Recent events led me to consult the almighty Google for information about "chemistry", what makes two people love each other. I found stuff that talked about chemicals in the brain, blah, blah, blah. Endorphins this, and dopamine that. But wait, what if that's all there is to it? Then I read about people becoming addicted to the checmicals, and that's why they stay in relationships - that monogamy is programmed into us. The people who hop from relationship to relationship are addicted to the set of chemicals found in the beginning of the relationship.
[NOTE: there was more to this post originally, but it got eaten by the internets, so I wrote the paragraph below the next morning]
The whole think smacks of "no choice" and "no control" in the sense that my brain doesn't get to pick. I can't adapt to a situation. It's always going to be square peg - round hole or round peg - round hole. No in between is what I get from my reading. It's like a form of fate, which makes me uneasy because I want to control my own life. I don't want to think that I'm just an observer in a fleshy man chair.
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2 comments:
I disagree wholeheartedly that a predisposition to monogamy equates to programming or a lack of choice or control. The way our brains are made guide us towards many different likelihoods in life. We are designed to develop language, but it isn't inevitable and we aren't required to learn one particular language. We are designed to be afraid of heights and snakes, and to be disgusted by rotting food and shit. But many people love sky diving, owning pet snakes, and god knows how many poop fetishists there are out there. So a neurological and chemical "wiring" for the desire to fall in love and mate and have one partner is more of a penciled-in idea, not something carved in stone. In my opinion :).
Also, I guess I should mention that for me, a scientific basis for love is something that is comforting, not something that is disappointing. If there is an explanation for the way I feel when I'm in love, it means that it's something I can feel again and again. There isn't just one person somewhere out there that is right for me, and it means that it is possible to get over heartbreak and to love again. It might take away from that idea that love is a magical thing, but that reassures me...magic is a joke, science is real.
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