Episode Transcript
Interviewer: You're in a really great relationship with a really great person, but the deep love stuff that you see in the movies just isn't developing. If you're emotionally incapable of falling in love, does that make you abnormal? That's coming up next on The Scope.
Announcer: Questions every woman wonders about her health, body, and mind. This is "Am I Normal" on The Scope.
Interviewer: We are here today with Dr. Kirtly Parker Jones, the expert on all things woman. The topic of falling in love, Dr. Jones, seems like a normal thing. Other people fall in love, but it seems like I'm not falling in love, and I want to know why. Tell me, why am I not falling in love, because I want to.
Dr. Jones: That isn't a great deal of research on this. However, there is a huge amount of cultural norms about falling in love. People who aren't madly, passionately, obsessively in love don't make great novels, and they don't make great TV shows, and they don't make great movies. So what we see portrayed as mad, passionate, uncontrollable love that makes two people who see each other across a room in the hotel bedroom about 15 minutes later, that's actually not true, generally.
Interviewer: So that's just in the movies, then.
Dr. Jones: That's in the movies. Well, that's the standard by which many woman hold, a feeling that they're seeking. This couldn't be the right relationship because, "I haven't lost myself."
So let's back up and talk about this kind of erotic love. It's a neuroendocrinologic love. It has to do with the irrational persevering focus on the other. You can't live without the other, you see the other one coming and it makes your heart beat harder, your blood pressure goes up - by the way not good for you - and you make decisions that often aren't good.
The people who fall in love with the bad boy, "I know he's the wrong one for me but he's just a bad boy." So this is something, this falling in love business is a neuroendocrinologic phenomenon. It is risky, and so I think there are many kinds of falling in love. We see adolescents become totally obsessed, falling in love, screaming when they see the Beatles or their pop star, plastering their bedrooms with posters, weeping, and hoping, and fawning over some . . .
Interviewer: I call that just obsession at that point, I think.
Dr. Jones: Well, it's part of the same phenomenon. It makes people make bad decisions because they're obsessed with the other.
Interviewer: And that's also falling in love.
Dr. Jones: That's kind of a falling in love, right.
Interviewer: Interesting. Okay.
Dr. Jones: So there are many adolescents who do this. Now, falling in love, not everyone will have that kind of media-enhanced experience in their own life. That doesn't mean they're not normal. Some people will. People who are risk takers, so they're not adverse to risks, and novelty seekers tend to seek after that kind of amphetamine driven-like experience. People have looked that brains of people who were in love and it's like being on amphetamines. So it's unrealistic, it's obsessive, it's focused, and it happens, but it doesn't happen to everyone.
Interviewer: So there is a medical definition for somebody falling in love. It's not just a thing that you see in the movies where you just feel it in your heart, in your soul, but there is a medical thing to this.
Dr. Jones: There is some neurologic research about it. It's not widely done, so there's not a huge amount of great research. First of all, you may not be risk-averse enough or you may not be thrill-seeking enough. You may be very cautious. So even if you're attracted to someone, you may not let yourself go full bore and become obsessed with someone because you're cautious. And women are cautious.
Interviewer: And that's what some people might call scared to fall in love.
Dr. Jones: Right, they are frightened to fall in love, or they have the good judgment not to fall in love. Secondly, there are some people that are missing some receptors in the brain so it's difficult for them to fall in love. One very interesting set of research from a very rare condition where people are unable to smell, so the part of their brain that allows them to smell is also connected to the part of their brain that helps them stimulate the reproductive processes and these people, you can make them ovulate and you can make them make sperm, but they don't fall in love.
Interviewer: Because they can't smell.
Dr. Jones: Well, some people think it's that. So some people think part of the trigger is one of these, our smell, and our perceptions, and our limbic system, which is our emotional system works. Some people are missing that, so when they have sex they don't bond to their sex partner. They just go looking for anybody else to have sex with. This is rare, but it's interesting insight into the neuroendocrinology of falling in love.
Interviewer: Based on what you just said, there are some people, based on what their brain is missing or it's just not getting enough of, they can't fall in love naturally.
Dr. Jones: Right. There are some people who just never pair bond. They're asexual. They're not attracted. They're not driven. We don't understand those people very well, but they make up a significant part of the population, and that's fine.
Interviewer: How much do you think? How many?
Dr. Jones: Well, some people have said around 5%.
Interviewer: Well, that's actually a big difference.
Dr. Jones: That's a big chunk.
Interviewer: Five percent of us can't fall in love because our body won't let us.
Dr. Jones: Right. So they might get married, and they might pair bond because someone else is driving the erotic agenda. And they've fallen into line because that's what people do, and they may have a wonderful sex life, but they're not necessarily driven to do that.
Interviewer: Can they like the person?
Dr. Jones: Sure they can.
Interviewer: They can't love the person.
Dr. Jones: They can love the person. They can like the person.
Interviewer: But they can't fall in love.
Dr. Jones: Right. In love is not love, so they can have a profound and deep phileos love for the person. But the erotic love that drives people crazy, they can't do that. Lastly, of course is the real critical question.
Interviewer: Is this even normal?
Dr. Jones: It is normal. It's important to recognize that falling in love is a relatively short part of any marriage relationship. When people fall in love and they get married, the smart ones know that falling in love stage is about, sometimes only six months, and at most about six or seven years. That's the seven year itch when people start looking for another erotic love focus.
Interviewer: Oh, that's where that comes from.
Dr. Jones: Right. And that's all you're going to get out of this erotic driven passionate bonding with some other person. That goes away because it's not new anymore.
Interviewer: So from what you're telling me, you might fall in love with somebody, get married, have kids, and then somewhere down the line it's very possible and quite common, apparently, to fall out of love.
Dr. Jones: To fall out of being in love. You love them, but you're not passionately-focused erotically in love with them. Most people can only focus on one person at a time with this erotic neuroendocrine obsession, but even people who study this passionate in love business, it doesn't last a whole relationship. And some people, they switch relationships because they need that erotic dizzying focused in love thing.
So first of all, it's kind of risky to be in love. It's a great feeling but A) it doesn't last, and B), it doesn't help you get through the day and go to work. If it does happen, it doesn't happen forever. And in reality, a maturing relationship moves on to love where you deeply care about the other and the other's welfare. Being in love is all about me, me, me and getting my needs met.
Interviewer: That's not what the movies tell you.
Dr. Jones: Of course they don't, but the movies are only an hour and a half long, and a good relationship is a lifetime.
Interviewer: Or six years, apparently. Six or seven years.
Dr. Jones: Or six years, right. So I hope for all of our listening audience that they have the opportunity to feel in love with someone who's fallen in love with them. But I sure hope it doesn't last a long time because it's hard to go to work.
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