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Falling in love creates a soup of chemicals within your body, each having a massive effect on the way you behave around that person and the way your relationship unfolds. Helen Fisher of Rutgers University in the United States defines three different stages of love: lust, attraction and attachment. Lust is characterised by a surge in the sex hormones oestrogen and testosterone in both men and women. Attraction – the stage when you are truly love-struck and can think of little else – is caused by adrenaline, dopamine and seratonin. Adrenaline is what makes your heart beat faster when they come near, dopamine produces that rush of pleasure after spending time with them, and seratonin, known as the happiness-hormone, makes you feel cheerful whenever you think about them.
Then there comes the attachment stage. The bond that you feel with your partner is nothing more than a bunch of chemicals swilling around in your bodies. That loving feeling you get after sex? Blame oxytocin, known as ‘the cuddle hormone’. Oxytocin is a hormone released after orgasm that, stereotypically, makes women want to have The Talk with their man: “Where are we going? Do you see a future for us?” These questions are hormone-fuelled, men! By all means, listen to your girlfriend’s worries and concerns about your relationship. But not when she’s in a fuzzy post-orgasm glow. That’s just cheeky old oxytocin talking.
Scientists and businesses have decided to harness the trusting feelings you get with a surge of oxytocin by making artificial versions of the hormone. It is possible to buy an oxytocin nasal-spray for use in business situations: the idea is that your clients will subconsciously detect the higher levels of oxytocin in the air and their body will react, causing them to relax and (hopefully) sign over all of their worldly goods to you. But let’s be honest, wouldn’t it be more fun to do this the orgasm way? (Admittedly somewhat harder to bring about in an office situation).
So, where do true feelings come from? How do we know if this is ‘true love’, or just human biology? I don’t mean to make cynics out of all of you, but next time you feel that strong sense of intimacy when you’re lying in bed with your partner/lover, think to yourself: I’m just a living, functioning, hormonal human being and love has no higher meaning than that. When it comes down to it, love in all its glory is just a melting-pot of chemicals fizzing around your body and influenced by external, environmental factors. Makes you wonder why so many songs are written about it now, doesn’t it?
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