What is love? This is a question that has troubled humanity for thousands of years. Is love a feeling sung in poems, books, songs and films? Or is it a powerful force of nature that contributes to the creation and destruction of life? An emotion stimulated by the biochemical processes of the brain or something else - not yet studied by science? Man believes that the ability to love distinguishes him from most animals. But from the point of view of science, all romantic experiences are just cunning tricks of genes, the only desire of which is the non-stop transmission of information from generation to generation.
Three Kinds of Love
From the point of view of evolution, any living creature is just an “envelope” for transmitting information from ancestors to their descendants. The most important task of any organism is to copy and pass on a set of genes and ultimately leave a mark on history. At the same time, the genes of the simplest organisms chose the simplest path - repeated division. For example, how do asexual bacteria do this, which simply divide in two. The human gene chose a more complex option, betting on success - by mixing the genes of representatives of the two sexes. In order to ensure that mixing occurred, the genes resorted to one trick known to the world called “love.”
Helen Fisher, an American anthropologist from Rutgers University in New Jersey, a researcher of human behavior, believes that love is a set of biochemical processes that trigger the work of certain hormones. The basis of her theory lies in three mental varieties of love, each of which is characterized by its own chemical picture in the human body:
- Lust is the search for a partner for possible conception of a child. Can be directed at several people at once.
- Romantic love - the object is found, the loved one becomes the center of the Universe for us. Romantic love is characterized by the release of dopamine and lasts on average from 18 months to three years.
- Long-term attachment may be the longest lasting. Nature needs it to raise children.
What’s interesting is that one and the same person can experience all three types of love, both for one partner and for completely different ones, both separately and simultaneously: attachment to one person, attraction to another, and at the same time dream of a short-term relationship with someone third.
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Attachment or love - how to distinguish one from the other?
There is a simple criterion that allows you to understand whether affection or love has taken possession of you. The main difference between love and attachment is the presence of pain: pain in the absence of a loved one. And also the fear of loss. This is confirmed by real-life examples given at the end of the article.
I’m used to drinking coffee for breakfast and I drink it without noticing - it’s a habit. I’m used to it and want coffee for breakfast – attachment. I can’t have coffee, I scold myself, but I drink coffee – it’s an addiction. Attachment is like glue. If the glue stretches, this is a mild form of attachment. But if the glue grabs you in such a way that you can tear it off only with blood and pain - this is a strong attachment.
Strong attachment and love are very similar. In life, these concepts are easily confused. How to understand - love or affection ? Simple: we become dependent on who we are attached to. We are afraid of losing him, and therefore we must take care of him. This is really very similar to love, but in a voluntary-compulsory form.
We can talk about love for a very long time, but in short, love is a joyful, and most importantly, selfless concern. This is an interested attitude towards a loved one. Love attachment is a special type of psychological dependence on the object of love. The main feature of love affection is not the joy and care directed towards the object of love, but the suffering that the dependent person suffers. However, sometimes they revel in such suffering with voluptuousness.
When the absence of a loved one causes pain, it is customary to talk about sick attachment. There are times when attachment develops into something that deprives a person of freedom. In this case, we already talk about dependence.
In ordinary life, true love does not occur too often. Most often, love is considered to be a bodily attraction to another person. We are surrounded by love, hatred, friendship, affection . Someone is looking for love, but finds affection. Someone values friendship, which develops into love. Many of these concepts are closely intertwined. People are entertained by love, people are subject to affection, people grow with friendship and perish from hatred. We tend to confuse many different feelings and mistake one for another.
How do we know whether we are experiencing love or affection if we often experience both for one person? Close relationships eventually lead to attachment. Attachment can be both the basis of love and a painful feeling. Only real-life examples can clearly demonstrate the differences.
How to distinguish love from affection: examples from life
Imagine two families. One lives in constant quarrels, claims, resentments and very sincere scenes of jealousy. The husband sometimes drinks and sometimes beats his wife. But they don’t want and can’t live without each other. When the husband is late, the wife is incredibly worried. If something happens to the wife, the husband simply will not survive it. They literally grew into each other. They will not tolerate separation: divorce for them is the same as a cut to the living.
“It’s difficult with him, but I can’t live without him!” - the wife sobs. “She’s a bitch, but I’m so attached to her!” echoes the husband. That’s right, in such a situation it’s difficult to talk about love, but affection exists.
Here's another family. They are always sunny and cozy: joy, smiles, warmth. The couple is surprisingly attentive to both the children and each other. The voice is never raised here. Idyll. But the husband will always be as calm and bright, even if some circumstances separate him from his wife. He certainly loves his wife and children, but there is no affection in their relationship. He also loves the whole world.
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Feelings are just hormones
Let's take a closer look at Helen Fisher's three types of love. And we will understand which hormones act on humans and how.
The first type: lust (libido) is the body’s desire to participate in sexual reproduction. In this process, the main players are estrogen and testosterone - two main types of hormones that are present in the body of men and women and cause feelings of desire in the brain. They help choose a partner for procreation. Lust is an ancient mechanism of reproduction, against which morality and reason are absolutely powerless. It doesn’t matter to him with whom, when or how - what matters is the result, the transfer of the gene to the future.
The second type: romantic love (attraction) is considered one of the beautiful moments in life when a person really begins to feel love. If for lust all potential partners in procreation are the same person, then at the level of desire a choice occurs, for the sake of which everything was intended.
From a scientific point of view, attraction has three sub-stages, which are influenced by the corresponding hormones - adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin. Adrenaline is the first to kick in, and we should be grateful to it for the initial symptoms of desire: a person experiences euphoria - those same “butterflies in the stomach” are not a myth at all, the heart beats like a drum, a feeling of thirst - dry mouth sets in.
Next, the person falls in love and a tiny part of the brain is activated - the ventral tegmental area. The level of dopamine increases - a person becomes overactive, loses appetite and sleep, worries over trifles and at the same time begins to think better. When he sees an object of desire, the neurotransmitter dopamine activates deep areas of the brain, causing feelings of pleasure, excitement and desire (by the way, cocaine acts in a similar way).
The question arises: why do genes make a person nervous, but joyful and smart? The answer is simple: the “envelope with a set of genes” must overcome any difficulties, but bring the matter to reproduction with a specific chosen partner and do this as quickly as possible, before someone else appears who wants to take part in the transfer of genes to the next generation.
And after that, falling in love reduces the level of serotonin, which leads to the “love is blind” state. Low serotonin explains uncontrollable thoughts about the object of love, makes a person obsessed, and a person loses his sense of self.
Sandra Langeslag, a psychologist at the University of Maryland in the US, and her colleagues found that serotonin levels differ between men and women when they fall in love. Men in love have much lower levels of serotonin, which is why they tend to do all sorts of stupid things out of love.
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The third type: attachment, which appeared in living beings quite recently by evolutionary standards - about 120–150 million years ago. This type of love requires thinking about the future. While studying the “attachment factor,” scientists discovered two hormones that make a person stay with a previous partner: oxytocin and vasopressin. They begin to develop in happy lovers when their relationship moves into the phase of mutual love and confidence in each other. And at the same time, they reduce the production of hormones of the first phase of relationships. As a result, ardent passion subsides as tender affection grows.
Oxytocin creates the depth of a partner's love and affection, and also increases the desire to protect one's partner. It also helps create a strong bond between mother and baby and acts as an excellent pain reliever, reducing the pain threshold during childbirth. In addition, it is such a sensitive hormone that it automatically signals the breasts to release milk at the sound or touch of the baby. Oxytocin increases the desire to spend time with a partner and maintain social and physical contact with him.
Vasopressin is called an important hormone that promotes long-term relationships. This hormone is released in large quantities after sex. Although the brains of men and women are structurally different, they both secrete vasopressin from the pituitary gland. Vasopressin is largely responsible for the relationship between husbands and their wives.
During experiments, Swedish neuroscientists discovered low levels of vasopressin in male voles. To do this, scientists compared the level of vasopressin in the monogamous species of steppe voles Microtus ochrogaster with the level of polygamous meadow mice - Microtus pennsylvanicus. By changing the number of vasopressin receptors in their blood, they were able to turn incorrigible revelers into faithful spouses. At the same time, the remaining female rodents aroused aggression and hostility in them.
Why did genes invent such a complex mechanism? If we imagine that the offspring appears immediately after fertilization and immediately begins an independent life, then attachment is even harmful: what is the point of limiting reproduction to just one set of genes? The fact is that the more complex living beings became during evolution, the more time and energy was required to raise their offspring. To make a new bacterium, all you need is twenty minutes and a pinch of sugar. To get a full-fledged new person, you need nine months of pregnancy, comfortable conditions, a special diet, painful childbirth and a couple of decades of care and education.
Neither lust nor attraction takes such complexities into account. Their mission ends when the genes are passed on to the next generation. With the increasing complexity of animals and human organisms, reproduction has become not just a five-minute process, but a long-term project that even the body needs to plan in advance.
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Love lives for three years?
“Love is a battle. Lost in advance,” is a quote from the acclaimed novel “Love Lives for Three Years” by Frederic Beigbeder. The main character of the book is sure that a person is capable of loving one person only for three years. And then he gets carried away by new relationships.
Frederick Beigbeder's theory is based on the fact that the feeling of falling in love is associated with hormones - dopamine. Three years after the start of falling in love, the brain normalizes and returns to its normal rhythm, and the hormone stops stimulating the partners’ dependence on each other, and emotional dependence disappears.
Of course, the answer to the question - how many years does love last - cannot be unambiguous: there are couples who separate after a couple of months, others live in love and harmony all their lives. Professor from Stony Brook University (USA) Arthur Aron conducted research and found that love feelings can last for decades. According to him, prosperous married couples, even after many years, experience the same feelings as young lovers.
The study involved spouses who believe that they have a wonderful family and relationship, whose experience of living together exceeded 25 years. During the experiment, volunteers were shown photos of their significant other, relatives and friends. At the same time, the scientist monitored the reaction of the subjects.
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It turned out that married people with extensive experience, like young people, activate the same parts of the brain when looking at a photograph of a loved one. As a result, he came to the conclusion that love as an emotion leads to a deep connection between people and creates the same commitments and habits.
“Prosperous families should have friendly relations, interest in each other on a personal level, sexual satisfaction without obsession and common interests. Only in this case can love last forever.”
Difference between feelings
The difference between these feelings is that falling in love is a fragile embryo of love. You are in love and you want to spend more time with your loved one. You develop an enthusiastic attitude towards everything around you and a desire to be happy with the object of your love.
Love is a deeper, already hardened feeling, when for the sake of a loved one you can sacrifice your interests.
During love, you will not think about your happiness, but about the happiness of your partner.
Unrequited love is just a confused brain
Every parting is like a little death, and unrequited love is all you need to know about hell. These words describe the torment that a person experiences after experiencing unhappy love, from the separation or death of a loved one. Why does it hurt so much when we lose someone - due to death, divorce, breakup?
It turns out that at this moment the brain seems confused and disoriented. The loved one is still present in neural connections, and we habitually expect to see, hear, feel the one we loved so much. When this does not happen, the emotional centers of the brain, where memories of the lost loved one are alive, are activated in search of that person.
Excessive activity of the limbic (emotional) system is associated with a decrease in serotonin - when its production decreases, love is often associated with suffering. The most important function of this hormone in our body is to lift our mood, which is created in the cerebral cortex. If there is not enough of this substance in the body, this leads to depression. That is why at such moments one wants to isolate oneself from the world, one loses one’s appetite, the colors of life fade, and a person obsessively thinks about the subject of one’s feelings. At the same time, the body feels a lack of endorphins, which contribute to the experience of pleasure and joy. All this explains the physical and mental pain of breaking up a relationship.
Helen Fisher and her colleagues examined the brains of thirty people using MRI scans to understand the processes that occur in those who experience unhappy love. In all subjects, tomographic studies showed excitation in three areas of the brain.
The first zone, the reward zone, responsible for desires, attraction and dependence, is significantly activated when we cannot get what we want, we do not see the object of love, we cannot contact it. It turns out that the same center is activated that turns on when a person falls in love. And instead of calming down, forgetting or switching to someone else, the brain forces the feeling of love for the former lover to grow, to love even more than the one who rejected us. And he does this for only one reason: the brain strives to receive the greatest reward in life - a suitable partner for procreation.
The second area of the brain that is activated when a loved one is lost is the part that is responsible for evaluating losses and gains. This part of the brain gets excited when people take big risks that involve huge losses and huge gains. And the third area, which prevents you from living peacefully after a breakup, is responsible for the feeling of deep attachment to another person. It is thanks to her that people suffer from love and in the name of it they commit rash acts, including crimes. In addition, activating the mentioned part of the brain generates intense energy, focus, motivation and the willingness to risk everything to win the main prize - getting your loved one back.
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Love or affection. How to distinguish love from affection
Each of us dreams of finding true love and experiencing sincere feelings. And so we meet, as it seems to us, “our person” and feel like the happiest in the world. But a little time passes, and the feeling of euphoria disappears. We begin to see a person as he is with all his shortcomings. The dream of unearthly love disappears, and we descend to the earthly plane of affection. Unfortunately, most of us think that this is what is called a normal relationship.
How to distinguish love from affection
At its core, attachment as such does not pose a direct threat to two people entering into a relationship. But the word itself tells us that we bind a person to ourselves, and he binds us to himself. That is, we are interconnected, not free in our actions, thoughts and feelings. And this is not a question of responsibility or fulfilling obligations to each other. At its core, this is the imposition of restrictions on each other. From here we can see the following properties characteristic of any attachment.
When we are attached to a person, we deprive both him and ourselves of freedom of choice. The fear of losing each other, coming from the sense of comfort that lies behind the attachment, paralyzes a person, and he begins to exist in a very limited space, afraid to go beyond its boundaries. A person deprives himself of the freedom to make decisions and make his own choices, since they can resist the rules of the game that are imposed by attachment. If the relationship has turned into an attachment, it means both partners have become unfree in their self-expression.
This fear has a great impact on each of us, because we accept everything that happens inside us as our true selves. Thoughts, feelings and even many desires can be imposed on us by the collective consciousness. Not everything that comes from within us is “ours.” It is vital to accept this and learn to recognize your own voice. Of course, we are not perfect and our selfishness constantly makes itself felt, but we must remember that most emotions and thoughts are simply imposed on us from the outside. In order to see and hear ourselves, we need to learn to express our individuality. This is the only way to separate the “wheat from the chaff” and take the relationship beyond attachment to a higher level.
- The rudimentary state of creative realization
When we enter the limited space of attachment, we lull our creativity. The desire to experiment gradually disappears, and our life turns into a vicious circle of the same events. Creative realization is the ability to create when performing any activity, from thoughts to physical actions. Creativity is always expansion and learning something new, which is absolutely not characteristic of attachment. If you allow yourself to create, you can lose control and the strong walls of the comfort zone fortress will turn into ruins. - Lack of growth
Any attachment is conservation, in which growth is reduced to a minimum or completely stops. A person sees only one single choice before him - to live in such a way as not to lose his partner. The relationship loses any meaning at all, since it does not provide any development to both parties. The fear of losing what you have and not finding someone better causes panic, and both partners return to their usual relationships, without even suspecting that they are thereby completely cutting off each other’s possibility of any positive changes in themselves. - Mechanical relationships
Attachment turns relationships into a mechanical system that obeys two states - on. and off Partners, in order to support such a system, become biological robots that function in only two modes. From the outside, an ideal and harmonious relationship is just a reflection of soullessness. When we live in a way that is not typical for humans, we very soon begin to notice breakdowns in the mechanical system. This is how our inner space tries to destroy in us what is artificial and dangerous for our further growth.
In order to distinguish love, first of all you need to accept that this state originates within us and does not obey any external laws and rules. Therefore, it is necessary to consider this feeling from the point of view of the state of the inner world, and not our surrounding space. Let us highlight the main qualities that love imparts to our relationships.
- No fear of self-expression
This quality is fundamental, giving us the opportunity to learn to express ourselves in relationships without fear of being misunderstood or abandoned by our partners. When a person is ready to accept another as he is, without idealizing him, then he allows himself to be natural. By allowing the other to express all his emotions and thoughts openly, the partner thereby overcomes his fear of doing something wrong himself. Over time, the idea that a partner must be ideal and have some special qualities disappears, and the relationship moves to a new level of acceptance of each other.
Love plunges us into a state of inspiration and encouragement when we want to create and create something in our relationships. We begin to see opportunities for creativity in everything. The care, attention, and desires of a partner become the door to realizing our creative potential. By creating our relationships, we begin to create our destiny, regardless of what happens around us.
Where there is love, there is always a feeling of sincere gratitude. We stop giving thanks mechanically. We are so pleased to say “Thank you” that it becomes natural in the everyday bustle of life. We are happy that our loved ones are just nearby and we really want them to know about this in our gratitude.
- Becoming More
When we love, we understand that this is a great chance to remove everything unnecessary from ourselves. We stop focusing on our partner's shortcomings, and begin to look for those anchors that pull us down. Our reactions to the actions of our loved ones become mirrors in which we ourselves are reflected. We see all the corners and irregularities that need to be removed. So, step by step, we become More than we were before, gaining greater freedom and individuality. Our growth and development become noticeable not only on internal levels, but also in our outer life. - Freedom in relationships
This is not the freedom when a person changes one partner after another. This is internal freedom when we give our partner full right to choose and make their own decisions. Therefore, we do not react so painfully if he or she decides to end the relationship with us and move on. We are so strong and full of love that we are able to accept the choice of another without hysterics and panic that our life is over. Everything that you were capable of was done and you do not have a single drop of regret about anything unfinished.
Love is the most beautiful feeling we can experience. But the most important thing is that it does not depend on the actions and feelings of our partner, but primarily on our own.
Four minutes to fall in love
Doctor of neurology Gabia Toleykit believes that love at first sight exists, and moreover, it only takes four minutes for a person to fall in love. Love at first sight is due to historical reasons: our ancestors lived together in small groups and did not often encounter representatives of other tribes.
If a young girl accidentally encountered a handsome young stranger at an ice hole, her brain immediately signaled “this partner is right for you,” as our genes tend to mix to pass on better genetic material to future generations. The key factor in attractiveness is body signals, followed by voice tone. Spoken words have the weakest influence - you don’t even have to say anything, the look will say everything for itself.
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Arthur Aron also believes that in order to fall in love, it is enough to look into each other's eyes for four minutes. And also answer each other 36 questions from his questionnaire, which he compiled to conduct his next experiment. By the way, the experiment was a success - several test couples fell in love with each other after frank communication.
The scientist believes that vulnerability and intimate confessions create an environment in which the flame of feelings easily flares up. True, he has one reservation about this: answers to questions cause love only among those who have already chosen each other, consciously or at the subconscious level. And this is not surprising, the unconscious of the two recognizes and chooses each other - all that remains is to give the desire a chance to turn into a feeling.
Not only chemistry
Romantics, after reading the research of scientists, may be indignant: how can such a complex concept as “love” be limited to just the chemistry of brain processes? But knowing the recipe for chocolate pie does not discourage us from enjoying its taste. So it is with love. Having lifted the veil of knowledge about hormones and “gene envelopes”, we will not stop falling in love.
Love is not only a physical and chemical process based on hormones, it arises from the depths of our subconscious. It may seem to us that short-term love is just a fleeting feeling. While our brain at this time works hard to bring the body into a state of euphoria in love.
We never know in advance when we will meet our love and start all these complex chemical processes. And no scientific knowledge can help control this process; love cannot be started or stopped at will. This means that there is always a chance to meet your true love.
