1.

Both males and females must have adequate

testosterone for sexual attraction.
Yes, even women have small amounts of testosterone. Testosterone creates desire as
well as aggressive behavior, which may push you to pursue the person who is creating
this desire.

2. We can sense and are attracted to a person with a

different immune system.
If this isn’t bizarre, I don’t know what is. This finding came about during a study
conducted by Claude Wedekind of the University of Switzerland. He had women test
subjects smell unwashed T-shirts of men. Women consistently preferred the smell of the
man’s shirt whose immune system was different than their own. Apparently the same
findings were discovered in rodents.

3. Falling in love is as addicting as cocaine or

nicotine.
Dopamine, a chemical that is released during the initial attraction stage of the
relationship is also activated when using cocaine and nicotine. It gives you that rush of
pleasure and happiness that makes those drugs so addicting. It also enhances the
release of testosterone, which as stated above is essential for attraction. I suppose
falling in love would be the safer drug of choice if you had to choose between the three.

4. Love can literally make you crazy.

Something you may or may not know about love is that it can lead to serious infatuation.
The same levels of serotonin that bring about the infatuation are found in those with
obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is an anxiety disorder. This is probably why you
cannot seem to think of anyone else when you have fallen in love.

5. Love needs to be “blind” for survival.

It does not seem to matter what others say to a new lover—he or she is always perfect
in our eyes. This blindness is critical for us to move forward in our relationship and is
usually required to move onto the “attachment stage” as scientists call it so that they
can stay in love long enough to have and raise children; in other words, to populate the
earth.
6. Your nerve cells work better during the first year of
love.
A protein in our bodies called Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) that is important for the
functions of certain sympathetic and sensory nerve cells seems to thrive during the first
year of being in love. Basically our senses are heightened and our fight or flight
response system is more active during young love.

7. Romantic love and the love between a mother and

child share a similar chemical connection.
The hormone oxytocin is released during child birth and when a child nurses as well as
during orgasm. Oxytocin is thought to help long-term bonding.

8. When you take away one of the key “bonding”

hormones, the attachment will disappear.
A study was done on prairie voles, a rodent that forms a long-term mating pair, where
the hormone vasopressin was suppressed. These pore voles lost their interest in their
mate immediately and did not even protect one another from new mates.

9. We are attracted to those who look and/or smell

similar to one of our parents.
As creepy as this sounds, a partner who looks similar to one of our parents is found to
be comforting. If you are a female and your father wore certain cologne, it is a familiar
and comforting scent. This makes sense, but let’s not bring Freud into this.

10. We also tend to fall in love with someone who

looks like ourselves.
Talk about narcissistic, right? Aside from facial features, hair color and eye color, we
also tend to be attracted to those with the same lung volumes, ear lobe lengths and
metabolic rates.

Although we might not want to think about these things when we are falling head over
heels, it might be necessary to remind ourselves to not completely lose our heads in the
chemical love spell we are surely under.
Also see: The Science of Happiness