Addicted to Love - Page 2

Since she's an evolutionary anthropologist, not a poet or a psychologist, Fisher's take on this that our loving ways have evolved to give us an evolutionary edge. Our dopamine surges when we meet people who are most likely to make the best mates for us. From her studies, that would suggest that love's catalyst for men is beautiful, come-hither women. For women, it's square-jawed, successful men. But, if that's true, how do you explain that someone like Harvey Pekar has been married three times (twice before he became comic book famous)? Or how do you explain the miserable failures that are the marriages of so many Hollywood beautiful people?

Clearly, there's more to this love thing than hardwiring and neurotransmitters and evolutionary gain. And, too her credit, Fisher recognizes this. Maybe it was the exposure to all the poetry about love she peppers throughout her book. Or maybe it was her exposure to her research subjects in the agonizing throws of lost love. But, for whatever reason, she admits that there's something more at work in human love than a finely tuned, higly evolved animal magnetism. Even in our worst moments we are capable of controlling our basest passions. We are not slaves to our neurons. And at our best moments, we are capable of a higher, selfless love that can't be explained by evolutionary theory and that isn't found anywhere else in the animal kingdom.

Maybe understanding this thing we call love is best left to the poets.

Article Author: Sydney Smith

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