Helen Fisher
Jealousy can even be good for love. One partner may feel secretly flattered when the other is mildly jealous. And catching someone flirting with your beloved can spark the kind of lust and romance that reignites a relationship.Collection: Jealousy
Why do we feel jealousy? Therapists often regard the demon as a scar of childhood trauma or a symptom of a psychological problem. And it's true that people who feel inadequate, insecure, or overly dependent tend to be more jealous than others.Collection: Jealousy
When you fight, anger drives up testosterone in both men and women.Collection: Anger
If two very different people pool their DNA, they'll create more genetic variety, and their young will come to the job of parenting with a wider array of skills.Collection: Parenting
I've always maintained that men were more romantic than women.Collection: Romantic
The Great Depression of the 1930s saw more American unmarried women working from nine to five, mostly in repetitive, boring, subordinate, dead-end jobs. But the number of working women doubled between 1870 and 1940. During World War II it doubled once again.Collection: Women
Until recently, we regarded love as supernatural. We were willing to study the brain chemistry of fear and depression and anger but not love.Collection: Anger
A lot of people head into courtship looking for fireworks. Don't pass up a chance by dumping someone after a first date because you don't feel the fireworks. The fireworks can happen at any time and be maintained.Collection: Chance
A Rolex watch or an expensive car are the things guys often use to show status, wealth, and basic desirability.Collection: Car
Your sweetheart calls you by another's name. His eyes linger too long on your best friend. He talks with excitement about a girl at work. And the fire catches. Jealousy - that sickening combination of possessiveness, suspicion, rage, and humiliation - can overtake your mind and threaten your very core as you contemplate your rival.Collection: Jealousy
Natural beauty really entices men. They will tell you this time and time again, and studies consistently prove it.Collection: Beauty
Anthropologists have found evidence of romantic love in 170 societies. They've never found a society that did not have it.Collection: Romantic
Romantic love allows you to focus mating energy. Attachment sustains that relationship as long as necessary to raise your baby.Collection: Romantic
Any kind of novelty or excitement drives up dopamine in the brain, and dopamine is associated with romantic love.Collection: Romantic
I think romantic love evolved to enable you to focus your mating energy on just one individual at a time, thereby conserving mating time and energy.Collection: Romantic
Blushing is thought to be linked to increased levels of norepinephrine in the brain, which may be associated with romantic feelings. It signals that we are interested and excited, which is attractive to men.Collection: Romantic
Men have a psychological need to show off their courage and strength. When he sees you talking to another guy, that instinct kicks in and he jumps to protect you and prove he's worthy of your love.Collection: Courage
In general, men are wired to notice obvious signs that convey interest in mating - a warm smile, for example - and ignore other subtleties, like if your lipstick is faded.Collection: Smile
When you're in the throes of this romantic love, it's overwhelming - you're out of control, you're irrational, you're going to the gym at 6 A.M. every day - Why? Because she's there.Collection: Romantic
Most of us make up our minds in the first three minutes of meeting someone whether there's a potential for a relationship.Collection: Relationship
Psychologists maintain that the dizzying feeling of intense romantic love lasts only about 18 months to - at best - three years.Collection: Romantic
Romantic love is an addiction.Collection: Romantic
Throughout evolution, ostracism was death indeed.Collection: Death
The reason you take antidepressants is to feel calm. And romantic love is not calm - it's elation, it's mood swings, and you're killing all that when you take the drug.Collection: Romantic
Keep an open heart. We are wired to find love.Collection: Heart
People live for love. They kill for love. They die for love. They have songs, poems, novels, sculptures, paintings, myths, legends. It's one of the most powerful brain systems on Earth for both great joy and great sorrow.Collection: Valentines Day
Romantic love is an obsession. It possesses you. You lose your sense of self. You can’t stop thinking about another human being.Collection: Motivation
There's all kinds of reasons that you fall in love with one person rather than another: Timing is important. Proximity is important. Mystery is important. You fall in love with somebody who's somewhat mysterious, in part because mystery elevates dopamine in the brain, probably pushes you over that threshold to fall in love.Collection: Falling In Love
Good-looking people are always looking for other good-looking people.Collection: People
Romantic love is an addiction: a perfectly wonderful addiction when it's going well, and a perfectly horrible addiction when it's going poorly.Collection: Motivation
Saliva has testosterone and estrogen. When you kiss, you're having a chemical experience.Collection: Kissing
You fall in love with somebody who fits within what I call your 'love map,' an unconscious list of traits that you build in childhood as you grow up. And I also think that you gravitate to certain people, actually, with somewhat complementary brain systems.Collection: Falling In Love
Sometimes we fall in love with somebody who will probably never love us, for reasons having nothing to do with us but with their own mindset, their chemistry.Collection: Falling In Love
At first I assumed hate was the opposite of love. But it isn't. The opposite of love is indifference.Collection: Hate
Romantic love is not an emotion. ... It's a drive. It comes from the motor of the mind, the wanting part of the mind, the craving part of the mind.Collection: Romantic Love
A world without love is a deadly place.Collection: Love
We're apt to fall in love with those who are mysterious and challenging to us.Collection: Falling In Love
Barriers tend to intensify romance. It's called the 'Romeo and Juliet effect.' I call it 'frustration attraction.'Collection: Frustration
Experiences shape the brain, but the brain shapes the way we view experiences, too.Collection: Views
Nobody gets out of love alive. You turn into a menace or a pest when you've been rejected.Collection: Pests
The main characteristics of romantic love are craving: an intense craving to be with a particular person, not just sexually, but emotionally.Collection: Motivation
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."Collection: Sex
Romantic love is one of the most addictive substances on Earth.Collection: Romantic Love
Psychologists maintain that the dizzy feeling of intense romantic love lasts only about 18 months to-at best-three yearsCollection: Romantic Love
There were real reasons that you were attracted to somebody originally. The brain doesn't pick willy-nilly. Unless you part ways hating each other for some reason, that mechanism could get triggered again. You can literally fall in love again.Collection: Falling In Love
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.Collection: Sex
Mothers really were not built to raise babies not only by themselves, but with only a partner. For millions of years, a woman had much more than just her husband to help rear her young... This whole idea of 'it takes a village to raise a child' is exactly how we're supposed to live.Collection: Mother
People compose poetry, novels, sitcoms - for love.Collection: People
Women are naturally prone to compete over their mates.Collection: Mates
I can't conceive of caring more about my president than my own partner.Collection: Caring