One of my clients had a date, so I gave her a follow-up call the next day.
“How was the date?” I asked Whitney.
“Terrible,” she said.
“Oh no, what happened?”
“Nothing really, that’s the problem. He was sweet, attractive, and I liked him, but there was no chemistry.”
No chemistry, no spark, or no buzz. Unfortunately, I hear that way too often. Everyone is looking for that mysterious feeling of being swept off your feet, that momentary intoxication called chemistry. Ever wonder what that feeling is all about?
BEING SWEPT OFF YOUR FEET
God, I loved that feeling. I would go out searching for it like a bloodhound tracking her prey. Once I went to a dance with my friend and her boyfriend. I had just broken up with my boyfriend, so I was one of those awkward third wheels. Fortunately, that lonely awkwardness didn’t last very long. A few minutes after walking into the dance, my eyes meet his. He was gorgeous, with thick, dark, curly hair and beautiful white teeth that were smiling at me. I smiled back, and it didn’t take long for him to ask me to dance. He grabbed me in his arms, pulled me tight, then twirled and spun me around. We stared into each other’s eyes and danced and swooned for hours. He was an amazing dancer, and the evening was magical. My friend’s boyfriend came up to me afterward and said he’d never seen two people more in love. We had just met, but he swept me off my feet. Some would call this love at first sight.
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
I will never forget that day. I was standing in front of a roomful of beautiful women, from sixteen to seventy-two years of age, with a variety of occupations and life experiences. Despite their diversity, they were all there for one reason: to find love. Many public-speaking coaches teach that speakers should start all presentations with a question, so that’s exactly what I did. I asked these lovely ladies for a show of hands. “How many of you believe in love at first sight?” A bunch of hands shot up immediately, and as other women looked around the room, as if for permission, more hands went up. Soon, the room was a sea of raised hands. I thanked them and the hands went back down. I stood there for a moment (using the dramatic pause that public-speaking coaches recommend before making an important point) and then said, “What if I were to I tell you there is no such thing as love at first sight?”
I watched as the expressions on those beautiful faces wrenched into a tangled throng of disbelief. It was as if I had just announced to a roomful of kindergarteners that Santa Claus didn’t exist. I felt the makings of a lynch mob, and at any minute I was expecting the back row to break out pitchforks and torches. I realized this was not the best way to begin a workshop, and I better do some fancy explaining before I found myself being showered with rotten tomatoes. But before I could begin, an elegantly dressed woman in her fifties spoke up in protest. She said, “I disagree. My husband, Roger, and I fell in love at first sight, and we’ve had thirty-two wonderful years together, until he died last June.”
Several women looked at me with smug smiles as if to say, “Deal with that one, Professor Smarty Pants.” I wiped the sweat from my brow and asked the sophisticated woman, “May I ask you a very personal question?”
She reluctantly nodded and muttered, “Yes.”
“Did you sleep with Roger the first day you met him?”
“Oh my goodness, no,” she snapped back.
“Thank you. You’ve proven my point,” I said. “I’m not talking about attraction. What I’m talking about is the scam we’ve come to know as love at first sight.”
You can know within minutes, or even seconds, if you’re interested in someone. That interest can be the beginning of an amazing love where you spend a lifetime of bliss-filled years together. In fact, that’s what this book is about. I want to help you find that exhilarating I can’t wait to get up in the morning so I can spend another day with you kind of love—a rich, grounded type of love, real love.
Unfortunately, many of us (myself included) have created a mess out of our lives, as well as the lives of others, by instantly falling “head over heels,” soon to be followed by “heels over head.” Because of the way our brains are wired, we can become so convinced that we have just met “the one” that we don’t think we need to date or even get to know him or her. We just dive right into the relationship and into bed, essentially short-circuiting the development of the true love we are looking for.
THE BRIDGE STUDY
Imagine this. You’re walking along a five-foot-wide, 450-foot-long, swaying, wobbly, wooden suspension bridge 230 feet over a raging river full of bloodthirsty, jagged rocks below. As you walk, you reach for the wire cable handrails, but they’re too low to make you feel safe, and as you pull on them, they seem to give way, too loose for any real support. The wooden planks shift slightly as you venture into the center of this twisting passage. You’re almost at the halfway point of this knee-buckler.
Just as you’re starting to believe you might make it to the other side, you notice someone walking toward you. A very handsome man bounds along the bridge. His dark hair and shadow of a beard give him a rugged sexiness. You notice his wide shoulders and powerful chest as he closes the gap between you. You look down one more time. Any false move could mean certain death in the rapids below. You look back up and hear a voice. It asks, “Are you attracted to him?”
Sound crazy? But this scenario is the gist of the classic study conducted in the 1970s by researchers Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron. The aim of the study was to test if fear enhanced attraction. The researchers set up two different scenarios, one similar to the one I just mentioned and another with a low, solid wooden bridge built over a gentle, babbling brook, the kind of bridge you couldn’t possibly fall off of, but if you did, the only real damage would be getting your shoes wet.
Dutton and Aron then tested the bridge walkers to see if the bridge had any effect on their level of attraction, specifically, sexual arousal. Dutton and Aron had several different men walk across the two bridges, with a woman meeting each in the middle. The woman was instructed to ask some questions and then, at the end of the encounter, give the gentleman her phone number. Next, the researchers counted which woman received the most calls. They found that two out of sixteen on the low, babbling brook called the girl. That’s about 12.5 percent. But nine out of eighteen, or 50 percent, on the dangerous bridge called. This groundbreaking experiment found that fear magnifies sexual attraction.38
Now we scientifically understand why this happens. When you feel attraction, your body releases the neurotransmitter norepinephrine. Norepinephrine gives you that unmistakable feeling of attraction. You know the feeling—you meet someone you find very interesting and the next thing you know, your heart is pounding in your chest. It’s pulsating so loudly in your ears you can hardly hear what they’re saying. You notice that your vision narrows. You get a type of tunnel vision, blocking out other activity. You hope you don’t have to shake hands, because your palms are so sweaty. You’re terrified, nervous, yet magically enchanted all at the same time.
You feel like you’re out of control, but at the same time, you’re sweetly submissive, gladly accepting a ride on this magic carpet—wherever it may lead—hoping to travel to that mythical place called “happily ever after.” Unfortunately, you’re more likely to glide like the poor, ill-fated moth, dreamily drifting toward the light, destined for a painful demise.
A LOOK AT LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
I asked the lynch mob, “For those of you who raised your hands earlier and have experienced love at first sight, what did it feel like?”
One woman said, “I felt giddy.”
Another said, “I had butterflies in my stomach.”
“My heart was beating so loud, I was sure everyone could hear it,” said another.
“I was nervous. My palms were sweating.”
“I felt like I had tunnel vision. All I could see was him,” said another.
“I felt really horny,” a voice yelled from the back of the room.
I responded to all of them at once. “Perfect! Let’s take a look at these responses. There were sweaty palms, focused vision, a fast-beating heart, increased nervous energy, and horniness. Can anyone tell me what these symptoms usually mean?” I asked.
“Besides the horniness, I would say fear,” a voice called from the back of the room.
“Exactly,” I said. “Those symptoms are indicators of anxiety and distress.”
The feeling of love at first sight, or LAFS (yes, “laughs,” because that’s what nature is doing every time you fall for it) is caused by the release of norepinephrine as part of a biochemical fight-or-flight response. But instead of running away or fighting, Mother Nature is encouraging you to stay and have sex with this very interesting and attractive stranger.
Nature’s original purpose for love at first sight was to encourage procreation. The lives of our hairy-knuckled, primitive ancestors were short in comparison to ours. They needed to grow up as quickly as possible in order to survive that vulnerable stage, learn how to find and/or kill food, locate a partner, and produce offspring—all in much less time than we have to accomplish the same. They were primarily concerned with fulfilling their basic need for food, water, and shelter because all these things directly aided their survival. There wasn’t much time for long walks together on the beach; activities of this sort could equate to losing focus and being eaten by a saber-toothed cat. This period in human history was a stressful time, so Mother Nature gave the human race a hand, encouraging reproduction by linking sex to stress.
If you look at the history of humankind, it actually makes perfect sense. During times of stress, you’d want to fight or run and hide, and, oh yes, while hiding, eat and have sex. During times of crisis, such as war and epidemics, population replacement becomes critical. For example, some calculate that half or more of the European population was lost during the bubonic plague. Likely, with people dropping all around you, the last thing on your mind would be sex. But nature adds that additional bonus to the fight-or-flight response: sex as a response to stress, a way to ensure the species will continue under the least ideal circumstances. The next time you feel stress and have an inexplicable urge to eat carbs, or to have sex with the person next to you, you can chalk it up to the fight-or-flight response.
Not long ago there was a commercial on TV where a man approached a pet shop checkout to purchase two bunnies. The transaction took so long that by the time he was rung up, there were rabbits all over the counter, on the register, and even on the man’s head. Rabbits are known for their prolific procreation, and abundant bunny-bumpin’ love makes perfect biological sense. The more likely it is that a species will become food, the more that species will need to procreate for its ultimate survival.
The problem with this sexy fear response is that we’re long past worrying about being someone else’s food. The LAFS phenomenon—that is, the fight-or-flight impulse manifesting as an urge to mate—was important to our ancestors, but it has now outlived its purpose. It’s an evolutionary vestige and like another vestige that most are familiar with—the appendix—it has lost most or all of its biological function. At one point in time, the appendix housed bacteria that helped us break down cellulose, or woody plant material. But since most of us no longer consume small branches, bark, or shrubbery, the appendix is no longer used for that. Although it is said to contain replacement bacteria, usually it just hangs out, off to the side of the cecum, not doing much or causing any problems. But for some, this evolutionary leftover can wreak havoc. An attack of appendicitis can have dangerous or even fatal consequences.
LAFS may be more likely to send you running to the nearest hotel than to the nearest hospital, but it can still cause considerable devastation. In fact, there may be some who would prefer an attack of appendicitis than ever again experiencing the consequences of LAFS.
SIERRA’S STORY
I was having lunch with a colleague on campus. I told her I was concerned about a talk I was going to be giving to a bunch of women. I was worried because I was going to break some serious news to them: that there’s no such thing as love at first sight; that it’s nothing more than lust. She looked at me eagerly and said, “I’m so glad you’re doing that. In fact, I wish someone had told me that years ago.”
I closed my mouth, which had fallen open, and asked her to tell me more.
Sierra said, “I have to tell you, Dawn, if it happened to me, I know it can happen to anyone. It wasn’t that long ago. I was already a doctor teaching here at the university when I met him. He worked for a medical supply company. I had seen him a few times, and we had mutual friends, but we had never really met. On a Friday morning, the company had a Danish-and-coffee meet-and-greet. It was my day off, but I decided to pop in. That was the beginning of the end. We hit it off instantly. He asked me to lunch. After lunch, we went parasailing and then to dinner. I was enamored and didn’t want it to end. We spent the entire weekend together. Four months later we were married.”
“I have to ask you something,” I interrupted. “How long were you together before you two become sexual?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” she said sheepishly. “I’m a doctor. I should’ve known better. I mean, I teach this stuff to medical students. I’m afraid we spent the night together that first night. I got sucked into it. All the bad-match signs were there during the first month, but it was too late. I had fallen in love. [I’ll explain how that can happen in Chapter 5: Love Potion]. We stayed married for seven years. I was the one who finally initiated the divorce. By then, I was a nervous wreck. I had become physically sick; I was even losing my hair. I learned the hard way about so-called love at first sight.”
What Sierra learned the hard way was that even though she had believed it was love at first sight, she should’ve spent more time dating in order to determine if the two of them were a good fit. Blindly, she jumped into a sexual relationship, which caused her to lose her judgment. As she said, “The signs were there,” meaning she knew that there were compatibility issues and trust issues, but because of the biochemical and physiological changes that occur when she fell in love with him, her judgment was foggy.
YOUR BRAIN ON LAFS
The core of our brain, the ancient brain, sometimes called the reptilian brain, is believed to have been the first to evolve; it’s considered to be the most primitive portion of our brain. It contains structures like the thalamus and the hypothalamus, which are responsible for our basic needs, such as food, water balance, sleep, pleasure, and sex. It’s the part of the brain that’s concerned with survival; in fact, if under attack, this small-but-mighty part of the brain takes control of the body, shutting down all systems that it deems unnecessary. When this part of our brain senses something that could negatively impact our chances of survival, like that saber-toothed cat, your amygdala (the brain’s watchman) sounds the alarm, flooding your system with stress hormones.
Think of your brain as a fire station. You have a bunch of firemen milling around doing their day-to-day stuff, until that alarm sounds. Then all of a sudden, everything they were doing shuts down. They stop preparing food, stop playing cards, the television is shut down, and they jump on the fire pole and slide down. A similar scene plays out in our bodies, but instead of firemen, we have neurotransmitters.
All of a sudden, you feel supercharged, as if you had just chugged half a pot of coffee. Your heart beats faster, your blood pressure rises, your body pumps more blood to the skeletal muscles, and shuts down nonessential functions like digestion. Your body releases stores of glucose so you’ll have ample energy to run away if needed—or, as you’ve probably guessed, to “fall in love lust.”
Ironically, the reptilian brain also shuts down the conscious, or thinking, part of your brain. We have all been there. Something stressful happens and we literally can’t seem to think. We get pulled over for speeding, knowing that if we get a ticket, our insurance will go up. We start feeling nervous, as stress hormones course through our blood. The police officer walks up to our window and asks, “Where are you going?” For a split second, our brain misfires. We start searching our mental catalog: Where . . . where . . . where am I going? For some reason, you draw a blank. You might even pause and say something like, “Wait. Let me think.” Under stress, the thinking part—more specifically, the judgment part—of your brain disconnects.39
The moment is brief and you eventually remember, but researchers have discovered that too much stress can actually cause the nerve cells of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), the evaluating part of your brain, to shrivel.40 This is the area of the brain that predicts the outcome of an action. To make matters worse for our love life, researchers have learned that when people under stress are making a difficult decision, they may pay more attention to the upside of the alternatives they’re considering and less to the downside.41 So even though a part of our brain knows that a relationship with an escaped felon on the run might not be the best choice, another part of our brain is feeding us a list of reasons it will work, telling us how much fun it will be with just you and him in your new life together, running from the law and buying air fresheners in every town you pass through to cover up that strange smell coming from the trunk. Ah, sweet, neurochemical romance!
When norepinephrine floods our body, we have four prominent responses, sometimes referred to by students studying the effects as the four Fs: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and . . . well . . . having sex. Your brain is looking for relief. We can run away, fight, eat something, or take a powerful narcotic pain reliever in the form of an orgasm. Researchers have found that vaginocervical stimulation (like sex) releases a neurotransmitter into the spinal cord that’s more effective, analgesically, than morphine sulfate when injected directly into the spinal cord.42 In other words, when you have sex, you release a substance into your system that’s more powerful than heroin.
This pain-relieving narcotic effect can make some women more vulnerable to LAFS. If a woman is going through a stressful and emotionally painful time, like I was when I met the guy at the dance, LAFS can become very alluring. Pain from a recent breakup, job stress, financial loss, or even a broken fingernail can send some women looking for the immediate relief promised by LAFS.
A woman may start the evening feeling bad, but soon she’ll be all hopped up, feeling great, with the part of the brain that should be telling her to slow down and consider what’s about to happen turned off. All she can see is the beckoning of a dreamy, narcotic-like, fairy-tale ending.
And there is another potentially significant problem with LAFS. Since the predominant neurotransmitter of lust is norepinephrine, the feeling of that supercharged biofuel coursing through the bloodstream is what comes to be associated with love. Your fight-or-flight response is meant to be only temporary. It’s meant to be in effect just long enough for you to get to safety. In order to keep that “excited feeling” going, you need to keep triggering its release. This can result in a tumultuous relationship, with many fights that lead to a dramatic on-again, off-again, Tower of Terror ride.
A classic example of this is the celebrity marriage of Baywatch bombshell Pamela Anderson to Mötley Crüe rocker Tommy Lee. The couple met and married in 1995 after knowing each other for only ninety-six hours. The turbulent relationship lasted just three years.43 Anderson didn’t just file for divorce in 1998; she also filed charges of assault against her then husband because he had allegedly kicked her while she was holding their son, Dylan. Lee later pleaded no contest, was sentenced to six months in jail, and ultimately served four months behind bars.44 After all this, it would seem logical to go their separate ways, but as with most norepinephrine-fueled relationships, the excitement of the drama brought them back together one more time after Tommy was released from jail. When asked about yet another reunion, Lee said, “We’ve only given it a try 800 times—801, here we go. Pamela and the kids have moved in with me. It’s awesome. It’s definitely working.” 45 Unfortunately, as you’ve probably already guessed, numbers 801, 802, 803, and 804 didn’t work.
One of the biggest tragedies resulting from these types of relationships may not be seen for many years. When children are raised in this type of turbulent atmosphere, they absorb this behavior early on and create a type of “love map.” This love map serves as a blueprint that the child-become-adult will use to identify “love.” This blueprint can start to take shape while the child is still a baby. Researchers have found that “The ability to trust, love, and resolve conflict with loved ones starts in childhood—way earlier than you might think. Your interpersonal experiences with your mother during the first twelve to eighteen months of life predict your behavior in romantic relationships twenty years later,” says Jeffery Simpson, a psychologist with the University of Minnesota.46 In other words, if you watch your parents break up and get back together over and over again, you become used to that pattern; it becomes your normal. Years later, when it’s time for you to date, your brain identifies Mr. Swirling Tornado across the room and you jump into your storm-chaser van and take off on an exciting norepinephrine-infused adventure. Gee, thanks, Mom and Dad!
At this point in my talk, I usually have someone stand up and protest, “Now, wait a minute. Are you telling me that I need to run away from everyone I’m attracted to? Come on, Dawn. I came here for help with my love life. This is making it worse!”
I’m not suggesting that the way we find love is to avoid anyone you find attractive. The caution here is not to react to lust by jumping straight into a sexual relationship, which could complicate or even prevent your reaching your real goal. Now that I know you’re not going to fall for love at first sight, let’s take a closer look at attraction.
• • •
One of the debates you often hear when it comes to dating is about if opposites attract or if people seek their own level. The answer to this perplexing question is both. You’re naturally attracted to a combination of opposite and familiar. A union with someone of opposite or different genes will give your offspring a genetic advantage. The chances of having children with recessive diseases like sickle cell anemia, Tay-Sachs, and cystic fibrosis decrease the more your genes differ from your partner’s.
At the same time, you’re naturally attracted to someone who’s familiar. Since attraction elicits nervousness, you’re instinctively inclined to seek out safety in the form of something or someone that’s familiar. It’s a part of your innate survival mechanism. This may explain why people tend to choose mates who resemble themselves. As one study found, we are attracted to people with similar socioeconomic status and someone around the same age and the same level of intelligence and education. We also like similar personality traits, physical attractiveness, job interests, and, interestingly enough, someone with comparable body weight.47 In fact, according to Elizabeth McClintock at the University of Notre Dame, “the strongest force by far in partner selection is similarity—in education, race, religion and physical attractiveness.” 48
“Sexual imprinting” is a set of familial characteristics that we pick up as children that shape mate preferences during adulthood. Experiments with birds and mammals have revealed that adults prefer sexual partners that are similar to the opposite-sex parent who reared them. Scientists believe that in early childhood, we internalize the characteristics of the people who raised us. Later, this shapes our choice in a partner, right down to what he or she looks like.
In a study comparing three hundred facial photographs of family members and controls, the subjects correctly matched wives to the husbands’ mothers. A higher degree of similarity was perceived between the husband’s mother and his wife than between the husband and wife. This may explain why all the significant men in my life had dark hair, hazel-brown eyes, and mustaches, just like my dad.
Of course, this could be a function of genetics; therefore, another study looked at emotional care in adopted families. They discovered that the more emotional warmth the father provided to his adopted daughter, the more visual similarity was perceived between him and his son-in-law. In addition, when a son experienced maternal rejection, they found a negative correlation between him and his spouse.49 In other words, if a son felt love for his mother, he would choose a girl that reminded him of her, but if he had ill feelings toward his mother, he wouldn’t want his wife to remind him of his mother.
Although physical similarities are relatively easy to measure, it’s only one indication of a bigger imprinting phenomenon. That is, individuals fall in love with someone who reminds them of people who love them. This makes perfect biological sense. Everyone wants to feel safe and loved, so a person feels most comfortable with someone who looks like or acts like someone who make/made them feel safe and loved. Some people describe this comfort and familiarity as a “click” or “hitting it off.” Because the person sitting in front of them somehow seems familiar in looks, values, opinions, or mannerisms, they feel a connection.
Although you look for the familiar, you’re subconsciously opposed to dating people who are too familiar. A classic study that exemplifies this is the “kibbutz effect.” A kibbutz is a type of communal-living environment and was started in Israel in the early 1900s. Children in the kibbutz were reared together in peer groups based on age, not biological relation. A study of the marriage patterns of these children later in life revealed that out of the nearly three thousand marriages that occurred across the kibbutz system, only fourteen were between children from the same peer group. Of those fourteen, none had been reared together during the first six years of life.50 Since these children were encouraged to marry within their peer groups, the obvious aversion to the “too familiar” strongly suggests an instinctual, biological influence that was much stronger than the dominating social influence.
This opposite-but-familiar attraction can cause some seemingly unlikely combinations. The union of unlikely individuals may be one of the reasons we fall in love at all. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s continue by looking at the factors of attraction.
FACTORS OF ATTRACTION
Norepinephrine heightens your senses, because it turns out that attraction starts with your senses. During the process of attraction, several seen, unseen, conscious, and subconscious factors come into play. As one researcher reports, “this attraction system operates in tandem with other neural systems, including the sex drive and circuits for sensory perception, discrimination and memory.”51 Our mind is judging potential partners based on myriad experiences, conditionings, and childhood memories. In addition, our senses are conspiring like a panel of expert judges. Just as Blake Shelton judges contestants on The Voice, our own ears judge potential mates’ voices. Our nose is deciding if he or she smells good, while our eyes are giving him or her the once-over. As each of our senses detect these traits, they cast a deciding vote.
THE EYES HAVE IT
I mentioned in Chapter 2 that a man is better at spotting moving objects while a woman is better at carefully choosing between things, but that’s not the only difference in our vision. Men have 25 percent more visual cortex neurons than woman.52 Because of their higher concentration of visual neurons, men tend to place a much higher value on visual stimulation than women. This makes the eyes the main gatekeeper of attraction, particularly for men.
In a BBC Internet assessment, men and women were surveyed for the top three desirable traits in a potential partner. The results were that women preferred honesty, humor, kindness, and dependability in men, while men chose good looks and facial attractiveness.53 A man’s initial focus was on things you could see. Men are particularly attracted to visual signals of fertility, good health, and good genes.
As Dr. Robert Provine at the University of Maryland explains, “Standards of beauty vary across cultures, however, youth and healthiness are always in fashion because they are associated with reproductive fitness. Traits such as long, lustrous hair and smooth or scar-free skin are cues of youth and offer the beholder a partial record of health.”54 Others add observable behaviors such as a sprightly, youthful gait and high activity level. Prior to modern medicine, pregnancy and childbirth was risky. Selecting a healthy, fit female was paramount to ensuring healthy children. Therefore, biologists believe that more than beauty, men have naturally evolved to look for clues of health, youth, and vitality.55
As Dr. Louann Brizendine points out in her book The Male Brain, men have been biologically selected over millions of years to focus on fertile females. What they don’t know is that they’ve evolved to zoom in on certain features that indicate reproductive health. Researchers have found that the attraction to an hourglass figure—large breasts, small waist, flat stomach, and full hips—is ingrained in men across all cultures.56
THE NOSE KNOWS
Next up on our biological panel of judges is the nose. Although we can be attracted or repulsed by someone’s smell, we are not talking about cologne or bathing habits here. While those are important, pheromones are even more important. Pheromones are referred to as “ectohormones.” Ecto means “outside,” so these are chemical messengers designed to be emitted into the environment from one person that activate a specific physiological or behavioral response in another. Biologists have determined four specific functions of pheromones: menstrual cycle modulators that produce the “dormitory effect” or the synchronizing of the cycles of women living together, mother-infant bonding attractants, same-sex repellants, and, most important to this discussion, opposite-sex attractants.57
In most mammals, including us, there is a specialized pheromone detector called the vomeronasal organ or “Jacobson’s organ,” after the man who discovered it. This chemoreceptor is found at the base of the nasal cavity and is used by males of a specific species to detect the pheromones of females in estrus in that species. It has been found to have close connections with the amygdala and limbic system, the seat of emotional, hormonal, and autonomic control, but there are only indirect connections with the cerebral cortex, which is generally considered to be the site of consciousness.58 In other words, this phenomenon of pheromone detection bypasses our conscious brain and acts directly on our emotions and motivation center. Therefore, a man can be affected by pheromones and never know it.
In a study using mice, researchers discovered that male mice with a working Jacobson’s organ were more likely to take bigger risks when it came to love. The scientists believe that stimulation of Jacobson’s organ by female pheromones activates the nucleus accumbens.59 The nucleus accumbens is in the reward center and the main area of dopamine receptors, which become important in the next phase of dating or courting. Therefore, as female pheromones waft a male’s way, it flips a switch, telling him to “go for it,” because there is a prize nearby that he needs to win.
You may have seen male horses or other animals sniffing the air with their lips curled back. Scientists believe they are “tasting” the air. The act of curling back their lips provides better exposure to the Jacobson’s organ, leading them to a receptive female. Humans don’t necessarily do the lip curl, or wait . . . do they? Maybe that’s why women got so excited when Elvis Presley did his famous snarl. In a way, his pulled-up lip was much like the male horse’s. Like the horse, Elvis’s lip curl sent the message that he was sexually interested, and he became a symbol that women loved.
Of course, most men don’t stand around the local bar with their heads tilted up and their upper lips curled back, partaking of the aromas, or even take the Elvis side curl stance. But neither are they less affected by the scent of a woman. In a study from Florida State University, researchers had women wear T-shirts for three nights during various phases of their menstrual cycles. Male volunteers were then randomly assigned a T-shirt to smell. They were given either a T-shirt worn by a woman for three nights or a new non-worn T-shirt as a control. Saliva samples were collected both before and after the men smelled the T-shirts and then analyzed for testosterone. By the way, an increase in testosterone is an indicator of sexual attraction in men. This is important to remember, because pheromones are not the only way to increase his testosterone. This testosterone boost is below his conscious awareness, but once it’s raised, he feels it as attraction (I’ll explain more about this later).
The results of the study found that men who smelled T-shirts of ovulating women produced an increase in testosterone, whereas the men who smelled the T-shirts worn by non-ovulating women or non-worn shirts did not have an increase in testosterone. In addition, after smelling the shirts, the men were asked to rate the T-shirt odors on pleasantness. The men who smelled the shirts worn by ovulating women ranked those as the most pleasant smelling.60 One group of pheromones produced by ovulating women is called copulins. As the name implies, their job is encourage copulation. Therefore, when Ms. Ovulating walks by a guy, she gets his attention when his own body gives him a testosterone nudge. The next thing he knows, he’s following her around with an Elvis Presley lip-snarl grin, thinking, “Wow, there is just something about that girl.”
SHE NOSE
Men are not the only ones who use the nose to choose a mate. A woman also uses her sense of smell for choosing the best mate, but her nose has slightly different selection criteria. Studies suggest that health may be detectable. One study found that female mice could detect the males infected by parasites and avoided mating with them.61 In another study, female butterflies could detect inbred males and avoided breeding with them.62 In a different study, scientists studying stickleback fish discovered that females are attracted to males with a particular protein fragment. These fragments indicate which major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules he has. MHC molecules are small protein molecules that are part of the immune system. MHC molecules are used to fight disease, so selecting a mate that will provide her offspring with the best mix of immunity genes is critical.63
There is evidence that humans also have MHC-dependent mating preferences. One study found that humans prefer the body odor of MHC-dissimilar individuals. In the study, forty-nine women and forty-four men were MHC typed. Next, the researchers asked the women to rate the attractiveness of the odors of the T-shirts worn by the three MHC-similar and three MHC-dissimilar men. Women generally preferred the odor of the MHC-dissimilar men, describing them as “more pleasant.” Moreover, the scent of MHC-dissimilar men was twice as likely to remind women of their mate’s odor.64 This would make evolutionary sense. A couple’s offspring are provided the greatest survival advantage when opposites combine, providing the child with a stronger immune system. This adds to the debate that opposites attract.
AN EAR FOR LOVE
Next up on our all-star panel of judges is the ear. Research shows that men prefer females with a high-pitched, breathy voice and wide formant spacing, which tends to correlate with her smaller body size. Women, on the other hand, prefer low-pitched voices with a narrow formant spacing, which suggests a larger body size.65
Women not only prefer low-pitched voices in men, one study found that a man’s bass vocals might actually help a woman remember him. In the study, women were shown several images of objects while listening to the name of the object spoken by either a high-pitched or low-pitched voice. The women were then shown two similar, but not identical, versions of the objects and asked to identify the one they had seen earlier. The researchers found that women remembered objects more accurately when they had been introduced by the deep male voice. The researchers concluded that this was evidence that “evolution has shaped women’s ability to remember information associated with desirable men.” 66 The deeper voice is usually associated with the more dominant or alpha male, so nature has helped equip a woman to better remember him. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to forget the singer Barry White.
Speaking of Barry White, it appears that music has a huge effect on a woman’s sense of attraction also. In a study in (where else but) Paris, the city of love, researchers tested the effects that romantic music had on a women’s willingness to give out her phone number. The researchers separated a group of women into two waiting rooms. One played “neutral” music while the other played a soothing litany of romantic ballads. They then asked the women to move to a different room to discuss food products with a young man. When the experiment was over, the young man, using a standard line, would ask the woman for her phone number. After all the women had gone through, the researchers tallied the responses. They discovered that the young man was able to get phone numbers from 28 percent of the women in the neutral music room, but he almost doubled his chances with the women who had been exposed to the romantic music: 52 percent.67
But, guys, if you really want to get a woman’s phone number, there is one more thing you can do to increase your chances. A study found that women were 31 percent more likely to give their number to a man carrying a guitar. That’s double the amount of women who would give their number to the same man when he was empty-handed. Interestingly, the researchers tried a few more items and found that if the same man held a sports bag, his success dropped even further than the empty-handed guy.68 Therefore, guys, ditch the gym bag, grab a guitar, and start playing romantic love ballads that you sing in a deep Barry White timbre, and you should be going home with more numbers than the phone book.
SOUNDS LIKE LOVE
Interestingly, the way you speak might actually determine if your relationship is heading toward love. Researchers at Albright College found that people engage in voice modulation when speaking to a romantic partner versus a same-sex friend during phone conversations. In the study, researchers recruited people who were newly in love and asked them to phone either a romantic partner or a same-sex friend. In the brief conversation, the participants were instructed to simply say, “How are you?” and “What are you doing?”
Next, the researchers played the recordings to eighty independent raters who judged the samples for sexiness, pleasantness, and degree of romantic interest. The study found that the raters were able to correctly identify whether the caller was speaking to a friend or a lover. This led the researchers to conclude that people alter their voice to communicate relationship status.
Next, the researchers used a spectrogram to measure pitch. They found that both men and women tend to match the pitch of their romantic partner. The researchers believe that this change in voice represents a desire for affection and intimacy, and is a way of telling the other person “I am one with you.”
The researchers then performed a paralanguage analysis. Paralanguage samples are stripped of their content but maintain inflection and intonation. The researchers were surprised to find that the raters could sense stress and nervousness when the callers were speaking to their lovers.69 The researchers might’ve been surprised, but after what you know about attraction, you shouldn’t be. When the callers phoned their romantic partner, they were just simply attracted and hopped-up on norepinephrine.
IT FEELS LIKE LOVE
Jana was perplexed. She had been talking with Christopher for weeks. They had their first coffee date last week and she was beginning to like him. But this week they met again and she walked away with a totally different impression of him.
“I don’t know what happened. The first time we met, he seemed nice, warm, and generous. However, this last date, he acted the same but somehow seemed rather cold and aloof,” she said.
“Tell me more about the date. Where did you go?” I asked.
“Well, the first time we just met for coffee at a cute little shop near my house and just chatted for about an hour. He told me about his work and hobbies. We have some common interests and it was nice,” she said.
“What happened on the next date?” I asked.
“Nothing really different, except we met for frozen yogurt. I had cake batter with Reese’s pieces, and I think he had mocha. We talked mostly about playing golf,” she said.
“What did you have on the first coffee date?” I asked.
“A pumpkin spice latte,” she said.
“Was it hot or cold?”
“Hot . . . why?” she asked.
Jana’s two very different impressions of her date might be the result of her hands casting a vote. That is to say, the settings and what a person feels with his or her hands can have an effect when it comes to attraction. Tactile sensations are an important way to gather information from your surroundings and can have a profound influence on how someone senses the environment and the people in it.
In a unique experiment by Lawrence Williams at Yale University, Williams set out to discover if temperature had an effect on perception. He believes that it’s no coincidence that we use the same word—warmth—to describe both a physical and an emotional experience. “Somewhere in the brain, those two sensations are linked,” he says. “Think of a baby held in its mother arms. The child is experiencing love, affection, and comfort. But you also have, at the same time, an experience with a warm object, in this case a warm human being.” 70
To test his theory, Williams had the participants of the study greeted by a host prior to getting on an elevator. The host held a cup of coffee, a clipboard, and two textbooks. Not realizing they had started the study, during the elevator ride, the host would ask the participants to hold either her hot cup of coffee or iced coffee as she jotted down some notes. After she wrote down the information, she took back the coffee.
The participants were then directed to the experiment room, where each read a story about a hypothetical person. The participants were then asked to rate the person on ten personality traits. The experiment found that people who held the hot cup of coffee perceived the hypothetical person as warmer, more social, happier, generous, and better natured than those who had held the cup of iced coffee. In contrast, the participants who held something cold perceived the hypothetical person as cold, stoic, and unaffectionate.71 Therefore, on Jana’s first date, when she had the hot pumpkin spice latte, she walked away believing that Christopher was a nice, warm, and affectionate guy, but on the second date, when holding the frozen yogurt, her impression of Christopher literally cooled.
It’s not only our hands that make this perception, but our legs, arms, and even our butts can chime in their opinion. Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Joshua Ackerman calls this “incidental haptic sensations”—the phenomenon where physical touch can affect your perceptions. In his study participants judged impressions by the seat of their pants. Eighty-six participants were asked to sit in either a hard wooden chair or a soft-cushioned chair while completing an impression formation task, where they were asked to judge an employee. The study found that chair hardness had an effect on this judgment. Participants sitting in the hard chairs had perceptions of strictness, rigidity, and stability, while participants sitting in the soft sofa had a more positive overall impression.72
When Jana had her initial coffee date, she held a warm cup of coffee and sat on a cozy couch, causing her to feel that Christopher was kind, comfortable, and warmhearted. However, on the next date, when she went to the yogurt shop and held the frozen yogurt while sitting on a cold stiff plastic chair, her impression of Christopher changed. Now, instead of warm and friendly, Jana perceived him as cold, harsh, and quite literally a bit of a rigid hard-ass.
THE FIRST KISS
Before someone can pass into love, there is one test they have to pass—the infamous first kiss. Although tempted to call this the taste test, the first kiss actually has several factors involved, including taste, smell, appearance, and feel. In a joint study involving more than a thousand college students, researchers evaluated the preferences and attitudes of kissing. The study found that men place a value on kissing, but women place a higher value on the first kiss and actually use it as an assessment device to determine if the man is someone they would like to see again.
The study found that women judge a good kisser before they even kiss by looking at the appearance of his teeth. If he has a nice smile and white teeth, chances are more favorable that he’ll move to round two: the kiss. At the moment of a kiss, there is an exceedingly rich and complex exchange of tactile and chemical cues, such as breath and the taste of the mouth. This magical moment is critical and may mean the difference between love or not.
In a Gallup poll (cited in the same study) people were asked, “Have you ever found yourself attracted to someone, only to discover after kissing them for the first time that you were no longer interested?” Of the respondents, more than half the men, or 59 percent, said “yes,” while a whopping 66 percent of the women said “yes.” 73 Therefore, that first kiss may mean the difference between moving on to the next romantic phase or having the door of love shut in your bad kisser. To ensure your favorable ranking on the kiss-o-meter, may I suggest forgoing the garlic risotto and maybe packing a few mints on your first date?
Oh, and one more interesting thing: the part of the brain that becomes activated during first kisses is the insula. The insula has an important role on the road to love. Its job is to take senses and assign emotional significance to them. The insula is involved in sensations such as touch and taste, as well as feelings of trust, empathy, and love.74 It’s important to keep the insula happy, because, as a Yale University of Medicine Study verified, it’s also involved in the experience of emotions as disgust.75 Therefore, when the insula makes a negative judgment because a cup is cold or a seat is hard, it can cause the person to walk away, feeling repulsed. And because the insula is linked with taste, a negative encounter can literally leave a bad aftertaste in his or her mouth. Yuck! But then again, if the experience is favorable, the date can foster feelings of trust and empathy, as well as literally being sweet.
In a joint study with Singapore and the Netherlands, researchers investigated the effect that emotion had on taste. They had a group of people sit down and write about a personal story either about romantic love or a really boring essay on landmarks in Singapore. Afterward, they asked the participants to taste candy samples consisting of sweet-and-sour drops or bittersweet chocolate samples. The people who wrote about love rated their samples as sweeter than the landmark group.
To further test the theory, the researchers repeated the test, but this time, instead of candy, which is inherently sweet, they decided to use distilled water. Again, they primed the participants by having them write about love, or this time, happiness. Again, the researchers found that the participants who wrote about love rated the plain distilled water as sweeter than the participants who wrote about happiness. The researchers believe it’s because we have a shared neural circuitry associated with experiencing both love and sweetness. As the saying goes, “neurons that are wired together fire together.” Therefore, it’s possible that when one experiences love, it activates areas associated with sweetness, eliciting a sweet sensation even without actually tasting it.76 In other words, if the night is going well as thoughts of potential love come up, that good-night kiss could be “sweeter than Tupelo honey.”
Now that you understand a little more about what’s behind that feeling of attraction, let’s take a look at what you can do to enhance your attractiveness to draw love in.