Your perfect match is not always your opposite.
A LABORATORY seems an unlikely place to find the secret to love, but
that's exactly where American professor and human behaviour expert, Dr
Helen Fisher discovered the science behind our romantic relationships.
"Actually, love is very complicated," said Dr
Fisher, who devoted her career to studying humans of all ages and in all
stages of romantic relationships to find out how and why they tick.
"Romantic
love and lust use different parts of the brain that don't always
intersect. Romantic love is activated by dopamine which is responsible
for feelings of obsession and longing for contact with another person.
While lust, is pure testosterone, driven by desire for sexual
gratification."
According to Dr Fisher, the different types of love can activate the
other, but they don't always intersect. And that's why it's possible to
be in love with someone you will never sleep with or sleep with someone
you will never love.
Finding your perfect match depends largely
on your personality type and Dr Fisher said it's not always a case of
opposites attract as many experts have always claimed.
"We hear
how opposites attract and perfectly complement each other but that is
not necessarily true in every case. 'Explorers', that's people who are
creative and philosophical, tend to look for the same trait in a
partner. As do people who are more traditional and conservative, who are
detail-oriented and can be drawn to religion," she said.
"But
people with high levels of testosterone are attracted to people with
high levels of estrogen and vice versa. Bill and Hillary Clinton are a
great example of this. She is very alpha and driven and he is very
people-oriented and comfortable with expressing emotion and crying in
public."
Once you've found your match, the focus switches to
keeping the relationship together. And Dr Fisher's research has debunked
the idea that love is a casualty of long-term relationships.
Dr
Helen Fisher
"We
compared brain scans of a group of young lovers (21 year olds, who had
just met) and couples in their 50s who had been together for an average
of 20 years, and both had very high levels of dopamine. The only
difference was that the young people also showed signs of anxiety, they
were worried about how they acted and what the other person thought of
them all the time. While the mature couples replaced anxiety with calm
and pain suppression."
But love doesn't always last forever.
Marriage
and monogamy are a construct of the time when humans began farming the
land and stayed in one place, and dividing up assets and grain became
much harder. Back then it was in the interests of society that men and
women stayed together forever, with women tied to the home front while
the men went out to work in the field.
"[Now] society better resembles the lives of our
hunter-gatherer ancestors, when people followed a pattern of falling in
love, creating a pair bond and breaking up. We were serial monogamists,
with most people having two or three relationships over a lifetime," Dr
Fisher said.
"Our social patterns are also similar; people lived
in double income households where men and women went out to work. The
real difference is that's society has lost the community where younger
children played in groups with older people who could no longer work."
Ultimately,
Dr Fisher believes all of these discoveries indicate we live in a world
where humans are better placed than ever to have happier love lives.
"We
know so much more about how our brains work now. We have devices to
boost sex-drive, which is great for marriage, and we understand that
novelty and doing fun things with our partner helps keep the spark
alive," she said.
"Divorce rates are also on a downward spiral. I
conducted a study of divorce patterns in 58 societies and found it's
down to the fact that we are getting married later, have fewer children
and are better educated and financially well-off."
Dr Fisher, who
does advisory work for match.com in the United States, said people
should also take full advantage of dating websites for the opportunity
they provide when looking for love - no matter what our age.
"There
is no reason to be alone anymore. Think of them as introduction sites,
not dating sites. But to be successful at it, you've just got to be
prepared to do the work. Go on the dates and seek out the dates," she
said.
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