Top 5 Facts about Falling in Love

Top 5 Facts – Falling in Love

You can’t put a price on love, but you can condense it into a six minute video.
Welcome to WatchMojo’s Top 5 Facts. In this instalment we're counting down the five most charming facts about falling in love. So get comfortable because we’re about to whisper some sweet factual nothings into your ears.

#5: Humans Are Hard-Wired to Break-Up and Move On

Had your heart broken lately? Sucks, don’t it? Does it help to know that evolution has helped prepare you to recover? Well,, researchers have begun making claims that humans are evolutionarily conditioned to cope with a break up and find a new partner. From an evolutionary standpoint, “mate ejection” as scientists call it, is sometimes necessary, like, for instance, if your caveman boyfriend takes a spear to the knee and can no longer hunt for you, you’re gonna wanna find a new Barney to Betty up to so you can get your Bam-Bam on. So don’t worry, you’re going to get over your heartache, after all you’ve have a long string of ancestors that got kicked to the curb too!

#4: Chemically, There Are Three Phases to Love

Love is wild, love is blind, love is ... formulaic! According to biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, there is a series of stages humans go through when it comes to love - starting with lust. At the first phase, people get the hormone-driven instinct that tumbles them into deep desire. This is followed by the attraction phase, wherein the neurotransmitters adrenaline, serotonin and dopamine leave you feeling excited, delighted, and kind of obsessed. Finally comes the attachment phase, when endorphins, vasopressin and oxytocin envelope the body giving that cozy confirmation that you’re in a safe, comfortable relationship. Aww.

#3: Being in Love and Being Addicted Are Similar

This Helen Fisher lady says some smart stuff. She says that being in love has the three main characteristics of addiction: you build up a tolerance whereby you need to see more and more of this person; you go through painful withdrawal, or heartache, when you can’t get your fix; and finally, there’s relapse in the form of on again off again relationships. That’s not just theoretical, either; love, particularly that second phase of it, activates the same pleasure centers in your brain that, say, a hit of cocaine might.

#2: Eyes Really Are the Window to the Heart

Falling in love can be as easy as eye contact. Experiments are often held wherein complete strangers have to stare into one another’s eyes for four-to-five minutes. By the end of the test, most experimentees admit that they have gained some emotional attraction to their assigned partner - and in many cases the two have begun a relationship. Eyes also have a habit of giving the whole game away. When looking at a subject of affection, your pupils dilate - even if it's just for a split second - Might want to wear some shades if you wanna keep up that tough guy exterior.

#1: Meeting in Dangerous Places Can Increase the Chances of Attraction

Now we all know that every classic action flick ends the same way - our heroes lovingly embrace after a life-or-death situation. But as cliche as that may be, there’s actually some scientific basis behind it. Psychologist and author Richard Robinson says that exciting, dangerous-feeling things like riding on a rollercoaster produces phenyl ethyl-amine, a hormone that creates a sort of love-like euphoria. Other researchers have found that danger also creates adrenaline and dopamine, which we already know are involved in the love falling process. So amusement parks or horror movies can be good first-date settings. Or, yeah, you could just find a dark alley somewhere and see what happens.

What do you think? Is being in love really an addiction? Until next time, for more beloved Top 10s and on-again-off-again Top 5s, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com!