I am in KL, and obviously beside eating, I had nothing else better to do. I usually go to the 7-Eleven and buy all the local newspapers I can lay my hands on.
The article this morning reported that an anthropologist has identified that the answer lies in brain chemistry. She tracked 28,000 people. Some of us feel good and romantic; and have the sexual drive, and all this because of dopamine and testosterone
In our Club, I read only Tian Soo is familiar with this chemical.
Why do some of us like this person and not another person? As you know, I like to make Paper Clips work, but trying to do so, does not seem to work. The naturally attraction works, but the individuals must come together.
If a person has active dopamine, tend to seek experience, curious and easily board, they tend to be introspective and like their own type.
If a person has high testerone, they tend to be analytical, competitive, they too tend to be attracted to their types.
These factors sparked attraction. The success is to overlook everything you cannot stand in someone. These works whether one is 30 or 60.
What do you think? Aiyah, just some serious fun.
Terence Seah
Terence
It interest me that your title for this thread is “Why do we fall in love’, then proceed to talk about Testosterone. The goody-goody people would tell me that Testosterone generates Lust not Love. I think maybe the link starts with the volume of testosterone evoking love and lead to lust. Or it is lust that leads to love. Sophisticated people will say no, it is love that leads to making love. The second love meant lust to crude people like me.
If you are correct then old people are in trouble because as we get older our testosterone level drops. So old people do not have the biological urge to fall in love.
Maybe we should discuss the non- biological reason of why people fall in love, like money, security, loneliness, housing, food, revenge etc.
Sorry, my ‘lust’ is calling me for dinner. Write next time.
Today while chatting and joking about love with friends during lunch someone prompted me to check on this post. Hmmm! so is about an anthropologist who tracked 28,000 people. She could be the scientist who have had spend over
30 years of her life studying love and presented it in a talk show about two years ago. In her personnel blog she said “Some people have sex first and then fall in love. Some fall head over heels in love, then climb into bed. Some feel deeply attached to someone they have known for months or years; then circumstances change, they fall madly in love and have sex.” To me it’s obvious she is not just studying love but also to know whether love is connected with sex. Anyway her findings did deepen my understanding of Lust, Romantic Love and True Love. Sometime ago someone ask me whether I believe in platonic love. My response was by also asking the question why do people of same sex fall in love? To be honest, I have chosen to believe that Love is mysterious.
Stay Healthy! Be Happy! :)
How long can lust last?
Like Tian Soo, I am puzzled as to why a question about love is answered with some sententious research concerning sex?
Animals have sex only for procreation. The male tries hard to ride the female for the sake of propagating his gene, hence continuing his species. After the job is done, the female is left to conceive, deliver, nurture and fend for the young. Sex yes. Where got love?
Human beings however, being in the higher echelon of living things, have something extra – it is called emotions or feelings. Hence we can love — as well as hate. Love is a many splendour thing. Maybe not. There is a saying, “Men trade love for sex. Women trade sex for love”. True? Not sure.
What price love and what price sex?
Love can cost a person’s career, family and even life but sex varies from $20 to several hundreds.
Love can last till Kingdom come but sex (or lust) is at best 20 minutes (make it 30 with testosterone)
So, back to the question, “Why do we fall in love?” The answer is different at different stages of our life. To most young people, love is but a means to an end (pardon my pun). As we past the half-century mark, the need for love is more pronounced, and the reason is obvious.
Hi Johnny
So good to hear from you!
I agree with you that love is mysterious. There is just something about it that no amount of research etc can fully answer the question.
What I also believe is chemistry; you either have it or don’t. Not forgetting pheromones; that would be the lust part?
Hi Lily
My take on how long does lust last depends on what both partners’ ‘agenda’ is.
Some lust and pine for each other as if they are in heat – can’t get enough of each other. Purely sexual. Such couples will lust for a long time.
Some may use love as a disguise, uh-oh, in order to bed their targets. I would think for such cases, the lust will be over within a short time.
Then there are those who lust from time to time and will go find that partner that they have bedded; just like wearing a comfy pair of round shoes. Kekekeee.
Thank you, Lily, for allowing my comments. Thanks and no thanks to Terence, for starting “some serious fun”. Subjects such as this are interesting for discussion but a tough job for the moderator. Not easy to draw that fine line, but we shall respect her decision. Hope there can be more contributions.
Such is the reality of a forum site. While we welcome the silent majority savouring each article diligently, we ought to be thankful to the few who care to illustrate, vividly at times; hence providing the much needed life to this site. Nobody can claim to be an expert. It is simply our rendition, or revelation. Whatever it is, readers should take it with a pinch of salt — or is it lemon, to wipe off that silly grin?
Hi Daniel (and all)
Some comments and posts automatically came under moderation and I can only release them when I have wi fi access. (I was out of Singapore and free wi fi was not readily available, hence the delay. Sorry about that.)
Usually, when a link or email address is included in a comment or post, it gets moderated automatically. I have no idea why yours were being moderated.
Most of you have my contact. Feel free to nofify me if anyone feels that their comment/s or post/s should be released. I am not as strict as some of you might have thought.
No problem, Lily. Appreciate your concern.
It is midnight now. I am listening to songs. Found one which I think is appropriate to this post and would like to share with all who are reading. Nice song but sorry it is in Cantonese.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZBlthanQFI
Currently, the Club has been set up in such a way that that all URL in Posts are automatically moderated. The moderator goes through the URL to ensure that it comforms to Club rules before releasing them.
Terence Seah
Lets get back to the subject of this thread, ‘Why do we fall in Love.’
I am sure many of you join this club with a little (or high) hope of meeting someone and fall in Love. Like everything else in life, we have to go and put in the effort to get what we want. But what is it that we need to do. Unfortunately, the movies do not show 2 old people running towards each other in slow motion. I think it is because the directors cannot find any old romantic people strong enough to run towards each other, let alone do it in slow motion. Current public information on love are largely based on young people with high biological urges culminating in lots of heavy breathing. Older people have to find our own way to fall in love.
Maybe love for older people is only 2 people holding hands and talking about good old days, maybe with long eye contacts but no heavy breathing. Is this enough?
Often I hear talk about falling in love because there is ‘chemistry’ but I think it is more accurately call ‘biology’. Unfortunate for many of us, these are running out in our bodies as we age.
But I am sure many of you will meet people of the opposite sex whom you ‘like’ so much that you want to spend all you time with him/her. I think that alone should count for love. The four letter word is not important.
Whatever it is that you are looking for, weather love or like, what is more important is to understand what is it that would make the other party ‘love’ you. You cannot make others fall in ‘love’ with you by just loving yourself. But that is another subject I shall leave to others who know.
Quote :
“But I am sure many of you will meet people of the opposite sex whom you ‘like’ so much that you want to spend all your time with him/her. I think that alone should count for love.”
Spot on, TS.
Would like to share another LOVE story…this one from Thailand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwZMS-ISbH4&list=UUFUtqTcgJgRnmZ3tMU6P74Q
Ahhhhh………TS, so it’s called ‘biology’?
‘The four letter word is not important.’ Which four letter word?
GT. which 4 letter word depends very much on the reader. For me the 2 four letter words are inextricable, together they are fun and dangerous.
Haha Tian Soo.
I enjoy reading your comments. Entertaining and ‘some what’ make sense.
Oh.
TS, are your 2 four letter words LOVE and HATE? Oh boy, are they fun and dangerous!
I only have 1 four-letter-word. Wanna guess? Bwahkakakakaa……..
I think d 4 letter word LOVE, is not important because most older people does not use it loosely, such as the Celebrities who often declare to their audiences “I love you all”
Without ‘what ever u call’ as one ages, how does the older ones declare the 4 letter word to project their feelings positively? The ones who know what they want r careful to verbalize it, maybe like their parents are uncomfortable and too “mindfu” to use unnatural “aphrodisiac”.
I was told that people have pets like dogs because its neuropathic that can heal, no need to say “I love you” a million times to feel the magic of TOUCH…………..
Some 10 years ago, and all within a short span of time, I start to wear pink, purple and brown. My close friends asked me if I had fallen in love again. They feel that I had a change in life. They also noticed that my pupils areintense black and big. Also, I speak fast and strongly. It occurred that I may be in the midst of meeting a new lady. And that I may be in Love.
At our age, we can fall in love. Anytime too. I am sure, all of us know we can fall in love anytime and a few times during our time. We may show it. We may hide it or we may deny it. We may even flout it.
Why do we fall in love, again a few times in our life? I don’t have a good answer myself. Some of us are shy to talk about it.
Tian Soo, you are too fatherly, even for me at 58. As SilverHairs, we can be open on this subject.
Terence Seah
“Love is a many splendid thing”. Is this true?
Agree that one can fall in love again and again if given the opportunity. However, many will ‘lock their hearts’ to another romance if happily married and have a satisfying and secure marriage. Why risk it all? Haha
We go on a roller-coaster ride when in love. There’ll be intense feelings of happiness ~ feeling high when things are going right and also intense low feelings when things aren’t. Is this alternating euphoric and depressive state worth it at our age? Can our hearts take it?
You experience a kind of euphoric state when in love. However, studies have shown that this state may last for only a couple of years and then, lo and behold, everything is back to normal ~ The pupils no longer dilate, hearts no longer throb and there’s no electric sensation when holding holds. Then, it’s really ‘hard work’ to make both parties happy after that?
Those who have yet to fall in love may not understand what I’m talking about. However, I wd still encourage those who have not experienced this euphoria to go for it. As the saying goes ~ “It’s better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all!”
By all means, “Follow your heart, but take your brain with you.”
Terence ~ I’m sure your ‘Paper Clips’ project can work wonders :-)
Cheersssssss