To capture the mystery, caprice and force of romantic love, the ancients conjured Cupid, a mischievous immortal in whose thrall we are wholly powerless. Science provides a different view. By exploring human nature, we discover that being smitten—at first or forever—is a function of invisible forces, but there's little that's capricious about them. The real arrows in Cupid's quiver distill personal history and serendipity into a cache of chemicals that bathes the brain, compelling us to act in ways that are mistaken for fate or folly. Understanding the hidden power of biology to shape our most cherished relationships may banish Cupid to the Sistine ceiling forever.
MAKING LOVE'S FIRST BLUSH LINGER ON
Who has not felt that they are the happiest, the luckiest and the only human to fall so completely in love? The physical and emotional fanfare that heralds love's arrival is hard to forget—and more difficult still to sustain. If the romance goes well, the heart-stopping phone calls you once anticipated with fervor become a familiar ring; that furtively glimpsed visage may be the first and last face you see each day. Enduring love inevitably progresses to this stage: an attachment that is deeper, but far less exciting, than initial infatuation.
Indeed, the experience of love may best be viewed as a biological drive that comprises lust, romantic love and attachment. These three states are experientially different, but share the goal of successful reproduction. Lust gets us on the hunt for potential mates, and romantic love narrows our focus and energy to just one person, while attachment encourages us to stick with this partner long enough to raise children.
These three systems are expertly choreographed at the neurochemical level, each with attendant neurohormones, contends Helen Fisher, a research anthropologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It's the neurochemical dopamine in particular that allows us to maintain romantic love's unique, intoxicating properties, even as we tread water in the tranquil sea of long-term attachment.
Dopamine and norepinephrine levels surge when a person is confronted by the unknown. In the initial phase of romantic love, they engender such exhilaration that we lose the desire to eat or sleep. The French refer to this as le coup de foudre ("lightning bolt"). Less romantic Anglophones call it lovesickness. Fisher, for her part, equates romantic love with addiction. She argues that whether the motivator is cocaine or Cindy in apartment 4B, elevated levels of dopamine and norepinephrine electrify the reward system in the brain. "Romantic love is an urge, a craving, a homeostatic imbalance that drives you to pursue a particular partner, and to [experience] emotions like elation and hope, or despair and rage," explains Fisher.
The awe of dopamine eventually subsides, followed by love's rear guard, vasopressin and oxytocin, hormones that lead to long-lasting attachment. Researchers hypothesize that these "cuddle chemicals," released during sex, facilitate the bond needed to raise children. Warm and fuzzy though they make us feel, these hormones can't match dopamine's edgy high. Oxytocin, in particular, may subdue levels of dopamine and norepinephrine.
It may be wise to invoke the thrill and power of dopamine by embracing new adventures, since novelty prompts the brain to pump out this chemical. "Novelty drives up dopamine levels and probably lowers the threshold for your ability to feel romantic love," Fisher explains. In other words, new and varied stimuli can be sufficiently arousing to recapture what was initially so exciting about your mate. "When you do novel things, you're not ingesting any substance; you're just creating an internal reaction—just as romantic love creates an internal reaction," says Fisher.
Indeed, several studies have shown that couples who share exciting experiences report more relationship satisfaction, as well as more romance, than do couples with more mundane habits.
Novelty may be so critical to romantic love that it helps account for the success of arranged marriages. Many Westerners roll their eyes at the practice, trampling as it does on our notions of courtship and the soul mate. But Fisher suggests that an arranged union offers suspense about one's partner-to-be, the fulfillment of a long-anticipated promise and the thrill of wedding pageantry—experiences that can drive up dopamine levels to such a degree that romantic love may thrive.
Novelty-generating forces are available to most relationships. Prime among them are humor (never underestimate the power of the unexpected quip) and sex. Sex elevates testosterone levels, which in turn rev up dopamine, allowing partners to recapture the thrill of romantic love, if only temporarily.
The simplest way to shake up your relationship is well documented by the likes of Homer or Tennessee Williams: enforced separation and knock-down, drag-out fights. Arguments trigger a rush of adrenaline, which kicks in during risky, dangerous or new situations. This may explain the high-voltage couple who dramatically splits only to reconcile with still more gusto. Separation from a beloved moves dopamine and norepinephrine production into high gear by activating goal-driven pathways associated with these neurotransmitters. "When a reward is delayed, these brain circuits sustain their activity, which is probably what gives you the feeling of frustration attraction—wanting the person more when barriers are increased," explains Fisher.
There's just one catch in Fisher's prescription for novelty: A couple's conception of behavior that is comfortable or challenging must be in sync for fresh experiences to have the desired effect. Unfortunately, not everyone is in sensory agreement.
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