Last update: June 16, 2015
We are fascinating conglomerates of attitudes, beliefs, desires and aspirations. Understanding why we fall in love with a particular man or woman and not others is a challenge that has attracted the attention of psychologists for a long time. Emotions take root in our brains in a way that is difficult to understand; they, by nature, penetrate us, our personality and our desires in a spontaneous and almost magical way.
Attraction is often based on some needs we are not aware of, certain aspirations and desires that probably appear in certain types of people and not others.
Let's go deeper ...
The brain in love
When we investigate the processes that take place in our brain when we are in love, we lose a bit of enchantment and magic and move towards a colder world where we are determined by chemistry, by that wonderful mixture of neurotransmitters capable of making us experience the known sensation of touching the sky with a finger. Endorphins, enkephalins and phenylethylamine are responsible for our euphoria and happiness; they are the ones that give us an injection of positive emotions. But what is it that activates this process and that makes our brain take an interest in a certain type of person and not another?
Theory 1: family simile
Sometimes, we are attracted to people who make us feel good because they remind us in some ways of our parents. A fact of this kind brings us security and confidence. We feel attraction because the subjects are familiar to us and being with them gives us one feeling of pleasant affinity.
Theory 2: correspondence
Another theory is that of "correspondence": according to scientists, when we fall in love, the fact of sharing similar experiences, having passed through the same things, having similar tastes and values. It is a good way to choose a companion for life: all these aspects make life easier and more exciting. It is another kind of affinity and it is very enriching.
Theory 3: admiration
It happens that for someone admiration turns into love. It happens to us with that person who acts as a model for us, in whom we see virtues, aspirations or dimensions that we have always wanted for ourselves and that somehow we have never achieved. In these cases, the attraction usually goes to people who are very different from us: we are attracted by self-confident, extroverted and enterprising individuals, while we are a little more insecure and shy. Opposites attract each other because, after all, they complement each other and satisfy each other's needs.
Theory 4: a question of chemistry, a question of glands
Many studies confirm the importance of so-called "pheromones". They are substances secreted by some glands present in the lips, armpits, neck, groin. They are imperceptible, people do not feel them due to an organ called "vomeronasal", independent of the sense of smell. It is a smell that creates sensations, something unique in each person and which, in some way, defines us.
These are the most famous theories formulated regarding falling in love; they explain why we feel attracted to a certain type of person and not to another. If they are true or not, time will tell and we will see it ourselves: when the blinding phase of falling in love will lose its intensity, its clouds and its sparks, then we can see reality.
