for them. In fact, some said that they used having sex as a way to try to ensure commitment from a partner they felt they loved:
My first sexual experience with a [man] was because I wanted the relationship to be committed. We were both sixteen-year-old virgins and had been dating for three months. I pushed for us to have sex because I wanted to show him that I loved him. I wanted to give him something that no one else could have.
—heterosexual woman, age 25
The reason I had sex with my ex-husband? I was young, I was sixteen years old, and I wanted him to stay with me. I thought by having sex it would ensure a committed relationship. It didn’t, but at the time you could not have made me see that. I equated sex[with] love. And the more that we made love, I thought, the more he must love me. I was a fool.
—heterosexual woman, age 41
Some researchers believe that the “amount” of love a person experiences depends on the absolute strength of the three components, and that couples are best matched if they possess similar levels of intimacy, passion, and commitment.
Sternberg has identified seven different “love styles” based on the possible combinations of intimacy, passion, and commitment in a relationship. For example, he calls love where there is commitment but no intimacy or passion “empty love.” These are the people you see eating together silently in restaurants, who love each other largely out of a sense of duty or lack of options. Love where there is passion and commitment but no intimacy is “foolish love.” These are the whirlwind courtships that burn brightly at first and then fizzle out when one or both partners come to the sad realization that they do not have anything—other than sex, perhaps—in common. “Liking love” is intimacy without passion or commitment and, as the name implies, it typifies a close friendship. Its opposite, love with passion and intimacy but no commitment, is what Sternberg deems “romantic love.” “Infatuation love” has passion but no intimacy or commitment, while “companionate love” involves intimacy and commitment but is short on passion. Companionate love is quite typical of long-term unions, in which sexual desire can fade with time and familiarity.
Of course the seventh and final love style described by Sternberg is the ultimate, “consummate love,” which is the perfect blend of intimacy, passion, and commitment. Few couples who have been together for a long time consistently experience “consummate love.” In most relationships, levels of intimacy, passion, and commitment wax and wane with time and circumstance. Thus, it is not uncommon for a couple to experience several forms of these love styles throughout the course of their relationship.
The Drug of Love
Much to the dismay of people who believe that defining love should be left in the hands of poets and songwriters, or, better yet, on the lips of lovers who experience it, scientists are exploring whether love—from infatuation to the consummate style—can be explained by a person’s biology. Neuroscientist Niels Birbaumer and his colleagues were the first current-day scientists to examine this possibility. The researchers placed electrodes on the scalps of men and women and measured their brains’ electrical activity using an electroencephalograph, or EEG, machine as the participants envisioned a joyful scene with a loved one, a jealous scene, and a control scene—an empty living room. Half of the men and women were passionately in love at the time; the other half were not emotionally involved with anyone. When the researchers compared the brain waves of the people who were and were not passionately in love, they found huge differences in brain activity during imagery of a scene with a loved one. Those who were passionately in love showed much more complex brain-wave patterns and much more widespread activity throughout the brain. As noted by the authors, “Subjects
Kimberly Elkins
Lynn Viehl
David Farland
Kristy Kiernan
Erich Segal
Georgia Cates
L. C. Morgan
Leigh Bale
MR. PINK-WHISTLE INTERFERES
Alastair Reynolds