Finally Understand How Romantic Attraction Works

As the summer days get hotter and the summer romances flourish like there’s no tomorrow, there is one question that might come to mind: what is it that drives romantic attraction? What makes our hearts race, palms sweat, and minds lose focus? Relationships expert Dr.Helen Fischer may have some answers.

An expert tries to explain how romantic attraction works.

The Way Biological Types Affect Romantic Attraction

In an interview she gave to USNews, the American biological anthropologist, human behavior researcher, and self-help author, Dr.Fischer said: “You can walk into a room with all good-looking people, where everyone has the same cultural and educational background, and yet you’re only drawn to one person. Why is that? I’m beginning to think that maybe there are some biological things we should be looking at.”

According to Fisher, there are four biological types that attract or repel each other based on which hormone is dominant and driving them:

TYPE 1: The Explorer.

A creative, imaginative, very curious, and thrill-seeking type of person, who loves feeling the surge of the “excitement” hormone, dopamine.

TYPE 2: The Builder.

A managerial type of person who is literal and less about imagination, more about facts. This type of person has a close circle of friends and tends to follow social norms. The most traditional type is driven by the “balancing” hormone, serotonin.

TYPE 3: The Negotiator.

This is the type of person who is gifted with great people skills, is eloquent, highly intuitive and skilled at reading body language and paraverbal communication. Compassionate, caring, and able to see the big picture, this nurturing personality is largely fueled by the “female” hormone, estrogen.

TYPE 4: The Director.

A direct, decisive, and analytical personality that’s good with mechanical tasks, computers, architecture and understanding the structure of things. This is the type of personality that’s mostly fueled by the “male” hormone, testosterone.

More Truths About Romantic Attraction

Though it’s still not exactly clear how the dynamics between these types work, Fischer describes these things in more detail in her book “Anatomy Of Love”. She does, however,   mention certain truths about attraction.

She says that if we can’t conquer our object of desire, we may develop “frustration attraction”, causing us to yearn for that person even more. (Explaining why unrequited love is so damn hard).

Romantic love is of paramount importance: 91% of women and 86% of men reported in a recent survey that it’s not enough to love a person to choose marriage. It’s crucial to be “in love.”

A couple can keep the spark alive after a decade or more of marriage. Fisher carried out a brain scan on a friend of hers who said he was still in love with his wife after 25 years.  She found increased activity in 3 areas of the brain associated with the early stages of love. “It’s certainly possible but you’ve got to pick the right person and you have to work to sustain it,” she said. Doing things for each other and being respectful of each other won’t cut it, according to the expert. She advises that couples also need to do novel things to drive up dopamine in the brain. Maybe now is the time for that bungee jumping session you and your girl have been thinking about.

Whatever drives romantic attraction, this is a scientific area that is still open to research, as our hearts and minds are as unique and complex as we are. We’ll be here to keep you up to date.

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