The bottom line is that for millions of years if a man had a wife and two children and had two children with another woman, he would double the amount of DNA he would spread into the next generation, his genetic composition would be passed on. If a woman had two children with her husband and another with another man, it was an insurance policy if her husband died or left her.

Helen Fisher

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Keep an open heart. We are wired to find love.

Helen Fisher

open-heart finding-love heart

People live for love. They kill for love. They die for love. They have songs, poems, novels, sculptures, paintings, myths, legends. It's one of the most powerful brain systems on Earth for both great joy and great sorrow.

Helen Fisher

valentines-day motivation song

You fall in love with somebody who fits within what I call your 'love map,' an unconscious list of traits that you build in childhood as you grow up. And I also think that you gravitate to certain people, actually, with somewhat complementary brain systems.

Helen Fisher

growing-up falling-in-love thinking

Women have a better sense of smell than men do, and it's even sharper in the middle of their menstrual cycle, when estrogen levels peak and women are more likely to be deciding whether a man's attractive.

Helen Fisher

smell levels men

There's all kinds of reasons that you fall in love with one person rather than another: Timing is important. Proximity is important. Mystery is important. You fall in love with somebody who's somewhat mysterious, in part because mystery elevates dopamine in the brain, probably pushes you over that threshold to fall in love.

Helen Fisher

falling-in-love important brain

Romantic love is an obsession. It possesses you. You lose your sense of self. You can’t stop thinking about another human being.

Helen Fisher

romantic-love motivation inspiration

Sometimes we fall in love with somebody who will probably never love us, for reasons having nothing to do with us but with their own mindset, their chemistry.

Helen Fisher

chemistry falling-in-love sometimes

What our grandmothers told us about playing hard to get is true. The whole point of the game is to impress and capture. It's not about honesty. Many men and women, when they're playing the courtship game, deceive so they can win. Novelty, excitement and danger drive up dopamine in the brain. And both sexes brag.

Helen Fisher

honesty lying sex

The main characteristics of romantic love are craving: an intense craving to be with a particular person, not just sexually, but emotionally.

Helen Fisher

romantic-love motivation inspiration

Whether you're married or not, relationships - and the satisfaction tied to them - are extremely important for increasing men's and women's quality of life.

Helen Fisher

quality important men

We're apt to fall in love with those who are mysterious and challenging to us.

Helen Fisher

falling-in-love challenges fall

A hundred years ago, if you had a child out of marriage, you'd be a social disgrace. Today women feel comfortable enough economically and culturally to bring up a child without a recognized commitment from a man.

Helen Fisher

children commitment years

Nobody gets out of love alive. You turn into a menace or a pest when you've been rejected.

Helen Fisher

menace pests alive

Games are the way we keep romance alive. They're based in human hardwiring. Playing hard-to-get or leaving a little to the imagination allows the woman to be wooed and appreciated and the man to be challenged and intrigued.

Helen Fisher

imagination games men

Psychologists maintain that the dizzy feeling of intense romantic love lasts only about 18 months to-at best-three years

Helen Fisher

romantic-love romance years

Romantic love is not an emotion. ... It's a drive. It comes from the motor of the mind, the wanting part of the mind, the craving part of the mind.

Helen Fisher

romantic-love brain love-is

Experiences shape the brain, but the brain shapes the way we view experiences, too.

Helen Fisher

shapes views brain

A world without love is a deadly place.

Helen Fisher

valentines-day love world

Saliva has testosterone and estrogen. When you kiss, you're having a chemical experience.

Helen Fisher

saliva chemicals kissing

I think romantic love evolved to enable you to focus your mating energy on just one individual at a time, thereby conserving mating time and energy.

Helen Fisher

romantic-love happiness thinking