# Why do we become attracted to and fall in love with specific people?



## Scoobyscoob (Sep 4, 2016)

Why does anything ever happen, it's probably for good reason. Or something about duality or something.


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## UpClosePersonal (Apr 18, 2014)

I watched the first video.

I couldn't dispute her scientific analysis of brain chemistry but I think she's FOS about people sleeping around and about online dating leading to less divorce.

Why people sleep around is motivated by more than just a simple application of brain function and chemistry. It is the result of how they grew up and what kind of thinking they were exposed to. Do they believe that having multiple sexual partners makes them more successful and distinguishes them in some way? Does it give them a sense of power that they don't experience otherwise? It definitely indicates that they don't properly value family, commitment. Not yet anyway.

And her online dating percentages of success sound like they're presented to promote the use of online dating applications. Which is an industry that has a hard time sustaining its business in high volume.

We fall in love and enjoy relationships with people who remind us of ourselves. The likelihood of meeting people like that increases when we meet people who grew up in the same area we did. There's a better likelihood that they will share values, opinions, & ways of seeing the world.

This is why people who moved around and lived in different places often have trouble finding someone and valuing other people appropriately. You have to develop a cultural background/identity which requires living somewhere for an extended amount of time.

If you've never stayed in one place and experienced getting to know friends and lovers beyond a superficial level which means learning who they are and learning to accept and love people in spite of their personal shortcomings, then you may not have what it takes to make a committed relationship work.


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## Eren Jaegerbomb (Nov 13, 2015)

I think after a while, you can also choose to continue to love someone after you have fallen in love etc, because idk..


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## TheCosmicHeart (Jun 24, 2015)

daleks_exterminate said:


> What kinda sauce?


Apple


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## JennyJukes (Jun 29, 2012)

Eren Jaegerbomb said:


> I think after a while, you can also choose to continue to love someone after you have fallen in love etc, because idk..


I have come to believe that love is a choice. The honeymoon stage eventually ends and you have to choose every day to make your relationship work. I don't believe relationships should be perfect. Obviously if you're arguing every day, or fantasizing about other people, then your relationship should probably end, but people believe they need that chemistry we feel in the beginning for it to mean anything. Isn't choosing to be with a person every day, when you can choose not to, some type of love? Arranged marriages are quite successful, and I know in most of their cultures divorce is frowned upon, but I've read stories about people who were in arranged marriages who later _fell _in love because they had to, to stay together. Quite interesting to read about.

I don't necessarily agree with this story fully, but it made a lot of sense to me after my relationship ended. We loved each other, but it wasn't enough.


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## Dezir (Nov 25, 2013)

daleks_exterminate said:


> &


What a wise woman. Really good insight.

"Think of reasons to say yes", I call it positive illusions.

Get to know at least some of this people better. The more you get to know somebody, the more you tend to like them.

So if you're risky you like risky people. If you're conservative, you like conservative people.

Why him? why her?

When you love someone everything is special about them.

What you bring to the table? probably the most important question in terms of love. That charm and looks.

I'd be very curious to hear her thoughts on looks and the traditional concepts of masculinity and femininity. Like, people can turn their dating life 90 degrees by working on their looks and developing charisma, having good chemistry and good spirits. You get along nicely. While both can afford to be yourself and are free to be yourself.

It's still looks that's the king.

It's more about being masculine-looking like Andrew Tate, than being masculine.

Masculinity meant masculine looking.

IMMA put my life together, good looks and good chemistry.

Have good looks and good chemistry and tell me you're not able to get a woman.

I won't believe you.


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## Red Panda (Aug 18, 2010)

Dezir said:


> It's more about being masculine-looking like Andrew Tate, than being masculine.
> 
> Masculinity meant masculine looking.
> 
> ...


Andrew Tate? no thanks 

It's good to take care of yourself for sure, for your own benefit firstly. But chemistry is not something you have on your own, it's something you have with another person and it's not something you can control.


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## CountZero (Sep 28, 2012)

> There’s a point, however, where this trend in fMRI research starts to enter a prickly realm: Because physical pain and emotional pain—like heartbreak—travel along the same pathways in the brain, as covered earlier, this means that theoretically they can be medically treated in the same way. In fact, researchers recently showed that acetaminophen—yep, regular old Tylenol—reduces the experience of social pain. “We have shown for the first time that acetaminophen, an over-the-counter medication commonly used to reduce physical pain, also reduces the pain of social rejection, at both neural and behavioral levels,” they write in their paper in the journal _Psychological Science_.


No sh*t...presumably it works for social rejection too. Time for a trip to the drug store...


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## littlewyng (Sep 17, 2020)

JennyJukes said:


> I have come to believe that love is a choice. The honeymoon stage eventually ends and you have to choose every day to make your relationship work. I don't believe relationships should be perfect. Obviously if you're arguing every day, or fantasizing about other people, then your relationship should probably end, but people believe they need that chemistry we feel in the beginning for it to mean anything. Isn't choosing to be with a person every day, when you can choose not to, some type of love? Arranged marriages are quite successful, and I know in most of their cultures divorce is frowned upon, but I've read stories about people who were in arranged marriages who later _fell _in love because they had to, to stay together. Quite interesting to read about.
> 
> I don't necessarily agree with this story fully, but it made a lot of sense to me after my relationship ended. We loved each other, but it wasn't enough.
> 
> View attachment 911228


So I found some science about this... Regulation of Romantic Love Feelings: Preconceptions, Strategies, and Feasibility

I was having a conversation with an INTP and an ENTJ about whether unconditional love exists- which then brought up the question of whether we can control love, etc. etc. which I think plays well with the original question here from @daleks_exterminate - and this report actually tries to specifically answer her question. And yeah we had the same conversations about trauma and conditioning and everything. 

It's pretty clear to me that we do have control over who we allow ourselves to love, in the context of non-family relationships. That being said, does unconditional love EXIST? And by unconditional love, what I mean is, I will love this person no matter what they do, just because they exist. 

I think it DOES, even if it's not wise to do so. And it's hard to argue that it doesn't, if you agree with the concept that love is a FEELING. Additionally, there are people out there who are not able to recognize that they are entwined with a toxic individual and love others without any personal boundaries at all. Without going into the "why" this happens, think about all of the situations where someone is abused but stays in that abusive relationship because "I still love them." That to me would meet the definition of unconditional love, albeit unhealthy.

So now going back to the family relationships- specifically the child/parent thing. When you are a child, you have no choice but to depend on your parent for survival and care, and I think that would also meet the definition of unconditional love, from the child's perspective. I think this exists to the point where if the parent isn't providing the care that the child needs, the child blames themselves for the deficit. 

From the parent perspective, Or really any adult regarding a child who is not old enough to actively or consistently control their behaviors, I think it's normal to regard that child with unconditional love. As a child, I can't control whether I'm someone's child or not- and I think a healthy parent would just love the child for existing without condition. Same with adoption- if the original parents give you up, I think a healthy adoptive parent would love the child for existing, not specifically because of something they did. But as with anything else, you can have toxic or non-toxic family relationships. Did the family have a child because of what that child could do for them? Are they expected from the day they are born to serve the needs of the parents? I like to think that's not always the case.

But at some point you mature to the point where you can decide yourself who you let in and who you keep out of your circle. And hopefully either you have a healthy upbringing or figure out how to become more healthy over time, and you are able to let people in who are good for you- and then those are the people you love.


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## Kintsugi (May 17, 2011)

There are different layers to attraction, that don't appeal to everyone.

For example, my Mother used to tell me how when her and my Father were in their late teens/early 20s, that they wouldn't change their bed sheets for weeks because the scent drove them nuts, lol. This is most likely due to to the genetic component (i.e. pheromones) to attraction

Personally, I can't relate. But hey, as far as I can tell they are still at it (and they are in their 60s now).

EDIT: I was informed today that apparently the theory of pheremones in relation to human attraction is actually completely unfounded (basically pseudoscience). I guess my parents were just both into smells?


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## SeraphimSolomon (May 2, 2017)

Its better than being the ghenghis khan of your community, or sculpting your body into the statue of david as if it was made out of marble, this is coming from the ukrainian stork, live life and love those that you do, you beautiful people, dont over think it. As the devil stares back at me due to me taking psychedelics in the hotel room than standing at the balcony and pissing off the balcony due to how insane i feel at the brink of the eternal.


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## Kintsugi (May 17, 2011)

I was thinking about this more....

I'm autistic, so the way I personally experience & navigate attraction is somewhat "different" to many others. An example I'm thinking of specifically is that a friend once explained to me that boys that wear a certain brand of trainer/sneaker are really "hot". I didn't understand this logic at all, but I decided to be open minded about it....

Fast forward a few months when I'm on holiday, and there is a group of young boys my age hanging out at the same youth club program. Before I studied their faces I analyzed their footwear, and low and behold....one of them was wearing the brand that my friend told me was very popular and in fashion. 

I cannot describe exactly how or why this occurred, but over the course of a few days I started to feel this kind of attraction to this young man. And even though when we spoke in person I found him to be incredibly dull and boring....whenever I saw a flash of those pristine Nike Air Max, I felt this anticipatory flutter of excitement in my stomach, LOL

What the hell is up with that?!


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## goodvibe (Aug 23, 2013)

Kintsugi said:


> I was thinking about this more....
> 
> I'm autistic, so the way I personally experience & navigate attraction is somewhat "different" to many others. An example I'm thinking of specifically is that a friend once explained to me that boys that wear a certain brand of trainer/sneaker are really "hot". I didn't understand this logic at all, but I decided to be open minded about it....
> 
> ...


It depends on what the brand represents, and it works directly with the subconscious. And it is a way of saying, hey, you can trust me because I am wearing this symbol (and the symbol represents XYZ as carefully crafted by the brand). 

And there may be celebrities that promote this item, and this may attract a certain type of customer that identifies with the brand's image and status. The values it represents are not what is always on the surface but beneath, which may even have some Freudian psychoanalytic and sexual undertones to them. All of this is carefully studied and hashed out the teams of social engineers, and they have billions of dollars to spend on this stuff to get us to buy their stuff.


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## Dezir (Nov 25, 2013)

littlewyng said:


> So I found some science about this... Regulation of Romantic Love Feelings: Preconceptions, Strategies, and Feasibility
> 
> I was having a conversation with an INTP and an ENTJ about whether unconditional love exists- which then brought up the question of whether we can control love, etc. etc. which I think plays well with the original question here from @daleks_exterminate - and this report actually tries to specifically answer her question. And yeah we had the same conversations about trauma and conditioning and everything.
> 
> ...


I disagree with your premise. I don't think we do have control over who we allow ourselves to love. I think we have control over our actions, but the feeling of love is there whether we want it or not. You don't decide what you're attracted to.

Actually, it's very easy to argue that it doesn't & agree with the concept that love is a feeling at the same time. Your feelings are based upon "what you know so far", you have your beliefs that make up your reality, and from the on you have values and feelings. If your soulmate would turn out to be a serial killer, police would discover tomorrow that he killed 30 people so far, would you still love him unconditionally? If your SO would get out of a shape, become fat and it at home and play only video games all day, even become unemployed, would you still love him the same? If your SO would abuse you, begin to beat you out of the smallest things, would you still love him the same? If your SO was all 3: become an ugly, abusive, serial killer, would you still love him no matter what he does? It's pretty hard to argue that the answer would be yes.

Toxic relationships still happen because that person still finds the abuser attractive, no matter their behavior towards them. It's not unconditional love, it's just that the conditions are not what you think they are.

Well, you love your child BECAUSE he is your child. So the unconditional part falls off right away.

And sometimes, there are abusive parents who mistreat their kids.

Funny thing is, in a family with more kids, are the parents going to like more the "succesful" kid or the "loser" kid? They are not allowed to make differences, but they do, even if only in thought. In a family with 3 kids I heard a woman saying that she secretly has a favourite. Of course, she would never admit it, what would this mean? lol, but she has.

The idea of unconditional love is one of those wishful lies to me. Sounds good in theory. But that's not how it works in practice.


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## MadMaxSDP (2 mo ago)

No ideal exists in any material form, the ideal exists as a thing on to itself which the form approaches. I agree with you. We can control who we love…in fact it is the only way to love. Anything else is infatuation.

someone with a very highly developed intellect but a very poorly developer feeling function will be compulsively dragged around to various imagined and vague feelings of attraction, but a self aware and developed individual approaches love with graces and conscientiousness.

this is where we get the stereotypical intellectual who falls for the fem fatale and loses self-agency versus the wise father figure who becomes the tribal leader and shepherd of his people and makes a life with a Mother Merry…of course the fem fatale of this partner or spouse is integrated into the bedroom, but both partners are overwhelmingly cool and calm water, not volatile and fickle flames with no permanence Thad dissipate by the first wind. Even though they are calm, cool, collected, and grounded…there is still volcanic forces beneath them stirring passion and power. The two become more than they were alone.

One is advanced in his intellect but primitive in his attitude, and the other has transcended across the threshold.


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## Darryl (20 d ago)

My perception has changed significantly. After being in a relationship of 21 years with a narc who was intellectually challenged. Now divorced and having a high drive to find another relationship I find it easy to meet women that are attractive to me but find myself thinking "god I hope she has a tolerable personality". This world seems to have changed a lot over the last 20 years, my perception is that there are more attractive women out there, also that more of them have some really disturbing motives.
I am challenging my perceptions here. Am I just seeing more through older wiser eyes?


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## MadMaxSDP (2 mo ago)

Love is like a lock and key. The key will only fit if every groove is accounted for between the two. Every key and lock are different but they are all matrices. There is no singular variable for love.

infatuation, lust, desire are part of love but they also exist outside of love. I do not confuse the two.

is there attraction?
Is there trust and patience?
Is it one sided or equal?

so my times I read about people who fall in love. Love is not a place one can fall into for it is not dangerous. Love is kind. Therefore it can only be a place we step into and when you fall in true love there could never have been another.


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## UpClosePersonal (Apr 18, 2014)

The question seems to be, Why is this person I'm encountering so hard to ignore?
Why am I so strongly attracted to him/her?
The first reason is that they are the least likely person you would fall for and that is an intriguing mystery that must be explored. And so you approach with caution but at the same time want to leap into with wild abandon.

Why is it so hard to ignore them and in fact they invade your thoughts?

Psychologists say that they trigger something from your past. Some unmet need. If you were always ignored, they represent the missing attention you longed for. They fill that void.

What's wrong with that is that it is not what you think it is and it's not doing for you what you think it is.

That's what you need to realize and avoid making any serious mistakes in you life in terms of romantic entanglement.


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## Darryl (20 d ago)

I know I loved the idea of someone more than I should have. As young adults we are influenced to like things that we have not experienced, everything from family to the media basically controls the decisions we make. I have just started to figure this out over the last year and getting away from a narc I was married to for 21 years. She met my initial evaluation of being someone I would marry and clung on to me in a codependent disaster trying to steer my life and using my accomplishments for her benefit.


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