Why We Love
On the eve of St Valentine's Day, I was reminded of this TED talk by Helen Fisher from 2004 about why we love.
Helen pulls apart the experiences of lust, romantic love and falling in love, and attachment, all three of them incredible drives in our brain to ensure we reproduce.
As Helen describes it, lust is to get you out there, looking for partners, falling in love is to make you daft enough to start a baby and attachment enables you to tolerate the other person long enough to rear a child. She talks about the chemicals that are released during orgasm, such as dopamine - like a cocaine hit - which leads to us to fall in love and feel union with another person.
She also talks about three other interesting things:
How women coming back into the jobs market is changing things and leading to a more equitable collaborative society where women are more sexually expressive. They seek good marriages and good relationships. (Helen also thinks the invention of the plough was women's undoing which they are only slowly now beginning to redress).
The extension of middle-age to eighty-five years of age: about 40% of people between 76-85 have pretty much nothing wrong with them and live full and active lives. People continue to love, have sex, make good relationships, they seem to get better at it as they age, relationships become more stable and the divorce rate declines.
And finally, her worries about long-term use of anti-depressants which boost serotonin while suppressing dopamine - the love drug - and the effects this will have on our ability to form lasting good relationships.
She ends with a funny story about when the science of love doesn't quite work out 😊
I noticed the Valentine's display of chocolates and sparkly wine was completely ravaged, maybe a crumpled box of mixed Lindor chocolates left if you were lucky, when I went in my local store yesterday.
I saw this one a few years and honestly @shanibeer I like how she's so honest about everything, in one way she paints love as something amazing and wild but if you think about it she also points out it's possessive and scary. In a sense she also mentions love mostly lasts for putting up with someone mostly for the intentions of barring children, or love yes can work but for many you sure as hell will need to work hard. Something I find that messes with love alot today is social sites like facebook they seem to cause more romantic problems than what they are worth.
I hear you about facebook!
Does this mean higher divorce rates for childless couples, I ponder!
Why would that be? They just bypass the having the baby bit, that doesn't stop the companionate hormones from being triggered. But I could be wrong :)
I saw this talk a long while ago. I'd summised that if a couple were physically unable to concieve then the whole cycle and balance went to hell.
Quite interesting. I will re-watch and read up when I get a minute!
Blimey, that's a bit serious! I didn't interpret it like that ... we produce those chemical reactions.
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hi @partiko, just wondering what happened to my vote for this post? I see you are at 94% VP :)
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