Page 18 - Advanced Romance

Advanced Romance* 15
loved one turns from mere sexual attraction to complete adoration, dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin are in part responsible for that feeling. Your brain and you have decided that person has enough good qualities to be a worthy mate. Your body responds by flooding the system with the three drugs, dopnoser for short. So, the evolutionary establishment of this body chemistry is partly responsible for that wondrous feeling. But yes, it’s also due to the wondrous qualities of the other person.
When you have this feeling you can still think, “Zounds, what a person!” But you can also think “interesting, my system was just flooded with dopnoser. It’s time to try to achieve some rationality because evolution wants me to pursue this person irrationally. I’ll be especially on my guard. But also feel especially blessed that this person, any person!, causes those feelings.”
The good news for us romantics is that there are also chemicals that promote the attachment stage of love, the long-lasting stage without which lust and romance would lose their spiritual relevance and we might just
be dogs in temporary heat. Oxytocin is released when
a mother nurses a baby, but, according to Fisher’s findings, also when people have sex. It promotes mental bonding, that life-long appreciation of one’s mate. The theory is that the more oxytocin released the stronger the bond is.
Vasopressin is similar to oxytocin in helping cement