Love, Sex, and Intimacy

Introduction Definitions

What Is Passionate Love?

Passionate Love Versus Infatuation What Is Companionate Love? Love: How to Find It

What Makes Someone Desirable? Good Looks Personality Other Assets What Makes Someone Undesirable? The Importance of Proximity Effective Strategies for Meeting Dates and Mates The Direct Approach The Indirect Approach Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

In modern Western civilization, most people enter love affairs with unbounded hope—believing they have found the perfect mate, imagining ever-thrilling sex, and fantasizing a happy marriage—only to see their joyous dreams turn into a nightmare of disappointment, dashed expectations, and lost faith. In the beginning, passionate love's euphoria feeds delightful conversations with friends and a joyful engagement with life. The end of love leaves people stunned; baffled about what has gone wrong. Lots of men and women have gone through this cycle many, many times.

2 CHAPTER 1

Disappointing as the love game is for many people today, it was even worse in the years after World War II when romantics sang mindlessly about how "love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage." The cultural message was clear: Find the "right" mate, marry him or her, and life's major questions will be answered in a life of Happily Ever After. We are more dubious today about that message, but it still carries tremendous power for most individuals.

We recognize this power and take it seriously. It must be noted, however, that in Western culture, love, sex, and intimacy had very different meanings in the past. In much of the non-Western world, they still are viewed very differently. We need perspective on our ideas and assumptions about love and intimacy. Do love and marriage really go together like a horse and carriage? Nearly every society in the world before 1700 would have assumed that such an idea was mad. Marriage-for-love represents an ultimate expression of individualism, a concept that in premodern religious, traditional, and authoritarian societies was considered, as we shall later see, dangerously sinful and traitorous. Today, some nations (such as

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China, India, and the Arab countries) still consider "being in love" the worst possible reason for getting married. Individuals do not personally choose to marry other individuals; marriages are arranged by family members and go-betweens, the assumption being that the only sensible approach is for families to marry their offspring into other families.

We consider the attainment of love and intimacy to be one of life's higher goals. The idea that love and intimacy are the sine qua non of life is so deeply felt that we can hardly imagine it to be otherwise. But, again, in history, that is a relatively recent idea; there is no guarantee that it will be a ruling idea in the future. We shall, throughout this book, describe the ways in which others have thought about love, sex, marriage, and intimacy. This may free us to consider our own articles of faith with more freedom, flexibility, and imagination than we usually do. It may open up the question of what makes a "good" life. It may help make us more intelligent about love. When we are smarter about love, we might despair less and understand more. We might be less bewildered when the love affair that started out so magically turns into a flawed relationship between two ordinary mortals trying to get close in a culture committed to personal freedom and individualism.

Nonetheless we must begin with where we actually are: desperately desiring love. And we must start with some definitions.

Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle aged, and the mutual dependence of the old.

—John Ciardi

DEFINITIONS

Love is a basic emotion. It comes in a variety of forms. Most scientists distinguish between two kinds of love—passionate love and companionate love. Most of us understand the difference between the two. When Ingrid Bergman told an ardent friend that although she loved him, she was not in love with him, he understood the difference: He committed suicide (Learner, 1986).

Kurt Fischer, P. R. Shaver, and P. Carnochan (1990) pointed out that love, like all other emotions, includes a number of components. They defined emotions as:

organised, meaningful, generally adaptive action systems. . . . [They] are complex functional wholes including appraisals or appreciations, patterned physiological processes, action tendencies, subjective feelings, expressions, and instrumental behaviors, (pp. 84-85)

They concluded that there are five basic emotions—two positive emotions (joy and love) and three negative ones (anger, sadness, and fear) (see Figure 1.1). There are two major kinds of love: passionate love (which they labeled infatuation) and companionate love (which they labeled fondness).

Robert Sternberg (1988) proposed a more elaborate typology of the varieties of love—a triangular model of love (Figure 1.2). He argued that different kinds of love differ in how much of three different components—passion, intimacy, and the

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decision/commitment to stay together—they possess. He defined passion, intimacy, and decision/commitment this way:

Passion encompasses the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, and sexual

consummation; Intimacy encompasses the feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness one

experiences in loving relationships; and A decision/commitment encompasses, in the short term, the decision that one loves

another, and in the long term, the commitment to maintain that love. (p. 32)

, Passionate love (which he labeled infatuation), for example, involves intense passionate arousal but little intimacy or commitment. Companionate love involves less passion and far more intimacy and commitment. The most complete form of love would be consummate love, which requires passion, intimacy, and commitment.

Of course, other scientists have proposed still other typologies of love (e.g., see Hendrick & Hendrick, 1989; Lee, 1973; Shaver & Hazan, 1988).

What Is Passionate Love?

Passionate love is a "hot," intense emotion, sometimes labeled obsessive love, puppy love, a crush, lovesickness, infatuation, or being-in-love. We would define the emotion of passionate love in this way:

A state of intense longing for union with another. Passionate love is a complex functional whole including appraisals or appreciations, subjective feelings, expressions, patterned physiological processes, action tendencies, and instrumental behaviors. Reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy; unrequited love (separation) with emptiness, anxiety, or despair.

Elaine Hatfield and Susan Sprecher (1986a) designed the Passionate Love Scale (PLS) to tap the following indicants of longing for union. (The PLS is reproduced in Box 1.1.)

Cognitive Components

1. Preoccupation with the one you love.

2. Idealization of the other.

3. Desire to know and be known by the other.

Emotional Components

1. Attraction, especially sexual attraction, to the other.

2. Positive feelings when things go well.

3. Negative feelings when things go awry.

4. Longing for reciprocity. (Passionate lovers love and want to be loved in return.)

5. Desire for a complete and permanent union.

6. Physiological arousal.

Behavioral Components

1. Attempting to determine the other's feelings.

2. Studying the other person.

3. Assisting the other.

4. Maintaining physical closeness.

Are you in love with someone right now? Have you ever been in love? How intense are your feelings compared to those of other lovers? To find out, circle the numbers on items 1-15 in Box 1.1 that best represent your feelings for the one you love the most. Now, add up the numbers you circled. The total is your PLS score. How does it compare to the average PLS score of people your own age? Elaine Hatfield and Marilyn Easton (cited in Hatfield & Rapson, 1990b) interviewed Caucasian, Filipino, and Japanese men and women. They found that, on the average, men and women from these ethnic groups seemed to love with equal passion (see Table 1.1, p. 8). You can compare your scores with those of other students.

Box 1.1 THE PASSIONATE LOVE SCALE

Think of the person you love most passionately right now. (If you are not in love right now, think of the last person you loved passionately. If you have never been in love, think of the person whom you came closest to caring for in that way.) Try to tell us how you felt at the time when your feelings were the most intense. Possible answers range from:

<T) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)"" (9)

Not at Moderately Definitely

all true true true

1. I would feel deep despair if_______left me.

123456789

2. Sometimes I feel I can t control my thoughts; they are obsessively on

1 23456789

3. I feel happy when I am doing something to make_______happy.

123456789

4. I would rather be with_______than anyone else.

1 23456789

5. I'd get jealous if I thought _______ were falling in love with someone

else.

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6. I yearn to know all about________

123456789

7. I want_______—physically, emotionally, mentally.

1 23456789

8. I have an endless appetite for affection from_______

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9. For me,_______is the perfect romantic partner.

123456789

10. I sense my body responding when_______touches me.

1 23456789

11. _______always seems to be on my mind.

123456789

12. I want_______to know me—my thoughts, my fears, and my hopes.

1 23456789

13. I eagerly look for signs indicating_______'s desire for me.

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14. I possess a powerful attraction for________

123456789

15. I get extremely depressed when things don't go right in my relationship with

123456789 Source: Hatfield & Sprecher. 1986a, p. 391.

Table 1.1 PASSIONATE LOVE SCALE SCORES OF VARIOUS ETHNIC GROUPS

Group	Men	Women
Caucasians (mainland U.S.)	97.50	110.25
Caucasians (Hawaii)	100.50	105.00
Filipinos	106.50	102.90
Japanese	99.00	103.95

Infatuation is when you think that he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as

Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen and as

athletic as Jimmy Connors. Love is when you realize that he's as sexy as

Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic

as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford in any category—but

you'll take him anyway.

—Judith Viorst

Passionate Love Versus Infatuation In movies, lovers never have any trouble telling whether or not they are in love. Intense passion stalks them, shakes them around, and, struggle as they might, overwhelms them. In real life, people are usually not so certain about their feelings. College students at three universities were asked what one thing they most wished they knew about romantic love (Hatfield, & Walster, 1978). A surprisingly frequent question was: "What is the difference between love and infatuation?" The answer to the love-versus-infatua-tion riddle seems to be that there is no difference. The two do not differ in any way—at least at the time one is experiencing them. Two sex counselors (Ellis & Harper, 1961) who interviewed young adults about their romantic and sexual experiences concluded that the difference between passionate love and infatuation is merely semantic. Lovers use the term passionate love to describe loving relationships that are still in progress. They use the term infatuation to describe once-loving relationships that have ended. It appears then that it may be possible to tell infatuation from romantic love only in retrospect. If a relationship flowers, we continue to believe that we are experiencing true love. If a relationship dies, we conclude that we were merely infatuated. Of course, when our friends and parents insist that we're just infatuated they are not really commenting on our feelings. Actually they're telling us whether or not they approve of our relationship.

If I have no love, I am nothing. . . . Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude; never selfish, not quick to take offence. Love keeps no score of wrongs; does not gloat over other men's sins, but delights in the truth. . . . Love will never come to an end.

—7 Corinthians 13

What Is Companionate Love?

By contrast, companionate love (sometimes called true love or conjugal love) is a "warm," far less intense emotion. It combines feelings of deep attachment, commitment, and intimacy. We would define it as:

The affection and tenderness we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined. Companionate love is a complex functional whole including appraisals or appreciations, subjective feelings, expressions, patterned physiological processes, action tendencies, and instrumental behaviors.

Psychologists have used a variety of scales to measure companionate love. For example, since Robert Sternberg (1988) assumed that companionate relationships possessed little passion, but a great deal of commitment and intimacy, many researchers have assessed companionate love by measuring commitment and intimacy (see Box 1.2).

Box 1.2 A COMPANIONATE LOVE SCALE

Please indicate your feelings on the following scale:

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Not at Somewhat Moderately Quite Extremely

all

Commitment

[Sternberg measured commitment by such items as these]:

1. I expect my love for________to last for the rest of my life.

2. I can't imagine ending my relationship with________

3. I am certain of my love for________

4. I am committed to maintaining my relationship with________

5. I have confidence in the stability of my relationship with_________

Intimacy

[Sternberg assessed intimacy by such items as]:

1. I have a warm and comfortable relationship with________

2. I experience intimate communication with________

3. I have a relationship of mutual understanding with________

4. I receive considerable emotional support from_________

5. I give considerable emotional support to_________

6. I experience great happiness with________

A total companionate love score would be calculated by adding up respondents' scores on the commitment and intimacy subscales. The more companionately one loves another, the higher a score one would be expected to receive.

Source: Sternberg, 1986.

LOVE: HOW TO FIND IT

I can't understand why more people aren't bisexual. It would double your chances for a date on Saturday night.

—Woody Allen

There are times in life when people have to start from scratch in constructing their social lives: when a shy teenager yearns to begin dating; when a lonely freshman arrives at college; when a young couple breaks up or a long-married couple divorces; when a mate dies. In such circumstances, men and women face the problem of finding someone to love. People face two looming hurdles in their quest for love and intimacy: (1) to recognize what it takes to attract potential mates, dates, and friends; and (2) to devise a strategy for meeting them. Let us first consider the traits young men and women find attractive in potential dates and mates.

What Makes Someone Desirable?

What attracts men and women to one another? In part, romantic attraction is a mystery. My colleague, Ellen Berscheid (1984), reported the following example:

The author was interested to hear a man of her acquaintance exclaim that he had found, on his recent vacation to the West and after years of search, the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. When asked what it was about this woman and/or their relationship that produced such unprecedented enthusiasm and willingness to (for the second time) contemplate the marital contract, he replied, and not so unpredictably, "We're so compatible! It's unbelievable!"

This was a striking statement because this man, having experienced a particularly unhappy and "incompatible" first marriage, had given a great deal of thought to the attributes required of the next (if there were to be a next) marital partner. The prerequisites on his lengthly list were specific and concrete: She must, first and foremost, not smoke. In addition, she should not drink. Further, she should be a Protestant and—desirable but not necessary—a faithful church-goer. She should be not older than 30 years of age, and preferably, never married. She should be well-educated and intelligent, and able to discuss some of the more esoteric intellectual writers of the day, as well as contemporary politics. She should—and this for him was a necessary condition—be interested in art and antiques, and if she had a particular interest in American pottery and American Indian baskets, so much the better (and if she happened to own a rare Gruby vase, she could expect a proposal of marriage on the spot). It was also desirable that she be attractive in appearance and, given his personal taste, fair of hair, eyes, and skin.

Now, given the probability that a person who embodied such a constellation of attributes actually existed somewhere on this planet, multiplied by the probability that this man would ever meet such a person, and that probability estimate multiplied in turn by the probability that such a woman would return his overtures, even a beginning student of interpersonal attraction would have to predict that this man was destined for a life of singledom. Thus, his announcement that his search had ended was greeted with incredulity.

Pursuing the matter, he was asked just how it was that he and this woman were so "compatible." What followed in reply was a recounting of very specific interaction

episodes, including instances in which a witticism of his was understood and promptly returned, and a mention of the facts that they had played hours of gin rummy together, that they had jogged happily together, and that she had fixed sandwiches for him in preparation for his long car journey home. That was the sum total of his explanation! Even more disconcerting, however, was the fact that in his enthusiastic report of moments shared with the woman, it also emerged, in the most casual and incidental way, that: The woman is a chain-smoker. She drinks. She is Catholic. She is 43 years old. She has been married and divorced three times and recently terminated a three-year cohabitation relationship with a fourth man. She couldn't be less interested in antiques, in general, or pottery and Indian baskets, in particular; in fact, she heaped a pint of fresh strawberries in a $300 Indian basket he had just purchased, realizing neither its antiquity nor its value (this incident related with fond chuckles of amusement). She is largely uneducated, although she is, he said, "good looking"—with dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark complexion! But—and for him this was the joyous bottom line—with no one, ever, had he been so "compatible"! (pp. 144-145)

As you might guess, this affair quickly fizzled out.

Scientists may not know everything about why people are drawn to the people that they are, but they know something. Every culture has standards for courtship and marriage. Without really thinking about it, most of us dutifully follow our culture's dictates. Most of us want dates and mates who are about our own age, from the same socioeconomic class, religion, and educational level. They can't be too short or too tall. Such preliminary screenings cut out a surprising number of candidates. But most of us want more. Often we want someone who is reasonably good looking, personable, warm, and intelligent; someone whose views match our own; and perhaps even more.

Beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction.

—Jane Austen

Good Looks Handsome men and beautiful women have a huge advantage in the dating market and a head start in the search for a committed relationship. Many young people work furiously hard to improve their physical appearance in the hopes of attracting desirable dates and mates. In 1990, American cosmetics firms racked up more than one and a half billion dollars in sales of beauty products {Time, 1991).

Most people, most of the time, are biased in their reactions to good-looking or unattractive people. This discovery is certainly not new. The Greek philosopher Sappho contended that "what is beautiful is good." (Actually, we will see that while it is an advantage to be good-looking to average in appearance, it is the extremely unattractive who suffer the most.) There are four steps in the stereotyping process:

1. Most people know that it is not fair to discriminate against the ugly. (They would be incensed if others discriminated against them). And yet . . .

2. Most people take it for granted that attractive and unattractive people are different. Generally, they assume that "what is beautiful is good; what is unattractive is bad."

3. Most people treat good-looking and average people better than they treat the unattractive.

4. As a consequence, a "self-fulfilling prophecy" occurs. The way people are treated shapes the kinds of people they become.

In one classic experiment, researchers (Dion, Berscheid, & Hatfield, 1972) showed college men and women yearbook photographs of men and women who varied markedly in appearance and asked them their first impressions of the students. Young adults assumed that handsome men and beautiful women possessed nearly all the virtues. They assumed that the good-looking were more sociable, outgoing, poised, and interesting; that they were warmer, more exciting, and more sexually responsive; that they had better characters, were more nurtur-ant, kind, modest, strong, and sensitive than were their homely peers. Good-looking people were also expected to have more fulfilling lives. Students predicted the good-looking would be happier, have more successful marriages, find better jobs, and, all-in-all, live more fulfilling lives. On only one dimension were young adults suspicious of good looks; judges did not expect attractive people to make especially good parents.

Of course, social observers cannot help but recognize that good looks might have a bit of a dark side. For example, psychologists (Dermer & Thiel, 1975) asked college students to rate college women who varied greatly in attractiveness. In general, subjects did assume that attractive and average women possessed more appealing personalities and were more socially skilled than were unattractive women. In this study, however, researchers also documented some "ugly truths about beauty." Subjects expected attractive women to be more vain and egotistical, more bourgeois (i.e., materialistic, snobbish, and unsympathetic to oppressed peoples), and less committed to their marriages (more likely to have extramarital affairs and/or to request a divorce) than homely women. (Similar results have been secured by Eagley, Ashmore, Makhijani, & Kennedy, 1991.)

It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But . . . it is better to be good

than to be ugly.

—Oscar Wilde

In Mirror, Mirror: The Importance of Looks in Everyday Life, Elaine Hatfield and Susan Sprecher (1986b) reviewed a cascade of evidence that people assume the attractive/average are very different from the unattractive. (For recent work in this area, see Buss, 1989; Buss & Barnes, 1986; Feingold, 1988, 1990; Howard, Blumstein, & Schwartz, 1987; or Snyder, Berscheid, & Click, 1985).

What effect does such stereotyping have on men and women? Do the good-looking actually become more socially skilled as a consequence of their privileged position? Probably. Expectations have a way of being fulfilled. If men and women expect others to be disagreeable, they tend to treat them in ways that bring out their worst. The existence of such a self-fulfilling prophecy was demonstrated in a fascinating experiment by Mark Snyder, Elizabeth Tanke, and Ellen Berscheid (1977). Men and women at the University of Minnesota were recruited for a study on "the acquaintance process." First, men were given a Polaroid snapshot and biographical information about their partners. In fact, the snapshot was a "fake"; it depicted either a beautiful or a homely woman. Men were asked their first impressions of the women. Those who believed they

had been assigned a beautiful partner expected her to be sociable, poised, humorous, and socially skilled. Those who thought they had been assigned to an unattractive one expected her to be unsociable, awkward, serious, and socially inept. Such prejudice is not surprising. We already know that good-looking people make exceptionally good first impressions.

The next set of findings, however, was startling. Men were asked to get acquainted with their partners via the telephone. Male expectations had a dramatic impact on the ways they talked to their partners during the telephone calls. That, in turn, created a correspondingly great impact on the response of the women. Men, of course, thought they were talking to a beautiful or homely woman; in fact, the women on the other end of the line varied greatly in appearance. (Probably most were average in looks.) Nonetheless, within the space of a telephone conversation, women became what men expected them to be. After the telephone conversations, judges listened to tapes of the women's portions of the conversations and tried to guess what the women were like just from that snippet of conversation. Women who had been talked to as if they were beautiful soon began to sound that way. They became unusually animated, confident, and socially skilled. Those who had been treated as if they were unattractive soon began acting that way. (They became withdrawn, lacking in confidence, and awkward.) Men's prophecies had been fulfilled.

How did this happen? When the portions of the men's conversations were analyzed, it was found that those men who thought they were talking to a beautiful woman were more sociable, sexually warm, interesting, independent, sexually permissive, bold, outgoing, humorous, and socially skilled than the men who thought they were talking to a homely woman. The men assigned to an attractive woman were also more comfortable, enjoyed themselves more, liked their partners more, took the initiative more often, and used their voices more effectively. In brief, the men who thought they were talking to a beautiful woman tried harder. Undoubtedly, this behavior caused the women to try harder too. If the stereotypes held by the men became reality within the ten minutes of a telephone conversation, one can imagine what happens when people are treated well or badly over a lifetime. In fact, researchers have found some evidence that the attractive are in fact unusually socially skilled and experienced (Curran, 1975; Kaats & Davis, 1970).

We have just seen that people are prejudiced in favor of the good-looking, treat them better, and, as a result, that the good-looking become more socially skilled. It is not surprising then that most men and women, regardless of their own appearance, are especially eager to date the good-looking. There is considerable evidence that this is so. In one experiment, Elaine Hatfield and her students (Hatfield, Aronson, Abrahams, & Bottman, 1966) invited freshmen at the University of Minnesota to a computer dance. Couples were promised that a computer would match them with a blind date that was just right for them. (In truth, the students were randomly matched with one another; partners' names were drawn from a fishbowl.) When the freshmen arrived to purchase their tickets for the dance, the researchers rated their social desirability—their attractiveness, intelligence, personality traits, and social skills. When freshmen signed up for the project, four ticket sellers secretly rated their attractiveness. The scientists as-

sessed the intelligence level of the freshmen by securing transcripts of their high school grades and their scores on the Minnesota Scholastic Aptitude Test. They gauged their personality traits by recording their scores from a battery of tests, including the prestigious Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Test and the California Personality Inventory.

Subjects were given the names of their computer matches and were encouraged to meet at the dance. At the dance, the 400 couples talked, danced, and got to know one another. Then, during the 10:30 intermission, the experimenters swept through the building, rounding up couples from the dance floor, lavatories, fire escapes—even adjoining buildings. Researchers asked the students to tell them frankly (and in confidence) what they thought of their dates. Did they plan to ask them out again? If they were asked out, would they accept? Six months later the researchers contacted couples again to find out if they had, in fact, dated. Here are some of the things they found:

1. When the freshmen signed up for the dance, they were asked what kinds of dates they preferred. Everyone, regardless of what they looked like, preferred (in fact, insisted on) being matched with the best-looking, most charming, brightest, and most socially skilled partner possible.

2. Those whom fate matched with handsome or beautiful dates were eager to pursue the relationships. Keep in mind that some of the handsome men and beautiful women had expressed total disinterest in their dates, especially if they were unattractive; some even admitted to treating them rudely. No matter. Everyone wanted to see the good-looking computer matches again. When couples were contacted six months after the dance, participants (whether they were good-looking or homely; well treated or not) had in fact tried to date the best-looking. The prettier the woman, the more eagerly she was pursued.

3. In this study, every effort to find anything else that mattered failed. Men and women with exceptional IQs and social skills, for example, were not liked any better than those less well endowed.

4. Finally, men and women cared equally about how their dates looked.

The inordinate importance of good looks in blind-date settings has been substantiated by other investigators (see Bull & Rumsey, 1988). Appearance has particular power as the first filter when people meet. Once that first hurdle has been leaped, other qualities begin to assume ever-increasing importance. People begin to care about the personality—the intelligence, kindness, and warmth—of potential dates too. Strange to say, there even exist those odd human beings who find these latter qualities even more important than physical appearance.

What a strange delusion it is to fancy beauty is goodness!

—Leo Tolstoy

Personality In the midst of the Great Depression, Dale Carnegie (1936) counseled businessmen (in How to Win Friends and Influence People) that there were six ways to make others like you:

Rule 1: Become genuinely interested in other people.

Rule 2: Smile.

Rule 3: Remember that people's names are to them the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

Rule 4: Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.

Rule 5: Talk in terms of the other person's interest.

Rule 6: Make the other person feel important—and do it sincerely.

Today, the evidence suggests that Carnegie was right. Men and women do prefer to date and associate with friendly, sincere people; people who are interesting and who are interested in them (Byrne, 1971; Kaplan & Anderson, 1973). Let us consider some of these important personality traits in more detail.

Intelligence and Competence People like men and women who are socially skilled, intelligent, and competent. Some women worry that if they dazzle too brightly they might scare men off. Experiments make it clear, however, that both men and women are most attracted to potential dates who are intelligent and competent (Aronson, Willerman, & Floyd, 1966; Helmreich, Aronson, & Lefan, 1970; Solomon & Saxe, 1977). Men's preference for intelligent women seems likely to accelerate in the wake of the women's movement (Muehlenhard & Scardino, 1985).

Balthazar claimed once that he could induce love as a control-experiment by a

simple action: namely telling each of two people who had never met that the

other was dying to meet them, had never seen anyone so attractive and so on.

This was, he claimed, infallible as a means of making them fall in love: they

always did.

—Lawrence Durrell

Warmth People like to be liked. There is overwhelming evidence that men and women respond most enthusiastically to those who like them and treat them warmly (Berscheid & Hatfield, 1978; Curtis & Miller, 1986; Folkes & Sears, 1977; Hatfield & Walster, 1978).

In one study, Debra Walsh and Jay Hewitt (1985) studied men's willingness to approach women in a singles bar. The women (college students) and the experimenter sat at an empty table in the bar from 8 to 9 p.m. each night. In the experimental condition, the women were instructed to look at one of the men, catch his eye, and smile. (The experimenter told the women who they were supposed to "give the eye."). In the control condition, the women were told just to look out on the dance floor and smile at no one in particular. Men were far more likely to come over and talk to the women who caught their eye and smiled. Sixty percent of the men approached the friendly, encouraging women; not one man dared to approach the women who failed to give them a friendly signal!

Solomon Asch (1946) argued that certain traits, like warm and cold, are

central traits; they have a profound effect on the way people perceive and feel about others. Try this classic Asch experiment. Your best friend suggests that you go out on a blind date with one of his cousins, Jan or Terry. What are they like? Jan is warm, good-looking, intelligent, and cautious. Terry is cold, good-looking, intelligent, and cautious. Which would you date? When most people are asked their first impressions of Jan and Terry, practically everyone assumes that Jan will not only be warm, but will be happy, generous, humorous, good-natured, popular, sociable, sincere, helpful, and modest as well. They assume that Terry is not just cold but unhappy, moody, irritable, humorless, unpopular, pessimistic, and unsociable as well (Rosenberg, Nelson, & Vivekananthan, 1968). No wonder nearly everyone prefers to date Jan. In any case, people generally prefer to date those with affectionate, warm natures.

Birds of a feather flock together. —Folk adage

Similarity Most people are attracted, romantically, to those whose backgrounds, personalities, attitudes, and beliefs are similar to their own. Sociologists have long been interested in mate selection. In a classic paper, Alan C. Kerckhoff (1974) observed that in all societies there is afield of eligibles; only certain kinds of people are considered to be suitable as mates. Until recently, American society assumed that suitable dates or mates must be similar in age, race, socioeconomic status, religion, and educational level (Cargan, 1991; Kephart and Jedlicka, 1991; Skolnick, 1992).

Society also restricts young people's field of availables. Young people necessarily spend most of their time with people who are much like themselves: people who go to the same schools, live in the same neighborhoods, and engage in the same activities.

Kerckhoff argued that both these influences may be responsible for the strong homogamy that exists in mating. Like may marry like because our culture prescribes similarity between spouses on a variety of social characteristics. Like may also marry like because the field of availables is generally made up of people very similar to ourselves. Such preliminary screenings cut out a surprising number of candidates. How rigorous these initial screenings really are became all too evident to some budding computer dating companies when they began to calculate how many men and women they would have to enroll in their programs to accomplish the barest minimum of homogamous matching. These minimum requirements included matching individuals who:

• Were of the appropriate sex (homosexual clients would naturally request dates of the same sex, heterosexual clients would request dates of the opposite sex, while bisexual clients might specify dates of either sex);

• Lived in the same town;

• Were of about the same age;

• Were of the same race, socioeconomic class, religion, or educational level;

• Were roughly the same height.

To its dismay, one computer company calculated that it would need more than one million subscribers in order to match on just these basic traits. So much for shared

interests, sexual compatibility, and so on. (Interestingly enough, there is no computer-match company now in business with an enrollment figure even close to one million.)

But most of us want more. Most people prefer dates and mates who are similar in personality, attitude, and a host of other traits.

In a classic study, Donn Byrne, C. R. Ervin, and J. Lamberth (1970) introduced men and women to one another. Half of the time they told couples that they were very similar in personality and attitudes; in fact, they were. Half were warned, in all honesty, that they were very different. Then the couples went out on a 30-minute blind date. Eventually, the couples wandered back to the experimental office. The psychologists asked couples how much they liked one another. They also unobtrusively recorded how close they stood to one another when turning in their questionnaires. (Were they touching one another? Standing at opposite extremes of the desk?) As predicted, the more similar couples were, the more attracted they were to one another and the closer they stood to one another. [Similar results were secured by Cappella & Palmer (1990) and Cavior, Miller, & Cohen (1975).] Recently, scientific teams have documented that people prefer to date and mate people whose personalities and attitudes are similar to their own (Broome, 1983; Byrne, Clore, & Smeaton, 1986; Smeaton, Byrne, & Murnen, 1989).

Researchers didn't stop there. They acknowledge that most people may prefer partners who are startlingly good-looking, intelligent, kind, and so forth. But they find that men and women are likely to settle for partners no better and no worse than themselves on these dimensions:

• Intelligence and education. People tend to end up with mates who are similar to themselves in intelligence and education (Hatfield et al., 1978).

• Physical attractiveness. Men and women generally end up dating and marrying those who are about as attractive as they are (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986b).

• Mental health. People tend to marry those who are as mentally healthy or neurotic or mentally ill as themselves (Hatfield & Walster, 1978).

• Physical health. People are likely to date and marry partners with similar physical disabilities (Hatfield et al., 1978). For example, scientists (Spuhler, 1968) reviewed 42 studies of assortative mating. The studies investigated whether like-married-like, on 105 different physical characteristics—ranging from such broad characteristics as "general health" (which was assessed via nine different indicants) to such specific traits as "systolic blood pressure" and "ear lobe length"! They found that couples generally are well matched. Such homogamy seems to be especially prevalent with respect to deafness. The fact that deaf people tend to marry one another so worried Alexander Graham Bell (1884) that he felt compelled to point out the grave consequences of such homogamy in an article entitled "Upon the formation of a deaf variety of the human race."

• Other social characteristics. Men and women prefer dates and mates who share their preferences in a variety of activities (Werner & Parmelee, 1979).

People do not, of course, relentlessly seek carbon copies of themselves. Obviously men and women sometimes look for partners who are dissimilar in certain

fundamental ways. For example, as Gerald Maxwell (1975) has wryly observed, most men and women prefer to marry the "opposite" sex. In traditional 1950s marriages, men and women were expected to bring different and complementary skills to their mergers. Men were expected to perform the "heavy" tasks, like mowing the lawn, shoveling the sidewalks, fixing the furnace, tinkering with the car, and taking out the garbage. Women were supposed to do the "light" work: cleaning the house, cooking, canning, shopping, and taking care of the children. These traditional sex-typed roles are changing but the principle that "opposites attract" in the division of labor may remain. Women who loathe cooking may find a man especially appealing if he is a culinary genius; men who can't tell a spark plug from a carburetor may find a woman who can very appealing. Saints may prefer sinners.

Furthermore, not everyone is interested in finding someone just like themselves to love. Recently, Eastern psychologists Arthur and Elaine Aron (1986) argued that love can best be understood in terms of a deeply felt motivation to expand the self. If men and women had sufficient self-confidence, they argued, they would be more willing to stretch themselves; to try dating people who added something new and different to their lives. There is some evidence that they may be right. In one early study, Elaine Hatfield and G. William Walster (1963) speculated that perhaps young men and women focused so single-mindedly on "similarity" not because of its intrinsic appeal (after all, it is a bit boring to date your clone) but because they were afraid of daring the unknown. [When people are very different from us, their social standards are unclear; we may not be quite sure how we are "supposed" to behave. Even the gentlemanly Marcel Proust (1913/1956) expressed fear that "boors and bounders," unaware of society's rules, would underrate his social value.] If students had more self-confidence (if they were assured they would be liked or if they were assured that it didn't matter whether they were liked), they reasoned, they might be interested in dating someone a bit more "exotic" than usual. In their experiments, the authors found clear support for this hypothesis. As predicted, students who were assured that everyone would like them were eager to associate with the dissimilar. (In fact, they vastly preferred dissimilar people to similar ones.) Students who were warned that they probably would not be liked, and who thought it was important to be liked, preferred to play it safe and talk with similar people. It appears then that the more worried we are about whether others will like us, the more anxious we are to associate with similar others. [Similar results were secured by Broome (1983).] Other researchers document that people who are psychologically secure are especially likely to associate with a wide range of people, similar and dissimilar (Goldstein & Rosenfeld, 1969).

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

—H. L. Mencken

Other Assets What else do men and women long for? Hatfield and her students (Hatfield, Traupmann, Sprecher, Utne, & Hay, 1984) interviewed over 1000 dating couples, 100 newlyweds, and 400 elderly women, asking them to note the rewards (or lack thereof) they found to be most critical in their relationships. Their answers, some of which are shown in Table 1.2, were surprisingly similar.

Table 1.2 REWARDS IN LOVE RELATIONS

Personal rewards Appearance (having mates who are attractive and take care of their appearance) Social grace (having mates who are sociable, friendly, and relaxed in social settings) Intelligence (having mates who are intelligent and informed)

Emotional rewards

Feeling liked and loved

Feeling understood

Feeling accepted

Feeling appreciated

Physical affection (being kissed and hugged)

Sex

Security (knowing partners are committed and there is a future together)

Plans and goals for the future (being able to dream about your future together)

Day-to-day re wards Smoothly running daily routine Comfortable finances Sociability and good communication Decision making (having partners who take a fair share of the responsibility for making and

carrying out decisions that affect both of you) Remembering special occasions

Opportunities gained and lost "Opportunities gained" include the things that one gets from being married: the chance to

become a parent: the chance to be invited, as part of a "married couple," to social events:

having someone to count on in old age "Opportunities foregone" include the things that one has to give up in order to be in a

relationship: other possible mates: a career: travel: sexual freedom

What Makes Someone Undesirable?

We have reviewed what people desire in potential dates and mates. What makes people dislike and avoid others?

Most people have a secret fear that they will say or do something embarrassing in a social situation, and that people will react with stunned silence or snickers. Can you recall making any social gaffes? Who were you talking to? What did you say? How did others react? How did you try to repair the damage?

Mark Knapp, L. Stafford, and J. A. Daly (1986) asked men and women to recall their most regrettable messages; things they wish they hadn't said. Most of us can recall such faux pas as these:

My blind-date said that he sold office safes. I was trying to make conversation so I said "Everything valuable I keep in my drawers." People around us looked, and then started laughing. In fact, they couldn't stop laughing. I was sick with shame.

I was invited to my fiance's home for a special dinner. It was the first time I had met everyone and I was trying hard to impress them. As we sat down to eat, his father turned to me and said, "I hope you'll say grace." I was so unsettled by this request that I immediately bowed my head and said, "Now I lay me down to sleep. . . ." (p. 40)

Young people (in their twenties) suffer the most from the fear that they have made fools of themselves. Perhaps preteens are too young to care much about the impression they make. Perhaps by their thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond, people may learn to be more socially skilled, or, more likely, they may have learned to be kinder to themselves when they make inevitable mistakes. Surprisingly, most people recall making such faux pas not with strangers, but in their closest of relationships. People tended to cringe when recalling the following kinds of regrettable messages:

1. Blunders (22% of the regrettable messages). (One woman asked "How's your mother?" only to find that she had just died.)

2. Direct attacks (16%). (People may say "Everyone thinks you are an egomaniac," or "Your girlfriend is a slut" only to regret it later.)

3. Group references (14%). (People may spit out racial or ethnic slurs.)

4. Direct criticism (12%). (The words "You are the worst housekeeper I have ever seen" or "What kind of woman would date a married man with three little children?" may come back to haunt you.)

5. Reveal/explain too much (11%). (Sometimes in the excitement of the moment, people tell too much. They reveal a painful secret or violate a friend's trust. "Why did I spill my guts to her?" they moan later.)

People were asked why they said what they did. Their reasons were as follows.

1. Stupid. ("I wasn't thinking" or "It just slipped out.")

2. Selfish. ("I wanted him to take me to the prom and I thought I could shame him into it.")

3. Good/innocent intention. ("I was just trying to be nice." "I was just making small talk.")

4. Bad intention. ("I was jealous and was trying to get even." "I wanted to hurt him.")

5. Humorous. ("I was trying to be funny. Some joke.")

6. Out of control. ("I just got carried away." "I was drunk," "nervous," "exhausted," "under stress.")

Most of the time (77% of the time) people realize what they have said the second the words have left their mouths. They feel deeply embarrassed, hurt, filled with regret. Occasionally, they don't realize until later what they have done. Even years later, people blush when they recall their youthful mistakes. People almost always try to repair things. They apologize, deny they meant what they said ("I was just kidding"), attempt to explain, offer excuses, or try to atone for their words. (Only 7% of the time did people "do nothing," and then this was in the hope that others wouldn't notice their faux pas. Hope springs eternal.) Usually, people do pay for their mistakes. (Others are hurt or angry; they walk out in a huff.) Sometimes, however, they understand.

We tend to dwell on such horrors, but in fact, one or two mistakes are unlikely to shake a promising or fulfilling love relationship. In love, people generally get to make hundreds of mistakes; ideally they learn and try harder the next time. Usually, it is permanent personality and character problems that lay waste to promising relationships.

Albert Pepitone (1964) found that people disliked and rejected potential dates and friends who were arrogant, conceited, rude, or who consistently made life difficult.

What makes potential dates just plain boring? Mark Leary, P. A. Rogers, R. W. Canfield, and C. Coe (1986) tried to find out what sorts of communication styles are especially dreary. They asked students to list things "that other people do that make them seem boring to you" (p. 969). They found that eight sorts of conversational habits are especially deadly: (1) Passivity. (Dull people aren't really there—they seem to have no opinions of their own, they can't hold up their end of a conversation, or add anything new to a discussion.) (2) Tediousness. (Tiresome people have a boring communication style—they may talk veeeeeerrrrry slowly, pausing a long time before responding, ramble, include too many annoying details in their stories, or drag on and on. In a classic skit, humorists Bob and Ray pretended to interview delegates at a Slow Talkers convention. As the Slow Talkers paused interminably mid-word, members of the audience could barely refrain from rushing on ahead to finish their sentences.) (3) Distracting behaviors make interaction difficult. Boring people get sidetracked easily. All their talk is small talk. (4) Low affectivity. (Dull people rarely look others in the eye; their faces are expressionless; their voices monotonous.) (5) Boring ingratia-tion. (Tiresome people try too hard to be funny; try too hard to be nice; work too hard to impress other people.) (6) Seriousness. (Boring people rarely smile; they are too serious.) (7) Self-centeredness. (Dull people are preoccupied with themselves, with their pasts, and with their own problems. They are negative and constantly complain.) (9) Banality. (People who talk about trivial or superficial things, who are interested in only one topic, or who repeat the same stories and jokes again and again are boring.)

Recently, Milton Rosenbaum (1986) has argued that men and women tend to be repulsed by potential dates and mates who disagree with their cherished attitudes, beliefs, and values. People tend to assume that someone who disagrees with the ideas that seem so reasonable to them must be unethical, short-sighted, stupid, or maybe even a little bit crazy.

In sum: If people want to make themselves as appealing as they can, probably the best strategy is to spend some time improving their appearance . . . but not too much time. The handsome and beautiful have only a slight advantage over the average in the dating market. It is the unattractive who suffer the most. Most men and women would surely do better spending their extra time making more long-term investments—in becoming happy, interesting, personable, kind, intelligent, successful, and fulfilled—people who have a rich life of their own, buttressed with a serious career and friends.

The Importance of Proximity

Often, people's search for the ideal mate ends with the boy or girl next door— or, if they are unusually daring, with the man or woman a mile away. One sociologist (Clarke, 1952) interviewed 431 couples at the time they applied for a marriage license. He found that, at the time of their first date together, 37% of the couples were living within 8 blocks of one another and 54% lived within 16 blocks of one another. As the distance between the residences increased, the

number of marriages decreased steadily. Love seemed unable to survive a very long subway ride.

Recently, Redbook magazine (1977) asked a scattering of celebrities how they had met their matches. Interestingly enough, almost all of these eminent men and women somehow ended up with people whom they saw on a day-to-day basis. President Jimmy Carter began by dating the girl next door and ended up marrying the woman down the street. Barbra Streisand met hairdresser Jon Peters at a party in Paris. Comedienne Joan Rivers met her husband Edgar Rosenberg when he asked her to work with him on a script.

Psychologist Leon Festinger (1951) came up with more solid evidence that people often end up dating and marrying whoever happens to be close by. He examined the development of friendships in a new apartment complex. In the complex, all the apartments, except for the end houses, were arranged around U-shaped courts. The two end houses in each court faced onto the street. Festinger and his colleagues arrived at the unsettling conclusion that, to a great extent, the architects had unknowingly shaped the social lives of their residents. The major determinant of who became friends was mere proximity—the distance between apartments. Friendships sprung up more frequently between next-door neighbors, less frequently between people whose houses were separated by another house, and so on. As the distance between houses increased, the number of friendships fell off so rapidly that it was rare to find a friendship between people who lived in houses more than four or five units apart.

Any architectural feature that forced a resident to bump into other residents now and then tended to increase his or her popularity. For example, people with apartments near the entrances and exits of the stairways tended to meet more people and make more friends than did other residents. The residents of the apartments near the mailboxes in each building also had an unusually active social life.

Any architectural feature that took a person even slightly out of the traffic mainstream had a chilling effect on his or her popularity. In order to have the street appear "lived on," ten of the apartments had been turned so that they faced the street, rather than the court. This apparently small change had a considerable effect on the lives of the people who happened to occupy these end houses. These people—who had no next-door neighbors—ended up with less than half as many friends in the complex as anyone else. Architecture had made them involuntary social isolates.

Effective Strategies for Meeting Dates and Mates

Lonely, desperate people often feel that they have to be "efficient"; they relentlessly set out to track down the right mate. They try to turn themselves into attractive "packages" so that they can attract the kind of dates they desire. Usually, they are interested in someone who has it all—someone who is good-looking, personable, kind, and rich. If they find a fatal flaw in prospective partners, they quickly discard them and move on to more promising candidates. They are determined not to waste their time. This strategy sounds reasonable, but the evidence suggests it does not work.

In one study, Carolyn Cutrona (1982) interviewed 354 UCLA freshmen two weeks, seven weeks, and seven months after their arrival on campus. At first, almost all the new arrivals, cut off from old romantic partners, family, and friends, were lonely. (Seventy-five percent of new students admitted they had been lonely since their arrival.) Most students were fairly resilient, however. By the end of the school year, most had made a successful social adjustment. Only a few were still chronically lonely. What were the differences between the students who were satisfied with the dates and friends they had made and those who were still miserably lonely at the end of the year? There were personality differences between the well-adjusted and lonely students. Lonely students had lower self-esteem, were more introverted, less assertive, and more sensitive to rejection; such traits slow down the process of social integration.

Well-adjusted and lonely students also tended to differ in the explanations they gave for their initial loneliness. It was disastrous if students attributed their loneliness to their own personal failings (i.e., if they assumed they were lonely because they were homely, boring, or shy) or if they assumed that they, one of the unlucky few, represented an exceptional case. If students realized that nearly everyone started in the same boat, they could more easily set out to meet friends and lovers.

What is the best way to do that?

The Direct Approach There is no reason the lonely cannot embark on a "search and seize" mission aimed at capturing dates and mates. When University of Wisconsin students were asked whether they knew someone they would like to meet and perhaps date, 90% of the men and 80% of the women said "Yes." Men could generally think of 19 women they might be interested in; women could think of 7 men who had sparked their interest (Sprecher & McKinney, 1987). One way people can meet someone, then, is simply to select a few appealing candidates and ask them out for coffee, lunch, to join a study group, to go on a hike, or so forth. The really courageous may invite promising candidates to dinner or to a movie. Taking the initiative may be fine advice for men, but what about women? Traditionally, women have assumed that if they are too forward, men will be scared off. The evidence doesn't seem to support that notion (Kelley & Rolker-Dolinsky, 1987; McCormick & Jesser, 1982; Muehlenhard & Miller, 1983).

But romantic passion . . . is a plant which thrives best in stony soil. Like the geranium in Erica's kitchen, the less it was watered, the better it flowered.

—Alison Lurie

Playing Hard-to-Get According to the folklore, a woman should never "throw herself" at a man. He will flee. From Socrates to Ovid to the author of The Kama Sutra all the way to Bertrand Russell and even to that Sage of Sages, "Dear Abby," all agree: they say that love and passion are stimulated by excitement and challenge. The Kama Sutra ofVatsyayana (1963) advises women to use the following strategy to "gain over a man."

But old authors say that although the girl loves the man ever so much she should not offer herself or make the first overtures, for a girl who does this loses her dignity, and

is liable to be scorned and rejected. But when the man tries to kiss her she should oppose him; when he begs to be allowed to have sexual intercourse with her she should let him touch her private parts only and with considerable difficulty; and though importuned by him, she should not yield herself up to him as if of her own accord, but should resist his attempts to have her. It is only, moreover, when she is certain that she is truly loved, and that her lover is indeed devoted to her, and will not change his mind, that she should then give herself up to him, and persuade him to marry her quickly. After losing her virginity she should tell her confidential friends about it. Here end the efforts of a girl to gain over a man. (p. 138)

To find Wise Folk in such rare accord is refreshing. Research clearly shows that, this time, however, the sages were wrong.

The less my hope, the hotter my love.

—Terence

In the 1970s, Elaine Hatfield and her colleagues (Hatfield, Walster, Piliavin, & Schmidt, 1973) conducted a number of experiments designed to demonstrate that men and women prefer those who play hard-to-get. Inevitably these experiments failed.

We began our research by studying men's preferences. We began not by asking men if they preferred hard-to-get dates, but why they did so. Most men were cooperative. They explained that an easy-to-get woman spelled trouble. (She was probably desperate for a date. She was probably the kind of woman who made too many demands on a man, the kind who wanted to get serious right away. Even worse, she might have a "disease." Today, men would probably mention AIDS.) The elusive woman, on the other hand, was almost inevitably a valuable woman. The men pointed out that a woman could only afford to be choosy if she was popular—and a woman was popular for some reason. When a woman was hard-to-get, it was usually a tip-off that she was especially pretty, had a good personality, was sexy, and so on. Men also were intrigued by the challenge that the elusive woman offered. One can spend a great deal of time fantasizing about what it would be like to date her. Also, since the hard-to-get woman's desirability was well recognized, a man could gain prestige by being seen with her. In brief, nearly all men took it for granted (as we did) that men preferred hard-to-get women and they could supply abundant justification for their prejudice.

A few isolated men refused to cooperate. These dissenters noted that an elusive woman was not always more desirable than an available woman. Sometimes the hard-to-get woman was not only hard-to-get—she was impossible to get, because she was misanthropic and cold. Sometimes a woman was easy-to-get simply because she was a friendly, warm, outgoing person who boosted one's ego and ensured that dates were "no hassle." We ignored the testimony of these deviant types.

We then conducted five experiments designed to demonstrate that men valued a hard-to-get date more than an easy-to-get one. All five experiments failed. Let us consider just one of these disasters.

A flurry of advertisements appeared on campus inviting college men and women to sign up for a free computer-date-matching service. In an initial interview, men and women told the computer all about themselves. Two weeks later,

the "dating bureau" asked the men to drop by to collect the names and telephone numbers of their date-matches. The dating counselor also asked them for a favor. Would they telephone their dates from the office, invite them out, and then report on their first impression of them? (Presumably, the counselor was interested in how the matches seemed to be working out.)

In fact, the dating bureau had been very busy during the two-week lull. They had contacted the women who had signed up for the computer-matching program and hired them as experimenters. They had given the women precise instructions on how they should act when their computer matches called them for a date. Half of the women were told to play hard-to-get. When a man asked them out, they were to pause . . . and think . . . and think ... for three or four seconds before replying: "Mm (slight pause). No, I've got a date then. It seems like I signed up for that date match thing a long time ago and I've met more people since then— I'm really pretty busy all this week." When the men suggested another time, they were to accept reluctantly. Half of the women were told to act easy-to-get. They were to accept eagerly the man's offer of a coffee date.

All five experiments we conducted had the same results: Some men preferred the easy-to-get women, others the women who were hard-to-get (Hatfield et al., 1973). In a recent experiment, researchers (Wright & Contrada, 1986) found that most people prefer potential dates who are moderately selective to those who are extremely selective or extremely nonselective about whom they date.

So if you're interested in attracting someone, playing hard-to-get isn't necessarily the answer. How then should we behave? Should we admit to others that we like them or should we play hard-to-get? The best answer seems to be: Act naturally. It's impossible to predict what others will like. We have seen that, generally, most people are attracted to warm, friendly, and candid types. A few prefer those who are coolly aloof. There's nothing to be gained from playing at one role or another, so you might as well speak frankly and act freely. Express your admiration for those you like and your hopes for the relationship, and voice any doubts you have about either one.

Being Assertive When men are asked how they wish women who are interested in them would act (ask them out, hint that she is interested, or wait for him to ask her out), 30% of men say they wish she would take the initiative and ask them out. Sixty-eight percent say they wish she would hint that she is interested. Only 3% say they prefer her to wait for them to ask her out. Several studies have found that even the most traditional of men are likely to accept if women ask them out. More than 95% of men said that if they were interested in dating a woman, they would gladly accept her proposal (Muehlenhard & McFall, 1981; Muehlen-hard & Miller, 1983). Research documents that it is safer to take the direct approach than one might think (Kelley & Rolker-Dolinsky, 1987; Muehlenhard & McFall, 1982). People have, of course, devised time-worn ways of asking others out without risking too much. "I'm having a few friends over on Friday to cram for the exam. Would you like to come?" "We are all going to the movies. Would you like to join us?" "A friend gave me some tickets to the concert. Interested?" If the other says "No," one is protected, and can pretend he or she was merely making a friendly gesture.

Men prefer women to take some initiative. Yet, when women are asked how they would indicate their interest in a man, only 3% say they would ask him out! Sixty-three percent would hint. A whopping 35% of women said they would simply wait for him to ask them out. Such passivity is probably not a very good idea (Muehlenhard, Koralewski, Andrews, & Burdick, 1986). Very few men are willing to risk asking out a woman who does not even hint that she might be interested (Muehlenhard & Miller, 1986). Men estimated that 62% of the women they asked out for the first time had previously hinted that they would be receptive to an invitation (Muehlenhard et al., 1986).

Thus both men and women, attractive or not, can be expected to do best if they are brave enough to dare to take the initiative. They may risk their pride, but they will not damage their chances for impressing a potential date. Furthermore, they will save a lot of time (see Box 1.3). In fact, many women today are acting on such suggestions. In one study, 90% of college men said that they had been asked out and had accepted the invitation (Kelley, Pilchowicz, & Byrne, 1981).

Direct action might work best, but both men and women seem to feel most comfortable if they first hint at their interest and then watch to see how their tentative overtures are received. About two-thirds of men and women prefer this approach (Muehlenhard et al., 1986). The next question, of course, is: How does one flirt? How can men and women best hint at their romantic interest in others? Charlene Muehlenhard and her colleagues (1986) asked college women to try out various techniques. The following techniques were especially effective (see Table 1.3, p. 28). Both men and women judged women who used these techniques to be unusually attractive. They also sent the message: She was interested. (We might expect such techniques to work for men as well.)

Psychologists also give us some hints as to the best place to look for dates and mates—depending on how good-looking, personable, intelligent, and kind we are. Bernard Murstein (1970) points out that settings can be characterized by how "closed" or "open" they are. In open fields, people can approach anyone they wish. (Singles' bars, mixers, museum tours, and large social gatherings are examples of open fields.) Beautiful women and handsome men are likely to find romantic partners in open fields. In closed fields, the same people are forced to interact day after day. (Language classes, work, or hiking tours to Cornwall and Dorset are examples of closed fields.) In closed fields, people get to know one another well. People who have personality, intelligence, and kindness to offer profit from the chance to reveal their personalities to others in closed fields.

For some people, such direct approaches to meeting people work. But for most people, an indirect approach is easier and more effective.

/ don't think you can look for love. All you can do is get yourself in a situation where you don't discourage something that may be rather nice.

—Popular singer Linda Ronstadt

The Indirect Approach Many men and women are uncomfortable about asking others out. Researchers (Marwell, McKinney, Sprecher, DeLamater, & Smith, 1982) have asked college students if there is someone they would like to get to know and perhaps date. Almost all answer "Yes." What stops them? Sometimes

Box 1.3 THE TELEPHONE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF SELF-TORTURE

In How to Make Yourself Miserable, humorists Dan Greenburg and Marcia Jacobs (1 966) described lovesick women's anguish at waiting for the telephone to ring.

Let's say you are the young lady in this case. How can you make yourself completely miserable while you wait for the young man's call, and perhaps even discourage him from asking you out once he does call?

Begin by assuming that if the young man is going to call you, it will be on the day after the party, some time after work. But (and this is your first anxiety) does he know how late you work?

He does not. Suppose he calls you shortly after 5:00 p.m. and then again at about 5:30, and he doesn't find you in either time because you work till 5:30 and don't get home till 6:00. Will he try again at 6:00? ....

That is the next step, then: You must take off the entire afternoon and wait for his call. Station yourself right next to the telephone and don't leave it for a second, not even to go to the bathroom. Needless to say, by the end of the evening he will not have called. . . .

Maybe he just asked you for your number so he could get away from you gracefully. Not a bad little anxiety. But here's a better one:

Maybe he has been trying to call you all night and the phone just hasn't rung because it's out of order. You must find out if this is true. Pick up the phone—and don't be disappointed when you hear the dial tone. Just because you hear a dial tone doesn't mean your phone is working. You must conduct a more conclusive test,

Call a girlfriend. When she answers say, "Don't ask me to explain, just call me right back," then hang up. Don't be dismayed when she calls you right back. At least you now know the phone is working.

This is the moment for your next anxiety: Maybe he was trying to call you while you were checking to see if the phone was working and he got a busy signal.

Enough anxieties for a single night. Go to bed.

Source: Greenburg & Jacobs, 1966. pp. 81-85.

men and women are thwarted by external barriers. ("I have never been alone with her." "He is going steady with someone else.") Usually, however, people admit they are paralyzed by internal barriers. ("I am too shy to approach him." "I don't think she would be interested in me." "I don't want to make a fool of myself.")

Researchers find that, shy or not, the best way to find a lover is to look for a friend. Most people are introduced to their dates, lovers, and mates by friends

Table 1.3

Verbal cues

1. She compliments him.

2. She is helpful.

3. She keeps talking rather than ending the conversation quickly.

4. If he asks her out and she has to refuse because she is busy, she adds something like, "Could we put it off until some other time?"

5. She does not talk as if she is so busy she has no time to date.

6. She asks him questions about himself.

7. If he asks for her phone number, she gives it to him.

8. If there is a short lull in the conversation, she fills in the void.

9. She mentions an activity that they could do together, such as saying there is a movie she'd like to see. She does not specifically mention their doing the activity together, but that is left as a possibility.

10. When he is talking she back-channels—that is, says a few words to show she is listening ("Umm hmm" or "Yeah").

11. She engages in small talk after, rather than before, she asks for a favor. If she talks to him and then asks for the favor, it appears her motive was to ask for the favor; if he has already agreed to do the favor, it appears her motive was to talk to him.

1 2. If he mentions where he will be at a future time, she says she might see him there.

1 3. She makes it clear she has noticed him in the past (e.g., she noticed he was absent from

class). 14. If he asks a question, she gives more than the shortest possible answer. 1 5. She is responsive to what he says. 1 6. She starts a conversation with him rather than remaining silent.

Nonverbal cues

1. Eye contact: She catches his eye now and then.

2. Smiling: She smiles now and then.

3. Leaning: She leans toward him slightly.

4. Distance: She stands fairly close to him.

5. Touching: She may touch his arm or shoulder briefly now and then.

6. Catching his eye while laughing at someone else's humor. If the professor makes a joke, she might catch his eye as she laughs.

7. Attentiveness. She pays close attention to him. Her attention doesn't wander to those strolling by.

8. Using animated speech. She speaks quickly, accentuating her words with varied facial expressions and body movements.

Source: Muehlenhard et al., 1986. pp. 407, 413.

(Parks & Eggert, 1991). In one study, Gerald Marwell and his Wisconsin students (1982) tried to find out how couples actually get together. They asked a random sample of college students how they had met their last date or mate. Who, if anyone, introduced them? Where did they meet? Often, a relative, good friend, or employer brought the two together. They introduced 33% of the men and 43% of the women to their most recent dates. The rest of the time, men and women initiated the meetings themselves or they just met by "happenstance." But quite

often even these college couples met at parties their friends were giving, when they were studying with friends, and so forth.

Where did most college couples meet? Singles usually meet at parties, social gatherings, work, or bars (Knox & Wilson, 1981; Simenauer & Carroll, 1982). For a list of the settings in which college couples met in the previous study (Marwell et al., 1982), see Table 1.4. In another study (Simenauer & Carroll, 1982) researchers interviewed 3000 men and women between the ages of 20 and 55 from 36 states. They asked: "Where do you meet most of the men/women you date?" The most common reply was "through friends." Thirty-three percent of the men and 36% of the women met their dates this way.

Why are introductions so important? Gerald Marwell and his colleagues (1982) point out:

The friend has the right to interact with each of the two partners and he/she essentially vouches for the fact that the other person is "all right." The friend also makes it improbable that the other person will behave in a rudely rejecting manner, and may also imply with the introduction that the two partners are both "available" and appropriate for one another, (pp. 5-6)

In the research we described earlier (Cutrona, 1982), researchers found that students who assumed that the only way to end their loneliness was to find a boyfriend or a girlfriend usually failed in their attempts; they were still lonely after a year. Those who focused on finding friends were usually successful and, in consequence, were far happier at the end of the year.

In our clinical practice, when we are working with lonely clients, we usually recommend the following strategy:

1. People who long for an active social life should not begin by trying to find the perfect mate. If they follow that approach they are likely to make a commitment to the first promising person who comes along, invest a great deal of exclusive time in the relationship, only to find out months or years later that the person who once seemed so perfect turns out to have fatal flaws.

2. Instead, people do far better if they concentrate at first on making a few friends. They should go out of their way to say hello and to chat with the men and women they bump into at school, at work, or while participating in daily activities. They should make an effort to meet the most appealing and interesting men and

Table 1.4 WHERE DO MOST COLLEGE COUPLES MEET?
Meeting location	Men	Women
Party in apartment, dorm, or fraternity/sorority	28%	30%
Classes	25	16
Bar or restaurant	15	21
Dorm (but not a party)	23	7
Other public university location (cafeterias, library)	3	13
Other (sports, work)	7	13
Source: Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986b, p. 133,

women in their classes, dance groups, computer workshops, car repair sessions, or Sierra Club hikes. They needn't worry about the age, or marital status, or attractiveness of these acquaintances. What they are looking for are casual friends. They should ask those acquaintances they like best to lunches, walks, or the movies. Eventually, people are bound to settle in with a best friend or two.

3. Once people have established a network of friends, it is a short and easy step to begin to find suitable dates. People can ask their friends to introduce them to potential dates their friends think they might like. (Instead of one person searching for possible dates, now several matchmakers are involved in the project.) When in doubt about whether to date someone or not, the best strategy is to go out. Usually, it takes only a few shared interests to make a date interesting. Imagine that, potentially, men and women can "fit" one another on 100 traits. To make a serious love affair or marriage go, couples probably have to match on, say, 85 or 90 of those traits. (In close relationships, little differences can cause big problems.) If casual dates fit on just a trait or two they can probably still have a fine time together now and then. Some dates might share your interest in Woody Allen movies . . . and nothing else. Another might be a great dinner date and serious conversationalist; still another might be just right for spur-of-the-moment sailing trips. Another date, impossible one-to-one, may sparkle at parties. The criterion for a casual date is simply: "Would I rather be alone tonight, or with my friend for an hour or two?" The distance between what is required for an enjoyable date and what it takes to make a successful, serious relationship succeed is gargantuan.

When we suggest this strategy, men and women sometimes hesitate. Some men, for example, worry that women will think they are "cads" if they date several women at the same time; or that women will fall in love and pressure them for a commitment. Of course, if men pretend to be interested in marriage when they are not, they can expect trouble. But, we reassure men and women that if they practice "truth in advertising," if they make it clear that they plan to date several people for quite some time, most people will accept their reservations. A few will not, but at least they will know they are morally in the right if they have been clear about their intentions. Some women are hesitant to date so casually, because they are afraid to say "No" to sexual overtures. They worry that they might hurt men's feelings. They worry that men may get angry and yell at them. We remind such women that they routinely go out with their women friends; those women don't require something "extra" to make it worth their while to go out. Most men enjoy such casual friendships too. Although, of course, everyone is entitled to say "No" to sex, anytime, a few women find it easier to tell men "I never get involved this early on" if they pay their own way. Many men feel obligated to make a pass at women but a surprising number of men are relieved when women say "No," especially in this day of AIDS. Men, too, worry that their arms are too scrawny, their stomachs too big, or that they will have trouble performing. Thus it is usually fairly easy for women to slow things down so everyone can get acquainted. If all a man is interested in is sex, most women would probably not be interested in him anyway; better to find out early.

4. Once men and women have dated a variety of people, they can make a fairly sensible choice of someone who might be special. Now they can risk "serious" dating. Most experienced people, however, have been burned many times by love. They got serious with someone who was, like most Americans, expert at beginnings only to discover that by the middle of the relationship, things were not going so well. Thus they have learned to protect themselves. Even if their serious relationship is going well, they continue to cultivate men and women friends. They continue working toward stimulating careers. They insist on pursuing personally pleasurable interests, seeing old friends—whether or not their partners share those activities and friendships. With this strategy, most men and women tend to end up with lovers they really care about, a solid network of good friends, and a serious career.

Readers interested in more information about meeting dates or mates or social skills training may consult a variety of primers: See, for example, Philip Zim-bardo's (1977) Shyness text or the book by Eileen Gambrill and Cheryl Richey (1985), Taking Charge of Your Social Life.

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, we have reviewed the characteristics that make people appealing dates and mates and the strategies that help them meet suitable partners. The reader may notice that the tone of this chapter, although it deals with the beginnings of love, is not superheated. No one will mistake our writing for that of Barbara Cartland or Danielle Steele.

This is no accident. Modern culture is filled with the exaggerated romanticism of pop music, of steamy romance novels, and of thousands of Hollywood movies guilty of promoting a false view of love. In so doing (in the interests of making money), they have misled the public and created wild expectations about romance that bear little relation to reality. In movies and songs, people "fall in love," knowing they have found their soulmate "at first sight." Their first sexual encounter sets off fireworks, earthquakes, storms—all accompanied by wild waves pounding on the shore. Happily Ever After is quickly and easily earned—no differently from fairy tales. In the Hollywood version there is no room for intelligence, experienced observation, or common sense in romance—let alone the distinction between passionate love and companionate love.

The decisions about love are no less important in one's life than those about choosing a career, handling money, or deciding where to live. Yet those latter decisions are rarely made (wisely, at least) on pure impulse and abandon; people gather knowledge and use their heads. We believe people should be as intelligent about love decisions as anything else in life, and we hope to show that considerable knowledge is available on the subject. Too many people are stupid about love, treating the phenomenon as though it were all a matter of magic and hormones. Small wonder that people continue to make unhappy decisions.

Still, there is and should be passion when it comes to love; it's a big part of the fun. In the next chapter we plunge into those wonderful but treacherous waters as we examine more passionate relationships.

Chapter 2

Passionate Love

Introduction

Definitions The Evolutionary Soil of Passionate Love The Triune Brain Love in Primates Love in Children

The Theory: The Process of Attachment

Separation and Despair

Current Research Love in Adults

The Roots of Passionate Love

Low Self-esteem

Dependency and Insecurity

Anxiety

Neediness The Flowering of Passionate Love

Moments of Exultation

Feeling Understood and Accepted

Sharing a Sense of Union

Feeling Secure and Safe

Transcendence The Nature of Passionate Love The Cognitive Contribution The Biological Contribution

The Anatomy of Love

The Chemistry of Love

Why Is Passionate Love So Passionate? The Cross-Magnification Process

The Behavioral Contribution Eye Contact

One's Inclination Toward Another The Distance One Stands from Another

Passionate Love: How Long Does It Last?

Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

Passionate love is not an invention of the modern world. Expressions of passion have a long and nearly universal history. Literature and life abound in legendary lovers caught up in a sea of passion and violence. The couples are legion: Odysseus and Penelope, Orpheus and Eurydice, Maria and Tony (in West Side Story), Daphnis and Chloe, Dido and Aeneas, Abelard and Eloise, Dante and Beatrice, Romeo and Juliet, and, of course, Elizabeth and Richard. . . . These love affairs have assumed such a central place in Western mythology that it becomes difficult to know which are mythical, which historical. And when historical, how much is "true"?

Such a lineage suggests, when we deal with contemporary passion, that nothing much has changed; that we describe the universal and eternal when we wallow in the tales of Taylor and Burton or Edward and Mrs. Simpson. Historical research makes it clear, however, that nothing could be further from the truth. As with everything else connected with love, sex, women's place, family, child rear-

ing, and emotions, the world has ascribed continually changing meanings and purposes to all these activities and happenstances, and that change will continue to be the norm. If so, all the more do we need perspective.

When one gazes at the stories of the great lovers of the past, it is worth noting that nothing worked out well in the end. The romances did not culminate in marriage and happy little families—let alone great sex. They were invariably unrequited, unconsummated, or ended in painful death and profound tragedy.

One major reason for this is that no society in the West before 1700 ever equated le grand passion with marriage or even with sex. This equation plays a large and often misleading part in the ways we think about passionate love today. In many non-Western societies, particularly in Asia, there continue to this day to be echoes of Andreas Capellanus' (1174/1941) statement in the twelfth century, in The Art of Courtly Love:

Everybody knows that love can have no place between husband and wife. . . . For what is love but an inordinate desire to receive passionately a furtive and hidden embrace? But what embrace between husband and wife can be furtive, I ask you, since they may be said to belong to each other and may satisfy all of each other's desires without fear that anybody will object? (p. 100)

And he wasn't even talking about passionate love—just love. To make himself clear, he wrote in the same work: "We declare and we hold as firmly established that love cannot exert its powers between two people who are married to each other" (p. 106).

As late as 1540, Alessandro Piccolomini wrote peremptorily, reflecting common assumptions four centuries later, after the Renaissance, that "love is a reciprocity of soul and has a different end and obeys different laws from marriage. Hence one should not take the loved one to wife" (Hunt, 1959, p. 206). Though Piccolomini began, along with his society, to change his mind before he died, one need only to look to the great societies of Asia—China, Japan, and India (lands of the arranged marriage)—to see remnants of these attitudes alive and well (though winds of change blow worldwide these days) even as we approach the end of the twentieth century.

It is a rigid principle of Eastern life that the stability of the family and the maintenance of the social order always come before the happiness of the individual. A Chinese woman asserted: "Marriage is not a relation for personal pleasure, but a contract involving the ancestors, the descendants, and the property" (Mace & Mace, 1980, p. 134).

Yet the feeling of passionate love, the desire for union, seems wired into our brains. Cultures alarmed by these basic feelings therefore suppress them—sometimes fiercely. The response of many lovers to such suppression, well-known in Western history as well, has been suicide. Love suicides in Japan have been an institution since the end of the seventeenth century. In plays and stories, the suicide pacts were dramatized with sensational effect—the journey together to the chosen place, the leaving behind forever of familiar scenes, the agonizing mental conflicts, the last tender farewells. In Japanese thought suicide is not ignoble. It is the final vindication of what a person believes. When it is glorified by frustrated love, it becomes a sublime tragedy (Mace & Mace, 1980).

In earlier times, the actual practice of the lovesick couple was to throw

themselves into the well of the parents who had refused to sanction the marriage. This was particularly true in China. In the modern era, the lovers tie themselves together and throw themselves in front of a train. Jumping off a cliff has always been a popular method. On some railroad routes, any young couples purchasing one-way tickets might be under suspicion. At one time the taking of rat poison was in fashion and drugstores were warned not to sell to young couples (Mace & Mace, 1980).

The defiance of young lovers did not always take such extreme forms. In countries where the social system was less rigid than Japan, China, or India— Burma and Thailand, for example—elopement was common, presenting parents with a fait accompli they could not reverse.

These tales of forbidden romance may seem ridiculous, if not tragic, to the young individualistic American and Frenchman today. However, in Western civilization, passion and sexuality have been severely restricted throughout most of human history—particularly during the Christian era. For example, for 1500 years—from the earliest days of the Roman Catholic Church to the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation—the Church proclaimed sex (even marital sex!) to be a heinous sin, punishable by eternal damnation. Only recently has Western culture accepted and, yes, promoted the notion that passionate love can and should be transmuted into sex, marriage, and family. It is a new idea, and not an unproblematic one at that. Romeo and Juliet, Ophelia and Hamlet, Abelard and Heloise did not make love, get married, have two children, and live happily ever after. Juliet died of poison. Romeo killed himself. Ophelia went crazy and died. Hamlet was felled by a poisoned sword-point. Peter Abelard (a "real" person) was castrated and his beloved Heloise ended up in a nunnery. The Hollywood happy-ending outcome would have seemed absurd to our brothers and sisters of the preindustrial past. (The "happy endings" in some of Shakespeare's comedies are often seen as signs of the playwright's "modern sensibility," that of a man far ahead of his times.) The concept of romantic, marital bliss is an idea that could, quite conceivably, seem equally silly in the future. As we examine the nature of the powerful and universal emotion of passionate love, we need to recognize how changeable is its cultural and temporal meaning. Let us begin then with a contemporary love story.

On March 30, 1981, less than two hours before John W. Hinckley, Jr., shot President Reagan, Hinckley scrawled a final plea to the actress, Jodie Foster, with whom he had been obsessed for over two years (The New Yorker, 1984, pp. 46-48).

Dear Jodie.

There is a definite possibility that I will be killed in my attempt to get Reagan. It is for this very reason I am writing you this letter now.

As you well know by now I love you very much. Over the past seven months I've left you dozens of poems, letters and love messages in the faint hope that you could develop an interest in me. Although we talked on the phone a couple of times I never had the nerve to simply approach you and introduce myself. Besides my shyness, I honestly did not wish to bother you with my constant presence. I know the many messages left at your door and in your mailbox were a nuisance, but I felt that it was the most painless way for me to express my love for you. . . .

Jodie, I would abandon this idea of getting Reagan in a second if I could only win your heart and live out the rest of my life with you, whether it be in total obscurity or whatever.

I will admit to you that the reason I'm going ahead with this attempt now is because I just cannot wait any longer to impress you. I've got to do something now to make you understand, in no uncertain terms, that I am doing all of this for your sake! By sacrificing my freedom and possibly my life, I hope to change your mind about me. This letter is being written only an hour before I leave for the Hilton Hotel. Jodie, I'm asking to please look into your heart and at least give me the chance, with this historical deed, to gain your respect and love. I love you forever.

John Hinckley

In F.B.I, questioning after the attempted assassination, Foster denied that she had ever spoken to or met John Hinckley.

Love is the strange bewilderment which overtakes one person on account of another person.

—James Thurber and E. B. White

Definitions

In Chapter 1, we defined passionate love as:

Other theorists have labeled this experience puppy love, a crush, fatal attraction, lovesickness, obsessive love, infatuation, or being-in-love. This chapter reviews what psychologists have learned about this fiery, but generally short-lived, emotion.

THE EVOLUTIONARY SOIL OF PASSIONATE LOVE

The Triune Brain

In the 1940s, Paul MacLean (1986) had a brilliant insight. He realized that in the course of evolution humans ended up with a mind/brain that is a "triune structure. In a sense, the brain consists of three different types of brains with different anatomical structures and chemical processes, layered one upon the other. The oldest brain is basically reptilian. The second, the neomammalian brain, is inherited from the early mammals, and the third, the late mammalian/early primate brain, from the late mammals and early primates. In their primer, Robert Ornstein and Richard Thompson (1984) provide a simple description of this layering process (see Box 2.1).

MacLean (1986) points out that the reptilian brain was primarily concerned

Box 2.1 THE AMAZING BRAIN

The brain is like an old ramshackle house that has been added on to over the years in a rather disorganized fashion (p. 3).

THE REPTILIAN BRAIN

The brain stem is the oldest part of the brain. It evolved more than 500 million years ago. Because it resembles the entire brain of a reptile, it is often referred to as the reptilian brain. It determines general level of alertness and warns the organism of important incoming information, as well as handling the basic bodily functions necessary for survival—breathing and heart rate (p. 4).

The cerebellum is attached to the rear of the brain stem. It automatically adjusts posture and coordinates muscular movements. Memories for simple learned responses are stored there.

THE MAMMALIAN BRAIN

The next structure on the totem pole, say the authors, is the limbic system. It evolved sometime between 200 and 300 million years ago. The limbic system is highly developed in mammals; thus this "add on" is called the mammalian brain. This brain is strongly involved in the emotional reactions—joy, love, fear, anger and sadness—that have to do with survival.

THE PRIMATE BRAIN

The largest part of the human brain is the cerebrum. It is divided into two halves, or hemispheres, each of which controls its opposite half of the body. The hemispheres are connected by a band of some 300 million nerve cell fibers called the corpus callosum. Covering each hemisphere is a one-eighth-inch thick, intricately folded layer of nerve cells called the cortex. The cortex first appeared in our ancestors about 200 million years ago, and it is what makes us uniquely human. Because of it, we are able to organize, remember, communicate, understand, appreciate, and create (p. 12).

Source: Ornstein & Thompson, 1 984, pp. 3-1 2.

with the preservation of the self and the species. Its primitive structures were designed to guide the reptile in the processes required for obtaining food and mates (search, angry attacks, self-defense, and feeding or sexual activity). By the neomammalian brain, he continued, three new patterns of behavior had evolved. These were primarily designed to facilitate mother-child relationships. Such emotions as ecstasy, desire and affection, fear, anger, dejection, and depression all derive from activities in the limbic system. Not until the neocortex evolved in the late mammalian/primate period did symbolic or verbal information become important in shaping primate emotional experience or expression.

Love in Primates

Leonard Rosenblum (Rosenblum, 1985; Rosenblum & Plimpton, 1981) points out that even some primates (such as pigtail macaque monkeys) seem to experience a primitive form of passionate love. In some species, infant primates are prewired to cling to their mothers. Separation can be mortally dangerous. If mother and infant are separated, the infant is unlikely to find a substitute caretaker. To ensure survival, therefore, the "desire for union" is necessarily wired into primates. As long as mother and child are locked in close proximity, all goes well. Should a brief separation occur, the infant will quickly become desperate. He will begin frantically to search for his mother. If she returns, the infant will be joyous, alternately clinging to its mother and bounding about with great excitement. If his mother does not return, and his frenetic efforts to find her fail, he will eventually abandon all hope of contact, whereupon despair and probable death will follow. The experience Rosenblum describes, with its alternating lows and highs, certainly sounds much like passionate love's "desire for union." Fervent attachments seem not to be unique to humans.

Harry and Margaret Harlow (Harlow, 1973, 1975; Harlow, Harlow, & Suomi, 1971) also studied the development of love in monkeys. Early theorists had assumed that newborns become attached to their mothers and fathers because their presence is associated with feeding. (Food is, after all, the theorists reasoned, a primary reinforcer; snuggling is "merely" a secondary reinforcer.) The Harlows soon discovered that newborns care more about contact comfort than food! They tested this startling hypothesis in a classic experiment. First, they separated monkey mothers and infants. They reared infants in a cage containing two kinds of artificial "mothers." One surrogate mother possessed a "breast." (A bottle of milk was simply inserted in a cold wire mesh tube.) This wire mother provided food, but she was cold and hard. The other "mother" could not provide any food, but she was warm and soft; the monkey could cling to her. (This second wire cylinder was warmed, wrapped with foam rubber, and covered with terry cloth.) If traditional theorists were right, and infants became attached to mothers only because they happened to provide food, infants should have become most attached to the milk-providing wire "mother." But they did not. Monkeys might be willing to suck from the wire mother, but they certainly didn't want to spend their free time with her. They spent almost all their time tightly clinging to the warm, soft, cuddly mother; rubbing against her.

When monkeys were insecure or frightened, it was the terry cloth mother they ran back to for security. In one experiment, the researchers put a mechanical toy bear, which banged loudly on a drum, in the cage. The frightened infants quickly scrambled to their cloth mothers. What if only the wire mother was in the cage? Even then the infants would not turn to the icy mother; they simply cried and ran aimlessly around the cage; sometimes they froze in terror. Only the warm, soft, terry cloth mother could comfort them.

Harlow and his colleagues (1971) found that monkeys normally follow a predictable sequence in developing attachments. At first, newborns simply cling to anyone. Within a few weeks, however, they become deeply attached to their mothers; they wish to cling only to them. As the infants mature, however, eventu-

ally they become less interested in their mothers and more attached to their peers. They learn to play. Both their initial attachments to their mothers and these early friendships are important to their later ability to develop sexual relationships. For example, if monkeys were raised in isolation, without mothers or playmates, at first they seemed to thrive. At puberty, however, it became clear that they had serious emotional and social problems. Adult female monkeys seemed unwilling and unable to respond to males' sexual overtures. Only 4 monkeys out of 18 were able to conceive. (The others had to be artificially inseminated.) When the isolated monkeys did conceive, they were terrible mothers. Some were merely indifferent. Most were actively rejecting; they roughly pushed their newborns away. In spite of this ill-treatment, most newborns persisted in their attempts to establish a bond with their mothers. Sometimes these determined infants succeeded. They taught their mothers how to mother. In subsequent pregnancies, some of the deprived mothers became more skilled at nurturing their offspring.

Love in Children

Mary Ainsworth (1989) and John Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980), who were well grounded in evolutionary theory, studied the process of attachment, separation, and loss in children. They found that, at certain stages in their development, infants and toddlers react to separation in the same way as did their primate ancestors. Both seemed to follow the same ancient programming.

The Theory: The Process of Attachment Infants normally progress through four developmental phases during their first year of life (Cohen, 1976). (1) During the first few months of life, infants smile, gurgle, and snuggle into almost anyone. Anyone can provide contact comfort. (2) At about three months of age, the infants begin to notice that their mother is someone special; they respond to her with special interest. (3) At about six to nine months, infants become deeply attached to their mothers. They smile, jabber, and stretch out their arms to her; if they are separated, they protest. No one else will do. They are frightened of strangers and reject their attempts to comfort them. (4) After about 9 to 12 months, toddlers slowly begin to take an interest in a wider circle of people.

Of course, parents and infants differ in skills and temperament. Mary Ainsworth (1989; Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) found that mothers and children may form different kinds of attachments. Some infants are securely attached to their mothers. Early on, the infants cling to their mothers. As toddlers mature, they become more adventuresome. They begin to go off and explore the world. The mother remains a "safe harbor," but gradually, th infants become more independent. Other infants possess an anxious/ambivalent attachment to their mothers. Early on, their mothers may have been unpredictable. Sometimes they overprotected (even smothered) their infants; sometimes they ignored them. Since these infants have learned they cannot count on their mothers, they tend to be anxious and uncertain in their interactions with her. They themselves may alternately cling or ignore her. Of course, some anxious/avoidant infants were simply born with a fearful temperament. Finally, some infants develop an avoidant attachment with their mothers. Perhaps their mothers generally ignored them.

Perhaps the infants were simply lacking whatever it takes to form close relationships with anyone. In any case, such infants are unemotional and unresponsive.

Separation and Despair Psychoanalyst John Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980) noted the way the desire for security and the desire for freedom alternate in a small child.

James Anderson describes watching two-year-olds whilst their mothers sit quietly on a seat in a London park. Slipping free from the mother, a two-year-old would typically move away from her in short bursts punctuated by halts. Then, after a more prolonged halt, he would return to her—usually in faster and longer bursts. Once returned, however, he would proceed again on another foray, only to return once more. It was [as] though he were tied to his mother by some invisible elastic that stretches so far and then brings him back to base. (1973, pp. 44-45)

In his research, Bowlby has found that when a child's mother is around, he's not very interested in her. He looks at her, sees that everything is all right, and sallies forth. Now and then he sneaks a quick glance to make sure she's still there or to find out whether she still approves of what he is doing, but then he is off again. Should his mother disappear for a moment, it's a different story. The child becomes very distressed and agitated. He devotes all his energy to searching for her. New adventures lose all allure. Of course, once she returns, he's off again. Should she disappear for good, he would sink into a deep despair.

Current Research How early are children capable of falling passionately in love? The answer is: probably very early. In 1886, Sanford Bell (1902) interviewed 1,700 Indiana teachers and observed 800 children. By the end of the study, he had assembled 2,500 case reports of children who experienced intense passionate love. Bell concluded that children could experience "sex-love" as early as 3^ years of age. From 3 to 8 years of age, the passionate longings of children could be read in word and in deed. Children in love hugged, kissed, and sat close to one another. And in time-honored fashion, they scuffled with each other as well. They shyly confessed their love to their beloved. They talked about each other with their friends. They sought each other out; grieved when they were separated; gave gifts of love; willingly sacrificed for the other; were jealous, and so forth (p. 330). Children were most likely to admit to being in love either between 4 and 8 or between 12 and 15 years of age. They were reluctant to admit to feeling "sex-love" from ages 8 to 12.

One hundred years elapsed before researchers returned to the sensitive subject of passionate love in children. Elaine Hatfield and her students (Hatfield et al., 1988) developed the Childhood Love Scale (CLS), a children's version of the Passionate Love Scale (PLS), which we described in Chapter 1. Each item on the PLS was translated into language so simple and so concrete that children could

understand it. For example "I want_______to know me—my thoughts, my fears,

and my hopes" became "I want_______to know me—what I am thinking, what

scares me, what I am wishing for." "I possess a powerful attraction for_______"

became "When _______ is around I really want to touch him (her) and be

touched."

Hatfield and her students interviewed more than 200 boys and girls, who ranged in age from 4 to 18, about their romantic feelings. Their results made it clear that Bell was right—even very young children are capable of passionate love. Figure 2.1 depicts how their passions changed as they grew up. Similar to Bell's work, Hatfield and her students found that from ages 4 to 7, children reported strong passionate feelings. Boys seemed to go through a shy period from 8 to 12 years of age, when they were likely to deny they ever had such feelings. Their fervent emotions returned with full intensity during the teenage years (13 to 18).

The authors observed that it was touching to interview children in love. The kids were often very shy. They blushed and hid behind their hands. One 5-year-old girl talked about a boy she loved at the preschool she had once attended. When

asked: "If I could, when I grow up I'd like to marry_______," she began to cry.

"I will never see Todd again," she said woefully. Indeed, she may not, since her parents had no inkling of how deeply she felt. Subsequent research has demonstrated that anxious children who are under stress are particularly prone to fall passionately in love (Hatfield, Brinton, & Cornelius, 1989).

Passionate love becomes very powerful when children enter puberty. Perhaps this is because teenagers experience the return of old separation anxieties during the period. Perhaps they are under unusual stress as they go through the agonies of adolescence. Neurophysiologists remind us that passionate love may also be fueled by pubescent sexual and hormonal changes (Gadpaille, 1975; Money, 1980). Puberty and sexual maturity may well bring a new depth to passion (Rabehl, Ridge, & Berscheid, 1992).

People who are not in love themselves feel that a clever man ought to he unhappy only about such persons as are worthwhile. This is rather like being astonished that anyone should condescend to die of cholera at the bidding of so insignificant a creature as the common bacillus.

—Marcel Proust

LOVE IN ADULTS

Psychologists have argued that childhood experiences can shape one's passionate experiences in adulthood. Recently, Philip Shaver and Cindy Hazan (1988) proposed that romantic love should be conceived of as a form of attachment. Children's early patterns of attachment should influence their adult attachments. For example, we have observed that children are likely to become securely attached to their mothers if they are allowed to be both affectionate and independent. The authors point out that such children should mature into secure adults who are comfortable with intimacy and are able to trust and depend on those they care for. Children may become anxiousjambivalent if they have learned to be clingy and dependent, or fearful of being smothered and restrained, or both. Such children should become anxious/ambivalent adults who fall in love easily, who seek extreme levels of closeness and are terrified that they will be abandoned. Their love affairs are likely to be short-lived. The avoidant child (who has been abandoned

early on) may well become an avoidant adult who is uncomfortable getting too close and has difficulty depending on others. The authors have amassed considerable support in favor of the notion that the lessons we learn as children may well be reflected in the romantic choices we make as adults.

How would you categorize yourself? Hazan and Shaver (1987) measured men's and women's attachment styles by a single self-report item (see Table 2.1). Respondents were asked to endorse one of three descriptions of themselves. Which one sounds like you? (Generally, researchers classify 62% of children as securely attached, 15% as anxious/ambivalent, and 23% as avoidant. When a wide-ranging sample of adults rated themselves, 56% rated themselves as securely attached, 19% percent as anxious/ambivalent, and 25% as avoidant.)

Kim Bartholomew (1990) proposed that people's adult attachment styles should fall into one of four patterns, depending on their self-image (positive or negative) and their image of the other person (positive or negative). (1) Men and women who have a positive self-image and a positive image of others should be capable of becoming securely attached to others. (2) Those with low self-esteem and a positive regard for others should be preoccupied with intimate relations. (3) Those who have a negative self-image and a negative image of others should be fearful of becoming close to others. (4) Those who have a positive self-image and a negative image of others should be dismissing or detached from others.

Carl Hindy, J. C. Schwarz, and A. Brodsky (1989) tested the notion that children who receive inconsistent love and affection will be "at risk" in their later love relationships. They gave men and women a battery of tests designed to determine the stability of their childhoods. How stormy was the marriage between their parents? Did their parents get a divorce? Then they asked them about their own romantic histories. Did they often fall passionately in love? Or did they go out of their way to avoid entanglements? How jealous were they? When their love affairs fell apart, did they sink into deep depression? They found that young men and women whose parents had been inconsistent in their love and nurturance

Table 2.1 LOVE QUIZ: ATTACHMENT STYLES

Question: Which of the following best describes your feelings?

Secure (56%): I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don't often worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me.

Anxious/ambivalent (19%): I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me or won't want to stay with me. I want to merge completely with another person, and this desire sometimes scares people away.

Avoidant (25%): I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others: I find it difficult to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, love partners want me to be more intimate than I feei comfortable being.

Source: Hazan & Shaver, 1987. p. 51 5.

were more "addicted" to love or more afraid of it than was the case with those who came from more secure backgrounds.

In conclusion: Our evolutionary heritage and childhood attachments provide a rich soil for passionate love.

O 3 O

One fifth-century Buddhist poet saw in the common water lily a symbol of transcendence. The lily's roots are bogged in the muck of the earth; yet its stalk bravely pushes up to the clear surface of the pond where it produces creamy blooms of serene beauty. This water lily provides a suitable metaphor for passionate love as well. Its roots may lie in the dependence and insecurities of childhood, but its blooms, though brief, are uncommonly beautiful. In the next two subsections we consider some of the humble roots of passionate love and some of its breathtaking flowers.

Passions usually have their roots in that which is blemished, crippled, incomplete and insecure within us.

—Eric Hojfer

The Roots of Passionate Love

If passionate love is rooted in the earth of childhood attachments, it would seem that certain types of people, caught up in certain types of situations, should be especially vulnerable to the longeurs of passionate love. Anything that makes adults feel as helpless and dependent as they were as children, anything that makes them fear separation and loss, should increase their passionate craving to merge with the other. There is some evidence to support these speculations.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

—Oscar Wilde

Low Self-esteem Theodor Reik (1949) was one of the first to propose that when self-esteem is threatened, individuals are more likely to fall prey to passionate love. Mary McCarthy (1942) in her novel The Company She Keeps offered an example. The heroine Margaret Sargent has been enslaved by love. In therapy, she makes an illuminating discovery:

Now for the first time she saw her own extremity, saw that it was some failure in self-love that obligated her to snatch blindly at the love of others, hoping to love herself through them, borrowing their feelings, as the moon borrowed light. She herself was a dead planet, (p. 303)

The first actual experiment on passionate love, conducted more than 25 years ago, provided support for Reik's hypothesis. Elaine Hatfield (1965) proposed that when people's self-esteem has been bruised, they should be unusually receptive to the love and affection offered by others. To test this hypothesis, she gave Stanford University and Foothill Junior College women a battery of psychological tests—the California Personality Inventory, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, and the Rorschach test. When the women returned to secure their

personality profiles, they were given bogus feedback, designed momentarily to raise, lower, or leave unchanged their self-esteem. If women had been randomly assigned to the low-esteem condition, the analysis stressed their immaturity (e.g., "Although you have adopted certain superficial appearances of maturity to enable you to adjust temporarily to life situations, your basically immature drives remain"). The analysis criticized their weak personalities, antisocial motives, lack of originality and flexibility, and limited capacity for successful leadership. Women were also told that they possessed an incapacity for openness in their dealings with other people, that their feelings of inadequacy in others' presence contributed to this lack of openness, since they undoubtedly felt it was necessary to cover up their weak points in order to gain social acceptance, and that this led them consistently to overestimate many of their own assets.

For those assigned to the high-esteem condition, the report stressed the great maturity and originality of the woman, her probable underestimation of her own attributes, and stated that she presented "one of the most favorable personality structures analyzed by the staff." She was sensitive to peers, possessed enormous personal integrity, and had a free outlook.

Women who had been assigned to the control condition were told that their tests had not yet been scored. Thus they received no feedback.

Then the experimenter left the room to retrieve the women's files. While she was out of the room, a handsome male graduate student entered the room. As he and the female subject awaited the return of the experimenter, they began to chat. The time and conversation stretched out and the graduate student eventually invited the woman to dinner and a movie the next weekend.

In later interviewing, women were asked their first impressions of the graduate student. As predicted, the women whose self-esteem had been threatened were most attracted to the potential romantic partner. The author speculated that there might be two reasons why the low-self-esteem women were so receptive to a potential romantic partner: first, women with high self-esteem (who feel they have much to offer another) may feel that they, in turn, deserve a more attractive, more personable date than do women with low self-regard; second, when women's self-regard is threatened, they probably feel an increased need for the affection and regard of others. Thus an attractive, loving, and accepting man should arouse unusual passion. [Other theorists have also found a link between low self-esteem and passionate love. See Bartholomew & Horowitz (1991) and Jacobs, Berscheid, & Hatfield (1971).]

Of course, although people with low self-esteem may long for relationships, they sometimes end up sabotaging them once they appear (see Box 2.2).

She's all he's got now, and he's all she's got. Is that love? Maybe it is.

—Clifford Irving

Dependency and Insecurity A number of theorists have observed that people who are dependent and insecure (or who are caught up in affairs that promote such feelings) are especially vulnerable to passionate love. Ellen Berscheid and her associates (Fei & Berscheid, 1977) have argued that passionate love, dependency, and insecurity are tightly linked. When people are passionately in love,

PASSIUNAIh LOVE 47

they are painfully aware of how dependent they are on those they love; dependency naturally breeds insecurity. In an ingenious study, Ellen Berscheid, William Graziano, Thomas Monson, and Marshall Dermer (1976) found clear evidence in support of these contentions. The authors invited college men and women, who

48 UHAMtKI

were not currently involved with anyone but who wished to be, to participate in a study of dating relationships. There was one catch, however. In order to participate, students had to agree to turn their dating lives over to the experimenter for five weeks. They were warned that some of them (those in the high exclusiveness condition) would be assigned to date one person for the entire five weeks. Others (those in the low exclusiveness condition) would date that person and a few others. Still others (those in the zero exclusiveness condition) would be assigned to date a variety of people.

Finally, some of the participants had a chance to get acquainted with one of their dates. (They had a chance to watch him or her take part in a taped discussion of "dating problems on campus.") Sometimes, of course, they knew the date was the only person they would be dating; sometimes he or she was just one of many. In the control conditions, people knew they would not be dating anyone participating in the videotaped conversation. After viewing the tape, participants were asked their first impressions of the discussants.

Students liked the discussants far more when they expected to date them later than when they did not. Furthermore, the more dependent students were on potential dates (i.e., those in the high exclusiveness group compared to those in the low and zero exclusiveness groups), the more they liked them.

An absence, the decline of a dinner invitation, an unintentional coldness, can accomplish more than all the cosmetics and beautiful dresses in the world.

—Marcel Proust

Anxiety Numerous theorists beginning with Sigmund Freud (1953) have proposed that passionate love is fueled by anxiety and fear (Carlson, & Hatfield, 1992; Hatfield, 1971a,b; Hatfield & Rapson, 1987b). This makes sense; passionate love and anxiety are closely related both neuroanatomically and chemically (Kaplan, 1979; Liebowitz, 1983).

Researchers have demonstrated that anxious individuals are especially prone to seek passionate love relationships (Peele, 1975; Solomon & Corbit, 1974). In a series of studies, Elaine Hatfield and her students (1989), for example, found that adolescents who were either momentarily or habitually anxious were especially vulnerable to passionate love. In one study, 41 boys and girls from 12 to 14 years of age, of Caucasian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and mixed ancestry, were asked to complete the Child Anxiety Scale (CAS), which measures how anxious teenagers are generally. (The CAS includes questions such as "Are you a good or bad child?" "Are you happy or sad?") Later, these same children completed the Juvenile Love Scale, a child's version of the Passionate Love Scale, which was described in Chapter 1. Children who were habitually anxious were most likely to have experienced passionate love. In a second study, 64 adolescent boys and girls, ranging in age from 13 to 16, were given the State—Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children, which measures both state anxiety (how anxious children happen to feel at the moment) and trait anxiety (how anxious children generally are). Charles Spielberger and his colleagues (Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970) defined anxiety as an unpleasant emotional state characterized by "feelings of tension, apprehension, and heightened autonomic nervous system responses such as

sweating, heart palpitation, restlessness, and respiratory disturbance" (p. 3). Thus, in assessing state anxiety, children were asked to look at statements such as "I am tense," "I am jittery," or "I feel high-strung" and to indicate how they felt right now, at that moment. In assessing trait anxiety, children were asked to look at items like these: "I feel like crying," "I feel that difficulties are piling up so that I cannot overcome them," and "I lack self-confidence," and so indicate how they generally felt. Once again, adolescents who were either momentarily or habitually anxious were especially likely to have fallen passionately in love.

Happy people never make fantasies, only unsatisfied ones do.

—Sigmund Freud Neediness Dorothy Parker (1944, p. 180) observed:

Symptom Recital

I do not like my state of mind:

I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.

I hate my legs, I hate my hands,

I do not yearn for lovelier lands.

I dread the dawn's recurrent light;

I hate to go to bed at night.

I snoot at simple, earnest folk.

I cannot take the gentlest joke.

I find no peace in paint or type.

My world is but a lot of tripe.

I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.

For what I think, I'd be arrested.

I am not sick, I am not well.

My quondam dreams are shot to hell.

My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;

I do not like me any more.

I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.

I ponder on the narrow house.

I shudder at the thought of men . . .

I'm due to fall in love again.

Social psychologists have found that the psychoanalysts and poets may well be right; acute deprivation does seem to set the stage for passionate love. With two colleagues (Stephan, Berscheid, & Hatfield, 1971) we tested this simple hypothesis: When we are sexually aroused, our minds wander, and pretty soon our dazzling fantasies lend sparkle to drab reality.

First, we contacted a number of college men. We identified ourselves as staff members of the Center for Student Life Studies and explained that the center was studying the dating practices of college students. We told each subject that we'd like to know how he felt about a blind date we had picked out for him. Would he participate? Most of the men said: "Sure." While the men sat around waiting to give their first impressions of their date-to-be, they whiled away the time by reading articles lying around the office. This material was carefully selected. One group of men was given fairly boring reading material, articles intended to keep

them cool and calm. The second group was given Playboy type material, designed to make them very "hot."

Finally, the interviewer appeared with the men's files. He showed them a picture of their date (a fairly attractive blond) and told them a little about her. (She seemed to be fairly intelligent, easy to get along with, active, and moderately liberal.) What did they think of her? Well, that depended on what the men had been reading.

We proposed that the unaroused men should be fairly objective. Their fantasy life should be in "low gear" and it should be easy for them to assess the women fairly accurately. The aroused men should have a harder time of it; the luster of their daydreams should keep rubbing off on their dates-to-be. When men were feeling sexy, they should have a greater tendency to see women as sex objects. Hence they should tend to exaggerate two of their date's traits—her sexual desirability and her sexual receptivity. We found that we were right. As predicted, the more aroused the men, the more beautiful they thought their date. In addition, the more aroused, the more likely they were to assume that their dates would be sexually receptive. Unaroused men judged their date-to-be as a fairly nice girl. Aroused men suspected that she was probably "amorous," "immoral," "promiscuous," "willing," "unwholesome," and "uninhibited."

The Flowering of Passionate Love

We once saw an elderly client, a musician who had played the viola with one of the major symphonies of the world. He entered therapy because he yearned to experience passionate love just one time more before he died. He wanted to feel that rush of exultation, that yearning, the hunger for another person, a sense of complete union, one more time. Alas, there is no way to produce the dizzying ecstasy of passionate love on demand.

The previous sections, dealing with the roots of love, have painted a somewhat dismal picture. We have focused on the bruised self-esteem, the dependence, and the insecurity that make people hunger for love. In this coda, however, we want to establish a balance. The blooms of love give off a rich bouquet of perfumes.

Moments of Exultation When love is realized, lovers may experience moments of passionate bliss, moments that are epiphanies. It was this feeling that our elderly client longed to experience yet again. Dante Alighieri first saw Beatrice in 1274 a.d., when he was nine years old and she eight. This was his reaction:

Her dress, on that day, was of a most noble color, a subdued and goodly crimson, girdled and adorned in such sort as best suited with her very tender age. At that moment, I say most truly that the spirit of life, which hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my body shook therewith; and in trembling it said these words: "Here is a deity stronger than I; who, coming, shall rule over me." At that moment the animate spirit, which dwelleth in the lofty chamber whither all the senses carry their perceptions, was filled with wonder. . . .

I say that, from that time forward, Love quite governed my soul. (1964, p. 178)

Beatrice married someone else when she was 18 and died a few years later. Dante remained passionately in love with her for the rest of his long life; he dedicated all his writing to her. Several researchers have documented that when we are passionately in love we see the world through rose-colored glasses (Hen-drick & Hendrick, 1988).

[In passionate love] Vanity in a merely personal sense exists no longer. The lover takes a perilous pleasure in displaying his weak points and having them, one after another, accepted and condoned. He wishes to he assured that he is not loved for this or that good quality, but for himself, or something as like himself as he can contrive to set forward.

—Robert Louis Stevenson

Feeling Understood and Accepted When men and women are loved, they sometimes feel fully understood, loved, and accepted for the first time. As Laurie Colwin (1981, p. 25) observed:

Love, in its initial stages, takes care of everything. Love transforms a difficult person into a charming eccentric; points of contention into charming divergences. It doesn't matter that popular songs are full of warnings—songs like "Danger, Heartbreak Dead Ahead" are written and sung for those who have no intention of doing anything but dancing to them. And while lovers do almost nothing but reveal themselves, who notices?

Novelist Vivian Gornick (1987) was passionately involved with Joe Durbin, a labor organizer. One day Joe's charming, endless, meaningless chatter overwhelmed her. She felt unbearably lonely and isolated:

"Oh, stop!" I cried. "Please stop. Stop!"

Joe's mouth closed in the middle of a sentence. His head pulled back. His eyes searched mine. "What is it, darling?" he said. He'd never heard me sound this note before.

"Listen to me," I pleaded, "just listen to me." He nodded at me, not taking his eyes from mine. "You don't know me at all," I said. "You think I'm this hot-shot loud-mouthed liberated woman, as brash and self-confident as you, ready to walk across the world just like you, and that's not who I am at all. It's making me lonely now to make love with you, and you not know what my life is about." He nodded again.

I told him then how I had hungered for a life like his but that I hadn't ever had it, that I'd always felt marginal, buried alive in obscurity, and that all the talk I manufactured couldn't dissolve out the isolation. I told him how sometimes I wake spontaneously in the night and I sit up in bed and I'm alone in the middle of the world. "Where is everybody?" I say out loud, and I have to calm myself with "Mama's in Chelsea, Marilyn's on Seventy-third Street, my brother's in Baltimore." The list, I told him, is pathetic.

I talked and talked. On and on I went, without pause or interruption. When I stopped I felt relieved (alone now but not lonely) and, very quickly, embarrassed. He was so silent. Oh, I thought, what a fool you are to have said these things. He doesn't like any of this, not a bit of it, he doesn't even know what you're talking about. Then Joe said, "Darling, what a rich inner life you have." My eyes widened. I took in the words. I laughed with delight! That he had such a sentence in him! That he had spoken the sentence he had in him. I loved him then. For the first time I loved him. (pp. 170-171)

Love you? I am you. —Charles Williams

Sharing a Sense of Union In the fifth century B.C., in the Symposium, Plato offered a wry theory about the origins of love. Originally, he contended, humanity was divided into three kinds of people: men/men, women/women, and the androgynous—a union of the two. Human beings were round: their backs and sides formed a circle. They had one head with two faces (always looking in opposite directions), four ears, four hands, four feet, and two privy members. They could walk upright and go backward or forward, as they pleased. Or they could roll over at a great pace, turning nimbly on their four hands and four feet like tumblers.

Eventually, the gods and humanity came into conflict. To punish them for their arrogance, the gods cut the men, women, and androgynous beings into two parts, "like a Sorb-apple which is halved for pickling." Since the division, the cleft parts have wandered the earth, each searching for its lost half. In the Platonic scheme, the halves of the once-complete men became "the best of the lot." These men were valiant and manly; they embraced that which was like themselves (other men). The androgynous halves also continued to seek their cleft portion: the men became lovers of women while the women became "adulterous women" who lusted after men. Finally, the halves of the once-complete women continued to seek their lost selves; they yearned for lesbian attachments. Thus humanity is always longing for completion—yearning to meld with another person. This then is the nature of love according to Plato: two deficient beings made whole by union with the other.

Literature echoes the Platonic theme: in love we long to merge with our lost selves. For example, in Emily Bronte's (1847/1976) Wuthering Heights, Cathy pours out her heart to her nurse Nelly. She explains that she loves Heathcliff:

It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff, now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. . . .

I cannot express it; but surely you and every body have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and, if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger. I should not seem a part of it. . . . Nelly, I am Heathcliff—he's always, always in my mind—not as pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself—but, as my own being—so, don't talk of our separation again, (pp. 100-102)

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, in their love letters written before their marriage, referred to themselves as WE—the W standing for Wallis and the E for Edward. Sometimes our clients think of us as one. They often call us Dick-andelaine. This is especially unsettling when only one of us is at the session: "Well, Dickandelaine, it was like this."

Feeling Secure and Safe Lovers may feel safe and secure when they are with someone they love.

In Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (1936), Ashley Wilkes hears that his wife Melanie is dying and finally expresses his love for and dependence on his wife to Scarlett O'Hara.

His eyes search her intently, hunting, hunting desperately for something he did not find. Finally he spoke and his voice was not his own.

"I was wanting you," he said. "I was going to run and find you—run like a child wanting comfort—and I find a child, more frightened, running to me."

"Not you—you can't be frightened," she cried. "Nothing has ever frightened you. But I—You've always been so strong—"

"If I've ever been strong, it was because she was behind me," he said, his voice breaking and he looked down at the glove and smoothed the fingers. "And—and—all the strength I ever had is going with her."

"Why—" she said slowly, "why, Ashley, you love her, don't you?"

"She is the only dream I ever had that lived and breathed and did not die in the face of reality." (pp. 1013-1014)

Of course, Scarlett is stunned to discover that Ashley loved Melanie, who provided security and safety, more than he loved her own passionate nature.

Transcendence When people fall in love they sometimes are able to transcend their former limitations. For example, poet Elizabeth Barrett was dominated by her selfish and jealous father; she was a recluse and an invalid. When she fell in love with Robert Browning, she was transformed into a vibrant, energetic woman. She and Robert eloped, fleeing a damp, gray England to sunny, flowering Italy. They lived there for 15 years until Elizabeth died in her husband's arms.

In summary: When passionate love is realized, it is often an idyllic experience—allowing a person to feel understood and accepted, safe, and exultant. Of course, love does not always go well. Love may be unrequited or end badly. (We discuss these realities at greater length in Chapter 14, Endings.)

Now that we have reviewed what evolutionary theorists have learned about the evolutionary underpinnings of love, let us turn to what social psychologists have learned about the nature of modern-day passionate love.

THE NATURE OF PASSIONATE LOVE

Earlier, we defined passionate love as:

A state of intense longing for union with another. Passionate love is a complex functional whole including appraisals or appreciations, subjective feelings, expressions, patterned physiological processes, action tendencies, and instrumental behaviors. Reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy. Unrequited love (separation) with emptiness, anxiety, or despair.

Let us now review what social psychologists know about the various components of love—the subjective experiences, the central, autonomic, and somatic nervous system reactions, and the behavioral expressions of this bittersweet emotion.

The Cognitive Contribution

For centuries, writers, artists, and philosophers have bitterly disagreed over the nature of love. In recent research, Philip Shaver, Shelley Wu, and Judith Schwartz (1991) interviewed young people in America, Italy, and the People's Republic of China about their emotional experiences. In all cultures, men and women identified the same emotions as basic or prototypic emotions. These were joy/happiness, love/attraction, fear, anger/hate, and sadness/depression. They also agreed completely as to whether the various emotions should be labeled as positive experiences (such as joy) or negative ones (such as fear, anger, or sadness). They agreed completely, that is, except about one emotion—love. American and Italian subjects tended to equate love with happiness; both passionate and companionate love were assumed to be intensely positive experiences. American films, in which couples fall in love and live "happily ever after," seem to promote this benign view of love. For example, in the musical Singin' in the Rain, Gene Kelly fell head-over-heels in love with Debbie Reynolds. After he declares his love for her, his exuberant joy as he splashes through a downpour reminds us of the heedless delights of passion.

Chinese students, however, had a darker view of love. In Chinese there are few "happy-love" words. Love is associated with sadness. Chinese men and women associated passionate love with such ideographs (words) as infatuation, unrequited love, nostalgia, and sorrow love. Interestingly enough, the equating of love with sadness seems to be an ancient Eastern tradition. For example, in Five Women Who Loved (Saikaku, 1686/1956), a collection of love stories from seventeenth century Japan, almost all the love affairs ended sadly. For the heroines, impetuous passion led almost inevitably to ruin—to the suicide or the execution of the lovers. Shaver's students from the East and West never did come to an agreement as to the nature of love. Each cultural group continued to regard one another's visions of love as "unrealistic."

Despite its glories, romantic love is notorious for . . . the pain and suffering

that accompany it.

—Ethel Person

In this text, we take a complex view of the nature of passionate love. We would argue that passionate love is a mixed blessing. As the definition of love indicates, passionate love sometimes is a joyously exciting experience, sparked by wondrous fantasies and rewarding encounters with the loved one. But that is only part of the story. Passionate love is like any other form of excitement. By its very nature, excitement involves a continuous interplay between elation and despair, thrills and terror. Think, for example, of the mixed and rushed feelings that novice skiers experience. Their hearts begin to pound as they wait to lurch onto the ski lift. Once they realize they have made it, they are elated. On the easy ride to the top, they are still a bit unnerved. Their hands shake and their knees tremble, but they slowly begin to relax. Moments later they look ahead and realize it is time to push off the lift. The landing looks icy and steep. Their rush quickly turns to panic. They can't turn back. They struggle to get their feelings under control. They jump off the lift, elated and panicky—it is hard to tell which. Then they start to

ski downhill, experiencing as they go a wild jumble of powerful emotions. Eventually, they arrive at the bottom of the hill, elated, relieved. Perhaps they feel like crying. Sometimes, they are so tired they are flooded with waves of depression. Usually, they get up, ready to try again. Passionate lovers experience the same roller-coaster of feelings—euphoria, happiness, vulnerability, anxiety, panic, despair. The risks of love merely add fuel to the fire.

Sometimes men and women become entangled in love affairs where the delight is brief, and pain, uncertainty, jealousy, misery, anxiety, and despair are abundant. Recent social psychological research makes it clear that passionate love, which thrives on excitement, is linked to a variety of strong emotions—both positive and negative.

Michael Liebowitz (1983), in The Chemistry of Love, provided a quasi-poetical description of the mixed nature of passionate love:

Love and romance seem to be one, if not the most powerful activator of our pleasure centers. . . . Both tend to be very exciting emotionally. Being with the person or even just thinking of him or her is highly stimulating. . . . Love is, by definition, the strongest positive feeling we can have. Other things—stimulant drugs, passionate causes, manic states—can induce powerful changes in our brains, but none so reliably, so enduringly, or so delightfully as that "right" other person. ... If the relationship is not established or is uncertain, anxiety or other displeasure centers may be quite active as well, producing a situation of great emotional turmoil as the lover swings between hope and torment, (pp. 48-49)

We discuss some of his work on the chemistry of love later in this chapter.

Dorothy Tennov (1979) interviewed more than 500 lovers. Almost all of them took it for granted that passionate love (which Tennov labeled "limerence") is a bittersweet experience. One respondent, Philip, a 28-year-old truck driver, described his feelings this way:

I'd be jumpy out of my head. It was like what you might call stage fright, like going up in front of an audience. My hand would be shaking when I rang the doorbell. When I called her on the phone I felt like I could hear the pulse in my temple louder than the ringing of the phone, and I'd get into such a panic listening to the ring and expecting Nelly's voice at the other end that I'd have a moment of relief if no one answered. And when she did answer, I wouldn't know what to say even if I'd gone over the whole thing in my head beforehand. And then whatever I did say never seemed to come out right, (p. 49)

Ruth described her feelings this way:

Love is irrational. Whether you call it a mental illness or sublime spirituality, you behave in love in ways that do not represent your own true best interests, ways that deflect from the goals you've built your life around, even if the deflection is slight, even if it is easily rationalized and even when it is disguised as beauty or experienced as ecstasy.

How can I say that my seemingly interminable passion for Eric, a 15-year obsession, was reasonable? Consider the 30,000 hours—I actually calculated my estimation, and that's a conservative figure—I spent going over every word he said, every gesture, every letter he wrote, when I might have been reading, or learning a foreign language, or enjoying the company of others. Instead, I was caught in a merry-go-round of

wondering how he felt, wishing he would call, anticipating our next time together, or endlessly searching in my recollections of his behavior and my convoluted reconstruction of the possible reasons for his actions for the shreds of hope on which my madness fed. (p. 105)

The obsessive love of Adele Hugo (novelist Victor Hugo's daughter) drove her to madness. In her teens she fell in love with a soldier. She followed him from posting to posting. When she was on her deathbed he finally agreed to meet this mad beauty who had tracked him so relentlessly. . . . She could not even recognize her beloved. (Somehow she thought that he was taller.) It is clear then that the term passionate love well covers any intense longing for union with another, whether one's love is reciprocated (and thus a source of fulfillment and ecstasy) or unrequited, even uncertain (and thus a source of emptiness, anxiety, or despair).

The Biological Contribution

Since antiquity, researchers have been developing methods to detect "lovesick-ness." Consider this report, written in the second century by Appian of Alexandria:

At the beginning of the third century, B.C., Seleucus, one of Alexander's generals and among the ablest of his successors, married a woman named Stratonice. Antiochus, his son by a previous marriage, had the misfortune to fall in love with his new stepmother. Recognizing the illicit character of his love, and the hopelessness of its consummation, Antiochus resolves not to show his feelings. Instead, he falls sick and strives his hardest to die.

We may be sure that many doctors attended the young prince, but to no avail it seems, until the celebrated Greek physician Erasistratos concludes that, in the absence of bodily disease, the boy's malady must stem from some affliction of the mind, "through which the body is often strengthened or weakened by sympathy." (Reported in Mesulam & Perry, 1972, pp. 546-547)

The physician spent several days in Antiochus' chamber, studying the comings and goings of the court. Each time a visitor came by, Erasistratos studied Antiochus' physiological reactions. Only one person produced a strong reaction in Antiochus—his new stepmother Stratonice. Each time she came to see him "lo, those tell-tale-signs of which Sappho sings were all there in him—stammering speech, fiery flashes, darkened vision, sudden sweats, irregular palpitations of the heart, and finally, as his soul was taken by storm, helplessness, stupor, and pallor" (Plutarch, first century a.d.), reported in Mesulam & Perry (1972, p. 547). On the physician's advice, Seleucus divorced his bride Stratonice so his son Antiochus could marry her; thus his son's life was saved.

Recently, psychologists have assembled information from neuroanatomical and neurophysiological investigations, ablation experiments, pharmacologic explorations, clinical investigations, and behavioral research as to the social psycho-physiology of passion. These authors document that the observations of the ancients are, in part, correct. Passionate love does produce the skeletal-muscular and autonomic nervous system reactions Plutarch described. Their research also documents the contention that passionate love is indeed a complex phenomenon (Hatfield & Rapson, 1987; Kaplan, 1979; Liebowitz, 1983).

The Anatomy of Love In Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain (1924/1969), Hans Castorp described his complicated emotional reaction to Clavdia Chauchat:

In each hour of his diminished day he had thought of her: her mouth, her cheek-bones, her eyes, whose colour, shape, and position bit into his very soul; her drooping back, the posture of her head, her cervical vertebra above the rounding of her blouse, her arms enhanced by their thin gauze covering. Possessed of these thoughts, his hours had sped on soundless feet. . . . Yes, he felt both terror and dread; he felt a vague and boundless, utterly mad and extravagant anticipation, a nameless anguish of joy which at times so oppressed the young man's heart, his actual and corporeal heart, that he would lay one hand in the neighourhood of that organ, while he carried the other to his brow and held it like a shield before his eyes, whispering: "Oh, my God!" (p. 206)

Psychiatrist Helen Singer Kaplan (1979) has explored the anatomy of passionate love and sexual desire. Cognitive factors have a profound impact on sexual desire. Thus the cortex (that part of the brain that analyzes complex perceptions and stores and retrieves memories) has extensive neural connections with the sex center.

The brain's passionate love/sex center is located within the limbic system. (The limbic system is located in the limbus or rim of the brain.) Even in primitive vertebrates, this system is the emotional control center. In humans, this archaic system remains essentially unchanged. It is here that the most powerful emotions are generated, powerfully driving behavior. Kaplan points out that the limbic system contains both activating and inhibitory centers; it is tightly tied into the pleasure and pain centers of the brain. All sexual behavior is shaped by the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Passionate love and sexual desire, she argues, generate endorphins (chemicals that resemble morphine, causing euphoria and alleviating pain), which stimulate the pleasure centers. The result: ecstasy. Sexual desire may also stimulate the pain centers. If a person's romantic partners or sexual experiences are associated with too much pain, they will cease to evoke sexual desire.

It is not possible to disentangle the different emotions, the pride, humility,

pity, and passion, which are excited by a look of happy love or an unexpected

caress.

—Robert Louis Stevenson

The Chemistry of Love Researchers are beginning to learn more about the chemistry of passionate love and an array of related emotions. They are also learning more about the way that various emotions, positive and negative, interact. Psychiatrist Michael Liebowitz (1983) has been the most willing to speculate about the chemistry of love. He argues that passionate love brings on a giddy feeling, comparable to an amphetamine high. It is phenylethylamine (PEA), an amphetamine-related compound, that produces the mood-lifting and energizing effects of romantic love. He observes that "love addicts" and drug addicts have a great deal in common: The craving for romance is merely the craving for a particular kind of high. The fact that most romances lose some of their intensity with time may well be due to normal biological processes. The crash that follows a breakup may be much like amphetamine withdrawal. Liebowitz also offers some

speculations about the chemistry of the emotions that crisscross the consciousness of lovers as they swirl from the giddy peaks to the gloomy depths of their passions. The "highs" include euphoria, excitement, relaxation, spiritual feelings, and relief. The "lows" include anxiety, terrifying panic attacks, the pain of separation, and the fear of punishment. In excitement, naturally occurring brain chemicals, similar to stimulants (such as amphetamine and cocaine), produce the rush that lovers feel. In relaxation, chemicals related to the narcotics (such as heroin, opium, and morphine), tranquilizers, sedatives, or alcohol, and marijuana produce a mellow state and wipe out anxiety, loneliness, panic attacks, and depression. In spiritual peak experiences, chemicals similar to the psychedelics produce a sense of beauty, meaningfulness, and timelessness. The painful feelings of separation anxiety, panic attacks, or depression may be produced in two ways: by the production of chemicals that produce anxiety, pain, or depression; or by withdrawal from the chemicals that produce the highs. Researchers do not yet know if Liebowitz's speculations on the chemistry of passionate love are correct.

Kaplan (1979) provides some information as to the chemistry of sexual desire. Dopamine (a neurotransmitter) and testosterone (the major libido hormone) stimulate sexual desire. Serotonin or 5-HT (5-hydroxytryptamine) inhibits sexual desire. Kaplan observes:

When we are in love, libido is high. Every contact is sensuous, thoughts turn to Eros, and the sexual reflexes work rapidly and well. The presence of the beloved is an aphrodisiac; the smell, sight, sound, and touch of the lover—especially when he/she is excited—are powerful stimuli to sexual desire. In physiologic terms, this may exert a direct physical effect on the neurophysiologic system in the brain which regulates sexual desire. . . . But again, there is no sexual stimulant so powerful, even love, that it cannot be inhibited by fear and pain. (p. 14)

Finally, although passionate love and the related emotions we have described may be associated with specific chemical neurotransmitters or with chemicals that increase/decrease the sensitivity of receptors in the brain, most emotions possess more similarities than differences. Chemically, intense emotions do have much in common. Kaplan reminds us that chemically, love, joy, sexual desire, and excitement, as well as anger, fear, jealousy, and hate, are all intensely arousing. They all produce an autonomic nervous system sympathetic response. This is evidenced by the symptoms associated with all these emotions—a flushed face, sweaty palms, weak knees, butterflies in the stomach, dizziness, a pounding heart, trembling hands, and accelerated breathing. The exact pattern of reaction varies from person to person (Lacey & Lacey, 1970).

Comedy and tragedy grow on the same tree. A change of lighting suffices to

make one the other.

—Plato

Why Is Passionate Love So Passionate? The Cross-Magnification Process Passionate love, as we have seen, is associated with a variety of emotions, pleasurable and painful. Elaine Hatfield (Carlson & Hatfield, 1992) goes on to argue that such emotional mixtures produce the most intense explosions of feeling.

Logically, when people are exposed to a variety of emotional stimuli, their emotions could interact in three different ways. First, sometimes people are able to identify the ebb and flow of their separate emotions. In such cases, they experience a series of distinct emotions, or emotional blends. (This year, Dick and I took a wonderful walking tour of the Cotswolds. We went to small towns with such names as Chipping-Camden, Folly, Plush, and Midsummer Norton. We separated in London and proceeded on to different conferences, half a world apart. In the following week, we were aware that most of the time we were still delighting in the excitement of the psychology and history meetings and our holiday. When we paused for a moment, however, we were both aware that "deep down," we felt sad and like crying. We missed each other; we were sorry that our holiday was at an end; painfully aware that we would not always be able to enjoy the minds of our aging friends and the beauty of the Cotswolds.) Second, sometimes incompatible emotions may "cancel" one another out. (For example, teenagers, who don't really know whether they should be frightened or angry in a threatening situation, sometimes report that they just feel numb.) Finally, people most often experience emotional cross-magnification. Passionate love, for instance, may actually be intensified by the shyness, anxiety, jealousy, or anger the other sparks in us. It is easy to identify such instances of emotional spillover in our daily lives. When we have been frenetically rushing around all day, we often end up snapping at a friend over some trifle. What would normally be slight irritation has exploded into rage; we have to remind ourselves (or he reminded) to "settle down." Or we trip on the threadbare carpet and catch ourselves just in time from hurtling down the stairs. We dissolve in a fit of giggles. What's so funny about almost being killed? Our sense of the absurd has been magnified by our fear and relief. Elaine Hatfield (Carlson & Hatfield, 1992) argued that in life such emotional spillover effects can have powerful consequences. Most intense emotional experiences involve such blends of emotions. This may not be pure coincidence. Perhaps emotions (especially positive emotions) have a better chance to rise to a fever pitch when several emotional units are activated. Love may be more intense than usual when it is fueled by ecstasy and jealousy, insecurity and fear of loss. The death of a mate may be especially hard to bear when combined with guilt about the way we treated the deceased. Add grief and anger at the loss to that guilt, and the darkness deepens. Mixtures of emotions most certainly can fuel passion.

Kisses made more passionate by remorse. —Lawrence Durrell

Evidence that Both Pleasure and Pain May Fuel Passion Passionate love is a risky affair. Success sparks delight, failure invites despair. We get some indication of the strength of our passion by noting the intensity of our delight and despair. Trying to dissect the causes of our passionate feelings nonetheless poses difficulties. Are you high because a potential mate is ideal for you? Because the timing is right? Because it is the first day of spring? To what extent is your lover's coolness responsible for your misery? Do you feel so badly because you are lonely? Simply timid about going off on your own? Are you just generally "low"? What-

ever the real reasons, there is an abundance of evidence to support the contention that, under the right conditions, a variety of intensely positive experiences, intensely negative ones, or neutral but energizing experiences can add to the passion of passion.

7 believe myself that romantic love is the source of the most intense delights

that life has to offer.

—Bertrand Russell

Passion and the Positive Emotions Our definition of love stated that "reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy." No one doubts that love is such a "high," that the joys of love generally spill over and add sparkle to everything else in life. What has been of interest to psychologists is the converse of this proposition: That the adrenalin associated with a wide variety of highs can spill over and make passionate love more passionate. (Hence we see a sort of "better loving through chemistry" phenomenon.)

A number of carefully crafted studies make it clear that a variety of positive emotions—amusement (White, Fishbein, & Rutstein, 1981), erotic excitement (Istvan & Griffitt, 1978; Stephan et al, 1971), or general excitement (Zuckerman, 1979)—all can intensify passion. In one investigation, for example, Joseph Istvan, William Griffitt, and Gerdi Weidner (1983) aroused men by showing them sexy pictures. Other men viewed nonarousing, neutral fare. The two groups were then asked to evaluate the appeal of some beautiful and some unattractive women. When the women were pretty, the aroused men rated them as more attractive than the other men did. When the women were unattractive, they rated them as less attractive than the others did. Evidently, the sexual arousal of these men spilled over and intensified whatever it was they would normally have felt for the woman, for good or ill. Similarly, sexually aroused women found handsome men unusually appealing, and homely men less appealing, than usual.

And anyway, who could recount, without convincing herself of madness, the true degrees of love? Those endless discussions on that endless theme, the trembling, the waiting, the anguish when he left the room for a moment . . . the terror that each time he left my sight he would die?

—Margaret Drabble

Passion and the Negative Emotions In defining passionate love, we also observed that "unrequited love (separation) is associated with emptiness, anxiety, or despair." The world has noted that the failure to acquire or sustain love is an extraordinarily painful experience. Quentin Crisp warned: "One should always be wary of someone who promises that their love will last longer than a weekend." Coco Chanel counseled: "Jump out the window if you are the object of passion. Flee it if you feel it. Passion goes, boredom remains." Psychologists, along with most writers, report the panic, loneliness, and eventual despair that people feel when they are separated from those they love (Peplau & Perlman, 1982).

By now, psychologists have amassed considerable evidence for the proposition that people are especially vulnerable to love when their lives are turbulent. A variety of negative experiences have been found to deepen desire. For example, Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron (1974), in a duo of studies, discovered a close link

between fear and sexual attraction. In one experiment, they compared reactions of men who crossed one of two bridges in North Vancouver, Canada. The first bridge, the Capilano Canyon suspension bridge, was a 450-foot-long span that pitched, reeled, and wobbled over a precipitous drop to the rocks and shallow rapids below. The other bridge was a solid, safe cement structure. As each young man crossed one of the bridges, a good-looking college woman approached him. She explained that she was doing a class project and asked if he would fill out a questionnaire concerning his attitudes toward conservation. When the man had finished, she offered to explain her project in greater detail. She scribbled her telephone number on a scrap of paper, so he could call her if he wanted more information. Which men called? Nine of the 33 men on the suspension bridge called her; only two of the men on the solid bridge called.

This single study can be interpreted several ways. Perhaps the men who called, after making it across the precarious Capilano bridge, really were interested in ecology rather than sex. Perhaps it was not fear but relief at having survived the heights that stimulated their desire (Kendrick & Cialdini, 1977). It is always possible to find alternative explanations for any single study. But by now there is a great deal of experimental and correlational evidence for the intriguing contention that, under the right conditions, a variety of awkward and painful experiences—anxiety and fear (Brehm, Gatz, Goethals, McCrimmon, & Ward, 1978; Dienstbier, 1978; Hoon, Wincze, & Hoon, 1977; Riordon & Tedeschi, 1983), embarrassment (Byrne, Przybyla, & Infantino, 1981), the discomfort of seeing others involved in conflict (Dutton, 1979), jealousy (Clanton & Smith, 1987), loneliness (Peplau & Perlman, 1982), anger (Barclay, 1969; Driscoll, Davis, & Lipetz, 1972), horror (White et al., 1981), or even grief—can deepen passion.

I hate and I love. I feel both . . . and I am in agony. —Quintus Valerius Catullus

Love and Hate Writers and artists have long been aware of the shadowy boundary between love and hate. In Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham (1915/1953, p. 159) expressed well this curious blend of conflicting emotions:

When he lay in bed it seemed impossible that he should be in love with Mildred Rogers. Her name was grotesque. He did not think her pretty; he hated the thinness of her, only that evening he had noticed how the bones of her chest stood out in evening-dress; he went over her features one by one; he did not like her mouth, and the unhealthiness of her colour vaguely repelled him. She was common. Her phrases, so bald and few, constantly repeated, showed the emptiness of her mind; he recalled her vulgar little laugh at the jokes of the musical comedy; and he remembered the little finger carefully extended when she held her glass to her mouth; her manners like her conversation, were odiously genteel. He remembered her insolence; sometimes he had felt inclined to box her ears; and suddenly, he knew not why, perhaps it was the thought of hitting her or the recollection of her tiny, beautiful ears, he was seized by an uprush of emotion. He yearned for her. He thought of taking her in his arms, the thin, fragile body, and kissing her pale mouth: he wanted to pass his fingers down the slightly greenish cheeks. He wanted her.

Forty years ago, Theodor Reik (1949) noted that people are often fatally attracted to those who are kindest and cruelest to them. Let us consider just one

example. Many years ago, one scientist (Fisher, 1955), in a study using puppies, systematically varied how he treated the young animals. He treated two groups of puppies very consistently: He always responded to some of the pups with love and kindness; he always punished some of the pups any time they dared to approach him. A third group of puppies was treated in a very inconsistent way: sometimes they were cuddled and petted; other times, for no reason at all, they were punished. The results of this study were rather surprising. As it turned out, the puppies treated inconsistently were most attracted to, and most dependent on, their trainer. This finding, and numerous others, suggests that ambivalence is a potent fuel for passion. Consistency generates little emotion; it is inconsistency to which we respond. If a person always treats us with love and respect, we may start to take him for granted. Similarly, if a person is always cold and rejecting, we eventually tend to disregard his criticisms. Again, we know what to expect. What does generate a spark of interest, however, is if our admiring friend started treating us with contempt or if our arch enemy started inundating us with kindness.

The evidence then suggests that various states of arousal can spill over and influence one another. Adrenalin makes the heart grow fonder. Although most people assume that we love the people we do in spite of the suffering they cause us, it may be that, in part, we love them because of the pain they cause. Love seems to flourish when it is nurtured by a torrent of good experiences, and a sprinkling of unsettling, irritating, and even painful ones.

Passion and Emotionally Neutral Arousal Research indicates that passion can even be stirred by excitation transfer from such emotionally neutral but physically arousing experiences as riding an exercise bicycle (Cantor, Zillman, & Bryant, 1975) or jogging (White et al., 1981). In one experiment (White et al., 1981), some men (those in the high arousal group) were required to engage in strenuous physical exercise; they ran in place for two minutes. Other men (those in the low arousal group) ran in place for only 15 seconds. In and of itself, the exercise did not affect the men's moods; it did, however, affect their levels of arousal.

The men then watched a videotaped interview, which included a woman they expected soon to meet. Half of the time the woman was attractive; half of the time she was not. After the interview, the men were asked to give their first impression of the woman and to estimate her attractiveness and sexiness. They also indicated how attracted they felt to her and the extent to which they wanted to kiss her and to date her. The authors proposed that exertion-induced arousal would intensify the men's reactions to the women. And they found just that. If the woman was beautiful, the men who were aroused via exertion judged her to be unusually appealing. If she was homely, the men who were aroused via exertion judged her to be unusually unappealing. The effect of arousal then was to intensify a person's usual reactions to others. Arousal enhanced the appeal of the pretty woman as much as it impaired the appeal of the homely one. [See Zillman (1984) for a review of this research on excitation transfer. ]

The Behavioral Contribution

People who are besotted with love sometimes devise secret little tests to see if they are loved. Judith Katz (1976) points out that people use several kinds of clues in

deciding how their beloved feels about them. (1) Did he say he loved her, cook her a special dinner, or give her a present without being prompted? If I have to ask, most people feel, it "doesn't count." The intention to please is seen as more important than the gift. (If a secretary picked up the gift, once again it "doesn't count.") (2) Was the action appropriate and timely? If your mate asks you to dinner when you have just signed up for a diet program, that doesn't make it either. (3) Did she sacrifice herself to please you? The more she sacrificed, the more loving she is seen to be. One way people decide if they are loved is to consider the intentions of the other.

Lovers can also analyze the behavior of their beloved. There is no doubt that love leads people to act in ways that are a "tip-off" to their feelings. Some signs of love are blatant. Lovers kiss, hold hands, and embrace (Guerrero & Andersen, 1991; Lockard & Adams, 1980). But there are also more subtle signs that people are passionately in love.

Eye Contact When people are caught up in conversation, they gaze at one another for short periods. One British scientist, Michael Argyle (1967), found that people caught up in conversation look at one another only 30 to 60% of the time. When we love someone, however, we gaze into his or her eyes far more often than that. We may try to catch their eye, even when we are across the room, just for a moment so that, with an almost imperceptible smile, we can share some secret amusement ... or irritation (Morris, 1977; Rubin, 1970).

One's "Inclination" Toward Another Sir Francis Galton (1884), a Victorian psychologist, became fascinated by the realization that he could ferret out his friend's most secret desires, without that other realizing it. Galton conceived of a number of schemes for invading privacy, for detecting who was secretly in love with whom. Luckily, he got distracted from putting his schemes into practice. He believed that posture provided clues; we tend to lean toward someone we like and away from someone we dislike. He observed:

When two persons have an "inclination" to one another, they visibly incline or slope together when sitting side by side, as at a dinner table, and they then throw the stress of their weights on the near legs of their chairs. It does not require much ingenuity to arrange a pressure gauge with an index and dial to indicate changes in stress, but it is difficult to devise an arrangement that shall fulfill the three-fold condition of being effective, not attracting notice, and being applicable to ordinary furniture. I made some rude experiments, but being busy with other matters, have not carried them on, as I had hoped, (p. 184)

Contemporary researchers support Galton's postural hypothesis (Mehrabian, 1968).

The Distance One Stands from Another Researchers find that the more we care for someone, the closer we tend to stand. Donn Byrne and his colleagues (1970) demonstrated that standing distance can serve as a useful index of romantic attraction. He introduced men and women students to each other and then sent the couples on a 30-minute "blind" coffee date. Eventually, the couples wandered back to the experimental office. As they checked in, the psychologist unobtrusively

recorded how close to one another they were standing. The more the couple liked one another, the closer together they stood.

The preceding studies thus demonstrate that when people love one another they try to get close in a variety of little ways. Sometimes the desire to get close is not so subtle. In the case with which we began this chapter, John Hinckley stalked Jodie Foster to her classes, dorms, and in the streets. Jealous men and women sometimes camp outside their loved one's house or, more ominously, their rival's apartment. . . aching for a look at the other. Love leads to a desire (literally) to get close.

And vice versa. An odd corollary sometimes takes place as well. If people are forced to act as if they are in love—if they are induced to exchange a mutual unbroken gaze for two minutes with a stranger of the opposite sex, or to recite loving words, or to imitate loving sounds (Hatfield, Costello, Schalekamp, Den-ney, & Hsee, in press), or to stand close to a stranger, for example—their romantic attraction to this new person may be piqued. Let us consider two of these experiments.

Joan Kellerman, James Lewis, and James Laird (1989) investigated the link between love and feedback from expressions of love. The authors observed that "only people in love exchange those long, unbroken, close-up gazes" (p. 145). [We are reminded of the line from the Rodgers and Hammerstein (1943) musical Oklahoma: "Don't sigh and gaze at me . . . people will say we're in love."] To test the notion that love would follow gaze, they asked some men and women to gaze into one another's eyes continuously for two minutes; then they asked them how romantically they felt about one another. How did experimental subjects' feelings compare to the feelings of couples in the control conditions? (The authors devised three kinds of control conditions. In one, a subject gazed into the other's eyes, but the other looked away. In another, both subjects gazed at one another's hands. In yet another, subjects gazed into one another's eyes—but only in order to count how often the other was blinking!) As predicted, the mutual gaze subjects reported greater feelings of romantic love, attraction, interest, warmth, and respect for one another than did control condition subjects. In a second experiment, the authors found that passionate and romantic feelings were most powerfully stimulated if the subjects were required to gaze at one another in a romantic setting, one in which the room was dimly lit and romantic music played softly in the background.

Love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret.

—Mrs. Alphra Behn

In a second experiment, Daniel Wegner and his colleagues (Wegner, Lane, & Dimitri, in press) explored the allure of secret liaisons. They observed:

This experiment was designed in an attempt to capture some of what happens at the height of intrigue in a secret affair. Picture this: The couple have just brushed ankles under the table, and a look flashes between them as they both recognize instantly the precarious situation they have encountered. Others at the table do not know of their relationship—the one that is just now forming as their contact lingers—and they obviously cannot know. But the touch continues. The partners must put on a show of indifference to each other and feign interest in the above-board conversation, all the

PASSIONATE LOVE 65

while trying not to let their continuing covert activities seep into their minds and actions. Our prediction is that this prototypical secret liaison has the effect of producing in each partner a preoccupation with and attraction toward the other.

They tested this notion in a simple experiment. College men and women at the University of Virginia, who were strangers to one another, were invited in to play a card game. One team was told (privately) that it was their job to play the game using "natural nonverbal communication." They were to keep their feet in contact with their partner's feet for the entire game, so they could send secret signals to one another. Half of the time, in the secret condition, men and women were told that they should not let the other team know they were playing "footsie." In the nonsecret condition, everyone knew what was going on. The other team was not allowed to touch. As predicted, men and women felt more romantic attraction for one another if they had been allowed to play a secret game of "footsie." Their competitors, on the other hand, became most aroused romantically when they had been tipped off to what was going on.

Raging fires always die quickly. —Lotte Lenya

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

—Ambrose Bierce

PASSIONATE LOVE: HOW LONG DOES IT LAST?

When individuals are dizzyingly, wildly in love, they are convinced that their passionate feelings will last forever. Yet, when we take an unflinching look at the many dismal marriages around us, it becomes clear that passion is generally fleeting (Berscheid, 1983; Hatfield & Walster, 1978.) Eric Klinger (1977) warned that "highs are always transitory. People experience deliriously happy moments that quickly fade and all attempts to hang on to them are doomed to fail" (p. 116). Richard Solomon (1980) observed that passionate love follows the same pattern as any addiction. At first, passionate love produces giddy euphoria. In time, however, it takes more and more love (or cocaine, alcohol, and so forth) to produce even a weak high. Eventually, highs become transitory. If one loses love (or if one goes cold turkey" on a drug), one must endure the pains of withdrawal—depression, agitation, fatigue, anger, and loneliness. Marriage and family texts also warn that romantic love is temporary. Passion frequently wanes once the couple moves in together. Theodor Reik (1972) warned that the best a couple, once intensely in love, can hope for after several years of living together is a warm "afterglow."

If we'd thought of it, about the end of it . . . we'd have been aware that our love affair was too hot not to cool down.

—Cole Porter

There is indeed evidence that passionate love does erode with time. Elaine Hatfield and her colleagues (Pilleman & Hatfield, 1981) interviewed dating couples, newlyweds, and older women, who had been married an average of 33 years.

[ flJJIUHM I C l_W V C O /

(The longest marriage was 59 years.) The authors predicted that passionate love would decline precipitously with time. Over time, passionate love did seem to plummet. Couples started out loving their partners intensely. Both steady daters and newlyweds expressed "a great deal of passionate love" for their mates. But after many years of marriage, women reported that they and their husbands now felt only "some" passionate love for one another.

In Chapter 1, we presented Robert Sternberg's (1988) triangular theory of love, which argued that the various forms of love involve different proportions of passion, intimacy, and commitment. Sternberg (cited in Goleman, 1985) interviewed couples married one month to 36 years. Initially, it was passion that drew men and women to one another. As the relationship matured, passion began to fade into the background. "Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade (p. 13)," Sternberg wrote. After a while, what mattered most was companionate love—which is comprised of commitment and intimacy. It took longer for couples to feel fully committed to their marriages and to become intimate with one another, but in love, these were the things that seemed to last. Figure 2.2 illustrates the time course of the various components of love.

CONCLUSION

Love is a powerful emotion. Passionate love is stronger yet, so much so that it generates a congeries of other emotions: euphoric joy, fierce anxiety, episodes of despair alternating with exultant hope. The individual cannot sustain the intensity very long. Passionate love has, historically, been the stuff of poetry and legend. In real life, most cultures thoughout the centuries and, until recently, in the West have placed a terrifying penalty on passion, making it forbidden, sinful, and punishable in quite fearful ways. Religious and secular rulers have unambiguously disconnected passionate love from marriage and family. Despite tendencies to sentimentalize the experience, such love has had little place to go except to disaster and death. Authorities have feared its awesome force and its celebration of individual feeling over communal order.

Add to the combustible power of passionate love the igniting agency of sex, and one produces an explosion which all institutional authorities have conspired to suppress for thousands of years. By and large the authorities succeeded. But no longer: Today passionate love is expected to lead to sexual union, perhaps even to marriage and family. The consequences for individual and society are enormous, and we now turn to that "igniting agency"—sex—to examine some of those consequences,

Chapter 3

Sexuality

Introduction

Sex as Sin Sex Appeal: What Is It?

The Face

The Body

Sexual Traits: The Fundamentals

Smell Men's and Women's Sexual Histories: The Traditional View The Contemporary View

Masturbation

Sexual Fantasy While Masturbating

Adolescent Heterosexual Behavior

Homosexual Behavior

The Experience of Orgasm

Marital Sex

Fantasy During Sexual Relations

What Do Men and Women Want from Sex?

Pornography

Extramarital Sex

The Divorced

Aging

The Widowed Conclusion

"What is love?" . . . [I end by] confessing that, in the case of romantic love, I

don't really know. If forced against a brick wall to face a firing squad who

would shoot if not given the correct answer, I would whisper "It's about 90

percent sexual desire as yet not sated."

—Ellen Berscheid

INTRODUCTION

Peter Abelard was the greatest philosopher of the twelfth century. Heloise was his star pupil. When they fell in love, they defied the conventions of the time in two ways. First, they made love. Even worse, they then married. Love and sex in the twelfth century did not go with marriage. These acts enraged Heloise's uncle. In revenge, he hired thugs who castrated Abelard. As a result, Heloise became a nun and Abelard withdrew from the world to be a monk in the Abbey of St. Denis. Throughout their lives, they kept up a passionate correspondence. (Heloise's letters burn with nostalgia, his are holy and world-renouncing.) In one tear-drenched letter Heloise wrote:

As God is my witness, I would rather be your whore than Empress of Christendom. ... In my case, the pleasures of love which we have shared have been too sweet—they can never displease me, and can scarcely be banished from my thoughts. Wherever I turn they are always before my eyes, bringing with them awakened longings and fantasies which will not even let me sleep. Even during the celebration of the Mass, when our prayers should be purer, lewd visions of those pleasures take such a hold on my unhappy soul that my thoughts are on their wantonness instead of on prayers. I should be groaning over the sins I have committed, but I can only sigh for what I have lost. (1974, p. 133)

While few lovers today can match either the poetry or the forbidden, exalted sexuality of the two medieval martyrs, their affair strikes a distinctly modern note. Many men and women care deeply about the sexual appeal of their dates and mates. When practical friends confide that they plan to marry someone who is "just a friend," these modern listeners can scarcely credit it. In this chapter we ask a number of questions. What is sex appeal? How similar is the sexual behavior of men and women? How common are sexual fantasies? Are men and women equally "turned on" by pornography? Can sexual passion last?

Love is without law. —Barnabe Rich

Sex as Sin

Answers to these questions vary from culture to culture and from time to time. Today's Madonna and her cult would answer these questions very differently than would Christians who followed the Cult of the Madonna in the twelfth century. Sexual desire and sexual activity are hardly modern-day inventions. People have been doing sex as long as our species has existed—else there would be no species. But love and sex need not necessarily be linked nor need sex be viewed positively (despite the fact that it is necessary if the species is to survive). The central myth of Western Christianity—the story of Adam and Eve—does not celebrate sexual desire! Its disgust with lust has played a major part in the oppression of women throughout history by defining women as vessels of temptation corrupted by sinful carnality. Men must avoid that temptation by seeking the purity of Faith in God. Women, only if chaste, could enter the Kingdom of Heaven as virgin madonnas. All other women were whores. Women are still striving today

to negotiate the considerable territory between being a madonna or being a whore, a choice fostered by traditional Christianity in its horror of sexuality.

So while sex has always existed, its meanings have greatly varied with time. Historians John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman (1988) have noted that sexuality has been associated with a wide range of human activities and values: "the procreation of children, the attainment of physical pleasure (eroticism), recreation or sport, personal intimacy, spiritual transcendence, or power over others" (p. xv). In writing their history of American sexual values, they went on:

The dominant meaning of sexuality has changed during our history from a primary association with reproduction within families to a primary association with emotional intimacy and physical pleasure for individuals. In the colonial era, the dominant language of sexuality was reproductive, and the appropriate locus for sexual activity was in courtship or marriage. In the nineteenth century, an emergent middle class emphasized sexuality as a means to personal intimacy, at the same time that it reduced sharply its rate of reproduction. Gradually, commercial growth brought sex into the marketplace, especially for working-class women and for men of all classes, (pp. xv-xvi)

In the West, the traditional meanings attached to sexuality derived from Christianity in both its major forms—Catholicism and Protestantism. The Catholic "cult of virginity" and its praise of monasticism yielded in northern Europe and the United States to the Protestant constriction of love to "sober performance of lawful procreative tasks." Both religions, according to the eminent neo-Freudian historian Peter Gay (1986), insisted that "lust is a sin" and both "left deposits of guilt and depression" for centuries on the Western mind (p. 50).

There has been a sexual revolution underway in the West for 500 years, associated with the rise of individualism. For if we imagine that we stand alone as individuals at the core of the great drama (the story of our personal existences) in which we are permitted, even enjoined, to strain for personal happiness (one way to define "individualism"), that happiness will assuredly encompass sexual joy (see Box 3.1).

The sexual revolution picked up tremendous speed during the early decades of this century, spurred by rapidly changing ideas about personal freedom and advances in birth control. But utterly astonishing transformations have taken place since 1960, connected not only with the further expansion of individualism, but with its major offshoot—the latest phase of the women's movement. Historians often stress continuities between the present and past, but there is no question that we are witnessing a renewed sexual revolution of astounding proportions. Sexuality in the twentieth century has attained altogether different meanings than ever before. D'Emilio and Freedman (1988) wrote:

By the twentieth century, when the individual had replaced the family as the primary economic unit, the tie between sexuality and reproduction weakened further. Influenced by psychology as well as by the growing power of the media, both men and women began to adopt personal happiness as a primary goal of sexual relations, (p. xvi)

Throughout this chapter, we shall see example after example of profound changes in sexual behavior and attitude in our own lifetimes. In assessing these

Box 3.1 THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN

In the late nineteenth century, the English were beginning to move from the tight strictures of rigid Victorian society to the unlaced passions of the pre-Raphaelite era. Author John Fowles (1969) dramatized the anguish that accompanied this transition in his depiction of the intense affair between Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff in The French Lieutenant's Woman.

He knew why he had come: it was to see her again. Seeing her was the need: like an intolerable thirst that had to be assuaged.

He forced himself to look away. But his eyes lighted on the two naked marble nymphs above the fireplace. . . . They did not help. And Sarah made a little movement. . . .

"My dear Miss Woodruff, pray don't cry ... I should not have come ... I meant not to. . . ."

But she shook her head with sudden vehemence. He gave her time to recover. And it was while she made little dabbing motions with a handkerchief that he was overcome with a violent sexual desire. . . . Her defenseless weeping was perhaps the breach through which the knowledge sprang—but suddenly he comprehended why her face haunted him, why he felt this terrible need to see her again: it was to possess her, to melt into her, to burn, to burn to ashes on that body and in those eyes. To postpone such desire for a week, a month, a year, several years even, that can be done. But for eternity is when the iron bites. . , .

"I thought never to see you again."

He could not tell her how close she had come to his own truth. She looked up at him and he as quickly looked down ... his heart raced, his hand trembled. He knew if he looked into those eyes he was lost. As if to ban them, he shut his own.

The silence was terrible then, as tense as a bridge about to break, a tower to fall; unendurable in its emotion, its truth bursting to be spoken.

Then suddenly there was a little cascade of coals from the fire . . . one or two bounced off and onto the edge of the blanket that covered Sarah's legs ... the blanket smoldered. He snatched it away from her. , . . Both feet were bare ... her hand reached shyly out and rested on his. He knew she was looking up at him. He could not move his hand, and suddenly he could not keep his eyes from hers, . . . How long they looked into each other's eyes he did not know. . . . Their hands acted first. By some mysterious communion, the fingers interlaced, Then Charles fell on one knee and strained her passionately to him. Their mouths met with a wild violence that shocked both; made her avert her lips. He covered her cheeks, her eyes, with kisses. His hand at last touched that hair, caressed it, felt the small head through its softness, as the thin-clad body was felt against his arms and breast. Suddenly he buried his face in her neck. "We must not . . . we must not . . . this is madness."

But her arms came round him and pressed his head closer. He did not move. He felt borne on wings of fire, hurtling, but in such

(Continued on p. 72)

tender air, like a child at last let free from school, a prisoner in a green field, a hawk rising. He raised his head and looked at her: an almost savage fierceness. ... He glanced at the door behind her; then stood and in two strides was at it. . . .

Each reflected the intensity in each other's eyes, the flood, the being swept before it. She seemed to half step, half fall towards him. He sprang forward and caught her in his arms and embraced her. The shawl fell. No more than a layer of flannel lay between him and her nakedness. He strained that body into his, straining his mouth upon hers, with all the hunger of a long frustration—not merely sexual, for a whole ungovernable torrent of things banned, romance, adventure, sin, madness, animality, all these coursed wildly through him. ... He began to undress wildly, tearing off his clothes as if someone was drowning and he was on the bank. A button from his frock coat flew off and rolled into a corner, but he did not even look to see where it went. . . . Then he raised his left knee onto the narrow bed and fell on her, raining burning kisses on her mouth, her eyes, her throat. But the passive yet acquiescent body pressed beneath him, the naked feet that touched his own ... he could not wait. Raising himself a little, he drew up her nightgown. Her legs parted. With a frantic brutality ... he found the place and thrust. Her body flinched. ... He conquered that instinctive constriction, and her arms flung round him as if she would bind him to her for that eternity he could not dream without her.

"Oh my dearest. My dearest. My sweetest angel . . . Sarah, . . . Sarah, ... oh Sarah."

A few moments later he lay still. Precisely ninety seconds had passed since he had left her to look into the bedroom.

Silence.

They lay as if paralyzed by what they had done. Congealed in sin, frozen with delight. Charles—no gentle postcoital sadness for him, but an immediate and universal horror—was like a city struck out of a quiet sky by an atom bomb. All lay razed; all principle, all future, all faith, all honorable intent. Yet he survived, he lay in the sweetest possession of his life, the last man alive, infinitely isolated . . . but already the radioactivity of guilt crept, crept through his nerves and veins. . . . What a mess, what an inutterable mess!

And he held her a little closer.

Source: pp. 346-351

changes we are handicapped by their rapidity and the novelty of many of the questions we face. There is no guarantee that the movement toward increasingly greater sexual freedom will forever continue; the only linear history is the history of technology, and the AIDS epidemic has already slowed the pace of change. But the best bet is that there is unlikely to be a return to sexual "repression" or "restraint" (the term you use depends on your value system), and that means that the questions raised by today's transformations in the West are not likely to go away.

I don't know how it happened but she was in my arms. Then it was like an atomic fire searing through us. We couldn't wait to get at each other. Our clothes made a trail up the stairs to the bedroom. We fell naked on the bed, tearing at each other like raging animals. Then we exploded and fell backward on the bed, gasping for breath.

—Harold Robbins. A superheated and fanciful description of sexual attraction. Cited in Bernard Zilbergeld (1978, p. 49)

SEX APPEAL: WHAT IS IT?

Scientists and social commentators have spent an enormous amount of effort trying to discover universal standards of beauty. Greek philosophers such as Aristotle assumed that the Golden Mean was the ideal. The Golden Mean represented a perfect balance. The Romans insisted, on the other hand, that the rare and unique were most appealing. In the Renaissance, artists such as Leonardo da Vinci attempted to discover the mathematics of beauty. Charles Darwin's painstaking observations (1871) finally convinced most scientists that culture set the standard and thus it was futile to search for universals. Any lingering hopes of identifying such sweeping standards were shattered in the landmark survey by Clellan Ford and Frank Beach (1951) of more than 200 primitive societies. They too failed to find any universal standards of sexual allure. Table 3.1 lists some of the traits that people in various societies have considered hallmarks of women's beauty. Let us now consider some of these traits in more detail.

Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl.

—Stephen Leacock

Table 3.1 SOCIETIES' PREFERENCES IN WOMEN'S APPEARANCE

Number of societies that Trait admire this trait

Slim body build Medium body build Plump body build	5 5 13
Narrow pelvis and slim hips Broad pelvis and wide hips	1 6
Small ankles Shapely calves	3 5
Upright, hemispherical breasts Long and pendulous breasts Large breasts	2 2 9
Large clitoris Elongated labia majora	1 8

The Face

Recently, sociobiologists have revived hopes that more sophisticated sociobiologi-cal theory and research techniques may finally enable scientists to pinpoint some aesthetic universals. In one promising study, Judith Langlois and Lori Roggman (1990) found evidence that the Greeks' Golden Mean may serve as the gold standard of appeal. The authors assembled photographs of the faces of people. Using state-of-the-art video and computer techniques, they generated a series of composite faces (truly average men and women). They found that composites were far more attractive than any of the individual faces. The disconcerting quirks that mar individual faces or give them distinctiveness—the oddly spaced eyes, the ears that are too large, the crooked teeth—are less appealing than the averaged face. The average of many imperfect faces results in . . . perfection. Their conclusion? "Attractive faces are only average." Other sociobiologists have embarked on testing the notion that men and women prefer faces that, in a sense, have it all—faces that combine the innocence of childhood with the ripe sexuality of the mature. Early ethologists observed that men and women often experienced a tender rush of feeling when they viewed infantile "kewpie doll" faces—a face with huge eyes, tiny noses and mouths, and adorable little chins (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1971). Other authors (Symons, 1979) proposed that men and women should be aroused by faces that possessed features associated with maturity, especially lush, grown-up sexuality (say, thick hair, dewy skin, and full lips) and/or mature power (say, high cheekbones or a firm jaw and chin). In a recent film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? the sexy "toon" Jessica Rabbit caricatured just these traits. Most recent evidence finds that people like faces that possess both assets: say, large eyes and small noses, combined with full sensual lips and a strong jaw and chin (Cunningham, Barbee, & Pike, 1990). Whether these preferences will turn out to be universal is not yet known.

The Body

In many societies, sexual attractiveness is associated with the possession of a great body. What is the ideal shape? Nancy Wiggins and J. C. Conger (1968) tried to find out what American men found sexually appealing. They prepared 105 nude silhouettes. The first silhouette had a Golden Mean sort of body: She possessed average-sized breasts, buttocks, and legs. (If the Greeks and the modern scholars of composite faces were right, men should have preferred her. Alas, they did not.) The remaining silhouettes were systematically varied. The Golden Mean theory turned out to have some validity. Most men thought the women with medium-sized breasts, buttocks, and legs were more attractive than those with unusually small or large features. The American ideal, however, was a woman with slightly oversized breasts, medium to slightly small buttocks, and medium-sized legs.

What about women? What do they think is sexy? Paul Lavarkas (1975) tried to find out. He constructed 19 different types of men's bodies on graph paper— combining the same-size head with bigger or smaller arms, torsos, and legs. Most women were not attracted to the Arnold Schwarzenegger-type muscleman. They preferred instead men with a Tom Cruise, tapered V-look (medium-sized or

slightly larger shoulders, waist, and hips, and thin legs). T