- Does he stare into your eyes for more than 5 seconds at a time: six, seven, and eight? He loves you.
- If he glances at your face for much less and then lets his eyes wonder all over your body, your curves and outfit; he loves you not. It doesn’t matter if he is just curious or has a draconian desire: you might as well have been a Playboy picture.
- Does he think you are perfect and admires everything about you, your family, your pets, the music, the scenic view, the world? The area of the brain cortex responsible for judgmental and critical thinking is inhibited. He is in a state of happiness. He loves you.
- If he is attentive to details and politely points out to a spot on your shirt, notices controversy in someone’s logic, finds things to criticize; he loves you not.
- Is his heartbeat elevated; hands are warm and slightly shaking as he gives you the flowers? Adrenalin rushes through his body. He loves you.
- If he is calm and looks a bit tired, or even bored and yawning; he is a player. There is another reason for him to be with you. He loves you not.
- You had suddenly disappeared for a few days or so. Did he look hard for you and tried all possible means to find and reach you? His mind is locked on the target: he needs to see you all the time. He loves you.
- If all he did when you were suddenly gone was a few phone calls and text messages before he got tired and decided to wait it out; he loves you not.
Now what kind of love are we discussing here: lust, romance, attachment? The mentioned above features are coming with the “mad” passionate love, the captivating and intense, providing energy to stay up all night, making you fearless and bold and your soul happy. It has a strong instinctive component that allowed our Pleistocene forerunners to find, target and motivate the best possible genetic match for a reproductive success.
This passionate love state of mind is accompanied by the immense production of the excitatory neurotransmitter dopamine and a drop in serotonin in a way similar to people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. This love emotion is not under conscious control. It was shown many times that many psychiatric medications (like Prozac and Zoloft) relieved not only the OCD but also killed the “love” and sexual attraction by altering the amount of available neurotransmitters in the synaptic clefts.
What precisely triggers the mechanism of passionate love and points to the best genetic match is not yet completely understood. Some studies say imprinting, or waist to hip ratio in women, or roughness indicating the high testosterone levels in men, or chemical signals (human pheromones), or facial bone structure similarities, or health and energy levels of the partners, or even the holiday or rollercoaster environment that induces the endorphin release. What we know for sure though is that such condition is finite and does not usually last for more than 7 to 9 month. It wouldn’t just be physically possible to sustain normal live while releasing so much energy and being on the edge of emotions.
Yes, this romantic dopamine driven state is destined to seize. It wasn’t there for nothing though; it serves as important precursor stage for a quieter and longer bonding induced by oxytocin – the attachment hormone. In artificially arranged marriages this bonding may never happen, and the married by force (for economic, religious, traditional and similar reasons) couples may end up deprived of all and any love at all, be left with just a habit. We are risking a lot when trying to fool our evolutionary formatted nature.
For millions of years the proper genetic match selection was such an important issue for the survival of human populations that our instinctive nature is still overpowering our less experienced cortex in control over the love emotions. Just in case, to make sure our analytical brain does not impede the reproductive success of population.
Our love is rooted in the deepest phylogeny of humans. As the brain size of ancient hominids expanded, our ancestors had to make an evolutionary trade-off. Since the bipedal pelvis placed constraints on the size of the newborn head, the human babies were born at a much earlier stage of development as compared to other primates. They needed a considerably longer childhood to allow their complete development, especially of the brain. It was a survival necessity for our forerunners to form the long term pair bonds to rear their young. Our human love had to rise to high and engaging emotional levels hundreds of thousands of years ago. By following out heart we are following the call of our ancestors for life.
Cute child, must have been true love and great genetic match.