USTREAM TV — Dec '08 — Helen Fisher is a anthropologist and research professor. Helen is seen as the expert not only in the US but around the world on how people fall in love.
"4 years ago when Match.com came to me if I want to start a new dating site for them, I embarked on my newest research which is why you fall in love with one person rather than another. Anthropologists have found evidence of love in every single society that they looked for it in 170 societies in all. Men express just as much love as woman do, in fact men fall in love faster than women do because they're so much more visually oriented. Men are much more likely to kill themselves when a relationship is over then women are.
I believe that we have evolved through three distinctly different brain systems for love. One is lust the craving for sexual gratification associated with testosterone in both men and women. The second brain system is romantic love. And the third brain system is attachment, that sense of calm and security that you can feel for a long term partner. These 3 brain systems interact with each other. They're not always connected though. You can feel deep attachment to one person while you feel intense romantic love for somebody else, while you feel the sex drive for a whole range of people.
The first thing that happens when you fall in love is the person takes on what I call special meaning. You also feel intense energy when you're madly in love. You become extremely sexually possessive of the person and in science it's called mate guarding. And the most important characteristic of romantic love is obsessive thinking.
Romantic love is a drug and its one of the most powerful drugs on earth. And can it last? In short, early stage romantic love is replaced by a new calm.
We tend to fall in love with somebody from the same ethnic background, same socio economic background, same religious values, same similar goals, same level of intelligence, same general level of education and good looks…"
