Love: A chemical hijacking.

[KarmaSutra]

I'm at my tattooist's yesterday having Panda Samurai put on my shoulder.

Seven hours of raw scratching, we get to talking about our lives, our loves, and the sh!t we've done for a woman's attention. He tells me the tale of how he went from thug Gangsta in San Antonio to mild-mannered Husband and devoted father to three kids.

His tale opened my eyes.

Here's a dude completely tattooed, head to toe, who's murdered other thug gangsta's, with pictures of his family splashed in a flowered arrangement on his work station. Smiles and frolicking babies are what he's devoted to.

His wife brings him lunch around 1500, so I get to meet the object of his devotion.

Stunning. Breathtaking woman. As a purveyor of relationships and a social scientist, I felt it my obligation to get to the root of her attraction to her husband.

As we pick over take-out sushi, I pick my moment: "You know, I see there's complete adoration for your husband in the way you've been sneaking glances at him."

"Really? What was I doing."

"Your subconscious hamster is wildly spinning her wheel. It's obvious. You're biting your bottom lip as he and I have been talking about the women I'm seeing."

"Yeah, I do that alot. (she's now smiling a Joker face)"

"Is it because you're married to him or is it the attitude that he doesn't need you to be happy?", I asked her blankly.

"I begged him to marry me!"

(insert toothy, California roll tainted grin by my tattooist)

With that we continued to banter and finished my tattoo. This entire night I've been pouring over our conversation and it's relativity to my own dating/relationship paradigm.

What I realized is that "love", as inconsequential the term to the reality of the feeling associated with it, is a chemical hijacking of untamed testosterone co-mingling with err-too-close estrogen.

Love is lust on a leash.

As I ponder the many relationships I've had with women these past few years, it's a shocking realization that I do not love any of these women.

Not even the one's I've set time aside specifically for them.

What I interpreted as "love" was drawn out lust. Once I stopped feeling lustful, or she became boring sexually, I disconnect then head out for the next lustful conquest.

A moment of clarity for sure.

I'm not saying I don't know what love is. I'm saying I now know what love isn't.

 

[squirrels]

Once you start to become conscious of your body-chemistry, a lot of things seem less "magical".

I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it becomes VERY hard to "fall in love" with someone.

 

[Colossus]

Being in love is a great feeling. Maybe one of the best things in life. I used to be really cynical about it, but you know what? We only live ONE time. If you're lucky enough to find a girl who feels the same way about you, take that and run with it as long as you can. Just like rejection is better than regret, loving a woman is better than coldy fvcking them for fear of getting hurt.

On a different note, being "in lust" or infatuated is really the same feeling as being in love, biochemically speaking. The latter just lasts longer and has some substantial basis, whereas lust or infatuation is almost purely physical.

A good litmus test for me, and probably a lot of guys, is the way I feel about her when we are NOT having sex or escalating towards sex. If I just bust my nut and still want her there as much as I did before---good sign. Or if I am just as happy kissing her or holding her as I am when we have sex, this tells me I actually LIKE her and not just like the fact she'll sit on my c0ck.

Of course sex is the pinnacle of a relationship in many ways, so you cant take that out of the equation, it just cant be the glue that holds everything together.

 

[Climax]

@Colossus:

I like the way you think, this is more along the lines of what I think too.

But there are a few things I would like to add here.

Firstly, we need to ALWAYS take into consideration WHO the individual is that we are speaking about. Its a given that we are all unique individuals, with different perspectives, mindsets, opinions, experiences, personalities, etc.

The only thing that we all have in common is that we are "chemically vulnerable", if u want to call it that.

That said, yes chemicals reactions within us contribute to how we feel about someone, but this is far from being the definition of love.

Love is completely subjective, love is (or can be) completely different from one person to another.

Example:

You can have 2 couples that have been happily together till death do them part, yet the type of relationship they had were on complete opposite sides of the spectrum. (I.e.: One couple can be compared to romeo & juliet while the other couple compared to the type of couple that are okay with their partner sleeping with other people.

(Note that while examples might seem extreme, I'm using it to assist me in emphasizing that the 2 couples are completely different. )

Okay, so how is it that if the individuals in these two totally different types of relationships were asked if they shared this thing called love they would respond "ofcourse, I couldn't be happier and more in love" ?

The anwer is simple - because of them being unique individuals with different perceptions on love, happiness, fulfillment, commitment, happiness, etc.

Same as how someone could be the happiest person in the world if you gave them a signed tshirt from their favorite team, and another person would use that same tshirt as toilet paper.

Now to my point regarding this specific thread:

Who do we fall in love with? Think about it.. every single one of us here have a different "ideal" partner, because we are all different with different preferences, morals, values, expectations, etc.. So... we fall in love with someone who we are ultimately compatible with.

If for me there was a scale from one to 10 of things that a woman needs to have in order to make me love her, then some women I meet will have SOME of those things, but not quiet there yet, so I might fall in love with her, be infatuated with her, attracted to her, etc, because she has a few of the things that attract ME, as a unique individual with my own set of things that i look for in a woman, but at the end of the day what will keep me loving a woman (even after I have just jizzed inside of her) will be those qualities & aspects of her that are NOT reliant on chemicals, but my SENSE, on what in my LOGIC makes a good woman/partner, for ME (a unique individual)

Because we are all unique I like to use the metaphor of a key and a lock. Our heart is the lock, and the key is the woman. Some women will try and try and it just wont fit, others might fit and turn a bit but then get stuck... and some might fit, turn nearly all the way, sometimes even close enough to make us think that THIS IS THE KEY that will unlock my heart, but then just before u make that final little twist u find that it just wont go any further, was very close, but not quiet there.. and that is our "journey" of finding the right key for us, as unique individuals. Unfortunately some of us settle for the wrong key from fear of never finding the right key, and that pretty much explains the divorce rate.

@squirrels

Love can be very magical, special, exciting, mysterious, lustful, and any of the wonderful things that some people fear isn't possible once u understand your body chemistry... I speak from personal experience... love is whatever u & your partner make it. I've consulted couples that have been together for 25 years +, miserable marriage, but after some mindset altering, perspective adjustments, motivation, and a few other essential ingredients that are required to keep that flame burning, love is timeless, and limitless... Belief in limits creates limited people.

I hope this helped, all the best.

 

[KarmaSutra]

love is timeless, and limitless...

Neil Diamond sang the same thing.

 

[Climax]

Neil Diamond sang the same thing.

In that case, Neil Diamond was right

 

[Colossus]

If for me there was a scale from one to 10 of things that a woman needs to have in order to make me love her, then some women I meet will have SOME of those things, but not quiet there yet, so I might fall in love with her, be infatuated with her, attracted to her, etc, because she has a few of the things that attract ME, as a unique individual with my own set of things that i look for in a woman, but at the end of the day what will keep me loving a woman (even after I have just jizzed inside of her) will be those qualities & aspects of her that are NOT reliant on chemicals, but my SENSE, on what in my LOGIC makes a good woman/partner, for ME (a unique individual)

Great post man and I really agree. Especially the lock and key metaphor.

 

[Rogue]

One of my favorite quotes in my mental encyclopedia of quotes is "Love is a drug and we are its drug addict." There's now a headline from The Telegraph reporting "Love is a drug as powerful as morphine and any painkiller".

 

[Fuglydude]

Great stuff on this thread especially from Climax and Colossus.

I've done quite a few drugs in my life. Everything from Salvia to anabolics. I can safely say that the physical high that you get from being in LUST (not love) is better than anything I've ever done. Keep in mind however, that I haven't dabbled in hard stuff like crack, heroine or meth. As a relationship progresses those feelings change from lust to something a bit more substantial as Colossus describe. Although the overwhelming physical high abates, you still have deeper emotional feelings... I wonder if long term potentiation is a mechanism for this.

I do think there's a evolutionary basis for being able to experience love and emotion. We wouldn't have the neurochemical machinery to be capable of experiencing it unless it provided a selective advantage at some point during our evolution.

Great stuff overall though guys, keep it coming.

 

[Colossus]

That got me thinking Fug, one of the things that most annoys me about his forum is that everyone has a hard-on for the hypergamy model. "Men are programmed to blah blah blah fvck many women blah blah...." It's overplayed, over-simplified, and redundant.

Not only that, but to put everything in the context of biochemistry and "programming" cheapens the experience and the reality of human emotion. Not to suggest that love comes from some magical esoteric source, but relationships are definitely more than just a cascade of chemicals and capricious feelings.

I also think that monogamy (and love) has a lot of merit from the perspective of species proliferation, but hey, that's just my opinion and to even suggest around here that people MAY have a general inclination to pair up with one other person is like heresy

 

[KarmaSutra]

Colossus is right that these slaves to biology are as dependent on Darwinian stricture as their counterpart is to the dude you can hang your hat on; The dreaded Catholic.

 

[Fuglydude]

That got me thinking Fug, one of the things that most annoys me about his forum is that everyone has a hard-on for the hypergamy model. "Men are programmed to blah blah blah fvck many women blah blah...." It's overplayed, over-simplified, and redundant.

Not only that, but to put everything in the context of biochemistry and "programming" cheapens the experience and the reality of human emotion. Not to suggest that love comes from some magical esoteric source, but relationships are definitely more than just a cascade of chemicals and capricious feelings.

I also think that monogamy (and love) has a lot of merit from the perspective of species proliferation, but hey, that's just my opinion and to even suggest around here that people MAY have a general inclination to pair up with one other person is like heresy

Ya as a science nerd I know its wrong to over-generalize stuff as the bigger picture is usually more in the grey areas rather than being black or white.

There's many species out there that are monogamous. Wolves, eagles, swans, etc. They'll usually mate for life or until one of them dies. I think male sexual programming is a bit more complicated than simply going out and banging as much stuff as we possibly can. Personally for me, I wasn't gonna settle down until I met a girl that I wanted to have babies with... this would mean she would need certain phenotypic and personality features that I would consider desirable. For me phucking random girls is a bit like sampling, and simply enjoying the experience of sex with a large variety of women.

As k-selected mammals we generally have a slow reproductive rate. However, what we lack in quantity we make up for in quality of the offspring that we produce. Being in a monogamous relationship (the human family structure), and raising kids in this environment is probably one of the easiest and most efficient ways of ensuring high quality offspring on virtue of being able to control the environment. Single parent families obviously don't have as much to work with, and the kids suffer as a result. There's ample data out there on this.

I guess my point here is that human sexuality/relationship trends are a lot more complex than the majority of what people on this site believe. Although our ancestral primates probably weren't monogamous, maybe monogamy was found to confer a selective advantage as humans evolved and slowly began the road to technological progress. I do believe monogamy is an optimum way to ensure that a nuclear family structure is preserved. In our modern liberal democracies, I think this is probably the most efficient and easiest model to raise higher quality offspring. Of course there's nothing saying that you can't enjoy other women on the side...