The Science of Hot
Posted on April 4, 2008
Filed Under marriage, My Better Half, boyfriends, attraction |
So I missed this one back in February when a post on romantic love would have been more apt. So what if it’s April. Better late than never, right?
Ron over at RWorld turned me on to TedTalks and, particularly recommended this lecture given by Helen Fisher called The Science of Love. Head on over, give it your full attention and come on back because, if you’re like me, it’s been over a decade since you actually fell in love with your spouse or significant other or whatever and it’s been a long time since you’ve thought about the flush and flutter of new infatuation. It’s so fascinating and nostalgic to hear Fisher frame that now historic moment in time in her own scientific terms, outlining the way our brains actually behaved in order to effect romantic responses that inevitably lead to a long term commitment which is, by definition something entirely different than the initial phase of love when one person is rapidly and recklessly and beyond reason becoming the center of your world.
Remember that? Remember a time when sharing collective space meant something more than divvying up the to-do list and deciding whose turn it is to give your youngest child a bath? Remember when it had to do with whole afternoons playing hookie from school or work or obligation in order to just sort of inhale each other’s presence.
According to Fisher, the physical manifestation of this infatuation comes from the dopamine levels in the brain as they rise to create a great rush of energy and feelings of euphoria equivalent to the brain’s response to snorting a line of cocaine when around this person, talking on the phone to this person, merely thinking about this person. According to Fisher the dopamine response is even more powerful than sex drive which is a purely lust driven brain response and can’t quite compete with the complexity of romantic elation though the chemicals in our brains released during orgasm actually help promote the cause of romance, helping bridge the gap between physical and mental attraction. (Perhaps explaining why a person is, initially, willing to overlook obvious incompatibilities and impossibilities in the pursuit of love.)
Fisher makes a comment in her lecture about how a person’s world view, dictated by dopamine-colored glasses, can become so focused on their new lover that even that person’s car in a parking lot of hundreds of cars can inspire a romantic surge and feelings of elation. It’s a car for God’s sake. But it’s HIS car or HER car and it stands out as different and better.
This reminds me of My Better Half’s ride back in the day. He used to cruise around our college campus in a brand new Pathfinder (when Pathfinders were new on the scene and kind of ghetto, the Escalade of the 90’s). He had five-smoke tints, Miami Dade tags and those particularly offensive mud flaps with the naked ladies. He had sub woofers and a playlist that included De La Soul and 2 Live Crew.) And somehow all those incongruous messages about who he wanted to be versus the intellect that he actually possessed added up to something special and I loved to drive that car around, mud flaps and all, until the day I was driving it on campus and backed into some petite, manicured girl from Manhattan in her white and very delicate Infinity convertible. The Pathfinder completely crushed her hood with its attached trailer hitch. A female cop arrived on the scene to write up the accident report. When I explained to her that I couldn’t find the registration and it wasn’t MY car but my boyfriend’s car, she walked around to the back of the vehicle, pointed to those mud flaps and said, “Oh really, I’d have never guessed.” And then she wrote me a huge ticket and had the car impounded.
Before there was My Better Half, I had other boyfriends whose rides were also the embodiment of the persona they were trying to project. First there was my high school boyfriend who had, and probably still has, a car fetish. His mother bought him the VW Corrado when it first came out. And he would spend hours washing his baby, polishing the hub caps with a toothbrush, pampering the hell out of that vehicle in a way that suggested he might be capable of focusing a little more attention in my direction. He never ever let me drive that car and so, a few months post-purchase, we were finished.
Then their was another brief college romance with a sort of townie guy from Long Island who, of course, drove a muscle car, maybe a Mazda RX-something or other. He encouraged me to drive that thing all over town, back and forth, park it prominently in front of my dorm. He was really, really into me. My driving his car felt something like his version of possession. There is something to this playing hard to get thing and his over zealousness and availability eventually drove me away, but, for awhile, I did miss driving that car.
And of course there was the actor that was also a Superbike racer. I won’t get into how predictably attractive I found that particular mode of transport though it did make for bad hair on each and every date.
Now, as I gaze out at the driveway at my four door SUV with booster seats strapped into the back and enormous splat of bird shit on the windshield, I’m having trouble conjuring the days when a car was a simple projection of one’s sexuality. I’m trying to think, if I were back in college and my parents were willing to buy me a car (which they weren’t), what I’d be driving, leaving spikes of dopamine in my wake.
I think it’d be the Jeep Wrangler, four door, steel blue metallic exterior with leather and a mad sound system that will, sadly probably play Raffi or John Hiatt doing Thank Someone because it’s kid appropriate and soothing…Where or Where has my dopamine gone?
Ron has informed me that there is actually a soundtrack that should go with this post. So here it is, The Dresden Dolls doing The Jeep Song. I swear I had never heard this song before writing today’s post.
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19 Responses to “The Science of Hot”
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dear c,
your dopamine, i am sure, is still very much present–it is merely taking a backseat to that
long term commitment which you define as: something entirely different than the initial phase of love when one person is rapidly and recklessly and beyond reason becoming the center of your world…in this case, it is obviously your children.
you speak of rides back in the day,
and i remember my first boyfriend.
he was my highschool-college sweetheart, someone I stayed with for EIGHT years…
he had a bicycle.
He could not even give me a ride on his,
but he did get me my own bike so we could go places together.
(i did not get very far)
thanks for the laugh.
~chesca
Oh Chesca, that’s true love…sticking with the man who can offer you only a bicycle. I want to weep for the sweet romance of that thought.
This reminded me of a time when a co-worker and I had a mutual crush. He told me what a rush it was for him to see my car in the lot. Me, I didn’t have a cube with a view.
It’s hard for me to imagine Jeeps with leather and other “luxury” features. I’m finally letting go of my ‘77 CJ7 this year, though one of the things I love is it’s simplicity. Nothing computerized, unlike my current vehicle which consistently gives me FUBAR messages. I’m not sure how I’ll get through the summer without driving topless, cranking “blister in the sun” by the Violent Femmes. That’s HOT.
I was often chasing Sean’s car, kind of, it required a lot of pushing. It heated me up in an entirely different way.
Ah, NOW know why I always have had such an affinity for small, boxy sedans. My first love drove a Fiat. Thanks for clearing that up.
Dear Cce:
The DC metro was the “ride” my first serious boyfriend and I had. Neither one of us owned cars so it was the metro rail which took us places. In a way, like Chesca and her bicycle guy, our time together became defined by how many metro stops we were willing to pass by in order to be with each other. Those rides eventually became shorter and shorter. Eventually, he ended up dumping me. Viewed through the transportation lens, this guy was my one stop metro boyfriend.
My second serious boyfriend rode an eye-popping, Porsche Boxster, I can’t deny that I looked all that riding by his handsome side but again, using the ride = relationship ruler, he was the one who was always in command of the vehicle, who preferred not to converse over the noise of the motor and who gave much thought where to park for the CAR’s convenience rather than for my own. We parted amicably his Porsche and I.
This brings me to my husband. Four years ago, my gem of a guy, bought me a brand new, straight from its German factory Mercedes E320. Putting the keys in my hand, he kissed me soundly sat me in the driver’s seat and told me to enjoy. Can’t tell you how my dopamine levels soared on that one. I’m still coasting on them. My tank, you could say, is always full.
P.S. I really enjoyed this post. Only you have this ability for making me laugh like no other blogger I like or love. As always, I can’t wait to read what you have to say.
Oh.my.God! I have a shameful track record of dating guys without a car! And the three that have had a vehicle were pick up truck and Impala drivers. So that’s why I have never been in love before. Hmph.
De, driving topless…you mean the jeep not you, right? Maybe I need to take a few layers off while driving around in my Honda Pilot. Perhaps the topless thing would help me a feel a little more desirable. Though there is a law about cell phone use and driving around here. I wonder if there’s on about keeping your shirt on?
Amanda, We’ll darling that’s true love too. If you can get out there and push, everything even slightly better must just feel divine.
TEOM, glad to have cleared things up for you. There’s something to the power of first loves and the sway they hold for time eternal.
Milena, Okay, that’s just unfair. Could I be more jealous of you? I’m having dopamine surges just thinking about the keys of a new Mercedes being dropped in my hand. I guess you earned it after one stop metro guy.
Moshizzle, I am wishing you a handsome man who dotes and fawns and drives something other than a pick-up or an Impala, really anything else will do, right?
I miss my Jeep Wrangler, deeply and madly. Car seats be damned, I want it back. momentofsilence
Although, now? I really want a Jeep Commander. Is that sexy?
Yeah, probably not. But it could go off-road, so maybe THAT is.
Hey cce, I get to be bookends to your post. How cool is that? And, this might be a good time to mention that I drive a bicycle that runs on metro rails and has mud flaps with trucker erotica art.
Fisher’s is a great talk but she doesn’t really explain the process by which a love interest goes from dopamine to “this dope of mine.”
You. Are. Hilarious.
you said a lot there. i am digesting. burp.
I filched this from you today. I’ve been thinking of Mike D and his little Fiat all day - the rat.
I’ve never been a car kind of person. It’s transportation. I have been acquainted with those who think quite differently. And come to think of it, the relationships never worked out.
And I love the comment above referencing how dopamine becomes “dope of mine.”
Maybe we just all need more sex to keep it dopamine, as opposed to the latter?
I’m off to read… and your timing is perfect, with spring finally in the air and stuff like that. Cute mudguard picture.
I’m sorry — liked your story about the jeep, but not the song!
I fell in love with my husband and his Toyota Celica (very sporty edition) and he loved me back despite my Ford Escort….really no steps up or down for me now with the minivan which I think has been scientifically proven to be invisible to single men.
C,
I dug into an old shoebox and scanned a photo for you.
you inspired a blog post.
~C
Hi CCE!
The saying “you learn something new everyday” is really true. I just found out that Chesca (who happens to be my sister) and I have something in common: first boyfriends that had bicycles as a “1st ride”.
Although, unlike Chesca I did not carry on a relationship for 8 years - I stayed with my boyfriend for just 2 years and then I married him. We’ve been married close to 20 years now and we are still biking… and laughing..and talking…and…still madly in love with each other (sorry for the mush)