I sure as hell hope not.
Anthropologist Helen Fisher makes an argument for reducing the strong feelings you have for someone - you know, like that little thing called love - to the amount of dopamine their presence releases in your brain.
The more they trigger those releases (ahem), the more addicted you become.
Pretty soon, you don't need the 'ahem' and just the thought of that person triggers the same response.
This happens in the 'attachment' center of your brain and before you know it, you've built up a little response library to a particular person that's full of the warm n' fuzzies whenever they pop into your head. And that's usually a lot for most people.
Even without the 'ahem', these chemicals get released anyway - definitive proof (at least to me) - that thoughts are real...
Which is awesome until... backtrack to psych 101
Pavlov trains dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell by ringing said bell followed by feeding the dog. The dog starts to associate the bell with food.
Pretty soon, he's anticipating a meal every time he hears a bell. Voila! He salivates before he gets his food.
Bell. Food. Bell. Food. Bell. Food.
Consistency builds trust.
Pretty soon the dog hears a bell and starts salivating because he trusts that food is just around the corner. Now that's faith. (Or at the very least, a reasonable assumption that it's on its way because it has never failed to show up before).
Bell. Salivate. Food. Bell. Salivate. Food. Bell. Salivate. Food.
It's aaaaalllllll good. Until...
You take the food away. But not the bell. What happens?
They hear a bell. They salivate. They wait. No food.
WTF?!
They hear a bell. They salivate. STILL NO FOOD. But they're salivating up a storm.
They might even get confused. (Maybe even depressed, search in vain for an answer in the void around them and think, Where's my doggone food?!
Here's what I want to know...
What if Pavlov rang the bell and sometimes he gave the dog food and sometimes he didn't? Would the dog still salivate?
Would he sometimes salivate?
Would he avoid salivation altogether because he didn't trust the food was on its way?
Would he bite the hand that sometimes feeds him but sometimes doesn't?
Would he build mistrust? Or take it as it comes because let's face it, he's a dog and doesn't really have any choice, (it's not like he can opt for a better master).
Is love a Pavlovian response?
To some extent, yes.
That's why the social psych books say if you want someone to keep liking you (and to grow in liking you), you must be extremely consistent or they will lose interest.
Email, text, call at the same time every day (roughly). It all comes down to being attentive. Consistently. Or you risk making someone feels insecure and emotionally 'ostracized'.
And it doesn't take much because people's feelings are surprisingly delicate. (Their words, not mine).
Because (and this is my analysis tossed in for good measure), I think there's a part of your brain that also registers a pain response that also exists in the attachment area of your brain. Why should positive chemicals have all the fun?
I'm going to call this the anti-dope-amine response.
The problem is, if you have inconsistencies in your relationship, your brain goes into conflict - dopamines vs anti-dopamines. All associated with the same person. But if you're getting different signals from them (or ones you can't read), sometimes you get a pleasure release, and sometimes you get the opposite.
But you're still in the attachment section. Crap.
So no matter what happens, the attachment grows.
That's how abusive relationships start. And they don't have to be boxing matches to be abusive. The passive aggressive kind happen when sometimes you get a bone and sometimes you don't (no pun intended).
And I don't know about you, but I don't much like walking on eggshells wondering if I'm getting my plate of food or not.
At some point, you have to give your brain a rest. Because, we all know butterflies are felt in the heart, but a headache is well... in the head....
At some point, you have to trust your intuition.
I'm not saying you should expect one person to trigger a constant dopamine eruption in your brain, but if your scale is tipping more often than not in the other direction, and your trigger/response mechanism is starting to feel like mistrust more than trust, maybe you should well... trust that.
After all, you're not a dog... and nobody should be allowed to play Pavlov's games with your feelings. Whether they do it on purpose or not...
