Page 194 - The Truth Landscape Format 2020 with next section introductions-compressed

There's not an animal on this planet that will copulate with anything that comes along. Too old,
too young, too scruffy, too stupid, and they won't do it. Unless you're stuck in a laboratory cage --
and you know, if you spend your entire life in a little box, you're not going to be as picky about
who you have sex with, but I've looked in a hundred species, and everywhere in the wild, animals
have favourites.

As a matter of fact, ethologists know this. There are over eight words for what they call "animal
favouritism:" selective proceptivity, mate choice, female choice, sexual choice. And indeed, there
are now three academic articles in which they've looked at this attraction, which may only last for
a second, but it's a definite attraction, and either this same brain region, this reward system, or the
chemicals of that reward system are involved. In fact, I think animal attraction can be instant --
you can see an elephant instantly go for another elephant.

And I think that this is really the origin of what you and I call "love at first sight."

Our newest experiment has been hatched by my colleague, Art Aron - putting people who are reporting that they are still in love, in a long-term relationship,
into the functional MRI. We've found exactly the same thing. They're not lying. The brain areas associated with intense romantic love still become active, 25
years later.

There are still many questions to be answered and asked about romantic love. The question that I'm working on right this minute is, why do you fall in love
with one person, rather than another? I never would have even thought to think of this, but Match.com, the Internet dating site, came to me and asked me that
question. And so, I've spent the last three years on this. And there are many reasons that you fall in love with one person rather than another, that
psychologists can tell you. And we tend to fall in love with somebody from the same socioeconomic background, the same general level of intelligence, of
good looks, the same religious values. Your childhood certainly plays a role, but nobody knows how. And that's about it, that's all they know. No, they've
never found the way two personalities fit together to make a good relationship.

So, it began to occur to me that maybe your biology pulls you towards some people rather than another. And I have concocted a questionnaire to see to what
degree you express dopamine, serotonin, estrogen and testosterone. I think we've evolved four very broad personality types associated with the ratios of these
four chemicals in the brain. On this dating site that I have created, called Chemistry.com, I ask you first a series of questions to see to what degree you
express these chemicals, and I'm watching who chooses who to love. And 3.7 million people have taken the questionnaire in America. About 600,000 people
have taken it in 33 other countries. I'm putting the data together now, and at some point -- there will always be magic to love, but I think I will come closer to
understanding why it is you can walk into a room and everybody is from your background, your same general level of intelligence, good looks, and you don't
feel pulled towards all of them. I think there's biology to that. I think we're going to end up, in the next few years, to understand all kinds of brain Page194
mechanisms that pull us to one person rather than another.