Love Brain

I once worked as an assistant to a general contractor dude in his late thirties. When I started, I had little experience that could be of use to Tom (name changed to protect the uh, innocent) other than enthusiasm, which he assured me was more than enough. Tom had been the landlord of my last apartment. I knew enough of him to surmise that he was laid back (smoked copious amounts of weed), had enough work to keep an assistant fully employed, and though a little creepy, was just a dude who loved his family, job and weed.

From the start, Tom and I had good friendly rapport. I made him laugh; he made interesting philosophical points; I proved to be great organizational assistance because he was perpetually stoned. Life was good. Eight hours a day in close proximity, however, had its affect on Tom’s blurry subconscious. My job description expanded from installing drywall, plumbing, and painting to include deflecting sexual advances. The increased workload made for increased discomfort.

On the day that would be my last, Tom gave me a book and confessed his “crush.” The whole ordeal was laughable considering how many passes he‘d already made at me. I tried to redirect the conversation to my current boyfriend (a tactic to thwart attention that I’m not sure ever really works), and when I mentioned that he was the second person I’d dated seriously, Tom got visibly uncomfortable. He paused. “Honey, I thought you’d been around the block a few more times,” he said anxiously. He told me he couldn’t do it after all--the emotional drama that I would create would “wreck” him and his family. As if to twist the knife of absurdity, he said he’d known from the start that I was afraid of falling in love with him and though he couldn’t be with me, he still needed me to come in early on Monday to finish this bathroom job.

My head was spinning as I left the job site. What the fuck was wrong with this guy? Where did he get off telling me I was afraid of falling in love with him? The outburst was the last straw. I quit in person, in front of his wife, two days later. Though I was finally off board the emotional rollercoaster, I couldn‘t shake from my mind his assertion that I was afraid of falling in love with him...

It was true.

In my case with Tom, I knew I was dangerously close to being seduced. I was too vulnerable and he was too in touch with my emotions. Any extended duration of employment would have led to either sex or insanity. We both caught wind of this before it happened, but the looming power of lust muddied our attempt to maintain a functional fellowship.

As it always seems to these days.

Casual sex for twenty-somethings is an easily addictive and attainable high. We mourn having fewer non-sexual friendships with the opposite sex, but then we keep indulging in the same behavior. Lust is a persistent and influential instigator.

There is science behind the madness. Sexual appetite is heightened by the release of the hormone testosterone. Though you’d think this release would occur in the sex organs, it’s actually happening in the brain (though the phrase “thinking with your dick” should definitely maintain its idiomatic stature). Testosterone increases in men often coincide with visual imagery (example, seeing a flash of leg). In women, words of affection or situational reminders increase levels of testosterone.

Studies have shown that female arousal tends to be sporadic and unpredictable. I personally cannot understand why you’d want to piggyback that biological trait with a clitoris piercing, but that’s just because the thought of having an orgasm while walking down the cereal isle terrifies me. Female arousal can be explained by the fact that the callosum--the fiber that connects brain hemispheres--is said to be larger in females than in males, which allows us greater access to both sides of our brain. This trait is both a blessing and a curse. We’re better with language (Dudes, stop making fun of us. We can’t help it, it‘s just how our brains work.) And we‘re aroused by a whole hiccup of things. Wait, which one‘s supposed to be the curse?

Men have more active parietal lobes, which integrate sensory information like that flash of leg. They experience lust most strongly in morning and in autumn. Women are horniest during ovulation. Both genders indulge in one-night stands, emotionally detached “hook up” partnerships and affairs. Both also settle for relations that are emotionally unattached when they want attachment. Humans are said to formulate their romantic ideals by age ten. At some point in our twenties, we throw them out the window.

Just like we do all kinds of things (I so wish I had been here):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJkhohR2-BA

We toss out the ethics, then chalk it up to being young and experimental. “Just trying to add notches on the bedpost” we say, patting ourselves on the back for sneakily masking our fears from outsiders. The fears, however, remain. We fear that our romantic ideals are too far-fetched. We fear that love isn’t real.

But sex is not just about lust. Even the most basic one-night stand can contain components of love, as sex releases more chemicals in our brains than just testosterone. After an orgasm, serotonin is released, which gives us feelings of relaxation and comfort. Later, when thinking about the person we had sex with, our brains release dopamine. Dopamine entices fantasies and love sickness (assuming it was all well and good). It is activated in the part of our brains associated with rewards and addictions, the mesolimbic reward system. Dopamine metabolizes into norepinephrine, which causes our hearts to beat faster and blood flows to increase (think of the last time you were on uppers, if you were ever recently on uppers). Phenylethylamine gives us feelings of romantic well-being, encouraging us to further sip the “chemicals of love” cocktail, whether we like it or not. This cocktail meddles with our intention to have strictly casual sex.

Moreover, sex releases chemicals of attachment (“the cuddle chemicals”) in both men and women--oxytocin in females and vasopressin in males. The release of each requires the necessary amounts of sex-appropriate hormones (estrogen and testosterone, respectively). These chemicals influence more than just post-coitus cuddling. People with varied or inadequate levels of these chemicals are said to have anxious attachment styles (crazy jealous girlfriend, for one); people with strictly low levels are said to have avoidant styles.

If you’re thinking this sounds a little too over-scienceified, I’d say I agree. People have all kinds of experiences over a lifetime that influence how they think about and respond to sex. The take home message is not that love is just brain chemistry and that everything we‘re feeling while in love/lust is a series of chemical reactions--it is that the whole business is cerebral. And that there’s a lot more going on during sex than just the act.

Rejection too is painfully cerebral. Getting rejected especially sucks (from my vantage point) when you’re a woman (who wants verbal closure because that’s how your brain’s wired) getting rejected by a man (who doesn’t see the point in talking about it). I used to think that that famous scene from “A Few Good Men” made good allegory of this point (Tom Cruise obviously embodying the female):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGvQtumNAY

I thought this because I am a girl, and girls like to think. We put a lot of thought into our relationships, our breakups, and our post-facto analysis of relationships and breakups (as in, I feel like I have been writing this article FOR EVER). We don’t necessarily know what’s going on in the brains of our male counterpoints, but we like to think we know. When they “don’t want to talk about it,” most men probably aren’t on some mission to protect the walls of their subconscious with honor, code and loyalty. Nor are they out to hurt us. But we’ll believe both are true. We’re women in love, we can’t help it.

After I quit my assistant contractor post, Tom continued to text and email me, alluding to how he didn't trust me anymore. In response, I played Nicholson--a role I wasn't used to playing. I guarded my walls. I cut off contact. “He can’t handle the truth,” I muttered obsessively while alone in my room.

Which was a lie. I was the one who couldn’t handle it.



Author’s note: This article (and brain-related articles that are to follow) is inspired by the very bomb third edition of The Owner’s Manual for the Brain: Everyday Applications from Mind-Brain Research. It is by Pierce J. Howard and is really good.