Powering Attraction; Differentiating between Love and Lust in a relationship

Sorry for this “scientific-paper-sound” like heading. I had no choice but to write it this way, because it became serious as I was giving enough thought while writing this article.

Attraction between male and female species is an amazing phenomenon; starting from Adam and Eve to Evanka and Trump to the Beckham couples. You enter into a room half-bored, worried about your day and suddenly you come across someone who gets you excited, energizes you, makes your heart beat faster, and you feel sexually aroused. From Forrest Gump to The Notebook’s Ryan Gosling, attraction is something that moves the mountains.

This complexion of chemicals — that makes our attraction incur — is called epinephrine; a chemical that makes us feel “turned on” and “fall in love”. But there are much debate on falling in love. People often ask you, “are you really in love?” first time when you tell someone you are in love with someone. Oftentimes you see people hiding their relationships and not agreeing to whether they are in a relationship or not. That goes from the Beckham couples to a mere general couple.

So what is this debate on attraction? Because people get attracted for different reasons. You might be attracted to someone because he or she reflects your disowned traits, undiscovered talents or interests or maybe your wounded self. And if you are lucky, you will find your matching self, that bonds over a lot of reasons. But why people are often skeptical; or you should be aware of your reasons on falling in love? As falling in love — an intense biological experience — often confuses our neocortex; the part of our brain which is capable of rational decision making, reflection and intelligence and can indulge on our sensations for love, often leaving us no choice to mate than two flies or cats mating with each other. But there’s another thing as well, coming from the words of Catherine Johnson’s book “Lucky in Love” she mentioned:

“ Most happy marriages are held together by a powerful and enduring sexual bond — even when partners do not fully realize it.”

So what should we do to decide on a mate? How should we know are we acting out on a concept of Love or from a concept of Lust? Charlotte Kasl presents us with some interesting questions to ask ourselves. I call it the “relationship heuristics” to reflect upon for a rational decision making in terms of loving someone, because this is one of the most important decisions you will ever make.

So some of her key questions are:

Am I attracted to this person out of an adult state, or a child state? ( A child is needy of attention, and care because he needs it, but are you a child or an adult?)

Am I attracted out of spirit or ego? (Are you in love because you have this thinking of. s/he is better than you and you can benefit from the relationship or it is just loving tenderness?)

Am I operating from hormones or heart, instinct or wisdom or a combination of all of these?

When we are adults we seek a partner or a spouse who is not just a lover, but a helpmate, a friend and companion for the spiritual journey. Material and sexual journey can be achieved with anyone, and having a spouse solely for that reason is a waste. A child is like the Cinderella and the prince fantasy, who has illusory dreams of being “in love” who will save from misery and discomfort and pave the way of security, comfort and certainty. Why pray to god if we are so sure of obtaining certainty from someone?

When we create a mindful, loving, personal friendship with the other — where you can just about share anything keeping the personal respect for each other — a bond develops, and it releases the hormone oxytocin; contributing to the feeling of intense closeness, trust and sensuality. According to Paul Pearsall, the same hormone is secreted when a mother nurses her baby. But when we are seeking just a sexual high, we produce large amounts of epinephrine, and any person will do for the the hot reactive sex and the thrill. But eventually that will follow upon with regret and loneliness just like you see in these popular Hollywood chick flicks. Do you know why they are best-seller books and most sold out movie tickets? Because people read the books and see the movies they can mostly relate to.

You will find a lot of friends, relatives, colleagues will suggest you that after the initial fire of a new relationship, the new sexual attraction you will inevitably shift to a mundane day-to-day activities of just being together. I tended to initially disregard this, but I grew more confident by reading researchers and spiritual leaders contrasting that thought. If you choose a partner you are strongly attracted to mentally, if you stay loyal to your spiritual journey, be kind and true to each other no matter how vulnerable you are, the strong attraction remains and you grow to each other’s best interests. Love remains and grows, often resulting in the sexual tensions between yourselves and you wonder, “How come, after all these years of being together!”

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