Any kind of novelty or excitement drives up dopamine in the brain, and dopamine is associated with romantic love.
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.
Almost always, when I’m on TV, the producers who call me, who negotiate what we’re going to say, is a woman.
A lot of people have been romantically in love with somebody who they feel wasn’t appropriate to marry.
Men couldn’t care less if your strands are perfectly styled and neat. In fact, he might like you more with some wildness or bedhead, since it shows you’re carefree and relaxed.
There are cognitive processes and limbic reactions associated with basic emotions. And you can change brain chemistry, but you’re still not going to change memories and experiences in a human being.
Along with our many human propensities, we evolved a huge cerebral cortex with which we make decisions.
When chimps threaten, they open their mouth and show their teeth. It’s a little like waving a knife in front of you. It’s very primitive, and therefore bizarre.
We still have community, but we don’t seem to have local community. Even in a small town where you know your neighbors and your mother’s down the street, they’re not in arm’s length.
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.
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.
There’s a lot of talk about the positive aspects of love. We as a society downplay the danger, the anxiety, and the disappointment. We romanticize romance.
The Internet lets women use words, which is their natural tool. Little girls speak in more complex, grammatical sentences than little boys do, and women never lose that superiority in verbal ability.
Liberals and conservatives are looking for entirely different things. Their attitudes toward romance and how they court are really dramatically different. There’s almost no overlap.
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.
There exists no culture in which adultery is unknown, no cultural device or code that extinguishes philandering.
Games are the way we keep romance alive. They’re based in human hardwiring. Playing hard-to-get or leaving a little to the imagination allows the woman to be wooed and appreciated and the man to be challenged and intrigued.
Men don’t need linguistic talent; they just need courage and words.
It’s in our genes, we were built to wander.
Real competition can drive up testosterone, which boosts libido.