Page 27 - Advanced Romance

24 Advanced Romance*
early psychology.
But the same often goes for whom you fall in
love with. You should realize you’re being railroaded
by your personal aesthetic, evolution and society. The human body, mind and evolutionary history are one
big impersonal aphrodisiac. Not that you don’t love many particular traits of your beloved. But you also love generally, evolutionarily.
Recall the many stories in which a character is given a love potion—say the famous love potion Number 9— so that they fall indelibly in love with the next woman or man they see. Now realize that the entire human body, with all its chemical, mental, and social influences is a cauldron made of such a potion.
And though you can’t control the body potion to the extent that you can guarantee you’ll be in love with the next person you see, you can predict that sometime soon you’ll probably fall truly madly deeply in love with someone. Like Conrad Lorentz’s ducklings, somewhere you’ll see someone on whom you will imprint your aphrodisiac body and mind, and you won’t be able
to shake them off completely—ever. But if you do understand that much of the imprinting is caused by nature, and much is not caused by your choice, then you might be able to gain some distance on this wondrous phenomenon.
Again, the distance gained should increase your compassion for the fellow creature with whom