Hunt (1975) noted that humans take a long time to learn to love. It starts with the holding, stroking, kissing, and nursing of the infant, who learns what it feels like to be loved. Children 3 to 6 learn to love their parents but it is frustrating because you find out "you can't marry mommy" or "daddy." From 6 to 12, we learn more about love: we learn to make friends. But when the juices flow in adolescence, we suddenly feel intense urges for contact with the opposite sex.
Our first love experiences, Hunt observed, are often in our imagination...a rock star, a movie star, a teacher. Then we feel attracted to someone real and try to hang out with him/her in small groups. Later, we want to be alone with our boy/girlfriend.
These first affairs may be brief because they are based on superficial factors. Yet, through this 12-14 year process, if we are lucky, we learned a lot: to select and attract a lover, to express love, to give of ourselves, to get along, to disclose, to see beyond the surface, to attend to others' needs, to know our needs, etc. Each new love, ideally (but not always), is deeper and more realistic.
We usually have from 2 or 3 to 10 "loves" before we marry. All this learning--this "education in love"--is important; however, much more learning is apparently needed since almost half of our marriages still fail (the divorce rate of persons married as teenagers is still higher). Love is serious business; we need to know a lot.
Looking for an intimate partner: What turns us on?
Surely for most of us it is more accurate to say we were "mysteriously attracted to" or "stumbled into" rather than "carefully searched for" our love partner. Seeking a mate is not consciously planned; we are driven by our feelings. We don't take a check list of desirable traits in hand as we systematically search the world for our ideal mate. Perhaps we should do this, but we don't. How do we find love? An anthropologist, David Givens (1983), has written an entire book about how we attract and are attracted by potential lovers.
Sternberg and Barnes (1988) say physical "chemistry" is predictable if we can see the underlying needs, such as needing to find someone who is strong and dominant... or someone attractive and seductive... or someone who seeks protection within a close family, etc.
In other words, our radar is scanning for specific characteristics, but we are not likely to be aware of everything our emotions and instincts are looking for.
Once we have located an attractive target, Givens says love signals are "prewired" into the primitive parts of our brain. Guinea pigs with their cortex removed can still send and receive "love signals," mate, and care for the young. Facial expressions (a smile), postures (looking down), gestures (a touch and gazing into the eyes), and having sexual intercourse usually communicate love better than words. Thus, we woo a partner intuitively or impulsively (and then spend months wondering how it all happened).
You don't need a course in seduction; it's innate, according to Givens; yet, he gives us a 235-page, charming description of the process. However, it would be foolish to assume
instincts are fully in charge and discount the role of learned social skills, consciously planned strategies, and various coping techniques in establishing a love relationship. Yet, instincts are important (and to some extent knowable and controllable).
So, if we are attracted to another person and we want a relationship and it seems wise, then we can just "let ourselves go" and enjoy the fantastic thrill of "falling in love." However, there is one BIG PROBLEM: love often starts before we know the person well. Even when there are no initial "danger signals," we have no assurance that we will only be attracted to personalities with whom we are compatible. The person's body and manner may turn us on but parts of his/her mind, habits, attitudes, or values, which we may not know for weeks or months, could repulse us. Moreover, the lover may be (or seem) charming for a while and then turn nasty. This lack of predictability is scary. Lovers have no guarantees; you risk getting hurt or, at least, wasting your time. But dwelling on and exaggerating the possibilities of pain and problems in a relationship are deterrents to love. The opposite is more common: feeling love and denying potential problems. No one gets married expecting to divorce. We need to understand both the reasons for our attraction to others and our blindness to potential disasters. Selection of a life-long partner is the hardest and most important decision we will ever make. It requires careful, rational thought, as well as instincts and "chemistry." Let's see if we can understand love better.
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