The brain has developed several systems directly responsible for our relationships.
Is romantic love a miracle, a miracle that only poets can talk about? Yes, it is a miracle, a chemical miracle that generates the feeling of love, characterized by:
Obsessive thinking (you think about him / her all the time)
Sexual possessiveness
Emotional addiction
Euphoria, high energy level
Abandonment anxiety
A chemical (dopamine) exceeds a level and becomes the motivator of remarkable behaviors. The evolution was smart: first it created a system (1) that pushes us to enter into a relationship with more partners (sexual attraction), then it created another system (2) that forces us to focus on a certain partner ( love), perceived as a very special being and (3), the one that underlies the appearance of a bond called “attachment”, a bond that allows involvement in a team for raising children.
Some substances, completely devoid of romance (sex hormones and dopamine), make you feel sexual attraction, orgasm, if you touch it, release even more dopamine plus oxytocenes and vasopressin, associated with the need for a deeper connection. However, because the systems are not perfectly integrated, the following phenomena are also possible:
- You become attached to someone (friend), in time romantic love appears and, finally, sex comes;
- You have a casual sexual relationship with someone and you wake up with deeper feelings towards that person.
Reproduction, that’s what it’s about! And love, of course … A chemical cocktail? Yes. We fall in love with a certain person because in relation to it the chemistry of our brain responds most favorably and brings us closer to the secret goal, the spread of genes and, subsequently, the protection of children.
Now, if we know all this, we can still be romantic!