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Science

Love Under a Microscope 284

Posted by Zonk from the mon-cheri dept.
smooth wombat writes "As today is one of the top five marketing-induced spending days, the obvious question is, what is love? Anthropologist Helen Fisher studied the brain's circuitry and found that the brain sees romantic love as a reward similar to chocolate, money or drugs. Does this mean that the mystery of love is less magical now that science has studied it under the microscope? According to Dr Fisher: 'You can know every ingredient in a piece of chocolate cake, and you still sit down and eat that chocolate cake and it's wonderful,' she said. 'In the same way, you can know all the ingredients of romantic love and still feel that passion.'"
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Love Under a Microscope More

Love Under a Microscope

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  • Love is a survival trait. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:06PM (#14719214)

    What is love?
    Baby don't hurt me
    Don't hurt me, no more
    Haddaway, What Is Love
    Oh oh catch that buzz
    Love is the drug I'm thinking of
    Oh oh can't you see
    Love is the drug for me
    Brian Ferry, Love Is The Drug
    From TFA:
    Romantic love is not only an emotion, it's a basic mating drive, and it's stronger than the sex drive.
    Since the odds of survival for a human child with two parents is (or at least was) much higher than the odds of a single-parent child, it shouldn't be surprising that humans have a strong drive to forge lasting relationships. Natural selection in action, and all that.

    • Further developments (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:08PM (#14719226) Homepage Journal
      When asked to confirm the above findings by Dr. Haddaway, a pair of scientists dressed in bright purple and blue labcoats nodded furiously, in rhythm.

    • Re:Love is a survival trait. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:10PM (#14719259)
      Since the odds of survival for a human child with two parents is (or at least was) much higher than the odds of a single-parent child, it shouldn't be surprising that humans have a strong drive to forge lasting relationships. Natural selection in action, and all that.

      Yeah, but a community-based social structure is also effective for child rearing. I suspect that the actual trigger for human monogamy was sexually transmitted disease, and that it's more of a social meme than a biological trait.

      • I suspect that the actual trigger for human monogamy was annoyed wives

        fixed
      • I have no formal education in this field so I may very well be talking out my ass, but I find it a bit of a stretch to equate monogamy with sexually transmitted diseases. STD being lethal is a much more modern thing [Yes syphilis does kill and it's been around for awhile] but I just don't see STD's being pervasive enough for this to occur. AIDS has only really become an issue for Homo Sapiens in the past 50 years or so, so clearly it was not a factor and with the exception of syphilis I can't think of ano
        • STD being lethal is a much more modern thing [Yes syphilis does kill and it's been around for awhile] but I just don't see STD's being pervasive enough for this to occur.

          Note that I said I believe this is a social meme, not an evolved trait. STDs do not have to be lethal to be undesirable. Perhaps ancient societies observed that monogamy seemed to reduce the occurrence of these diseases, and therefore changed their social norms to favor monogamy.

          I'm not an expert, just putting out my ideas.

          • Perhaps ancient societies observed that monogamy seemed to reduce the occurrence of these diseases, and therefore changed their social norms to favor monogamy.

            Since a lot of the STDs seem to involve cold sores, warts, rashes, discharges of disgusting fluids (perhaps blood) from the genital region, if not outright death, I suspect that would tend to encourage finding a mate who had none of these symptoms & trying to stay with them, i.e., otherwise known as monogamy.

            • Something doesn't have to be fatal to cause natural selection, it just has to prevent you from getting laid!
              • To further elaborate on your point, it only has to prevent the propogation of your genes to the next generation. This can be caused by many things, eg:
                . Not getting laid (warts etc making you undesirable)
                . Infertility (a few STD's do this)
                . Producing no viable offspring (still born etc or born very sick and dying shortly after. a few STD's do this too)
                . Dying before your offspring can take care of themselves (eg the STD doesn't have to kill you straight away).

                All in all i think that STD's would provide some

      • Re:Love is a survival trait. (Score:5, Informative)

        by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:32PM (#14719439) Homepage Journal
        If you look at people around the world and throughout time, monogamy for life is the exception, rather than the rule. People have what anthropologists call "serial monogamy" -- they are monogamous for a time, and then break up and get new partners. They have sexual relationships with several people during their lifetime, but they are monogamous with each partner when they are with them.

        I have a degree in anthropology and we spent a lot of time talking about the development of the state. Time was (about 6000 years ago), that there were no kings or any authority that could definitively tell another man what to do. Certainly, there were influential elders and other people who would make their voices heard, but ultimately men and women were free to do what they wanted. There was no judge or president that had ultimate authority to decide someone's fate. If someone wronged you, you could take revenge, and people might even agree with you, but it was ultimately your decision.

        Then, at various times around the world, states develop, where there is someone who can ultimately force someone to do something -- on pain of imprisonment or death. It seems to be driven by the 'domestication' of a food crop as a farm staple (wheat, rice, corn), which can be stored, paid as tax, and then redistributed to men bulding pyramids.

        I suspect that the ideal of a lifetime monogamous commitment was developed by the new State Authorities in order to get men working on pyramids instead of going hunting all the time and fighting over women. Remember, it's the state who marries people. In olden days, if someone slept with your wife, it was considered theft. So, the state was in charge of women and sexuality which freed up men's time and effort, so they could be sent off to construction camps or to fight in foreign lands.

        So, the bottom line of this circular story is that Kings wanted as many young chlidren as possible so they could raise armies and conquer other kings, and have plenty of labor to build pyramids and other structures proclaiming their greatness. If you have farming and state intervention in re-production, this assists greatly in fertility.

        If you look at hunter/gatherers, their reproduction patterns are like modern nuclear families. A woman might have 3-4 children. The 10-12 children was a part of the farming social structure.

        • lifelong monogamy (Score:3, Insightful)

          by oni ( 41625 )
          A very interesting post, but I wonder:

          I suspect that the ideal of a lifetime monogamous commitment was developed by the new State Authorities

          Is there any actual evidence that a group of people got together in a back room and actually consciously invented lifelong monogamy? Because the idea seems to me just a little bit far fetched. I don't think that people are quite that insightful and forward-thinking.

          At any rate, just to support what you said about serial monogamy, there is strong evidence that it was
      • I suspect that the actual trigger for human monogamy was sexually transmitted disease, and that it's more of a social meme than a biological trait.

        While I agree that STDs could've played a part, I disagree in that it is the only trigger. Humans are a social animal, and children raised in an environment with close exposure to both sexes are more likely, IMO, to develop proper behavioral attitudes. Simply put, a child learns about members of each sex and how to interact with them. Children raised under on

    • This article right here is why I used to want to go into psychology.

      The subheading of TFA: "Romance may be tied to reward system that can cause addiction".
      Well, no kidding! If love isn't an addiction I don't know what is. I could have told them that and saved them quite a bit of money.

      Another from TFA: "It became apparent to me that romantic love was a drive -- a drive as strong as thirst, as hunger. People live for love, they kill for love, they die for love, they sing about love."

      I bet she cited Shakespea

    • Oxytocin junkies (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Tackhead ( 54550 )
      > Since the odds of survival for a human child with two parents is (or at least was) much higher than the odds of a single-parent child, it shouldn't be surprising that humans have a strong drive to forge lasting relationships. Natural selection in action, and all that.

      ...and it should be even less surprising that romantic love - the obsessive attraction to the beloved - fades in both males and females after about two years. Just long enough to meet, mate, spawn, and wean the offspring.

      people who we

      • I've eaten some pretty fucking good chocolate cake in my day. Ain't never wanted to die for the shit.

        I vote this +5, Supremely Sig-Worthy. Nicely done.

      • Re:Oxytocin junkies (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @07:00PM (#14720720) Homepage Journal
        I've eaten some pretty fucking good chocolate cake in my day. Ain't never wanted to die for the shit.

        There are people who'd say things like that about their preferred batch of ingredients. We call them junkies, the chemical they use is called by many names -- not the least of which is junk. When a junkie is deprived of junk, they go through withdrawal. They experience physical pain, depression, and often behave irrationally or self-destructively in order to get their fix.

        I think there's a very big difference between people who say they are willing to die for their partner and people who are willing to commit suicide as a result of rejection. Don't attempt to compare willing self-sacrifice to save another with irrational, self-destructive behavior. They aren't the same thing. One is driven out of care for another, the other out of care for oneself.

        Dying for someone you care about is driven by of a sense of protection, and is a trait that has benefits for the survival of the species. Killing oneself because of being deprived of someone's love is driven by a selfish sense of want, and is a trait that just tends to Darwinianly reduce the gene pool..

    • This being Slashdot, I figured someone would say "this is just a survival trait; natural selection in action." But from the original article is an interesting bit:

      For the study, Fisher developed a questionnaire about passionate love, including such questions as "Would you die for your partner?" She said she was shocked by the answers to that query: All of the subjects said they would.

      What especially surprised her was the casual way in which they responded.

      Note she didn't phrase it: "for your offspring",

  • Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:07PM (#14719221)
    What if the secret ingredient in that cake is "love"? How do they explain that?
  • Never trust a skinny chef. If a chef won't eat their own concoctions(sp?), you probably shouldn't either. If knowing the scientific details of love makes it less rewarding, it's probably not that great to begin with.

    Frist Psot?

  • Love is friendship set on fire (Score:5, Funny)

    by jaymzter ( 452402 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:08PM (#14719232) Homepage
    Roses are red
    Violets are blue
    All of my base
    Are belong to you

  • Love is (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dr. Eggman ( 932300 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:09PM (#14719241)
    Love is like a box of chocolates. You sneak one or two before you decide to buy. Then eventually you do buy, take it home and eat them all in one sitting. Finally, your left with your body feeling sick, your wallet feeling light, and holding an empty box.
    • You're not describing love. You're describing getting hookers.
      • From the parent:
        You sneak one or two before you decide to buy.

        Where are these free "try before you buy" hookers of which you speak?

      • Re:Love is (Score:4, Informative)

        by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:22PM (#14719360)
        Actually, I think he's paraphrasing the Smoking Man from the X-Files:

        "Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there's a peanut butter cup or an english toffee but they're gone too fast and taste is fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits of hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. If you're desperate enough to eat those, all you got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers."

  • Slashdot Love (Score:5, Funny)

    by biocute ( 936687 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:09PM (#14719247)
    It's like I knew I will get fired one day for reading Slashdot during office hours, I still read it.

    It's like I knew the next story will only be out in 20 minutes, I still hit F5 every second.

    It's like I knew a story is a dupe, I still "read more" and reply to it.

    If this is not true love, what is?

  • For a philosophical start... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DoofusOfDeath ( 636671 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:11PM (#14719265)
    This touches on the issue of mind / brain duality.

    Is our mind something that's simply a meta-effect of the brain, so that for instance if you view/control my brain you can fully know / control my mind?

    Also note that the answer to this has serious implications for free will, the justice of retributive punishment, etc.
    • I honestly didn't realize that duality was much of an option concerning the mind/body problem. I thought most people too either the type or token physicalist view or took a phenomenological view of this argument. Cartesian duality (and from what I understood most other versions) suffer from issues in causality. By this, if a mind is a purely mental thing, it cannot control the brain, and the other way around.
    • What duality? Oh, that Cartesean claptrap. Sorry, but the brain IS the mind. That's the brain's job. And yes, if we could see your brain at work in fine enough detail, we might be able to know what you are thinking. But that would require extensive mapping of the unique neural pathways in your brain. While we know what certian regions of the brain do, we don't know the exact links in your brain. Every brain is different in the fine details. and we can already control your mind at a very simple level
  • Nothing better than making love with your mate/spouse than after smoking a good joint.. the sense of touch is enhanced, the the beat of the music just flows...., the orgasm is better... so ya I'll pick the drugs option. Start it out by going to an open-air concert if the weather is accomodating in your area, make sure it's a quality strain of bud and pre-roll them before you go out.

    • Seconded. Even better if she rolls the joint for you =_)

  • So Food = Love? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Assmasher ( 456699 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:11PM (#14719268) Journal
    We are a very loving nation apparently...
  • I read such a topic 3 weeks ago in National Geographic. The article was pretty well written. Chemical imbalances, irregular brain patterns and oxcotin (i think that was the chemical).

    Check out this video. [nationalgeographic.com] Pretty cool.
  • Since I lack the philosophical education to completely explain what "Love" is (other than a simple chemical addiction from the brain ;) ) I will not attempt to answer that here.

    What I will leave you with is a artist's parody of this same query.

    Go ponder that for a while. :)

    http://whatishl.ytmnd.com/ [ytmnd.com]
  • they have all the answers. Condition a system so that any unknown variables are in a state of gimbal lock and they begin to think that the variables they observe changing are the only variables. Impose your own notions as to cause and effect, and behold! you have an experiment with repeatable outcomes with little insight as to the nature of reality.

  • It says in 65nm letters (soon 45nm at Intel)

    Roses are red,
    Violets are blue,
    All my base,
    Are belong to you!

    And some time after I posted this original poem on /., in 2000. ThinkGeek decided to do a shirt [thinkgeek.com] on the a variation of it.

    I don't know what to think.

    A later version dedicated to Rob and Kathleen (in 2002) can be found here [slashdot.org]

  • chocolate cake analogy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by evenprime ( 324363 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:16PM (#14719313) Homepage Journal
    That chocolate cake analogy is good. Just like a cake you can mix all the right ingredients and still make a big mess of it instead of something good.
  • So... how long before Lady Godiva [godiva.com] and I can legally marry?
  • And the only one that applies to this research is romantic love. Not that the article doesn't explicitly say that, it certainly does. But I think it's worth bringing up though. Some people use the word love as if it's singly defined, but many cultures define love differently.

  • Chocolate luuuuvvv.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CODiNE ( 27417 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:22PM (#14719361) Homepage
    I gotta say, I've never understood this... when people eat chocolate they actually FEEL something? They get the warm and fuzzies? I sure don't... it tastes nice and all, but that's it. Maybe in a similar way to how I'm immune to caffeine (Drink 3 Jolts and go right to sleep) I don't FEEL the chemical for love? People have said I'm cold and heartless a few times, I guess chemical sensitivity affects our personalities more than we think. Perhaps some don't feel love or other positive affections and simply have no desire to be a nice person. A new way to stay out jail perhaps? Instead of "He had a bad childhood" we'll hear "He simply doesn't have the chemical receptors for love."

    • I gotta say, I've never understood this... when people eat chocolate they actually FEEL something?

      I'm not big on chocolate, but a really nice meal is really quite enjoyable. It's just like any other pleasureable activity. So yes, I'd say I feel something when I eat a very good meal. I'm not sure describing the feeling as love is totally accurate, but it's not completely off the mark. Both things have a large pleasure component.
    • when people eat chocolate they actually FEEL something? They get the warm and fuzzies? I sure don't...

      Not milk chocolate. Serious, dark chocolate. Even then... meh... the effect is certainly less in men than it is in women, for example, and yea, there's probably a genetic variation from person to person.

      Then again, maybe you just pay less attention to the cues provided by your physiology; your emotions and the chemically-induced changes they bring about in your metabolism are unimportant to you intellect

      • Not milk chocolate. Serious, dark chocolate. Even then... meh... the effect is certainly less in men than it is in women, for example, and yea, there's probably a genetic variation from person to person.

        Meh... I don't like dark chocolate... that could be it right there.

        unimportant to you intellectually, and so you've become very good at tuning them out, to the point where you've forgotten that they ever were there, or they just bug you and you'd rather not pay attention... very Vulcan of you. Or slightly au
        • Meh... I don't like dark chocolate... that could be it right there.

          Almost definitely. I never really understood the whole "chocolate buzz" thing myself, really ( and I *love* dark chocolate, myself ) until my wife hooked me up with these little squares of stuff labeled as "99% pure cocoa". Dude. Woa. I ate three of those and definitely felt a bit of a buzz. Nothing like anything serious, of course, but definitely undeniable ( and pleasant ).

          Aren't geeks all mildly autistic anyways? Y'know all those auti

  • What is love? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wrf3 ( 314267 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:23PM (#14719370) Homepage
    The Greeks had four words for love: agape, phileo, eros, and storge. We English speakers seem to conflate everything around eros and thereby miss the point. Love is the act of the will whereby another individual is placed ahead of yourself. That's why Christians are commanded to "love their enemies" and why the Apostle Paul wrote that the greatest act of love was when God gave His Son as the sacrifice for the sins of the world.

    No naturalistic scientist could ever write:

        Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
        or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
        it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
        It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
        Love never ends.
    • Yah, a naturalist scientist would probbably write something like this:

      Love is beautiful
      Like birds that sing
      Love is not ugly
      Like rats
      In a puddle of vomit

      Love is beautiful
      Like the sunshine
      And the dancing wind
      Love is not ugly
      Like pus
      And lice
      And tobacco snot
      Love is beautiful

      Love is beautiful
      Like all the little animals
      In a forest full of green
      That smells like pine
      And wonder
      Love is not invisible brain control

      And pain
      And malicious intent
      And lying all the time
      Although it can be all of these things
      And more

      Love is a
    • A scientist could in fact write a poem such as the one you quoted. Nothing about being a scientist is mutualy exclusive with being a poet.

      It's just that a scientist would never consider such vauge, amorphous musings to be a definition.

      Your point about english generaly not having a good way to describe the various aspects of love is a valid one. It's too bad you had to sully it with a cheap potshot at the scientific community.

      • I think he's talking about the attitudes relatedhere [slashdot.org]. If you believe there is nothing more to love than an arbitrary combination of chemicals in your brain, then you are not likely to believe that love is anything special.
  • I love eating them like cake!
  • 1. the traditional romantic-type love, a crush. a person can't stop thinking about another person, many times a minute even, to the point of mental distress. this is very definitely like addiction

    2. long-term love. this is when you operate on a day-to-day basis with the other person as if you were a unit, and you can finish each other's sentences and such. you don't think of the other person constantly, you just coexist with them fluidly (albeit with a certain level of conflict). if the person were to leave or die, you would experience great stress, as if you had lost a limb

    i think evolution set this up pretty well. romantic love is the almost gravitational chemically-driven attachment you have with someone else that allows for the binding of two organisms together socially. then, as the chemicals subside, you are left with permanent neurogical patterns and structures in both organisms such that you function as a social unit

    good design, i think, albeit with unavoidable failures such as:
    1. chemically bonding with someone who does not like you (stalking, obsession), your classic unrequited love
    2. ongoing long-term conflict that does not resolve, where you are bound to someone you have serious differences of opinion with. classic marriage counseling fodder and irreconiable differences divorce papers issues
    • I actually recall some article pointing out three aspects of "love" - pure physical attraction (lust, perhaps) which may drive two people towards each other, the "romantic" love which may result in them going crazy about each other long enough to get married and have kids whereupon you get the third part, the "long-term" love which is suitable for raising kids.

    • Re:there are two types of love (Score:5, Funny)

      by StikyPad ( 445176 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @05:04PM (#14719738) Homepage
      You forgot Love #3: You can't stand each other, but you stay together for the kids, and/or the fact that you can't afford that much alimony and child support taken out of that thing your boss calls a check, but you call a nice down payment on the power bill, and still pay for something to eat once or twice a week. A good day is when you can get up and leave for work early enough that it doesn't have a chance to nag you, and a great day is when you can get home early enough to tie one on before it arrives with some new shoes and, surprise!, her mother. Your step kids call you by your first name, and they hate your real kid, who now also calls you by your first name, just because their dad was smart enough to run while he had the chance. You'd have an affair, but an affair won't have you, and that's probably for the best since you're pretty sure your wife is paying money you don't have for a PI to watch you do things you're not doing, and you can't help but wonder if it's tax deductable. Every second Thursday, on your way to the pharmacy, you hatch a plan to collect a tidy sum from a certain life insurance policy, but then you remember you can't afford life insurance, let alone health insurance, so you crumple up the prescription and decide to take an hour vacation by sitting on a park bench and pretending to be homeless. Ah, love.
  • "Fisher studied the brain's circuitry and found that the brain sees romantic love as a reward similar to chocolate, money or drugs."

    Explains why when we pursue romantic love our bait often consists of one of chocolate, money or drugs.
  • I count myself among the geeks here who don't have much luck with the opposite sex. I have never loved a girl, and have never been loved by one (romantically that is...moms don't count!). What I'm wondering is....is there any way for me to experience this? Falling in love with someone isn't just something you can set out determined to do...it apparently just happens...with no guarantee that it will happen.

    That is a shitty thought, and I want to know what its like to be in love. Can any Slashdotters give

    • Falling in love with someone isn't just something you can set out determined to do

      Very true, but sadly, many people seem to behave this way. Hence the preponderence of failed relationships, and incredibly high divorce rates.

      Love isn't something you can force, it isn't something you can seek out. It'll happen when you meet the right person. The only possible advice I can offer is: meet as many people as you can, and don't just settle for the first person you have a passing attraction towards.
      • and don't just settle for the first person you have a passing attraction towards.

        Of course, that doesn't mean you shouldn't have fun with people you may not see yourself with in 5 years. Have a blast, by all means, but never get hooked.

        Once it's the real thing, you'll know!
    • I think you should take advantage of your geek skills, which usually involve problem solving and put them to use. First you need to identify the problem. It sounds like you aren't exactly trying to find someone. Finding someone to care about doesn't just happen (at least not most of the time). That's a dumb hollywood idea. People actively seek out mates.

      Most people I know have found someone through friends, but a growing number have found people online. If you haven't found someone through your friend

    • Ever try the geek dating website?
      Geek2Geek [gk2gk.com]

      I've browsed it out of curiosity(I'm married), and it seems interesting enough.

    • Re:How to find love? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by LF11 ( 18760 )
      Two things -- you have to be around girls, and you have to have the balls to talk to them.

      As far as being around girls ... learn to dance. Ballroom dance. Lots and lots of girls, and you'll get lots of confidence in those tricky things like, "will you dance this with me?" Plus, if it's a good school, they'll have recommendations for decent places to go and actually dance and/or meet people. Oh yeah, and there's absolutely no competition. None.

      BTW, dance is not gay. Yes, you can learn to wiggle your hi
      • Just as a disclaimer "How I Kissed Dating Goodbye" is written by a Christian, for Christians. It is just as applicable to non-Christians in its broader scope, but it deal quite a bit with spiritual issues that would probably not be as applicable to a Christian.
    • The best words of wisdom I can give you from my own experience are:
      "being alone is better than a bad relationship".
      Yes, it's true; when you're desperate, you'll put up with a lot of things. I had three quite manipulative/abusive girlfriends in succession, and then went for more than two years without one and it was only after I'd achieved closure that I realised the above, and understood it deep down.

      To meet the right person is one thing, but to be attractive to them requires that you're not desperate

  • Wikipedia has a good article... (Score:5, Informative)

    by FooAtWFU ( 699187 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:35PM (#14719466) Homepage
    Wikipedia has a good article, not on "love" per se, but on what psychologists apparently call Limerence [wikipedia.org], which is sort of the not-quite-really "infatuation" part of love. The part of love that drives you crazy, in short.
    • intrusive thinking about the limerent object
    • acute longing for reciprocation
    • some fleeting and transient relief from unrequited limerence through vivid imagining of action by the limerent object that means reciprocation
    • fear of rejection and unsettling shyness in the limerent object's presence
    • intensification through adversity
    • acute sensitivity to any act, thought, or condition that can be interpreted favorably, and an extraordinary ability to devise or invent "reasonable" explanations for why neutral actions are a sign of hidden passion in the limerent object
    • an aching in the chest when uncertainty is strong
    • buoyancy (a feeling of walking on air) when reciprocation seems evident
    • a general intensity of feeling that leaves other concerns in the background
    • a remarkable ability to emphasize what is truly admirable in the limerent object and to avoid dwelling on the negative or render it into another positive attribute.
    • Dude - thanks for the link. I'd mod you up if I had points. Never has a wikipedia article seemed so damn insightful as this one.

      Been through "limerence" recently and it's somehow reassuring to know it's a widely studied and observed phenomenon. Every single sentence/observation mentioned in that article made sense to me.

    • Definately an insightful post. "Limerance" is the nice feeling you get when you are "in love", but real love exhibits itself as a willful, personal choice, such as when your mate has had all of his/her limbs cut off and his/her skin burnt off in a car accident and you stay with him/her to attend to him/her for the rest of your mate's life.

      The study is on the former, but I'd like to see one done on the latter.

  • 'You can know every ingredient in a piece of chocolate cake, and you still sit down and eat that chocolate cake and it's wonderful,' she said. 'In the same way, you can know all the ingredients of romantic love and still feel that passion.'

    'Maybe, but once I found out what was in menudo I could never eat it again,' I said. 'In that same way, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to feel anything ever again. Thanks a lot wh...'

  • Wrong place (Score:5, Funny)

    by Swamii ( 594522 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:37PM (#14719492) Homepage
    Does this mean that the mystery of love is less magical now that science has studied it under the microscope?


    Asking this question on Slashdot is like asking a group of chimpanzees whether they prefer Spanish Red or White Zin.

  • so that's why things are so fucked up, eh? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jjeffries ( 17675 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:43PM (#14719544)
    Love = drugs = food = money?

  • Love is an illusion created by a mix of chemicals in the brain. It has nothing to do with any deep spiritual connection. It's merely your animal side reacting to the stimuli of oxytocin (not to be confused with Rush Limbaugh's drug of choice: oxycontin). If you expunge the animal side of your nature, you can see the world clearly and without being influenced by such ridiculous concepts as love and passion. Stop lying to yourself. There is no such thing as love. Or is there? Check my sig link to find
  • If the "mystery of love" has been studied to the same extent as chocolate [wikipedia.org], than I would suggest that our understanding of how it works and the effects it has on us are a long way from being understood.

    Put another way, if you take the 400 or so compounds in chocolate and study them invidually (putting aside the need to study all the possible combinations), you'll end up with something like "Big boobs in the female of the species increases the chances of successful mating." Hardly useful. Or informative.

    My
  • The word "love" is code for a filthy conspiracy between the male-hating female gender and the oppressive lap-dogs that run the world government and economy. Just kidding. Hang on, I've got to take out the trash... -derfel
  • Some teachers, writers, scientists, philosophers (And yes, dedicated F/OSS programmers too!) they have their rewards when they see their jobs finished.

    So, cheer up, if you don't care that much about having a girlfriend, it's not because you're a loser, but because you don't actually NEED a girlfriend.

    Of course, this is only MHO.

  • Love is...keeping your promises. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @05:33PM (#14720006)
    My wife, Susan, and I were together for 20 years.
    We were an unconventional, but very happy couple (I am 42, she was 61).

    If romantic love is a reward, it's a reward for something deeper.

    • Love is dropping everything when she's diagnosed with a brain tumor in November 2005.
    • Love is being there for surgery, medication ... everything.
    • Love is staying there 24/7 for the week she's in a coma.
    • Love is making sure she's never in any pain and never alone.
    • Love is holding her in your arms when she dies in January 2006.
    • Love is keeping your promises.
    • Love is missing her.

  • The best advice is don't take meds (Score:3, Informative)

    by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @07:08PM (#14720789) Homepage Journal
    if you want to fall in love.

    Of course, if you're a schizophrenic axe-murdering psychopath, um, maybe you don't want to fall in love.

    or at least not until you go on a hunting party with our VP.

  • Anthropologist != Neuroscientist (Score:4, Informative)

    by feijai ( 898706 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @08:27PM (#14721243)
    Call me highly skeptical. Helen Fisher [rutgers.edu] is a physical anthropologist [wikipedia.org]. As in population geneticists, primatologists, and paleoanthropologists. This is a far cry from being an expert in studying the "circuitry" that underlies love. In her book, she hooked up with some doctors from SUNY to use MRI brain scanning to "look at what love looks like", but the book is really mostly just anthropology. In truth, we have no idea what the circuitry of love is (yet), but we have long understood the effect of endorphins (caused by chocolate, heroin, running fast, and love) on the human brain and their relationship to one another. Thus her claim is both simultaneously old hat and inexpert.

  • Looks like ignorant reductionism to me (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Julian Morrison ( 5575 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @11:14PM (#14722093)
    ...very much like deciding that tears explain sadness.

    I know subjectively, that even my simple emotions are complex, multilayered things. There's the sensation-level feedback which lets me know I'm experiencing an emotion. There's learned-behaviour changes like reinforcement (of love, happiness, etc) or disincentive (from pain, shame, etc). There's thought-ability changes, belief-prioritization changes, even memory recall changes. All in parallel. And that's leaving aside the experience, belief and attention context that triggered the emotion. So, it looks to me like what these guys are doing is picking at one strand (new love's pleasure/reinforcement/habituation mechanism) and thinking they have the totality. Which is just ignorant, and I'd guess it's not accidentially ignorant. More people pushing the "mind is nothing but meat" idea. Not an opinion I share!

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