tenchi muyo 
february fourteenth
Fuck Valentine's Day.
There is no such thing as pure love. Love is a blanket concept, to cover up the inadequacy of the human race in distancing itself from animals. Saying "I am falling in love with you, deeper and deeper" can be accurately translated as "I really want to get into your pants, now more than ever."
Love depends, literally, on chemistry. No, no, not the metaphorically poetic kind, but really, literally, on the biochemical pathways of your brain. Love is a chemical reaction in the caudate nucleus and the ventral tegmental area, which store and dispense a type of neurotransmitter called dopamine. That motivation, that exhilaration, that euphoria you feel when newly in love are all caused by dopamine spreading towards its receptors.
Dopamine is energizing, intoxicating, and addictive (why else do you think they call it 'dope-amine'?). Over time, your body builds a tolerance to dopamine, and you begin to need more and more of this chemical to feel the same high you did when you were first madly in love. The same way the body develops a tolerance towards alcohol or nicotine or every other drug you can think of. This is the reason why, over time, passion fades.
People with obsessive-compulsive disorder have the same chemical imbalance as people in love, this time due to the very spectacular neurotransmitter called serotonin. The level of serotonin in the blood of obsessive-compulsives are 40% lower than those in normal people. The exact same 40% deficiency exists in the blood of people who declare themselves as 'presently being in love'.
Hence, it is virtually impossible to tell them apart. People with a mental affliction in the brain exhibit an identical chemical imbalance as people with love in their hearts, putting a new spin to the phrase 'crazy in love'. Couples on the verge of divorce have been known to get enraptured in the throes of passionate love the very instant they stop taking anti-depressants, which suppress serotonin levels in the blood. As one woman succinctly puts it, "I started having orgasms once more, and now we're in love all over again."
The average time for relationships to break up is four years, coincidentally the average time it takes for a child to be physically independent from its parents. Perhaps that is not coincidence after all. Biologically, it allows the male to copulate with other females while ensuring that his hereditary legacy remains safe from harm for as long as he is needed to protect it, but any longer and it would prevent him from spreading his seed.
Question: At what point does a relationship turn from romantic, passionate, physical lust into sedated, level-headed, happily-married companionship? Answer: When oxytocin takes over the role of dopamine in the body. Oxytocin is a powerful hormone that bolsters feelings of attachment and bonding; the clingy and the nostalgically-inclined are overflowing with such hormones.
Prairie voles are animals with high levels of oxytocin in their bodies, which is why they mate monogamously for life. Block their oxytocin receptors, as was done in a study, and these rodents stop forging life-long relationships; choosing instead to mate like every other animal on the planet. Like every other animal, including the pretentiously-sophisticated Man.
Translation? If you meet a person who openly declares a lack of commitment in relationships, then beware: the warning signals are right there in front of you. Stay away. Abandon hope all ye who enter. No good will come out of it -- trust me, I should know. Clingy people may be a nuisance to your everyday life, but think of it this way: they are that much more dependable. A slight headache is preferable to a major heartache. Better the devil who irritates you than the devil who leaves you hanging, to paraphrase an age-old saying. Stability or uncertainty; your choice.
In the end, where does this leave you? Which camp do you belong to? The hopelessly, carelessly trusting in blind love, in love-at-first-sight? Or the carefully, mindfully skeptical in exact science, in medically-proven facts and statistics? You decide. Preferably, cold and detached as it is, I am beginning to fall into the latter category. I choose not to put my life in the grasp of emotion. I choose not to expose myself defenceless in this impulsive, unpredictable, capricious whim called love.
The chances of a relationship continuing is increased when, on the first date, you go on an exhilarating roller coaster ride. Remove a chemical receptor in the brain and, as the song goes, "wherever you lay your hat is your home." How hollow is this thing called love, anyway? How much more emptier can it get? Put all your hopes and dreams on something baseless, something with a non-existent foundation? Something unfounded? Unproven?
Call me bitter, or sad, or depressed, or luckless in love. Doesn't matter; quantifiable, empirical science will back me up all the way. Until proven otherwise, I will stick with it. But hey, that's just me.
There is no such thing as pure love. Love is a blanket concept, to cover up the inadequacy of the human race in distancing itself from animals. Saying "I am falling in love with you, deeper and deeper" can be accurately translated as "I really want to get into your pants, now more than ever."
Love depends, literally, on chemistry. No, no, not the metaphorically poetic kind, but really, literally, on the biochemical pathways of your brain. Love is a chemical reaction in the caudate nucleus and the ventral tegmental area, which store and dispense a type of neurotransmitter called dopamine. That motivation, that exhilaration, that euphoria you feel when newly in love are all caused by dopamine spreading towards its receptors.
Dopamine is energizing, intoxicating, and addictive (why else do you think they call it 'dope-amine'?). Over time, your body builds a tolerance to dopamine, and you begin to need more and more of this chemical to feel the same high you did when you were first madly in love. The same way the body develops a tolerance towards alcohol or nicotine or every other drug you can think of. This is the reason why, over time, passion fades.
People with obsessive-compulsive disorder have the same chemical imbalance as people in love, this time due to the very spectacular neurotransmitter called serotonin. The level of serotonin in the blood of obsessive-compulsives are 40% lower than those in normal people. The exact same 40% deficiency exists in the blood of people who declare themselves as 'presently being in love'.
Hence, it is virtually impossible to tell them apart. People with a mental affliction in the brain exhibit an identical chemical imbalance as people with love in their hearts, putting a new spin to the phrase 'crazy in love'. Couples on the verge of divorce have been known to get enraptured in the throes of passionate love the very instant they stop taking anti-depressants, which suppress serotonin levels in the blood. As one woman succinctly puts it, "I started having orgasms once more, and now we're in love all over again."
The average time for relationships to break up is four years, coincidentally the average time it takes for a child to be physically independent from its parents. Perhaps that is not coincidence after all. Biologically, it allows the male to copulate with other females while ensuring that his hereditary legacy remains safe from harm for as long as he is needed to protect it, but any longer and it would prevent him from spreading his seed.
Question: At what point does a relationship turn from romantic, passionate, physical lust into sedated, level-headed, happily-married companionship? Answer: When oxytocin takes over the role of dopamine in the body. Oxytocin is a powerful hormone that bolsters feelings of attachment and bonding; the clingy and the nostalgically-inclined are overflowing with such hormones.
Prairie voles are animals with high levels of oxytocin in their bodies, which is why they mate monogamously for life. Block their oxytocin receptors, as was done in a study, and these rodents stop forging life-long relationships; choosing instead to mate like every other animal on the planet. Like every other animal, including the pretentiously-sophisticated Man.
Translation? If you meet a person who openly declares a lack of commitment in relationships, then beware: the warning signals are right there in front of you. Stay away. Abandon hope all ye who enter. No good will come out of it -- trust me, I should know. Clingy people may be a nuisance to your everyday life, but think of it this way: they are that much more dependable. A slight headache is preferable to a major heartache. Better the devil who irritates you than the devil who leaves you hanging, to paraphrase an age-old saying. Stability or uncertainty; your choice.
In the end, where does this leave you? Which camp do you belong to? The hopelessly, carelessly trusting in blind love, in love-at-first-sight? Or the carefully, mindfully skeptical in exact science, in medically-proven facts and statistics? You decide. Preferably, cold and detached as it is, I am beginning to fall into the latter category. I choose not to put my life in the grasp of emotion. I choose not to expose myself defenceless in this impulsive, unpredictable, capricious whim called love.
The chances of a relationship continuing is increased when, on the first date, you go on an exhilarating roller coaster ride. Remove a chemical receptor in the brain and, as the song goes, "wherever you lay your hat is your home." How hollow is this thing called love, anyway? How much more emptier can it get? Put all your hopes and dreams on something baseless, something with a non-existent foundation? Something unfounded? Unproven?
Call me bitter, or sad, or depressed, or luckless in love. Doesn't matter; quantifiable, empirical science will back me up all the way. Until proven otherwise, I will stick with it. But hey, that's just me.
PLAYLIST
One Head Light -- The Wallflowers
Meet Me In The Bathroom -- The Strokes
Violent Pornography -- System Of A Down
A Crow Left Of The Murder -- Incubus
Who's Got My Back? -- Creed
*
posted by the narcissist at 2:06:00 am
4 Comments:
hear, hear.
Yes, I read of a study in France on something similiar to this. I don't know if it was the same region of the brain, but it was some other brain neurotransmitter that sets off this dopamine or something like that. Well, I remember the study saying that after two years, well, like you said. Give science 5 years, and the public another fifteen, and this will be public knowledge or something like it. Think what that would do family and all the rest of it... But hey, what do I know?
Great post!!!
Love is narcissism at its utmost. I still don't think that that or its chemical basis takes away from what is. What it really is may be the peak of human connection, and the fact that we can and do attach ourselves to each other, even need to, is incredible. I want to have people in my life who would do anything to protect me and value me, and I them. It makes life worth living, I mean, it's what even trivial things like blogging are about. Connecting. I don't know, forgive the idealist in me, I'm a poet, it's what I do ;)
i think it's good to find a balance between science and belief. understanding how and why things work the way they do gives us a better frame of mind from which to look at them.
not sure if such findings will change anything, though. maybe it'll stop us from thinking too highly of ourselves.
and i'm wary of calling it the epitome of human connection; we're all just animals, after all. thanks for the comments!
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