love' is happening to him.
Sheldon is also very much not surprised when falling in love comes together with the stages of grief. He feels like he's lost something inside of him, like he can't say that he's that much better than everyone now, because of it. He feels like he's lost everything that made him special and now he's just… ordinary.
So the first thing that knocks in his door is denial. He's not falling in love. Normal people fall in love. He had graduated from UT when other kids his age were trying to make sure they wouldn't be the last in their class to get their first kiss. He's always known he was extraordinary. This couldn't be love.
Anger came pretty quickly after denial. Mostly because Sheldon couldn't stand being wrong. And telling himself that he wasn't falling in love felt stupid, he knew he was and he was as bad at lying to himself as he was at lying to anyone else.
So, yeah, anger doesn't take all that long to appear. He feels frustrated. He doesn't want to see his friends, he doesn't want to look himself at the mirror and, most of all, he doesn't want to see her. He feels it isn't fair. He's too good for her, anyway. Why the hell is this happening to him? What had he done that deserved a curse like that?
Needless to say, anger lasts a lot. Anger lasts much more than he thought it would and much more than it usually does with normal people. But that's good, it's just a reminder that he isn't just anyone. He's different. He's glad that it lasts so long because love isn't something that lasts forever and he knows that maybe it'll be over soon, now. Or he wishes it will.
And that's the first sign that he's got to bargaining. He catches himself during any time of the day trying to talk to a god he doesn't believe in. He wants to stop feeling it, he will do anything to not being in love anymore. He'll join a church, he'll stop his research, he'll stop making everyone feel bad about themselves, even though he doesn't mean to do it. He just wants to feel all right again.
The depression is a welcomed feeling. Because, really, why even bother thinking about it? It's not like she would be with him, anyway. Love is not a feeling that's automatically reciprocated. She would probably prefer his roommate to him, any day, and it's not like Leonard's that much of a catch. Sheldon doesn't really need to get up in the morning. Why even bother to stand up if he's going to feel that bad? He likes his bed, thank you very much.
By the time acceptance comes, he's ready to jump from his window. Except he isn't because the world would be at lost if he killed himself. He is important. He is more important than everyone in the same city as him. He is probably more important than everyone in the same country as him. Wait, continent, what South Americans could have that he doesn't, really?
Acceptance makes him feel better than he had in a really long time. He's in love, so what? He's sure that he can make the most of it. He's sure that he can come up with some cure, or something. Love is a hormone reaction, he just has to find a way to suppress that reaction without messing with the necessary hormone functionality. And then he remembers he's a physicist and hormones are not his thing.
Acceptance is also the last stage of grief. He knows nothing new is coming. That's how he's going to feel until he falls out of love. Until his hormones understand that they should stop messing with his head. That's how he's going to feel for a long time now, until he's able to do what normal people call 'move on'. And he knows it isn't coming any time soon.
Sheldon is prepared for years of acceptance. What he's not prepared for is seeing his best friend kissing the girl he fell in love with. The depression and the anger come back together and hit him with twice as much intensity than they did the first time he felt them. He finds out that love really can change people. To him, it makes him be able to make everyone believe that he doesn't feel a thing when all he can't do is stop feeling.
I'm sorry about any mistakes. I wrote this because I won't be able to go to the birthday celebration of someone I care very much about. So, happy birthday, Hanna.