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Time: 61:20
More Information On Items Referenced In This Podcast:
Tim "The Prophet" Malloy and Friends Live Comedy Show:
Tickets: www.brownpapertickets.com
- Saturday, December 12th, 2009 at 10:30 p.m.
- The Odd Duck Studio (Theatre), Seattle
- Capitol Hill, on 10th Ave Between Union St and Madison St
- How 'bout a Map?: Click Here
Rain Country - The Gay Country Dancing Social Organization:
The Cuff - Seattle's Gay Leather Bar
Link to Scientific Article Hilary Quoted About the Science of Love and Crushes (from the February 12, 2004 edition of The Economist):
WNYC's "On The Media" Radio Program Can Be Found:
- In Seattle, on KUOW 94.9 FM, Sunday Nights at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time.
- Or online at http://onthemedia.org/
Vince Guaraldi Trio's "A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Original Sound Track", Including the Song "Christmas Time is Here":
Hey, I don't know if you guys have heard this theory. And I don't remember where I heard it. But I read somewhere that a crush is nature's (aka DNA) way of keeping two people together long enough to mate/form a long-term relationship.
ReplyDeleteYeah - the current thought is that there is an initial biochemical reaction akin to opiate addiction that draws people together and then over time the brain chemicals change and more resemble what happens when moms bond with babies. So basically over time it is natural for the intense addictive obsessive and lust-driven feelings to be replaced by more tender and maternal feelings. And this makes evolutionary sense if you're trying to form a community that is stronger against the dangerous world than individuals would be, and if you're trying to raise a fragile creature like a primate, that takes so freaking long to stand up on its own two feet and know better than to wander into a stampeding herd of woolly mammoths.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that it is hard to sustain an exciting sex life over the long term has a biochemical basis - the feelings in the beginning biologically change - and this explains why affairs are so common and happen even to people who are shocked by their own behaviour; also explains why some people seem to develop an addiction to that kind of extramarital connection. They are literally hooked on their own brain chemicals.
The research also jives with the arguably more honest or at least more complex philosophies and life experience of people in the poly community who embrace rather than fight the fact that human bonding is more exciting in the beginning and that we change and need/want different things from different people over time.
Monogamous couples who are able to keep at least a portion of the physical intensity alive over time are probably working with rather than against the changing brain chemicals, making use of and accepting/welcoming the tenderness, if you will. But also they are probably making choices that stimulate an artificial sense of "new" so that external "new" is less compelling - by acting in the relationship the way that one acts when dating, having that ongoing willingness to be adventurous and spontaneous - even if it's just going to a different restaurant every week. What works for other people might be less subtle of course; I personally like the notion of showing up at your spouse's work in a trenchcoat and heels... though depending on the genders and orientations of the people involved this scenario could be more hilarious and less sexy :D...