Infatuation - Committed

More from Committed:

"... infatuation is the most perilous aspect of human desire. Infatuation leads to what psychologists call 'intrusive thinking' - that famously distracted state in which you cannot concentrate on anything other than the object of your obsession. Once infatuation strikes, all else - jobs, relationships, responsibilities, food, sleep, work - falls by the wayside as you nurse fantasies about your dearest one that quickly become repetitive, invasive, and all-consuming. Infatuation alters your brain chemistry, as though you were dousing yourself with opiates and stimulants. The brain scans and mood swings of an infatuated lover, scientists have recently discovered, look remarkably similar to the brain scans and mood swings of a cocaine addict - and not surprisingly, as it turns out, because infatuation is an addiction, with measurable chemical effects on the brain. As the anthropologist and infatuation expert Dr. Helen Fisher has explained, infatuated lovers, just like any junkie, 'will go to unhealthy, humiliating, and even physically dangerous lengths to procure their narcotic.'

Nowhere is that drug stronger than at the very beginning of a passionate relationship.... Fisher's research has also shown that people are far more susceptible to infatuation when they are going through delicate or vulnerable times in their lives. The more unsettled and unbalanced we feel, the more quickly and recklessly we are likely to fall in love. This makes infatuation start to sound like a dormant virus, lying in wait, ever ready to attack our weakened emotional immune systems. College students,... travelers in foreign lands, .... Anybody going through a difficult time emotionally - due to the death of a family member, perhaps, or the loss of a job - is also susceptible to unstable love. The sick and the wounded and the frightened are famously vulnerable to sudden love too... Spouses with relationships in crisis are also prime candidates for infatuation with a new lover... The problem with infatuation, of course, is that it's a mirage, a trick of the eye - indeed, a trick of the endocrine system. Infatuation is not quite the same thing as love; it's more like love's shady second cousin who's always borrowing money and can't hold down a job."

I found this reassuring, fascinating, hilarious, and thought provoking.