“Some times all it takes is one goddamn smile to turn you entire world upside down.”
Love is something amazing and terrifying at the same time. It is one of the most basic human need . It’s a mixture of bliss and pain. And not to mention it is really complex.
One of the most pioneer researcher in this field is anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, she’s dedicated decades of her life and her career to studying love, intimacy, and relationships, this post will cover her three loves theory.
The premise of three loves theory is that not all loves are created equally. With some its intense and furious, with others its mellow and sensitive with some its tumultuous with a lot of ups and down with others its slow and consistent over a long period of time. Or in short it comes in varying flavours.
The three loves that she came up with are attraction, passion, commitment. These three loves occur independently from each other. For instance you can be attracted with someone but have no feelings for them.
Attraction and passion can disappear well after commitment arises without affecting the commitment. In this way, each love is a pre requisite for the subsequent love to emerge but once it has its no longer necessary. Attraction is needed for passion but passion can exist later without it, passion is a must for commitment but latter in commitment can exist without it.
Attraction
Attraction is a feeling that anyone should be able to easily relate to it comes from the repitilian brain is pure instinctual reproduction its istantanoeus and based on pretty straightforward physical and behavioural components of attraction. Its transitory and constantly shifts. Attraction depends on a lot of factor and is constantly changing according to situations so it’s nearly impossible to say any one trait defines attraction. So the question is not does looks matter? The question is how much does looks matter. In the research she did to find what factors influenced attraction both male and female more or less showed similar preference. The two area that showed divergence are physical looks and money/wealth. Females priortised more than men in terms of money/wealth.
The only problem with this conclusion is that its incomplete. This is doesnt shed light into what determines attraction in girls aged 15-24 and there is enough evidence to prove that girls are equally attracted to males who will be eventually successful/wealthy( right now they are poor) as they do to successfully people.
If you think a bit it’s behaviour that leads to success rather being other way around.
Suppose say a guy is wearing a Italian suit, a Rolex and drives a Mercedes to a date. But he doesn’t tip the waitresses. What does that say about him? Rich people don’t show they are rich they behave rich.
I think it’s behaviour that determines status rather than money, but there is no way to proves this as, right behaviour cannot be measured
Passion/love
“ People who want love the most often ask for it in the most unloving way"- Jay shetty
This is what traditionally, people mean when they say love. That butterfly feeling in their stomach.
In order to fall in love with one person and not the other there must something that differentiate the two. Basically, she determined that our personality and our love maps which depends on our past determines who we fall in love with.
Much of our personality(about 40–60%) depends on our genetic makeup. Or more precisely depends on the composition of four chemicals dopamine, serotonin, testestrone, estrogen in their body. Based on this evidence she divided people into four different personality types
If you want to know yours: (https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/FTI/)
1.Directors express more of the traits linked with the testosterone system. These men or women tend to be logical, direct, decisive, practical, tough-minded, and competitive, as well as experimental and excellent at understanding “rule-based systems”—including engineering, math, computers, mechanics, and music. They are strategic thinkers and Commanding Leaders. They also tend to be less socially aware, with poor emotional recognition, less eye contact, less verbal fluency, reduced empathy, and extreme sensitivity to rank. They are usually emotionally contained although they also experience more emotional flooding( if they feel any emotions they feel it very strongly). To sum it up in one sentence- “ assholes who project dickish behaviour who also happen to rule the world".
(testestrone priming- it is when testestrone washes over the fetal brain in mother’s womb, it changes the brain architecture in a way that serves directors. It leaves its mark in many ways. One is having a wider back head in order to increase the spatial region of the brain. And you will also have the ring finger longer than the index finger. This makes them aggressive and highly competitive and are fiercely independent, they don’t like taking orders. They can also tolerate extreme isolation, and have fewer friends and are often direct and rude, they say what they mean. Are more likely to suffer from autism)
2.Negotiators express more of the traits linked to the estrogen system. Traits associated with estrogen activities are agreeableness, genoristy and trust, the drive to make social attachments, heightened memory for emotional experience, keen imagination and mental flexibility.They are good at reading postures, gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice. And they excel at people skills--being intuitive, insightful, trusting, empathetic and nurturing. They make excellent educators, medical workers and salespeople. You know, cute girls.
3.Builders express more of the traits linked with the serotonin system. They tend to be traditional, conventional and cautious (but not scared); they observe social norms. They follow the rules, respect authority, enjoy making plans and schedules, and are conscientious and risk averse. They are concrete and logistical thinkers who focus on the details and the process; they are stabilizers. They make superb managers and soldiers and tend to be Authoritative Leaders. You know, boring people.
4.Explorers express more of the traits linked with the dopamine system. They tend to be curious, creative, spontaneous, energetic, daring, risk-taking, mentally flexible, enthusiastic and independent. They like novelty and adventure; they think outside the box and they inspire. They make good entrepreneurs, artists. These are the type of people who take 20 different type of drugs to find the best drug.
People are likely to project behaviour releative to their neurotransmitter composition. Suppose say a person has 50% testestrone, 30%dopamine,15% serotonin,5% estrogen. They are likely to show a combination of 50% director traits, 30% explorer, 15% builder, and 5% negotiater traits.
In the experiment she did, she determined the personality of people in a dating site( match.com) and she saw what different types of personality are attracted to one another. What she found was explorers are more attracted to other explorers, and builders tend to gravitate to other builders, while directors are significantly more likely to choose negotiaters and negotiaters usually chose directors.
But a director does not fall in love with every single negotiater, or a explorer falls in love with every single explorer.
This is where love maps come in.
As we grow up, people begin to build a largely unconscious list of traits they will eventually seek in him or her. This complex psychological chart is called love maps. Everybody’s love maps is unique. Your mother’s kindness, your father’s way with words, your relationship with your sisters, your past traumas, shame , friendship, where you grew up. These and hundred other forces and events converge to create a unique collection of interest, beliefs, values and behaviours. Then this largely unconscious pyscological map guides us to fall in love with that one person. But how exactly the love map influence our selection is highly debatable and not yet really known. Due to the simple fact that it’s really complex and individualistic that it cannot be measured in any meaningful way.
Some maintain that women fall in love with men like their father, and men are attracted to women like their mother. They believe we are attempting to reunite with our first true love the parent of opposite sex.( I don’t believe in this, because suppose say a child didn’t love his parents or he was a orphan, then what?.) Others believe we choose a mate who is similar to the parent with whom we have unresolved issue, a parner who suffered traumas similar to our own in childhood, a partner who will provide the type of infant attachment we made with our own mother.
What i personally believe in is this: All humans have four basic needs- certainity, uncertainty, significance, love. These needs are universal every human has them and they form the basis of all we do and want in our life.
We fall in love with that person who fullfill the need that are unmet in our past. And the greater the amount of needs unmet the more intensely we will fall in love. Suppose say, a person is walked over all their life, bullied, no one paid any attention to them (needs unmet- significance) they are likely to fall in love with the person who treat them like the most important person in the world. And the greater the need for that person to feel significanc, the greater the intensity they will fall in love.
But the problem is all of these happens unconsciously, so there is not a reliable way to know how our past influences us.
3. Commitment is when the passion of Love Two persists to the point that it’s unconditional. Couples that are in Love Two and not Love Three will often feel great until something happens: he loses his job, he starts drinking, etc.
Commitment is when you emotionally accept and love the other person’s flaws as much as their strengths. Scientists have actually shown that for couples who reach that level of commitment, their senses of self actually merge with the other person.
What researchers have done is observe neural activation patterns in these long-term couples. They found that if you ask a man married for 20 years to think about his wife getting into a car accident, and then ask him to think about himself getting into a car accident, the same “self” spots in his brain will light up, whereas it won’t for anybody else. And it won’t for couples who have not been at the Third Love of commitment for a long period of time.
Commitment arises with the idea that the relationship will persist indefinitely. The only way it can end is if one or both parties of a relationship change individually to the point where it becomes harmful for the other person to self-identify with their partner: again, think of the husband who becomes an alcoholic, or the wife who keeps cheating, etc. Sometimes even then, the power of commitment holds on, depending on the individuals.
There are timetable for each love, although they are very arbitrary and will vary widely from person to person, couple to couple.
But it’s helpful to think about this line: attraction is instantaneous and comes and goes constantly.
Passion takes anywhere a few days to weeks to emerge and usually sticks for 3–6 months
Commitment arises after anywhere from 1–3 years together and remains for a lifetime unless two people grow apart as individuals, in which case it often takes years to undo itself.
Source: why him, why her? By Helen fisher and also other works of Helen fisher.
