Quantum
HEALTH
Issue 9 February 2011
systems for dealing with love – one for sexual attraction, one for romantic yearning and another for attachment. The first draws you to a person; the second motivates you to focus your attention on them; the last enables you to stay with a mate long enough to rear children.
When working properly, these systems ensure we meet the right match and sustain that connection over time. But it can also warp our senses, distort our perceptions, play havoc with our thinking and cause us to behave – to put it mildly – most unwisely! And in no area is this more true romantic love. For example, research has shown that men lose the ability to think rationally in the presence of a pretty woman (did we really need research to prove this?). The face, body and any sexual signals given off consciously or unconsciously can easily override common sense.
Romantic love
Romantic love is usually thought of as strong feelings reserved for one special person. Sometimes indistinguishable from infatuation, it is unpredictable and frequently beyond our conscious control. When we fall in love, our bodies are flooded with feel-good chemicals such as testosterone, dopamine and serotonin. It’s as if a switch has been thrown and a different programme has started to run. In the early phases, when sophisticated bio-feedback sensors are attached, scientists find the effect on the body is similar to the effects of an obsessive-compulsive disorder!
The main problem with romantic love is that something suppresses the usual fault-finding mechanisms – we fre blinded and deafened to the reality of the other, including their so-called defects. That’s why a honeymoon has been described as a short period of doting between dating and debting.
And yet romantic love is highly prized in Western Society. Our media are obsessed with it and full of articles on how to find it. They mostly focus on attracting the person you fancy by appealing to their five senses: how to dress, how to use your voice, what perfume to wear, how to kiss,
22 Quantum Health
choosing sexy foods, and so on.
Romantic love renders our normal self-protection systems useless. Perceptions are distorted, clear thinking faculties disabled. Our biology knows this, which is precisely why the feel-good chemicals that act as they do. If they didn’t, our DNA would have a much smaller chance of being passed on!
If the loving relationship is to survive, romantic love must transform into something else – deeper, long lasting – and more practical. So our biochemistry adjusts, as we shall see.
Let’s examine a second, more psychological perspective:
Love as needs fulfilment Motivational experts tell us that all motivation, all behaviour is based on perceived needs. These needs may be physical or emotional, rational or irrational.
A friend told me this story. Two elderly men were talking.
‘I hear you’re getting married’, said the first. ‘That’s right.’ ‘Do I know her?’ ‘Don’t think so.’ ‘Is she good looking?’
‘Not really. She’s eighty-two and has a face like a pig.’
‘Is she a good cook?’ ‘Dreadful!’
‘Then she must have lots of money.’ ‘Not at all.’
‘Is she good in bed?’ ‘No idea. Never tried.’
‘Then why on earth do you want to marry her?’ ‘Because she has a car and can still drive!’
It’s interesting to think of what needs love fulfils – or what needs we hope, expect or want love to fulfil. There are physical needs of course, but in this day and age, in the West at least, most of our needs are, in fact, emotional. Some psychologists
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