Why We Love (26 page)

But of all the cures for a bad romance, by far the most effective is to find a new lover to fill your heart. “A new love drives out the old.” Nothing has changed since the twelfth-century French cleric Andreas Capellanus wrote these words. Modern science agrees. As you fall in love again, you elevate levels of dopamine and other feel-good chemicals in your brain.

Can We Conjure Love?

Dear Helen, I just turned 70 and have fallen in love again with a wonderful man who thinks the world of me but confesses not to love me. We have wonderful times together when we have the time (he’s still in business). My question to you is do you think it’s possible for someone to fall in love with you after a year of being together. He thinks I’m wonderful and all those good things but he was so hurt by his last broken marriage he says he doesn’t know if he could fall in love again. My feeling is, you don’t have a choice. I would love to hear from you because my heart is just breaking and I don’t know what to do. J.C.

I received this e-mail recently from a woman in Canada. I wrote back to say I thought she could win the love of her man—with a little work.

How do you ignite mad romantic passion in another?

Do novel things together.

Laboratory experiments have confirmed that exciting experiences can enhance feelings of attraction. The classic study of this, done by psychologists Donald Dutton and Art Aron, is known as the “creaky bridge” experiment.
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Two walking bridges span the Capilano Canyon in North Van-couver; one is a flimsy suspension bridge that is five feet wide and sways and wobbles some 230 feet above the jagged boulders and river rapids. Upstream is a steady, broad, low bridge. Dutton and Aron asked dozens of men to cross either one bridge or the other. In the middle of each bridge stood a beautiful young woman (part of their research team) who asked each passing man to fill out a questionnaire. After each man completed the survey queries, she casually told him that if he had any further questions about the study, he should call her at her home. She gave each her telephone number. None knew the woman was part of the experiment.

Nine out of thirty-two men who walked the narrow, wobbly high bridge were attracted enough to call the woman in her home. Only two of those who met her on the low, solid bridge contacted her.

This spontaneous attraction is probably directly linked to a physical property of danger: danger stimulates the production of adrenaline, a bodily stimulant closely related to dopamine and norepinephrine. As psychologist Elaine Hatfield surmised, “Adrenaline makes the heart grow fonder.”
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I would add that danger is novel to most of us. And, as mentioned, novelty elevates levels of dopamine—the chemical associated with romantic love. The men on the high, scary bridge may have also experienced elevated concentrations of this stimulant.

Several studies show that couples who do exciting things together feel more satisfaction in their relationship.
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But in another experiment Art Aron and another colleague, Christina Norman, showed that exciting activities actually stimulate romantic love as well. They asked twenty-eight dating and married couples to fill out various questionnaires, then do an activity together, then fill out more questionnaires. One activity was exciting; the other dull. The experiment with each couple took about an hour. Interestingly, questionnaire responses indicated that the couples who did the exciting activity (as opposed to the boring task) experienced increased feelings of relationship satisfaction—
and more intense feelings of romantic love.
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Perhaps my e-mail friend in Canada and other courting women and men who want to trigger romantic love in a partner should invite the slowpoke to join them in exciting, somewhat risky situations. Maybe visiting a foreign city together or walking along a perilous mountain trail would galvanize romantic passion. I recently saw a man and woman tied together with “bungee” cords plunge off a ledge atop a two-hundred-foot-high crane. When they landed they were locked in tight embrace. I don’t recommend it. But how about trying a new restaurant in a different part of town, buying last-minute tickets to the theater or a sports event, dashing off to a parade, or swimming after dark. Anything rousing and unusual can potentially trigger romantic love.

Even arguments can be exciting—and potentially romantic. I am not in favor of fighting with a true love. But some couples report that arguments enliven the relationship. Inanna, queen of ancient Sumeria, first fell in love with Dumuzi during a row. As a poem of the times recorded, “From the starting of the quarrel / Came the lovers’ desire.”
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With quarrels, grievances get aired, often removed; then partners must use some creativity to reknit the bond. More important, anger revs up the mind and body, triggering the release of adrenaline and other stimulants that are associated with romantic passion.

“Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by the imagination,” Voltaire wrote. Embroider life with novelty and adventure. You may win your love.

Sexual Intimacy

Sex can also spark romantic ardor.

Sex is good for you, if you are with someone you are fond of, the time is right, and you enjoy this form of exercise and self-expression. Stroking and massage trigger the production of oxytocin and the endorphins, brain chemicals that can relax and produce feelings of attachment.
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Sex helps you keep your skin, muscles, and other bodily tissues in tone. It offers the opportunity to create novelty and excitement. And with orgasm, the brain releases oxytocin in women and vasopressin in men—chemicals associated with feelings of attachment. But sex is not only good for relaxation, muscle tone, and giving and receiving pleasure; it is often associated with elevated levels of testosterone. And testosterone can promote the production of dopamine, the liquor that fuels romance.

Curiously, even seminal fluid can potentially contribute to romantic passion. Psychologist Gordon Gallup and his collaborators report that this broth that surrounds sperm contains dopamine and norepinephrine, as well as tyrosine, an amino acid the brain needs to manufacture dopamine.
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This ejaculate also contains testosterone, which can elevate the sex drive; various estrogens, which aid feminine sexual arousal and orgasm; and oxytocin and vasopressin, which encourage feelings of union with a partner. It even deposits follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone in the vaginal canal, substances women use to regulate menstrual cycling. Not all these substances can march directly from the bloodstream into brain tissue; some cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. Yet all can potentially contribute to feelings of romance in one way or another.

Gallup and his students Rebecca Burch and Steven Platek have determined that seminal fluid also alleviates depressive symptoms in women.
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This could occur for several reasons. Seminal fluid contains beta-endorphins, substances that can reach the brain directly and calm the mind and body. But as you may have noticed, male seminal fluid also contains the essential ingredients for
all
three of the basic mating drives discussed in this book—lust, romantic love, and male-female attachment. No wonder women are less depressed when they make love and receive this fluid; perhaps they may even become more receptive to romance.

“Exuberance is beauty,” wrote William Blake. Both sexes are attracted to happy partners. This may be because we naturally mimic those around us. When another smiles, we unconsciously smile too, albeit sometimes fleetingly. And smiling moves specific muscles in the face that send nerve signals to the brain that stimulate the brain networks for pleasure.
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So as you concoct novel, adventurous, and sexy things to do with someone you would like to win as a romantic partner, put on a happy face. You may trigger feelings of pleasure in your lover—and start that primordial romantic blaze.

Reassess Your Antidepressant Medications

Before you begin courting in earnest, you should reassess the effectiveness of any antidepressant medication you may be taking—particularly if you are experiencing sexual side effects or emotional blunting.

I say this for an important reason: as you know, the brain networks for lust, romantic love, and attachment interact in complex ways. So my colleague, psychiatrist Andy Thomson, and I believe that artificially elevating serotonin activity can endanger your ability to fall in love. As you know, romantic love is associated with elevated levels of dopamine and possibly also norepinephrine. These neurotransmitters generally have a negative relationship with serotonin. So as you artificially raise brain levels of serotonin with pills, you potentially inhibit production, distribution, and/or expression of dopamine and norepinephrine—and jeopardize your ability to fall in love.
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Andy points out that artificially elevated levels of serotonin can imperil your ability to appraise suitors, choose appropriate mates, and form and maintain stable partnerships as well.
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For example, most of these drugs blunt the emotions. When you are terribly depressed over a busted romance, you seek this effect. But as men and women continue to use these antidepressants
long after
their love affair is over, they can block their ability to respond when the perfect new partner appears. They are too emotionally dull to notice “him” or “her.”

The first direct evidence of this “courtship blunting” has now been found. Psychologist Maryanne Fisher asked women taking SSRIs and women taking no medications to rate the attractiveness of men’s faces in photographs. Sure enough, the women taking the serotonin boosters rated the male faces as more
un
attractive than the others did; the medicated women also looked at and appraised the male faces for a shorter time.
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Serotonin enhancers also dampen the sex drive and inhibit the sex response (including ejaculation) in many users.
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As a result, people taking these pills often shy away from potential romantic alliances; they are afraid of failure in the bedroom. Hence they forgo the stroking, kissing, and lovemaking that can trigger romantic love. They miss orgasm’s rush of oxytocin and vasopressin that can produce feelings of attachment. And men who can’t ejaculate fail to deposit chemicals of their seminal fluid that could influence their partner’s mood.

These serotonin-elevating drugs have even more hidden negative effects. Female orgasm most likely evolved to suit many purposes. But scientists have long thought it emerged, at least in part, to distinguish Mr. Right from Mr. Wrong. This “fickle” orgasmic response helped ancestral women recognize lovers who were willing to commit valuable time and energy to pleasing them. It still does. So women taking serotonin-enhancing medications jeopardize their ability to assess the emotional commitment of a partner. Perhaps worse, many people taking serotonin-enhancing medications send faulty signals of ineptness and lack of interest in the bedroom that can repel a potential mate. They are also likely to mistakenly conclude that they, themselves, are not compatible with this partner. In fact, they are just drugged.

People on serotonin-enhancing antidepressant medications potentially jeopardize their ability to assess mates, trigger romance, and form attachments—altering their love lives and the future of their genes.

Male Intimacy; Female Intimacy

“Yet mark’d I where the bolt of cupid fell: / It fell upon a little western flower, / Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound, / And maidens call it love-in-idleness. / Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew’d thee once: / The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid / Will make or man or woman madly dote / Upon the next live creature that it sees.” Oberon, King of the Fairies in Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
tells of a potent blossom that would make you fall in love.

How many million men and women throughout human evolution have yearned to find such a flower? Alas, it does not exist. Even taking pills (or street drugs like cocaine or amphetamines) that raise levels of dopamine in the brain won’t make someone fall in love with you if he or she is not ready or is looking for an entirely different kind of partner. But if a credible suitor has expressed some interest in you, there are still other ways to stimulate their interest, and their heart—using what is known of gender differences in the brain.

Intimacy is popular these days. Many—not only in the United States but in societies as diverse as Mexico, India, and China—regard this sense of closeness and sharing as central to romantic love.
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But men and women often define and express this closeness differently.

Both genders think shared personal secrets and happy activities together are intimate.
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But women often regard intimacy as talking face-to-face, while men tend to feel emotionally close when they work or play or talk side by side.
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Indeed, men often feel mildly threatened or challenged when they look directly into another’s eyes. So they sit at angles and avoid looking directly at a companion.
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This response probably stems from men’s ancestry. For many millennia men faced their enemies; they sat or walked side by side as they hunted game with friends.

Smart women appreciate this gender difference. To achieve intimacy with a male partner they do things side by side, such as walking in the woods or mall, driving in a car, sitting in a movie house, or snuggling up to watch TV—beside him.

Most men also derive intimacy from playing or watching sports. From millions of years of tracking, surrounding, and felling animals, men have become, on average, more spatially adept than women—a form of intelligence linked to the male hormone testosterone.
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So when a woman joins a man to ski, climb mountains, play chess, or cheer at a tennis match or football game, he may feel particularly drawn to her.
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