Recently, I'm most interested in learning about romantic attachment and whether it's prompted more by your mind/emotions or hormone-y types of chemicals. I was hoping it'd be the latter of the two, so at least we have something to blame it on.
As it turns out, it is. At least a little bit.
I found an article in Thirteen which starts off explaining that when you find yourself in love with someone, "the world has a new center." (No shit.) Helen Fisher, the biological anthropologist they spoke with, also confirmed what I talked about in my previous blog regarding love turning you into a chemically imbalanced, emotionally distraught, psychologically unstable bitch on wheels.
She didn't word it quite like that, but reiterated that "intense energy, elation, mood swings, emotional dependence, separation anxiety, possessivness...and obsessive thinking" are all common behaviors and feelings.
Here's the cool part: Fisher has conducted fMRI studies on people in varying stages of love (people who have just fallen in love, people who just got dumped, and people who have been happily married for decades) and has concluded that there are three parts of our brain that can dictate our feelings and symptons of love: lust, romantic attraction, and attachment to your long-term partner.
In addition, she has found that there are indeed chemically-induced reasons why we're attracted to certain people and not others. It's a physiological (not just emotional!) drive that is greater than everything--certainly sex. (She uses the reasoning that being rejected for sex won't send you into a downward spiral, but being rejected from love totally can. Either Helen Fisher makes an excellent point, or she's been sleeping with the wrong people. Let's go with the former.)
It's becoming more and more apparent that once you find that intense attraction toward another, your body takes over a lot more than we might have thought.
It's an interesting idea to explore, particularly because women are pegged as being the overly emotional, dramatic sex. In reality, many studies have shown that men and women undergo the same process of emotions; women just express it differently. Kind of how women show affection through touching and nurturing while men show it through initiating sex.
Point of the story...Again, here we have people claiming that love and attraction are indeed alive and well in our brains and bodily chemicals. So ladies, next time a guy tells you to calm down, now you know what to scream: "IT'S MY OXYTOCIN, ASSHOLE."
On that note, here's a picture of two tongues. God speed.
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