Why We Love (27 page)

Women derive tremendous closeness from talking face-to-face.
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They sit closer than men do, and they look directly into another’s eyes with what linguist Deborah Tannen calls the “anchoring gaze.”
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This taste probably also harks back to yesteryear when ancestral women held their infants in front of their faces, educating, soothing, and entertaining their little ones with words. So if you are a savvy man and you find yourself sitting on a park bench with a woman who is twisting her feet, knees, hips, chest, shoulders, neck, and face to look into your face, swivel around and look directly at her as you speak. When you look straight ahead and avoid her eyes, she feels you are evading her. By returning her anchoring gaze you give her the primordial feminine gift of intimacy. You may also ignite romantic longing.

Courting Talk

If men like sports events and other activities that emphasize their spatial skills, women like words. Little girls speak sooner than boys, with greater grammatical accuracy and more words per utterance. In societies around the world women are, on average, more linguistically gifted than men—probably because words have been women’s tools for raising young for at least a million years.
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In fact, women’s verbal ability is even linked with the female hormone estrogen.

So smart men court with words—on the phone, on a date, on the pillow. A friend of mine recently told me she fell madly in love with the man who became her husband when he started to send her his (terrible) poetry. Men don’t need linguistic talent; they just need courage and words.

Women and men generally achieve intimacy by talking about different subjects, however. Many men enjoy talking about sports, politics, world affairs, and business. These are worlds of win or lose, of top dogs and underdogs, of status and hierarchy, worlds men understand because men have always jockeyed for status to win mates.
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Women, on the other hand, are more drawn to emotion-laden, self-revealing chat about personal issues and other people,
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probably because women evolved in an ancestral environment where social connections were crucial to survival.

Men and women become more alike in their middle age,
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probably in part because levels of estrogen decline in women and levels of testosterone decline in men.
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But regardless of age, observant suitors diligently engage in conversations that will captivate a lover, hoping to promote closeness that could kindle romantic love.

Sex as Intimacy

Sex, too, can lead to intimacy—and potentially trigger the ecstasy of romance. Men are about four times more likely than women to equate sexual activity with emotional closeness.
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This male perspective has Darwinian logic. Coitus is a man’s ticket to posterity; if his partner gets pregnant she will send his DNA into the future. So although men often have no conscious interest in making babies, this evolutionary payoff seems to have bred into the male psyche an unconscious tendency to regard sexual intercourse as the essence of intimacy, affection, and companionship.

Women report that they feel more intimacy with a partner when they talk together just
before
making love.
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Women probably derive intimacy from precoital chat because it shows that their lover can listen, be patient and supportive, and contain his lust, attributes ancestral women needed in a mate.

Any way you look at it, sex is immensely memorable and satisfying when things go right. And those who adroitly conduct the sexual aspects of a relationship have a potent arrow in their quiver for stimulating romantic love.

Buying Time

We all know that women are attracted to men who have resources and generously share their money, time, connections, and status with a mating partner. So all those flowers, chocolates, and theater tickets might indeed topple her head over heels in love. And as you recall, men are quite drawn to women they feel they need to save.
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So women, often unconsciously, say and do things that display their vulnerability, what I call the “broken wing” strategy. Sure enough, this neediness often triggers gallantry and romance in men.

Vulnerability is just about the last thing men like to display.
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Why show your weaknesses when you can flaunt your strengths and accomplishments instead? Men do that. They brag. And women listen. Although women are often appalled at these bald displays of puffery, they are also impressed. So like womanly exhibitions of helplessness, men’s cocky boasting may help spark that fire in the heart.

Oscar Wilde once wrote, “The essence of romance is uncertainty.” It was a clever observation. We walk a fine line when we woo. If you are too eager, an undecided suitor may flee. Biology probably plays a role in this behavior. Early acquisition of a reward reduces the duration and intensity of dopamine activity in the brain, while a delay in winning stimulates it.
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As a result, people who are “hard to get” tend to excite a suitor. Andreas Capellanus knew this long ago, reminding troubadours of twelfth-century France that “love easily obtained is of little value; difficulty in obtaining it makes it precious.”
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So those who want to trigger romance in a would-be lover might artfully create some mystery, barriers, and uncertainty in the relationship.

I know all this sounds like playing games. But love is a game, nature’s only game. Just about every creature on this planet plays it—unconsciously scheming to pass their DNA into tomorrow. By counting children, nature keeps her score.

Making Yourself Fall in Love

What would have happened if Shakespeare’s Oberon had sprinkled the juice of that “little western flower” in his
own
eyes? Most of us have met someone we admired and enjoyed. He or she was kind, generous, honest, happy, ambitious, humorous, successful, attractive, interesting, and amorous in ways that suited us. Yet we couldn’t conjure up that magic feeling for him or her. Can you make yourself fall in love?

Well, you can certainly try. Find things you really like to do with your admirer. Make them novel and exciting. Dismiss distractions, particularly other lovers. And genuinely open yourself to his or her way of thinking, feeling, and making love. You just may be able to stimulate in yourself the appropriate brain circuits for romantic love.

Psychologist Robert Epstein is trying to do just that. Editor in chief of
Psychology Today
and author of eleven books and dozens of scholarly articles, Epstein recently ran an editorial in his magazine advertising for a woman who would date him exclusively with the express intent of falling madly in love. He hoped the process would last six months to a year and end in marriage.
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Epstein outlined several stipulations. Among them, both would seek regular counseling together; both would read extensively about love in novels and nonfiction books; both would keep a daily diary and do various exercises (such as synchronous breathing); and both would actively seek to know the other thoroughly.

Epstein believes you can learn to fall in love. Many of those who enter arranged marriages or procure mail-order brides also seem to believe you can jump-start this magic. I do, too. If you pick someone who is ready to fall in love and fits within your love map, and if you keep your heart open and do novel things together, you may just activate the brain network for romantic passion.

The juice of Cupid’s “little western flower” is creativity and determination.

Why Romantic Passion Recedes with Time

“There lives within the very flame of love / A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it,” Shakespeare said. Romantic love often recedes with time.

In the beginning, you spend weeks or months wooing with long e-mails, intimate conversations, shared adventures at restaurants, concerts, parties, and sports events, and joyous times in bed. You work endlessly to impress and charm your beloved. At times you feel such ecstasy you can’t sleep. Then as the months turn into years, your romantic bliss begins to ripen into a deeper union: long-term attachment. Romantic fervor continues in some long relationships.
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And this passion can still become intense during vacations and at other times of novelty and adventure. But the wild ecstasy, fierce energy, and obsessive thinking generally diminish, giving way to feelings of safety and contentment.

Exactly how the brain quells the early storm of romantic passion is unknown. One of three things might occur: Either brain regions that produce and transport dopamine (and probably norepinephrine) begin to distribute less of their stimulant. Or the receptor sites for these chemicals that reside at nerve endings gradually become desensitized.
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Or other chemicals in the brain begin to mask or counteract the chemistry of this passion. But whatever the biological cause, the body gradually settles down.

This decline of romantic love is undoubtedly evolution’s doing. Intense romantic passion consumes enormous time and energy. And it would be decidedly disruptive to one’s peace of mind and daily activities (including rearing children) to spend years obsessively doting on a lover. Instead, this brain circuitry evolved primarily for one purpose: to drive our forebears to seek and find special mating partners, then copulate exclusively with “him” or “her” until conception was assured. At that point, ancestral couples needed to stop focussing on each other and start building a safe social world where they could rear their precious child together. Nature gave us passion. Then she gave us peace—until we fall in love again.

Making Romance Last

Still, some people do remain passionately
in love
for a lifetime.
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Some couples married more than twenty years report that they are still in love.
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In fact, in one remarkable survey, men and women married more than twenty years tested higher on romantic passion for one another than did those married only five years.
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Their scores looked much like those of high school seniors.
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I met such a couple recently. At a business dinner I found myself sitting beside a handsome, bright, affable, middle-aged president of a major American nonprofit organization. When he discovered that I was writing a book about romantic love, he told me he was still “in love” with his wife; they had been married twenty-six years. The following month I was fortunate enough to meet his spouse, a woman of elegance and literature. Unaware of my conversation with her husband, she avowed that she was still very much in love with her mate. So when her husband joined us, I took the liberty of asking both of them how they had kept their passion percolating.

She said, “Humor.” He said, “Sex.”

I was not surprised with either answer. Humor is based on novelty, the unexpected—which elevates levels of dopamine in the brain. And sex is associated with elevated levels of testosterone, which, in a chain reaction, can increase dopamine as well. But I suspect this charismatic couple kept love alive in another way as well. Both had exceptionally exciting careers and did many unusual things together. I think their lifestyle stimulated dopamine levels and maintained romantic passion.

“It is not customary to love what one has,” wrote Anatole France. To counteract this conventional thinking, therapists advise people to follow several standard practices: Commit. Listen “actively” to your partner. Ask questions. Give answers. Appreciate. Stay attractive. Keep growing intellectually. Include her. Give him privacy. Be honest and trustworthy. Tell your mate what you need. Accept his/her shortcomings. Mind your manners. Exercise your sense of humor. Respect him. Respect her. Compromise. Argue constructively. Never threaten to depart. Forget the past. Say “no” to adultery. Don’t assume the relationship will last forever; build it one day at a time. And never give up.

These and many other wise habits can sustain feelings of long-term attachment. But none is likely to elevate levels of dopamine or maintain romantic passion. Other tactics, however, can keep this flame burning.

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness,” advised Kahlil Gibran. Although the Lebanese poet probably didn’t know it, this was good advice for sustaining the biology associated with romantic love. As mentioned earlier, when a reward is delayed in coming, the tardy delivery prolongs the activity of dopamine cells—speeding more of this natural stimulant into reward centers of the brain.
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Although men appreciate privacy and autonomy more than women do, for both sexes “space” probably helps sustain romantic passion.

Given what we know of love, surely it would also be wise to engage in what therapists call “dating time.” Develop an array of common interests and make a point of doing novel and exciting things together.
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Variety, variety, variety: it stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain,
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maintaining the climate of romance.

Passion and Reason

Since the time of the ancient Greeks, poets, philosophers, and dramatists have regarded passion and reason as separate, distinct, even opposing phenomena. Plato summed up the dichotomy, saying that one’s desires were like wild horses; the intellect was the “charioteer” who must subdue and direct these cravings.
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The belief that one must employ reason to triumph over one’s baser drives has trickled through the centuries. Early Christian theologians cemented this precept in Western thought: emotions and desires were temptations, sins that must be conquered by reasoning and willpower.

Neuroscientists now believe, however, that reason and passion are inexorably linked in the brain. And I think these connections say something important about controlling romantic love.

As you might remember, the prefrontal cortex of the brain lies directly behind your forehead; it expanded dramatically in size during human prehistory and is devoted to processing information. This is the business center of the mind. With the prefrontal cortex (and its connections) you collect and order data acquired through the senses, then analyze and weigh these details, reason, plan, and make decisions. But the prefrontal cortex has direct connections with many subcortical brain regions, including an emotion center, the amygdala, and a center for motivation, the caudate, as well as others. Hence thinking, feeling, memory, and motivation are closely integrated.
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Reason and passion are inseparably linked.