Understand Love As a Chemical Reaction
You have heard of chemistry between people or the chemistry of a sports team. Well, attraction and attachment, as much as we hate to admit it, doesn't come from the heart. It comes from subconscious feelings. Love is about how the other person makes you feel. The fact of the matter is that love involves non-verbal reactions--synaptic (chemical) connections within our brains--despite how unromantic that sounds.
Contents
Steps
- Understand the involuntary responses and subconsciousness causes passionate "attraction, sometimes called love," and may be related to the immune system. As humans, we benefit by having a diverse gene pool. If this weren't true, one disease could wipe us all out. Therefore, animals and insects developed a way to tell each other apart by the use of pheromones and the reactions in the immune systems. These are scents that may influence us to decide subconsciously if we are sexually interested in a person. While a guy may smell great to you, he might disgust your best friend. So, if you enjoy a man's smell, there's a chance that your immune systems operate slightly differently from hers, and you may even have different blood types and different levels of certain hormones.
- See the one--Your eye and subconscious visual responses influence "love" concerning "physical attributes." Believe it or not, this is possibly the clincher on whether or not we decide that this person is suitable to us. Now, to comprehend this, we have to know that in essence humans are not really that different from the less cerebral animals subconsciously. From the girl's perspective--if a guy has big muscles, you may consciously think he's good looking. What you don't realize is that you're actually more deeply interested in how well he might protect you and your children. Surprising? A tall man can exert power over other males, which is a plus as well.
- Think and remember.--Mental reactions and traits may be a more subconsciously important factors for the female choosing her mate than for the male. After all, if a man looks good but grunts whenever you ask him to do something for you, you may remember that and realize that he isn't that good for you. Another woman may react totally differently to that strong silent type.
- Look good.--From the guy's perspective it is more about appearance. Larger buttocks and hips could make childbirth easier and give a higher success rate. Women may also dress their best when they are at peak levels of fertility.
- React to emotional pressure. This is related to excitement, and even stress also has a lot to do with subconscious functions of the brain concerning "love". There is good stress (like attraction) and bad stress (called distress). When you seem to have found a prospective mate, neurotransmitters are sent throughout your brain to emotionally make a good link to that person. Ever miss your boyfriend/girlfriend to the point of heartache? Chemical, nervous reactions are the cause of it. Dopamine is said to be the principle chemical involved in giving us strong urges like sexual attraction over time. Romantic love is not just an emotion--but rather, a whole motivational system with a reward drive to get you to stick with that person. While this is going on, we have a decrease in serotonin, which if elevated, leads to feelings of obsession or something like an addiction...
- Feel the effects of your hormones--they have important power in emotions including "love." If a man is or is not interested in having a baby with a specific woman (at a specific time), his hostility and oxytocin and testosterone may increase or decrease. This is because the body is trying to ensure that his genes are passed on to the right kind of person, and encourages him to seek "his-type" which is even if he has to look elsewhere for that person or feeling. This also occurs when a woman does not see a man as a person suitable for a long term relationship, or is not fully interested in that relationship herself. The two previously mentioned neurotransmitters are also what cause love to fade. After all, if you've done your job, had sex/raised a child, there isn't any more need for that chemical reaction.
- Stay together...--That may have more to do with family love than sexual attractiveness, after a few years. If a man and woman are committed to their children, family and each other--and the futures of all concerned--then they will often (about half of people) be dedicated to stay together in "mature love" to help each other and to maintain a home and family long after "raging hormones" of youth and the pheromones have subsided.
Tips
- Take this with a grain of salt. Love is an amazing thing. Don't let a scientific explanations spoil your love of love: Who cares if it's "all in your head?"
- Look for articles scattered around the internet concerning love, the brain, and neurotransmitters. Your comprehension will undoubtedly increase. One article is National Geographic Magazine, Feb 2006: "Love - the Chemical Reaction".
Warnings
- Do not let a little bit of science persuade you to say incredibly ignorant and offensive things about whether teenage girls like the way you smell. They will not find you attractive if you are a jerk. This is true no matter how big your muscles are.
- Be careful not to let this information slip into the wrong hands. You wouldn't tell a preschooler about the origin of Santa Claus; you shouldn't tell a teenage girl love is "all in her head" as this info may come as a shock. However, boys seem to take it much better.
