Poets have tried to describe it with rhymes, romance novelist attempt to emulate it with written emotion and seduction, and songwriters have tried to create it with melody and lyrics. Now, scientists believe they have identified parts of the brain, which are linked to feelings of true love.
So, why do we fall in love?
We don't need scientists to tell us that love makes us feel good. But because we are an inquisitive species, we are always asking the question "Why?"
Experts believe that by understanding the neurochemical pathways that regulate social attachments may help to understand why certain individuals possess an inability to form relationships and permanent attachments to others.
Dr. Helen E. Fisher, author of "Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love" did ask this question. And she got her answer.
Dr. Fisher, a researcher anthropologist at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, has made it her life's work to try to understand romantic love and has been studying the evolution of human sexuality, marriage and divorce, gender differences in the brain, as well as the behavior, and the future of men, women, sex and family life since 1983.
Her recent studies have focused on issues of gender, sex, and romantic love.
Dr. Fisher and her team of specialists conducted a study by scanned the brains of people who were acutely in love.
What she found was that there are three very distinct stages of love: sex drive, romantic love, and attachment.
1) Sex Drive / Lust
Lust is driven by sex hormones--testosterone and oestrogen--that involves the craving for sex. According to Jim Pfaus, a psychologist at Concordia University, these hormones are what get us "out on the pull." Dr. Pfaus states that the aftermath of lustful sex is similar to the state induced by taking opiates. A heady mix of chemical changes occurs, including increases in the levels of serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin and endogenous opioids (the body's natural equivalent of heroin). "This may serve many functions, to relax the body, induce pleasure and satiety, and perhaps induce bonding to the very features that one has just experienced all this with", says Dr Pfaus.
2) Attraction / Romantic Love
After lust comes attraction. This is the love-struck phase; the time when we lose our appetite, can't sleep, and can't concentrate. This is what we know as falling in love.
Attraction, or the state of being in love, what is sometimes known as romantic or obsessive love, is a refinement of mere lust that allows people to home in on a particular mate. This state is characterized by feelings of exhilaration, and intrusive, obsessive thoughts about the object of one's affection.
When we fall in love, our palms sweat, we can stutter and become breathless, we can't think clearly and it feels like we have butterflies in our stomachs. This is all due to surging brain chemicals called monoamines. They are called dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin. Norepinephrine and serotonin excite us, while dopamine makes us feel happy. These love chemicals are controlled by a substance which is also found in chocolate and in strawberries, called PEA or phenylethylamine and it is PEA which controls the transition from lust to love.
Arousal comes naturally. But long-term success in mating requires a change from being naive about this state to knowing the precise factors that lead from arousal to the rewards of sex, love and attachment. For some, this may involve flowers, chocolate and sweet words.
The body builds up tolerance to these chemicals therefore requiring more of the "substance" to get that special feeling of infatuation. People who jump from relationship to relationship crave the intoxication of falling in love and may be "attraction junkies". In the case of romance readers - This may also explain the reason fans of romance novels my feel they have an addiction to the feeling they get after reading a romantic scene from a novel. The sub-conscious brain can't distinguish the difference between fantasy and reality. These feelings are still very real to the brain because it creates the same chemicals rather if they are created authentically or not.
In the case of enduring romances, the continued presence of a partner stimulates production of endorphins which are soothing substances and natural pain-killers.
Dr Helen Fisher, states, "We believe romantic love is a developed form of one of three primary brain networks that evolved to direct mammalian reproduction."
Dr. Fisher explains that "Romantic love is one of three basic brain circuits that evolved for reproduction: the sex drive motivates all of us to look for a range of partners. Romantic love, the elation and obsessive thinking that is produced when you first fall in love, focuses our mating energy on just one individual. "Following that, attachment sets in, the calm and security you can feel with a long term mate, enabling you to sustain your relationship to rear your children as a team.
She continues to say that "Romantic love is the most powerful, and the beginning of the cascade. And what we found in our brain scanning experiments is that romantic love is a drive, an instinct that arises from primitive parts of the brain associated with dopamine, a powerful stimulant. Romance is a chemical high, which is why your beloved begins to take "special meaning."
3) Long-term Attachment
The third stage of love is attachment - staying together. Attachment takes over from the attraction stage and is the bond which keeps couples together.
Wonderful though it is, romantic love is unstable--not a good basis for child-rearing. But the final stage of love, long-term attachment, allows parents to co-operate in raising children. This state, says Dr Fisher, is characterized by feelings of calm, security, social comfort and emotional union.
Because they are independent, these three systems can work simultaneously--with dangerous results. As Dr Fisher explains, "you can feel deep attachment for a long-term spouse, while you feel romantic love for someone else, while you feel the sex drive in situations unrelated to either partner." This independence means it is possible to love more than one person at a time, a situation that leads to jealousy, adultery, and divorce. Additionally, the possibilities of promiscuity and polygamy may occur, with the likelihood of extra children, and thus a bigger stake in the genetic future, that those behaviors bring. As Dr Fisher observes, "We were not built to be happy but to reproduce."
o The sex drive evolved to motivate individuals to seek sex with any appropriate partner.
o Attraction, the mammalian precursor of romantic love, evolved to enable individuals to pursue preferred mating partners, thereby conserving courtship time and energy.
o The brain circuitry for male-female attachment evolved to enable individuals to remain with a mate long enough to complete species-specific parenting duties.
The stages of love vary somewhat between the sexes. Lust, for example, is aroused more easily in men by visual stimuli than is the case for women. This is probably why visual pornography is more popular with men. And although both men and women express romantic love with the same intensity, and are attracted to partners who are dependable, kind, healthy, smart and educated, there are some notable differences in their choices.
Men are more attracted to youth and beauty, while women are more attracted to money, education and position. When an older, unattractive man is seen walking arm-in-arm with a young and beautiful woman, most people assume the man is rich or powerful.
Dr. Fisher believes that several forces play a role in whom we fall in love with. Timing is important; you tend to fall in love when you are ready. Proximity is crucial; we fall for people we interact with. Both men and women are excited by those who are mysterious--probably because mystery triggers the activity of dopamine in the brain. And both sexes tend to fall in love with those of a similar background and values, which anthropologists call "positive assortive mating" or "fitness matching."
We also fall in love with someone who fits within what's called your "love map. This is an unconscious list of traits you seek in your ideal partner that you build as you grow up.
But there is even more to falling in love: biology. We are unconsciously attracted to those who complement ourselves biologically, as well as socially, psychologically and intellectually. We fall in love with someone who has a different chemical profile for dopamine, serotonin, estrogen and testosterone that complements our own.
Essentially, each stage is a separate and distinct phenomenon, with its own emotional and motivational system, with accompanying essential brain chemicals. This system of stages has evolved to enable mating, pair-bonding and parenting to ensure the continuation of the human race.
Scientists have even concluded that the female orgasm may have evolved to help women distinguish Mr. Right from Mr. Wrong.
Love lights up the caudate nucleus because it is home to a dense spread of receptors for a neurotransmitter called dopamine, which Dr. Fisher came to believe as part of our own endogenous love potion. In the right proportions, dopamine creates intense energy, exhilaration, focused attention, and motivation to win rewards.
Sex drive, attraction, romantic love, timing, proximity, biology, brain chemicals... So why do we fall in love? More importantly, does it really matter? As a true supporter of romantic love and as a romance novelist--I believe love is it's own reward and need not be analyzed anywhere but in our own hearts!
Oh... and here's the fun part: According to research, the more couples have sex together... the more likely they are to bond. How's that for motivation!
Bonnie Williams - Copyright (C) 2006
Sources: Forbes.com - 06/28/04; Mattew Herper - The Science of Love, NewScientist.com - 05/05/04; Anil Ananthaswamy - Hormones Converge for Couples in Love, CNN.com - 11/08/00; Lew Orleans, LA - Love Makes You Light Up - Even Your Brain, National Geographic - 02/2006; Love, BBC News Online - 07/05/00; How the Brain Registers Love, TheEconomist.com - 02/12/04; The Science of Love, Chemistry.com - (2006); Helen Fisher - Science of Attraction, Fisher, Helen (2004). Why We Love - the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, Henry Holt and Company.
Bonnie Louise Williams is the author of three erotic romance novels, an online romantic comedy series, and several erotic short stories. To join her free newsletter visit her website at www.LoveandRomanceEtc.com or to order Bonnie?s erotic romance novels, visit www.BonnieLouiseWilliams.com
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