All You Need is Love

Attraction between people is something which has been around since the very dawn of humanity (because lets face it that's just how nature works) and as a result it's influenced our culture, our religions, our social media and even our science. So today lets look at what exactly makes our heart skip a beat when we see that person.

Firstly I'm just going to clarify that I will avoid the psychological explanations (definitely not because they were far too complex and too many for me to get my head around) and I will stick more to the biological side of things. Also if i did include all the crazy inside of the head stuff this post would be far too long and frankly nobody would actually read it.

And now that that's out of the way lets dig into the science. Attraction is a tricky thing to define, despite the best efforts of poets, writers and musicians over the centuries the google definition lists it as an attraction of provoking interest or liking, which is frustratingly vague. However while it is still difficult to get a precise definition of attraction we can take a pretty good guess at how it works.

Its no secret that people's bodies are a large source of attraction towards them, but the first thing I read about it in fact is pretty unusual, because a big thing that turns people's gears is what is known as bilateral symmetry.

This is literally what is says, symmetry!

If someone looks asymmetrical it could be due to trauma or stress experienced during development, that they weren't strong enough to deal with and obviously, this is something which humans are not so keen to replicate. This results in people being a lot more attracted to those whose faces are in fact more symmetrical.

Secret preference numero dos is one which features largely in our pop culture today, though we may not realise it, what I'm obviously on about it waist to hip ratio. Yep, to an extent baby got back is actually pretty scientifically correct.

This one probably doesn't come as a surprise because insecurity about our weight is one common fact that a massive amount of people share, especially in the western world. And what with all the media promoting impossible body standards, people nowadays are constantly bombarded with body standards that are in fact impossible for us to match, but evidently it doesn't stop a lot of people trying.

Humans seem to prefer when the waist of a prospective mate is roughly 70% of the width of their hips, and although this may seem a little harsh it has actually proven to have medical benefits for both men and women, as people in this range tend to produce the ideal amount estrogen in women and testosterone in men. 

It has also been noted that people in this range tend to be less susceptible to cardiovascular disorders, cancer and diabetes and women in this range have less difficulty giving birth and conceiving.

But there are some things that have a far bigger effect than any other these previously mentioned factors, namely pheromones.

For those of you who don't know, pheromones are like chemical messages given out by our bodies that give nearby people a hint at our genetic makeup (because who doesn't want to take in a big noseful of best friend every now and again?)

So as we all know the shizz that goes on inside our heads is pretty damn crazy. And all the crazy attraction stuff is down to our animal nature, our ancient hormonal programming which makes us want to find a mate and reproduce, it all pretty weird, in fact romantic love is actually akin to an addiction inside our brains!

So what hormones make this all happen? Well there are 4 main ones, which are Dopamine, Oestrogen, Seretonin and Testosterone are the main players in this field (its also important to know that these are not dependent on sex lines). 

The study that determined this tied each one to a different personality type. According to the study people with more active dopamine centers were more reward driven and impulsive in love. People with more seretonin were less anxious but more risk averse. But the key thing about this was that they tended to be a lot more attracted to people like them.

On the other hand it is also pretty true that opposites do sometimes attract. Testosterone full people tend to be analytical and competetive while oestrogen rich people tend to have more empathy and social. And these two groups actually were more attracted to each other. 

Its also important to recognize that these groups are not exclusively attracted to each other and this is not all that determines attraction, and after the initial phase lots of other stuff comes into play and helps to solidify the relationship over time, and form a longer term bond after the initial love (what people call new love) period is over.

So there it is, there's just a few of the crazy things that influence what we call love. But the real truth behind it is that we're never actually going to understand it completely. The human mind is simply far to complex and incredible to try and truly understand and predict, and the thing that has made humans so fascinated by love all these years is its unpredictable, inexplicable nature. If anything lets hope that science never completely understands it, because if love was quantifiable, then it wouldn't be half as wondrous. 

Personally I think there are few feelings on par with the little internal spark when you see that person, so maybe take a minute out of your day to make sure they know it. 

This is usually the part where I try to say something inspirational and obscure about the nature of human discovery or something like that, but instead I'll leave you with what is probably my favorite, and the most accurate summary of this topic, from the flash. (which is frankly a fantastic show in every way) 

Thanks for reading, See ya :)