Are You Madly In Love?

Love, it seems, is a universally popular but eternally mysterious pursuit, especially for newbies. For many young guys, discovery of the opposite sex is a prominent feature of daily life. The onset of puberty dumps a truckload of hormones on the untrained and unsuspecting, igniting almost overnight a genetic curiosity about sex and attraction.

But what is love, when you get right down to it? Where does it come from, and how does it work? These are tricky questions to answer, complicated further by cultural variations in philosophy and religion, amongst other things. But modern science may finally be able to shed some light on what makes love... love.

The feeling of love appears to be rooted in both chemistry and psychology. Biologists and neuroscientists view love as a mammalian drive, while psychologists see it as a largely cultural phenomenon.

People who are in love may also be, not to put too fine a point on it, slightly nuts.

In 2007, Serge Brand, of the Psychiatric University Clinics in Basel, Switzerland, surveyed the mood, conduct and sleep patterns of 113 teenagers. Sixty-five subjects reported “falling in love.” They exhibited a lack of sleep, compulsive behaviour patterns and excessive spending.

The researchers told New Scientist, "We were able to demonstrate that adolescents in early-stage intense romantic love did not differ from patients during a hypomanic stage.”

This led them to conclude that intense romantic love in teenagers is a "psychopathologically prominent stage"—plainly put, teenage love can manifest almost like mental illness. Furthermore, Italian researchers have found that those in love have low levels of a neurotransmitter called serotonin, equivalent to levels found in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder.

And if you think being in love is fun for a guy, you should try it from a girl's perspective.

Some researchers have said that love has the same effect on the brain as using cocaine. Dr. Louann Brizendine writes in the UK Times: “Connecting through talking activates the pleasure centres in a teenage girl's brain. We're not talking about a small amount of pleasure. This is huge. It's a major dopamine and oxytocin rush, which is the biggest, fattest neurological reward you can get outside of an orgasm.”

Dopamine is a neurochemical which activates motivation and pleasure circuits in the brain. The hormone oestrogen tends to increase dopamine and oxytocin in girls. Intimacy triggers the hormone oxytocin. As the oestrogen level rises, a girl's brain is stimulated into making even more oxytocin, hence the requirement for social interaction.

And this is all from talking.

Adds Dr. Brizendine, “Most boys don't share this intense desire for verbal connection; this difference may also be at the core of the major disappointment women feel all their lives with their marriage partners.”

These differences may be explained by the fact that testosterone, while enabling men to sexually pursue women, also decreases a male's drive to socialise. However, testosterone is present in male saliva, and may be passed to the female during kissing, providing a natural aphrodisiac and increasing her arousal.

Who knew?

For their part, males react to their sense of smell. Pheromones—detected by that sense—are linked to the female endocrine system, and therefore to menstruation. In 2008, Evolution and Human Behaviour found that strippers who are ovulating made $70 an hour in tips, while those who are menstruating made just $35 an hour. Strippers who were neither ovulating nor menstruating made $50 an hour.

In the pursuit of dream girl (or guy), a little eye contact can go a very long way. A 2007 study published in the Journal Proceedings of the Royal Society found that people were sexually attracted to happy-looking faces looking directly at them, but found smiling faces with averting eyes less appealing. Dr Ben Jones, from Aberdeen University, Scotland, told the Independent newspaper, "It is all part of an ancient need to concentrate one's limited courting resources on potential mates who are realistically interested in you.”

Clearly, the key to love is communication: talk, smile, look your intended in the eye, take an active interest in them, and soon you, too, will be exhibiting symptoms similar to patients during a hypomanic phase!

But you need to be quick about it—according to psychologists, it only takes between 90 seconds and four minutes to decide whether we are attracted to someone, with 55 percent of the decision being based on body language, 38 percent on the tone and speed of their voice and 7 percent (!) on the content of their conversation.

Fortunately, communication—and finding someone to communicate with—has never been easier. The Internet in general, and social networking in particular, offers tremendous opportunities to find people with similar interests and communicate with them, allowing even the shyest individuals to find love.

Naturally, everyone is different, and it would be unreasonable to expect all of these suggestions to be effective in every case. If they don't work out, try something different, or try with someone else. The key is to cherry pick what works for you and your prospective partner. Everyone has their own special magic love spell and if you keep trying, you will find love.