We're primed from an early age to experience that chemical zing of attraction with someone who fits what love researchers refer to as our "love maps," and what Fisher describes as "a catalogue of aptitudes and mannerisms based on a lifetime of experiences that define our romantic tastes."
Jim Pfaus, a professor of neuroscience in the department of psychology at Concordia University in Montreal, explains that each love map is unique. "Everyone has a different idea of what’s attractive," he says. In a little-understood process set up during puberty, we tend to identify a romantic archetype based on childhood experiences of affection and emotional intimacy that will cause us to respond to a certain set of characteristics. If, for example, you liked your dad, had a favourite uncle or a special teacher, you might be attracted to men with his hair colour, eye shape or sense of humour.
"We're like animals on the hunt ..."
When someone who fits our love map crosses our path, says Pfaus, our sympathetic nervous system kicks it up a notch. "We're going to get a bit of an adrenaline rush – the brain telling us, 'Attend to this; this could be pleasurable.'" With our pupils dilated and our hearts hammering, we are like animals on the hunt, preparing for sex and ready to pounce, says Pfaus. And we are helped in that mission by nature’s hormone of desire, testosterone – a "primordial chemical" that, according to Fisher, can swamp the thinking brain.
Lustful sex can be a natural high, to say the least: Among the many post-orgasmic chemical changes is an increase in the level of endogenous opioids, the body's natural equivalent to heroin. Pfaus says these chemical changes may contribute to a couple's bonding, but, as he wryly observes, lustful obsessions are not always wise ones. "The object of your desire could be an axe murderer, but what do you care? All you know is he tickled your fancy, he smells good and he has a nose like Dad's."
"She leaned into him, loving the feel of him, the warm, muscular body, the smell of laundry soap and shampoo. The scent of his skin. He rubbed her back in a gesture that was comforting and that left her yearning for more. Somehow they'd become friends, but she didn't want to be his friend. She wanted his love."
– Speed Dating
It's only when we begin to home in on a particular mate that we begin to experience romantic love, the moony can't-eat-can't-sleep-for-thoughts-of-your-beloved phase that shares behavioural and neurochemical characteristics of obsessive-compulsive disorder and even addiction.
Page 2 of 5
Comment reported
Thank you for reporting this comment as inappropriate.
Back to Comments »