Helen Fisher
Helen Fisher
Helen E. Fisher is an American anthropologist, human behavior researcher, and self-help author. She is a biological anthropologist, is a Senior Research Fellow, at The Kinsey Institute, Indiana University, and a Member of the Center For Human Evolutionary Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. Prior to Rutgers University, she was a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth31 May 1945
CountryUnited States of America
Romantic love is one of the most powerful of all human experiences. It is definitely more powerful than the sex drive.
The brain system for romantic love is associated with intense energy, focused energy, obsessive things - a host of characteristics that you can feel not just toward a mating sweetheart, ... there's every reason to think that girls can fall in love with other girls without feeling sexual towards them, without the intention to marry them.
What our grandmothers told us about playing hard to get is true. The whole point of the game is to impress and capture. It's not about honesty. Many men and women, when they're playing the courtship game, deceive so they can win. Novelty, excitement and danger drive up dopamine in the brain. And both sexes brag.
Both sexes like the exercise and challenge of sports, but for men it's also a basic display behavior for impressing and winning a mate.
Men want to think women don't cheat, and women want men to think they don't cheat, and therefore the sexes have been playing a little psychological game with each other.
There's magic to love... Millions of years ago we evolved three basic drives: the sex love, romantic love, and attachment to a long-term partner. These circuits are deeply embedded in the human brian. They're going to survive as long as our species survive on what Shakespeare called, this "mortal coil."
That "ol' black magic" is a fickle force. The chemistry of romantic love can trigger the chemistry of sexual desire and the fuel of sexual desire can trigger the fuel of romance. This is why it is dangerous to copulate with someone with whom you don't wish to become involved. Although you intend to have casual sex, you might just fall in love.
Romantic love is deeply embedded in the architecture and chemistry of the human brain, ... Why We Love.
You can have it all, but it isn't easy.
Today, American women bear an average of 2.2 children that live to adulthood. Across most of Europe, women bear even fewer young.
You can be instantly scared. You can be instantly happy. So why can't you be instantly romantically in love? I think when it happens, it's because you are ready to fall in love.
After a man falls madly in love, he no longer cares how old she is.
When somebody leaves Match.com or Chemistry.com, they ask you why you left. One box you can check is, 'I found somebody.' Between 15 and 20 percent of people check that box.
It's very hard to gauge. Those are signs of intention. But they are not signs that this person is actually good in bed and is compatible with you.