Why Did We Evolve to Feel Romantic Love? with Dr. Helen Fisher

We long for love. We die for love. We kill for love. But why do we love? Cohosts Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christoph Koch ask this question to Helen Fisher, PhD. who dedicated her career to researching romantic love. In this episode of Science of Perception Box, we explore how the act of being in love or out of love changes how we view ourselves and the world around us. Dr. Fisher was a biological anthropologist, Senior Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute, and Chief Science Advisor to Match.com. She used brain scanning (fMRI) to study the neural systems associated with the sex drive, romantic love, attachment, rejection, love addiction, long-term partnership happiness, and the biological foundations of human personality. She conducted extensive research on the evolution, biology, and psychology of human sexuality, monogamy, adultery, and divorce. Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found. Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show. Visit unlikelycollaborators.com for more information. Episode Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction to the Science of Perception Box (02:03) - Exploring Love and Heartbreak (05:16) - The Brain Chemistry of Love (06:41) - The Evolutionary Purpose of Love (09:35) - The Complexities of Romantic Relationships (20:53) - The Impact of Rejection and Heartbreak (24:10) - The Distraction Test and Emotional Response (25:15) - Love as an Addiction (27:31) - Phases of Breakup and Emotional Recovery (31:21) - The Concept of Slow Love (33:05) - Impact of Internet on Modern Dating (38:58) - Perception Box Questions (44:57) - Final Reflections and Closing Thoughts

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  If you have been a longtime follower of Dr. Helen Fisher's work, you may have already learned the sad news that she passed away in August of 2024.

• 0:09Heather Berlin?

  Helen was a dear colleague, friend, and mentor. She was a pioneer in anthropology and we'll miss her very much.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  We're grateful to have recorded this interview with her a few months before her passing.

• 0:23Heather Berlin?

  We hope that this conversation honors her legacy of foundational research on the human circuitry of love and attraction.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  They pine for love, they live for love, they kill for love, and they die for love.

• 0:40Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Elizabeth Koch. We all live inside our own personal, private perception box, built by our genes and the physical, social, and cultural environment in which we were born and raised. In this podcast, we explore how although the walls of this mental box are always present, they can expand in states like awe, wonder, and curiosity, or contract in response to anxiety, fear, and anger. I'd like to introduce our esteemed hosts to incredible and distinguished minds: Dr. Heather Berlin, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience

• 1:23Speaker 03

  at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and Dr. Christoph Koch, chief scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current meritorious investigator and former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Welcome to the Science of Perception Box.

• 1:46Heather Berlin?

  Hi, everyone. Welcome to Science of Perception Box. I'm your co-host, Dr. Heather Berlin.

• 1:52Speaker 00

  And I'm your co-host, Dr. Christoph Koch.

• 1:55Heather Berlin?

  Every week, we feature an aspect of the science of perception box, highlighting the latest research together with our expert guests. And this week on Science of Perception Box, we explore the powerful forces of love and heartbreak in the brain.

• 2:11Heather Berlin?

  I cannot imagine a more groundbreaking and qualified researcher to explore this topic with on the show than Dr. Helen Fisher. Dr. Helen Fisher is a biological anthropologist. She's conducted extensive research on the evolution, biology, and psychology of human sexuality, monogamy, adultery, and divorce. She can also speak to the neural chemistry of romantic love and attachment, why we fall in love with one person rather than another, plus all the current trends of human relationships: hooking up, friends with benefits, and online dating, to name a few.

• 2:52Heather Berlin?

  Dr. Fisher is a senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University and the chief science advisor to the internet dating site Match.com. She's also written six books, including Anatomy of Love, Why We Love, and Why Him, Why Her. And if you've ever had a heartbreak, or had a hard time falling in love, or even if you're happily head over heels, you're going to want to hear this. First, we want to open it up with our connection to love. So Kristoff, has the experience of love, or the experience of heartbreak, changed your perception box?

• 3:31Speaker 00

  Well, it changes everything, because love fundamentally changes what I perceive, which is my reality, which is the only thing I know about the world. So it changes in an untold way, both the beginning of love, as well if love ends, and suddenly reality changes. The very same reality appears very, very different.

• 3:49Heather Berlin?

  And it changes for you in what way?

• 3:52Speaker 00

  Well, early on, you know, everything is sort of, the world is in fluorescent color, everything's intoxicated, you need much less sleep, you're hyper excited, you know, you constantly think about the person you love, you're obsessed with him or her. And then when you fall out of love, or when there's a breakup, the very same things that were attractive, they turn into opposite. They turn like, oh, I hate this thing about her, I hate this habit. But it's still the same person and the same reality, it just appears very different. So I think it's a beautiful instance of this construction we call the perception box, that our mind and our brain constructs what we perceive to be reality. Love shows how it can dramatically change, more than anything else. On the planet.

• 4:37Heather Berlin?

  It's almost like when you're falling in love, it's your perception box is expanding. And when you're falling out of love or been heartbroken, it's

• 4:45Speaker 00

  It contracts, yes.

• 4:46Heather Berlin?

  There's this great scene in this film, 500 Days of Summer, which takes you through this sort of falling in love phase and then the breakup phase. And, you know, in the beginning, he's like, "Oh, I love her little heart-shaped mole on her neck and the way she eats and this and that." And then by the end, they're broken up. "I hate that horrible blot on her neck and the sound she makes when she chops her food." And, you know, so it's the same stimuli, but you see it in two different ways. So Helen, do you have any insight into this? And why, you know, why does our perception change when we're falling in love, when we're falling out of love, when we've been rejected?

• 5:24Speaker 02

  Well, the brain changes. And, you know, you see the world differently. You know, the opposite of love is not hate. They run along most, a lot of the same channels. The opposite of love is indifference. That's when you're free.

• 5:35Heather Berlin?

  Wow, that's really a really poignant point. Because when you break up and you have all the anger and you hate.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  You're equally focused. You wake up thinking about it. You go to bed thinking about it. You run through all of the day and what you used to love and why you can't stand it now. And all you go through, all that. You know, I mean, when you hate somebody, you spend the same amount of energy as when you love them, perhaps even more. I mean, people, what, they pine for love? They live for love? They kill for love? And they die for love? I think it's man can't most powerful drive. It's a drive. I've found that in the brain. It comes from the lowest centers of the brain. In fact, the basic factory, the ventral tegmental area, which I'm sure you both know about, the VTA.

• 6:21Speaker 00

  VTO.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  You know, makes the dopamine that gives you that focus, the motivation, the craving, the thing. And it lies right next to the factory that orchestrates thirst and hunger. Thirst and hunger keep you alive today. Romantic love drives you to form a partnership and send your DNA into tomorrow. And so, of course, when you're rejected in love, you've lost that opportunity to send your DNA into tomorrow. I mean, people will say, you know, why don't we get over this? You know? And the bottom line is that, I mean, when you're dumped, you've certainly, I mean, you may have lost your children, the cat, the dog, the neighbors, the rituals of Christmas or Hanukkah or something else.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  But what you really lost, if you're not married to the person and you're planning to marry them, you've lost your ability to send your DNA into tomorrow.

• 7:16Speaker 00

  So the function of love is?

• 7:19Speaker 02

  Ultimately.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  Progeny.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 00

  To send your DNA down to the next generation.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  I mean, you wouldn't ask anybody on the street. They wouldn't say that. They wouldn't.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  The other thing is that if you're actually married to somebody and you have children, you've lost mankind's greatest prize, a mating partner.

• 7:39Heather Berlin?

  I mean, we still, people fall in love, in and out of love, well past the point of, for women, when they can even have children. So is this program just, it's a remnant? It just keeps running?

• 7:50Speaker 02

  You know, I remember sitting down on a Saturday morning, it was summer, the windows were all up. And I thought, why would this brain circuitry remain? I mean, the point is lost. But then I thought.

• 8:02Speaker 00

  It's lost after I've had already children.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then I reasoned, and I don't think there's any science in it, but I reasoned, well, I do know that a good relationship with somebody enables you to live five to 10 years longer. And now, it would be very adaptive, I'm an anthropologist, as you know, in hunting and gathering societies to somebody who's way past reproduction, the possibility of reproducing, to have a partner who likes you, who you love, that will be supportive as you get older, help you if you get sick. And sex is very good for the body. Romance is very good for the body. Feelings of deep attachment are all, for different reasons, extremely good for your health.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  And so my hypothesis is that you, that you, that we sustain this, you know, this powerful brain system throughout life. I was once with an audience and I asked, does anybody have a child who's in love? A woman raised her hand and I, she told me, she said, yeah, I, my son is. Uh, you know, every single time a particular little girl comes over, he just sort of sits next to her and strokes her hair. And he seems depressed for an hour and a half afterwards. So I asked her, I said, well, how old is your child? And the mother said, two and a half. It's not the sex drive, it's a different brain system. And I certainly know somebody today who's in his nineties.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  So it's a powerful brain system that is good for your health as well as reproduction.

• 9:33Speaker 00

  Now, what about compassion? Is it also possible that we can, that once it's had its function, you know, to procreate and generate the next generation, you can then channel it into compassion, not just for a single individual, but maybe for all of humanity, all of, all of creation?

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. Well, first of all, we're talking about three things. Sex drive being one system, feelings of romantic love being the second, and feelings of deep attachment being the third. And I think they all evolved basically for reproduction. And, well, this sex drive, you can have sex with a lot of people you're not in love with. You're just trying things out, learning things. Romantic love is focused on only one person and can drive you to attachment. And with the attachment, a third brain system within, you know. So they're all.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  Why do you need romantic love? Why can't you just go directly to the attachment phase?

• 10:27Speaker 02

  I think a lot of people do. Kids in college all the time, or it's people at work. Uh, they are deeply attached to people, but they're both married to somebody else, and da, da, da. And, and then things change and people break up.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  You can have one without the other.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  You know, it's amazing, you can have sex without the other two. And you can have romantic love without feelings of attachment. You can be madly in love with somebody. And have no, no plan to, to marry them. They're not the right kind of person, could never introduce them to my friends. There's some basic things about them I couldn't live with forever, et cetera, et cetera. You know, people make this mistake all the time. They assume, well, first you start the sex, then you get the romantic love, and then you move into attachment. They're not phases, they're brain systems. And you can start being madly in love with somebody in the office long before you have sex with them. You know, you can have sex with somebody and never fall in love with them.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  And you can have a deep attachment for somebody and then times change. So their brain systems.

• 11:30Heather Berlin?

  Would that be like a friendship, though? Would it just attachment without romantic love or sex is like friendship, right?

• 11:35Speaker 02

  It's a friendship. And I think you can be madly in love with their children.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  That helps you overcome the teenager years.

• 11:43Heather Berlin?

  And the toddler years and all the years.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  For example, you've got small children, you're madly in love with them. You can't see that the kid has three heads, is, is a bully, is, is a whole lot of things. You're in love with, but you don't want to have sex with them.

• 11:56Heather Berlin?

  The Greeks talked about all these different types of love. You know, there's love of child, there's love of, you know, your partner. There's different types of love. But, but what you're saying is that there's similar brain systems that are involved.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  There's three brain systems that are involved in all six of them. It's very interesting, because as you know, I work with match.com. I ask all the time, what are you looking for? That's one of the questions. Every year, I and a couple colleagues cook up about 200 questions. And some are trend questions I ask every, every time. And some are new questions. The newest ones, which I can't wait to tell you about, is AI. And, and also polyamory, and even Roe v. Wade. But I always ask the question, we always ask the question, what are you looking for?

• 12:45Heather Berlin?

  Do people know? Is that part of the problem? That people don't know what they're looking for?

• 12:50Speaker 02

  They do know. I give them about 30 boxes to check. And every year, we will look at the boxes. Every single year, except after the pandemic. Every single year. We get this in 19, in 2000. We started in 2010. So we got data on 75,000 Americans. We don't poll the match population. It's a national representative sample based on the US Census. And so it's age 18 to 71 plus. Rural, suburban, urban, every part of the country.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Gay, straight, and everything in the middle.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  So what's the most consistent finding since 2010?

• 13:28Speaker 02

  The top one, that singles have wanted all over America, is respect. That's number one. Number two is somebody who I can trust and confide in. Number three is somebody who makes me laugh, which drives up the dopamine system, makes you feel good, also can get you over rough spots. Four is somebody who makes enough time for me. And five is somebody I find physically attractive. So those are the basics.

• 13:58Speaker 00

  That's only number five?

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Those are the...

• 14:00Speaker 00

  And the physical attractor?

• 14:02Speaker 02

  And it's gone down.

• 14:03Speaker 00

  Not number one or two?

• 14:03Speaker 02

  No. It's gone down from five to about seven or eight. And the next two are somebody who's emotionally mature and somebody who is a good person.

• 14:19Heather Berlin?

  I was like, weird about being emotionally available, being a good person, being kind, you know? Those would be my top ones.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Oh, they're in there.

• 14:27Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  But they're not... No, they want respect. They want somebody who can trust and confide in. They want to make, you know, have people... Somebody who makes them laugh. Somebody who makes enough time for them, particularly in this modern world, is something.

• 14:40Speaker 00

  So are they looking for a single person to fulfill all of those needs? Or are they looking for multiple independent people?

• 14:46Speaker 02

  I think sometimes they don't get any of them. The system for romantic love takes off. And, you know, when you're madly in love with somebody, a whole brain regions linked with decision making go down. And

• 15:01Heather Berlin?

  So you become irrational, because I want to talk just a little bit about these, how our perception changes in these different phases of love. So there's the first, the phase of the falling in love, the, you know,

• 15:11Speaker 00

  Infatuation.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Infatuation. Yeah, but it's not always the first phase. It can start with attachment, go to sex, go to friends with benefits, and then boom, the brain circuit is, it's like a sleeping cat. Can be awakened at any time.

• 15:23Heather Berlin?

  And we call that, you're calling that the romantic.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  I call that romantic love.

• 15:27Heather Berlin?

  So when, when, when that hits.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  That can also happen on the first date.

• 15:30Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, it could be love at first sight.

• 15:31Speaker 02

  It can be. And by the way, when I asked that question, over 50, about 55% of men have experienced love at first sight. And about 49 or so, women. Women are the picky sex. Men fall in love faster, they fall in love more often. When they meet somebody that they are in love with, they want to introduce them to friends and family sooner, which from an ethological perspective is safeguarding. And they want to move in sooner. And men are two and a half times more likely to kill themselves when a relationship is over. Men are the fragile sex. I have been trying to say that to the women's legacy for 40 years. They're dedicated on the fact that.

• 16:16Speaker 00

  No, wait, men are two and a half times more likely to commit suicide.

• 16:20Heather Berlin?

  Can we just repeat that?

• 16:21Speaker 02

  They're doing a good job of pretending it.

• 16:22Heather Berlin?

  Men are the fragile sex. Chris, I've got a little disturbed by that, but yes, this is true.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  And I try to tell people, one of the most astounding things that, pieces that I've dated that I collected, once again, is a year ago for Match, not Match Members, was I put in a question, which is about one night stands. Have you had them? And then the next question is, why do you have them? And men are two times more wanting to get, going into a one night stand, hoping to trigger a longer relationship with the person.

• 17:01Heather Berlin?

  So we never would have thought that, right?

• 17:02Speaker 02

  No, I say this to people and they look at me and say, I'm not sure, I'm telling you.

• 17:09Speaker 02

  I don't think we understand men and I don't think we understand women.

• 17:13Heather Berlin?

  We don't, yeah, well, we're trying.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  And that's what I think.

• 17:16Heather Berlin?

  We're trying to understand.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  So the idea is that somehow if I have sex with this person, then in myself, I hope that this is gonna trigger this feeling of being in love. Is that the idea?

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 17:26Heather Berlin?

  And sometimes it happens by accident. You go into something thinking it's gonna be a one-night stand.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Ah, exactly.

• 17:31Heather Berlin?

  And then suddenly you're like, oh, what? I'm attached or I'm feeling feelings for this person.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  Right. Quick sex is dangerous.

• 17:39Heather Berlin?

  Yes, it's a risky proposition. Not just because of STDs.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, but because you can fall in love with this person who you had no intention of liking. You know, when my husband, um, we were just beginning to, to, you know, get serious. And, uh, and he, he said to me, he said-

• 17:58Speaker 00

  At the time, he wasn't your husband.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Oh, no, we went out for five years before we married. We went out for just a year. He was getting over a horrible, horrible, uh, divorce. And so he said, he said, "I can't handle it, Helen. We'll have to be just friends." And I said, "I'm happy I do that. I mean, we'll see what happens."

• 18:19Heather Berlin?

  She's like, "Oh."

• 18:21Speaker 02

  So anyway, so he kissed me and I had made a deal with him, uh, actually that night. I was tired of this all giving me a hug on the way home. I'm sick of it. Been a year. I want to either move on or get off the, you know, so anyway. So I made a deal with him. I, uh, I don't know what came over me. We were having, um, dinner and they were gonna walk the High Line in New York and then play pool. And, uh, I, I pulled my little cocktail napkin out and I said, "What do you want to get secretly if you win at pool?" And I wrote down on my little card, "A real kiss." I didn't know what he think. So anyway, we get to play pool. He creams me. I played pool like five times in my life.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  He grew up with a lot of pool there in his basement. What he said in his thing was sex and clarity.

• 19:13Heather Berlin?

  Wow.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  But that was unbeknownst to you.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  I had no idea. So after playing pool, I pull this, his napkin out and it says sex and clarity. And I said, well, I get the sex part, but what do you have in mind for clarity?

• 19:27Speaker 02

  And he wanted friends with benefits. And I said to him, you know, I study love. And when you start having sex with somebody, you can trigger the brain circuitry for romantic love. Are you willing to take that chance? And

• 19:43Heather Berlin?

  And was he clear?

• 19:44Speaker 02

  Five years later, we got married.

• 19:45Heather Berlin?

  He was clear about that.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  So I married him at age 75.

• 19:50Heather Berlin?

  Oh, I love that.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  Congratulations. So since you're in that relationship, do you think sort of your, we would say, has your perception box expanded? Are you more curious, more compassionate? Are you more open with them? Does the world look different fundamentally to you?

• 20:06Heather Berlin?

  When you're in love and you're in a commitment?

• 20:07Speaker 00

  Well, in this particular case.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  No. I always felt the compassion. I always felt the energy. I was always in love with him. I never was gonna leave that boy.

• 20:18Heather Berlin?

  There is something about, I think, making that commitment public or whatever, you know, putting that stamp on it that can change your perception of this person. Because now it's sort of known to the world as well.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:29Heather Berlin?

  Because you're establishing that, you're saying to your community, we are committed. It does change your perception and it does, you know, just calling someone your

• 20:37Speaker 02

  This is realer.

• 20:38Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, it's like calling someone your wife or your husband. It's just some other, there's a weight to that. There's something that we, you know.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  There's weight to it.

• 20:46Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, and that changes your perception of their relationship. I want to get, I want to make sure we touch on these two things. One of which is what happens in the, when, when there's rejection or when you're broken up with, or you break up and you're falling out of love and how that changes your perception. And then I also want to talk about your concept of slow love and how the internet is changing things and AI and what that means for love. But let's start with the rejection. Because I mean, I, I were, you know, I'm both a neuroscientist and a clinical psychologist and I work with patients and a lot of the time They're dealing with heartbreak and they come to me because they're just broken and so much pain. I mean, they can't get out of bed. They can't go to work.

• 21:28Heather Berlin?

  You know, so, so what is this? What's happening in the brain? And, you know, they, they, they can't seem to get out of it.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:35Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  Okay. For me, it's my largest contribution to humanity. It's very nice to be madly in love and have somebody happily in love with you. You're not a pest. You're not talking about it to everybody and you know, you're not killing yourself. You're not killing somebody else. You're in good shape. But when you're rejected in love, that very thing. So anyway, I decided I would put people who've just been dumped into the machine when they're still, they have not overcome it yet. They have not gotten to indifference.

• 22:07Speaker 00

  How do you find these people? Internet?

• 22:09Speaker 02

  It is so easy. You go to colleges or you talk to people and they want to figure out how they get out of this. So they come to me. I leave my, my, my number. I have never used the internet, actually. It's on college campuses. And then through people that you know. And I said, do you know anybody who's madly, I mean, who's horribly rejected? Oh, yes. My sister hasn't been out of bed for three days. That kind of thing. And then I said, well, would you be willing to help science? And instantly they want to talk to me. And that's very hard. I cry when other people cry. And, you know, and, and I'm not a psychologist like you. We talk a good deal on the phone. These machines are very hard to get and takes a lot of time.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  You've got to get people who are really, really suffering. And they are really suffering. So anyway, we put them on the machine. And this is what happens in the brain. The ventral tegmental area, still cooking along. You're still madly in love with the person. You've just been dumped.

• 23:11Heather Berlin?

  So it's producing dopamine and the...

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Producing dopamine for the focus, the motivation, losing weight.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  Before we come to that, what's the actual experiment? Do you show them pictures?

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. I, I show them two pictures. I, I ask, bring a picture of the man that you're in love with. Sex, we're not studying the sex drive. Not a sexy picture, but a picture that instantly makes you feel that intense romance. And I also say to them, bring in another picture of somebody, basically the same age group.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  A control.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  A control. And people bring in the, somebody they knew in college who bored them silly. Or some girlfriend's boyfriend who you just, but the person has to, you have to have to have no positive feelings about the person and no negative feelings.

• 24:06Heather Berlin?

  Like a neutral person, you have a neutral person and then the person you just broke up.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  And the problem with going at this and this is that when you're madly in love, you can't stop thinking about a person.

• 24:17Heather Berlin?

  So it bleeds over.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  So it's gonna bleed over and to other. So we did a distraction task and I would put a number on the screen like 8,224. And they would have to, look at that picture of the

• 24:31Speaker 00

  Number.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Number and think backwards in

• 24:36Heather Berlin?

  Threes?

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Sevens.

• 24:38Heather Berlin?

  Sevens, yeah.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  That's hard. It's definitely

• 24:40Speaker 02

  And I say, I don't care if you get it right or wrong, just do it.

• 24:44Heather Berlin?

  Right.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Cause it'll drive all the blood away from these very emotional areas.

• 24:48Heather Berlin?

  So what do you see though? So you see when they're pining and so the VTA is still is active.

• 24:53Speaker 02

  The VTA is going on, so they're pumping out the dopamine and they can't eat and they can't sleep and they can't stop thinking about it and this and that. And also part of the palladium, the

• 25:02Heather Berlin?

  Vensial palladium.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:04Heather Berlin?

  In the basal ganglia.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, it's all in the basal ganglia.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  It's trilems.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  And it's associated with attachment and that lit up. Three areas linked with addiction.

• 25:18Heather Berlin?

  Right.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  And the largest one is the nucleus accumbens. And for other people listening, the nucleus accumbens becomes active for all of the addictions.

• 25:31Heather Berlin?

  Sometimes they call it the pleasure center of the brain.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  You need opioid addiction, alcohol addiction.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  Opiate, cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, the behavioral addictions and also the, you know, the others.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  So you're creating certain aspect of Of being in love with addiction.

• 25:49Heather Berlin?

  And then withdrawal.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  I have said that in many academic papers. It is an addiction. I think it's actually the most powerful addiction of the addiction.

• 25:59Speaker 00

  But it's an adaptive addiction, and it's useful.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  It's very useful until you've been dumped.

• 26:07Heather Berlin?

  So then it's literally like withdrawal you're going through.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely. Well, also, there's an area for pain, physical pain. It's exactly the same area in the brain that you get the pain of a toothache. And what's most interesting is...

• 26:24Heather Berlin?

  So it's a physical pain?

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Physical pain.

• 26:26Speaker 00

  It feels like pain.

• 26:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  Subjectively, it's still pain, whether it's physical or...

• 26:31Heather Berlin?

  But you're also seeing it in the brain, yeah.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  And most interesting to me, one of these three areas linked with craving and addiction. The particular area also is associated with what the scientists who study this gain, their gains and their losses. The brain is trying to work out, what did I gain and what did I lose? Who will get the children?

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Who will invite me for Christmas? Or something. Who will... How much money will I lose? What will I gain? I got rid of a drunk.

• 27:09Heather Berlin?

  Right.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  I got rid of a wife, Peter. I got rid of somebody hurting my children. And so you go over this and over this and over this.

• 27:18Speaker 00

  Also, you reevaluate your entire history of relationships, right? And you spool it backwards and try to remember.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Why didn't I see this the night that he or she did that? You know, and so you've got a whole different perception of it. Like you say, there's several phases of it. The first thing that happens when somebody tells you they're on their way out is shock. That often lasts a couple of weeks. And then comes hope. You're just hoping. And then comes protest.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  You fight back, you try to seduce, you try to compromise, you try to go out with other people and make them jealous. You know, it's like a puppy that you put in the kitchen without its mother, and it starts banging at the door and going in circles. You're just protesting for this. And you might go into their office with a whole pile of flowers, and then he says something and you throw him at him, you know. And then comes resignation, where you give up. You finally know, this can't happen. And that's associated with despair. But I actually think, this was done by a group of good psychiatrists, but the book is a little old, and I think that you can feel the despair all the way through.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  And after, so we got shock, hope, protest, resignation, and finally indifference.

• 28:43Heather Berlin?

  You know, my definition of indifference is that they go out, let's say, and normally if you're still pining and you're thinking, who are they going out with? Are they with somebody else? What if they're with somebody else right now and you're going on a... But if you get to the point where they're out, and you don't, it's fine. You don't care what they're doing, who they're with.

• 29:01Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, what about acceptance? Because you still spend so many months or years of your life with it, but I can still feel compassion for them much more than for another person that I've never met. So why does it have to be indifferent? I mean, similar to when people talk about the various Kübler-Ross, the various phases of bereavement, right? Of greed. And finally, you accept, this is how the world is.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think it's different personality styles that can still hope for them and other people who will hate them forever. I think that's the thing.

• 29:36Heather Berlin?

  I think it depends on the nature of the relationship and what the breakup was and...

• 29:39Speaker 02

  Maybe the indifferent, well, we should add one more. Well, the last one that I added, I only added the beginning was other psychiatrists. But indifference I added, and I gotta think on that. But I think it's post-traumatic growth.

• 29:55Heather Berlin?

  Yes.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  You realize, oh, what mistakes you made, how you could have done it differently. And then you have your story. And so what, when people come to me, I say, you have to build your story. Now, for me, one time, a guy broke up with me and I had no idea.

• 30:14Heather Berlin?

  Why?

• 30:14Speaker 02

  And I couldn't figure this out. And I finally said, Helen, you will never figure it out. Make something up so that you can bury it.

• 30:23Heather Berlin?

  For closure. You need to have a narrative.

• 30:26Speaker 00

  Perfect illustration of the perception box. Because it's all about narrative. You need one particular narrative. And maybe you need a friend or psychologist or therapist to help you construct that. Yeah, I probably have my cause of that and the other. And then you buy into it and that forms.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  But then you have a different perception box. Yes. That you can, that you now can handle.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 30:46Heather Berlin?

  Your brain needs a narrative. It needs a story. It's looking for meaning. I had, I had a relationship, a long-term relationship. We broke up and never spoke again. And 15 years later, he came back to me and said, can we meet? I just need some closure.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 31:03Heather Berlin?

  Yeah. And, and we did and we met. We talked for hours. And, and it was really therapeutic, I think, for both of us. But it's like, it doesn't go away. It's like, it's almost like.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  I have that feeling for that all the time.

• 31:14Heather Berlin?

  You have to revise the theory again, but.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  That's fine. That's what theories are for.

• 31:18Heather Berlin?

  Right, right. New evidence and revision. So I want to get to this concept of slow love and how that intersects with, you know, how we're dating in modern society, with these dating sites. And, you know, we're, our, our evolution of the brain is slow. So we're still running on these older, you know, programs, right? But with modern, it's intersecting with modern technology. And, and you've kind of talked a bit about that and this concept of, of slow love. So can you talk a little bit about that?

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Thank you for reading that article.

• 31:46Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, it was a great article.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  It was very meaningful to me. I call it slow love because 50 years ago.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  A woman generally married around age 21. Now she marries around age 28, 29. Same with men. They married in the past at around 22 or 23. And now they marry at around, average, average at around 30. So they've got about 10 years of what I call pre-commitment time. Time to get to know themselves, time to have their one-night stands, and then get rid of them. Time to live with somebody for a couple of years, get rid of it. Learn a lot more about how to handle grief, anger, joy, sadness, whatever,

• 32:36Speaker 02

  and romantic love, and feelings of attachment, et cetera, et cetera. And I looked, this is not Match. I looked at the demographic here, books of the United Nations, from 1947 to 2011, because I haven't written about it since. And as it turns out, the longer you court, and the later you wed, the more likely you are to remain together. And in 80 cultures. And the other thing that's part of that is, we are now meeting on the internet, more than through a friend. The last time I looked about, where did you meet your last first date? 40% of singles said on the internet.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  And 25% said through a friend. And less than 10% said at work, in school, et cetera. And I read an article from the University of Chicago that said, if you mate on the internet, not just Match, but anywhere on the internet, as opposed to off the internet, you're less likely to divorce. And I thought to myself, what the hell is this a rig? You can meet somebody in a hotel lobby. You can meet them at a conference. You can meet them at the airport. Why would meeting somebody on the internet, as opposed to off the internet, be less inclined to divorce? So I did my own study through Match.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  And I looked at people who are on the, doing their dating on the internet, as opposed to off the internet. And as it turns out, People who date, I don't even like the word date. These are not dating sites. They are introducing sites, that's all they are. But anyway, people who met on the internet as opposed to off the internet were more likely to be fully employed, more likely to have higher education, and more likely to be looking for a committed relationship.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  On the internet?

• 34:33Speaker 02

  On the internet. And then off the internet. And when you think about it, you know, okay, off the internet, you walk and meet somebody in a bar. You don't know what they're, what they're looking for or what's going on. I mean, we have this assumption that if it's off the internet, it's sort of more natural. All these sites are, internet sites are, is introducing sites. The only real algorithm is your own brain. Nobody, I mean, we can give you somebody who's the right size and shape and, you know, background and interests, et cetera.

• 35:06Speaker 00

  So you, so you think technology really hasn't fundamentally affected?

• 35:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:10Speaker 00

  Love, because ultimately it's a brain system?

• 35:13Speaker 02

  It's the brain. You can meet more people. Uh, you can meet people faster. Uh, you can meet people who live farther away that you've never run into.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  So it's actually better for meeting a possible right match?

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Um, yes, because they are more likely to be better educated, uh, fully employed and looking for a.

• 35:36Heather Berlin?

  And they're there to, for this explicit purpose, you know, right?

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 35:41Heather Berlin?

  They're, they're looking for someone.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  But the real, I mean, what really happens is you go out and meet somebody. And when you go out and meet somebody, your old brain clicks in. Oh, you watch the way they, you assess them. Uh, you parade the way you always did, you laugh the way you always did, you talk about what you always did. It's the only real algorithm. But what these brain, what these internet sites do, included Match, definitely, is just give, give you people to meet.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  More choices.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  And, and we are, and one of the problems is they give too many choices.

• 36:15Heather Berlin?

  That is a problem. Because there's this illusion that there's so many more people.

• 36:18Speaker 00

  Decision paralysis.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. And decision, you know, you know this. Study that the brain can only cope with five to nine choices.

• 36:27Heather Berlin?

  But the other thing is that.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  Can I quote something from Slow Love?

• 36:30Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, sure.

• 36:30Speaker 00

  I love this article.

• 36:31Heather Berlin?

  Yes.

• 36:32Speaker 00

  So it's just in your last paragraph, which is very inspirational, I find very unusual. Love is not dead, courtship is not ruined, and sex has not replaced emotional intimacy. Our romantic and sexual lives are simply adapting to our new environments. In fact, with the current marriage revolution towards slow love, we may seem more happy in enduring partnerships in the digital age. And I find it remarkable because everyone commiserate about social media and AI. Now everything is going from bad to worse.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  They don't understand the brain. They don't understand the brain. When you go out and you meet the person, you're doing it the way they did a million years ago.

• 37:09Heather Berlin?

  It's just another way to get there.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  I mean, people complain about these dating sites. I was doing something with this guy. And he said, Helen, I went out on thirty dates recently. One a night for a month. And I, he said, I can't find anybody. And I said, that's your problem. You know, once you've met, and I mean met.

• 37:32Speaker 00

  In person, you mean?

• 37:33Speaker 02

  In person or video chatting, which has really risen. And it's this, this is the way to go. So that you actually see them. I mean, that's the way brain has worked for millions of years. And so you've got to meet them. And I say, after you've met nine people, stop, get off the dating site and get to know at least one of these people more. But there's one question that I ask all the time on this Singleton America study. And then that is, have you ever fallen madly in love with somebody who you initially did not find attractive? And every year that I've asked it, the first year was, I don't know how many years ago, maybe 2012.

• 38:18Speaker 02

  It, it, it went up from something like twenty-two percent to thirty-four percent. And this past year, it was forty-nine percent.

• 38:27Speaker 00

  But that's one in two.

• 38:28Speaker 02

  They're giving people a chance.

• 38:30Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, I always, exactly. I always say that to my patients. I understand you're not physically attracted at first, but give them a chance and you might, you might just get there. And that, that speaks to this point of like, love is this, is this something even deeper? It's a deeper than that initial attraction. There's these different kinds of love and we have to be open to letting these other brain systems come online.

• 38:58Heather Berlin?

  So we end every episode by asking a few of the perception box questions. And I don't know which question Kristoff chose and he doesn't know which one I'll be asking. So here we go.

• 39:09Speaker 00

  Heather, who are you still trying to please?

• 39:12Heather Berlin?

  Who am I still trying to please?

• 39:14Speaker 02

  Oh, that's a good question for me, too.

• 39:17Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, you're gonna answer it, too.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  That's a smart one.

• 39:19Heather Berlin?

  It's both of us are gonna answer. Who am I still trying to please?

• 39:22Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 39:24Speaker 00

  In 2024.

• 39:26Heather Berlin?

  That's a really good question. You know, my, my stock answer, it used to be my father. I was always trying to please my father because nothing was ever good enough. And, you know, if you get a 99 on a test, why don't you get 100? You know, what did you get wrong? So I was always sort of trying to please him, I think. But now I think I've transitioned that I'm still just trying to please myself.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  That's good.

• 39:49Heather Berlin?

  That sounds interesting, weird, but maybe it's narcissistic. I don't know, but I want to, yeah. I, I think it's healthy. I think I'm trying to find what makes me happy and, you know, move in that direction and not trying to please others so much anymore. So, yeah.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  I didn't answer it in one word.

• 40:08Heather Berlin?

  Okay.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  Everyone.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  It's a very bad trait. A very bad trait. How about you? What's your answer?

• 40:17Heather Berlin?

  Yeah. Oh, yeah, we're turning it on to you now.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  Well, it used to be my mom. Just like your dad. But now it's more abstract. I'm trying to live by some, you know, rules, some ethical rules. And I try to follow those ethical precepts. And if I violate those, then I feel very bad and guilty about it.

• 40:38Heather Berlin?

  Okay, so you're trying to please the greater ethical, the, the...

• 40:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have a system that I've tried since many years to follow because I think it's the right way to live and to act. And if you fall short of that, then, you know, you, you get a bad feeling, which is, as it should be.

• 40:52Heather Berlin?

  Got it. Okay, here is my question for both of you. What have you not forgiven yourself for and why? And what are you afraid of? What will happen if you do?

• 41:05Speaker 02

  I know my answer. I think mine goes back to the people pleasing. It's just ridiculous. And.

• 41:13Heather Berlin?

  But you don't forgive yourself for it? You don't forgive yourself for?

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Maybe it's anger. I'm not an angry person. And occasionally now, I've gotten angry. And.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  Angry at?

• 41:27Speaker 02

  At somebody for saying something that was cruel. But I was angry with myself for expressing anger.

• 41:39Speaker 02

  I don't like. It feels as if it's not me. Most of the time in life, I just slide out of the way, get it over with. I don't like it to. I don't like feeling anger. I want to accept the situation for it is, what it is, and move on, which is what I generally do. And I have not forgiven myself.

• 42:03Heather Berlin?

  What you have to do is accept and forgive yourself. Accept yourself as you are and for feeling the anger.

• 42:11Speaker 00

  Well, controlled anger, I think is useful. It's adaptive.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:14Speaker 00

  And if somebody does see something cool, I think it's important to signal them that this was.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  This doesn't work.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  This is not good.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 42:23Heather Berlin?

  It's adaptive, so it's okay to feel anger. Don't be angry at yourself for feeling anger.

• 42:27Speaker 02

  I'm feeling angry at myself for feeling anger. I am.

• 42:31Speaker 00

  If you feel angry and it's out of control, then obviously it's not good.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:35Heather Berlin?

  Right.

• 42:35Speaker 00

  So you have to be still in control.

• 42:38Speaker 02

  I wrote to her and told her what I.

• 42:42Speaker 00

  Oh, this is a specific individual?

• 42:43Speaker 02

  This person happened this week. But I let her know that I didn't let her know I was furious at her. I just told her why I felt this was incorrect behavior on her part. But I didn't, you know. But I still don't like.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  Out of control anger. I'm not an angry person. If that was not me, it annoys me that I couldn't be myself.

• 43:08Speaker 00

  Guess what I've not forgiven myself for, particularly as I get older, that I'm an egoist. I do things because I like them. I love to write books. I like to be with my family. I help my family out, etc. But that's all my close family. Rather, I fear what other people are doing are trying to go out in the world and actually change the world or certain aspects of the world for better. And I just don't feel call upon doing that. So it's more about me and my reality.

• 43:36Heather Berlin?

  You feel you haven't forgiven yourself for that fact?

• 43:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I feel I should do better. I should do more because there's so many people that need help, that need our compassion actively to help them lead better lives. And rather than doing that by going out and, you know, somehow starting an NGO and directly helping people, I do it in different ways that are more conducive to what I like doing. This is something my mom said when I was eight years old and it's stuck with me ever since. Christoph, you are too much of an egoist. And here it resurfaces.

• 44:14Heather Berlin?

  So you haven't forgiven yourself for your, you know, egocentricity?

• 44:19Speaker 00

  I haven't forgiven myself.

• 44:20Heather Berlin?

  You feel guilty about it?

• 44:22Speaker 00

  Obviously, I can, I do fine. But I feel somewhat, there's also residue, there's always a residue of guilt, yes.

• 44:27Heather Berlin?

  And you were raised Catholic, right?

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:29Heather Berlin?

  And it does that-

• 44:30Speaker 00

  It's bigger but, well, probably it doesn't help because guilt, you know, is one of the, one of the gluing blocks of Catholicism. You're supposed to feel guilty about certain things.

• 44:40Heather Berlin?

  And are you afraid of something if you forgive yourself? What are you afraid of? Why not forgive yourself?

• 44:44Speaker 00

  Well, the realization that I'm not this person I may have aspired to, not quite the person I may have aspired to earlier in my life.

• 44:54Heather Berlin?

  Well, I forgive you.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 44:57Heather Berlin?

  Thank you for joining us today.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 44:59Heather Berlin?

  This was amazing.

• 45:00Speaker 00

  Thank you very much.

• 45:00Heather Berlin?

  I mean...

• 45:01Speaker 00

  This was wonderful.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 45:03Heather Berlin?

  A real highlight, I mean, as always, and you're wonderful. So if you'd like to learn more about your own Perception Box, spend some time this week answering the same Perception Box questions that we asked our guests, and check out other questions on the website at unlikelycollaborators.com. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and watch the show or listen wherever you get your podcasts.