ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´

Dear May,

Once upon a time it was possible to believe that love was a delicate,
mysterious masterpiece of human spirituality. Now, everywhere I look, I
read that scientists put it all down to chemical substances sordidly slopping
about in brains. Why, for God’s sake, can’t they leave us some magic? Do
you really think that poets are going to start writing things like: ‘How
do I love thee? Let me count the neurotransmitters?’ It just doesn’t have
the right ring somehow. And as for ‘Love is a many synapsed thing’ – you
can forget that right now.

Yours, Roberta

Dear Roberta,

I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you. The chemistry of love still
wears a discreet veil, even if researchers are beginning to tug at the hem.
Several chemical candidates are up for consideration – chemicals that may
ooze from brain cells and help create love’s special thrill. Phenylethy-lamine,
a relative of amphetamine, is often mentioned in this context, as are the
endorphins, which act rather like opiates.

Also coming to prominence are a couple of hormones: vasopressin and
oxytocin. Vasopressin is best known for its role as a controller of the
kidney; oxytocin helps the breast to expel milk and is involved in labour.
As well as being released into the blood, both substances carry messages
between nerve cells in the brain. Their role in romance has emerged from
work on a small rodent, the prairie vole.

In prairie vole society, sex is the prelude to pair bonding between
a male and a female. One idea is that oxytocin and vasopressin, released
after mating, could help to forge the bond. When male voles are given a
drug that muzzles vasopressin, two key elements of the pair bond fail to
appear: devotion to a particular female and aggression towards interlopers.

By all accounts humans also secrete oxytocin and vasopressin at moments
of passion, but that is far as one can go at the moment. I grant you that
men may sometimes be rats – especially in matters of love – but on the whole
human behaviour tends to be more complex and flexible than that of rodents.

In any case, it would be difficult to test whether any of these ideas
applied to people. It would hardly be ethical to change levels of chemicals
and see if you could make people fall in and out of love – regardless of
the bad example set by Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

And what real difference would it make if we did know how the brain
did its stuff when we fall in love? Does knowing about the nerves and muscles
of the vocal cords – and their chemistry – make any difference to your enjoyment
of a great aria? And if Mozart or Handel can send a shiver down your scientifically
enlightened spine, then surely love can do the same.

Yours, May

Dear May,

I used to be happy with my body – until I fell in love. Now it lets
me down when I need it most. When I want to look cool and detached, it just
refuses to take instructions. Heart pounding, stomach churning, sweat pouring
into my socks and, worst of all, cheeks the colour of overripe tomatoes:
how am I supposed to look desirable like that?

Yours, Rufus

Dear Rufus,

You poor thing! The body’s reaction to this kind of emotional turbulence
is undoubtedly an absurd piece of overacting. Your heart does a triple salchow,
your muscles tighten, your body temperature climbs, and on come the blushes
and sweats. Coherent thought becomes impossible and your face rolls up into
that idiotic grin (believe me, I’ve been there).

Your sympathetic nerves are working overtime to gear you up for action.
Your body is dosing itself with adrenaline and sending blood to places that
are particularly good at losing heat, such as those bright red cheeks. Yet
it feels like a complete disaster.

Is there any point to the agony? Some say that blushing is a signal
of virginity – but that is hardly reassuring unless you actually want to
come across that way. But look on the bright side: your crimson face could
be flashing a romantic message to your beloved, alerting her to your feelings.
She may be pleased.

And here’s a final thought that could bring a blush to your cheeks –
and put your own nightmare into perspective. One doctor has apparently reported
a case of blushing in a most unlikely corner of the body: the rectum. The
case came to light when the doctor was examining a male patient in the presence
of a female nurse. And you thought you were in the hot seat!

Yours, May

Dear May,

I’ve been out with scores of women, but I still can’t seem to find
Miss Right. Things have got so bad that I’m thinking about advertising my
qualities in the lonely hearts column of my local newspaper. I was going
to describe myself as intelligent, sensitive and good-looking, but then
a friend told me I was barking up the wrong tree. He said I would do better
to include the size of my ears and the length of my arms. Is he onto something,
or just on something?

Yours, John

Dear John,

I think I catch your friend’s drift. Science has pondered long and hard
on the question of romantic attraction and one of the main conclusions is
that people tend to choose partners similar to themselves.

This is true not only in obvious areas such as religion, social class
and moral attitudes, all of which might be expected to create friction in
a marriage of opposites. It also applies in other, more bizarre corners
of marital life. Diligent research has uncovered a correlation between the
lung volumes of spouses, for instance. And there is more. Length of middle
finger, overall size of ear, length of ear lobe, circumference of the neck
and wrist, length of forearm, metabolic rate: these are just some of the
other unlikely matters on which spouses tend to ‘agree’.

The only problem with your friend’s ploy is that it’s far from obvious
what these findings mean. They could mean that we choose mates who remind
us of our parents. Or they could be side effects of some other approach,
such as a tendency to pick partners of a certain height. In any case, if
you scan the lonely hearts columns, you soon realise that people are more
interested in sentiment than centimetres, keener on inner strength than
pinna length. Even so, measuring your date’s lung volume could be a great
way of getting to know her.

Yours, May

Dear May,

When I fell in love with my present partner – after several years of
celibacy – I feel sure I grew more body hair. As well as sprouting extra
hairs on my chest, I also needed to shave more often than in the bad old
days. Does this mean my testosterone level has shot up? Is extra expenditure
on razor blades an inevitable cost of falling in love?

Yours, Charles

Dear Charles,

Any consideration of your problem must begin with the strange tale of
Anon’s beard, a classic case from 1970. Anon’s lifestyle at the time involved
periods of isolation on a remote island, punctuated by trips to the mainland
– when, not surprisingly, his love life looked up.

By weighing the daily harvest of hair inside his electric shaver, Anon
detected an extraordinary trend: each period of R and R was accompanied
by a stronger growth of stubble. Anon thought this effect probably reflected
an increase in his testosterone level – and he went on to show that his
beard grew faster when he dosed himself with male hormones. In support of
his case, Anon cited findings suggesting that copulation increases testosterone
levels.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you can blame your own case on your hormones,
for many factors can influence the harvest reaped with the razor. One is
the amount of tissue fluid in the skin of the face, which is high after
a night spent lying down but starts to fall when you get up. The decline
causes the stubble to protrude farther as the morning wears on, giving tardy
shavers a false impression of their manliness. (Another result of the decline
is that your ear lobes are thinner when you go to bed than when you get
up.)

In any case, the idea that sex increases testosterone is still not definitely
established. Many other activities – riding a bicycle, for example – may
have a similar effect, and recent experiments suggest that any increase
as a result of sex could be quite small in men (New ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, Science,
3 October 1992).

And there are other complications to bear in mind. Did your new-found
love begin as a holiday romance? I only ask because a couple of years ago
researchers reported that beards grow fastest in late summer and slowest
in winter; thigh hair shows a similar seasonal pattern. That trend could
itself be under the control of an annual cycle in levels of sex hormones.
Other research suggests that men with more testosterone have denser beards,
but that the individual whiskers grow faster in men who have higher levels
of another male hormone, dihydrotestosterone (DHT), made from testosterone
in the skin.

When it comes to your hairy chest the picture is even more blurred.
Researchers have found no obvious link between body hair and levels of testosterone
or DHT. But there was a link between hairy legs and arms and the ratio of
DHT to testosterone. Confused? So am I.

While researchers try to unravel all these complications, perhaps you
should ponder some other explanations of your new found hairiness. Did you
actually scan your chest all that assiduously during your years of celibacy?
Perhaps your extra fuzz came slowly and by stealth while your mind was on
higher things.

Yours, May

Dear May,

I had a great platonic relationship with the girl of my dreams until
I told her my true feelings. Then she promptly dumped me. My friends keep
telling me that there are plenty more fish in the sea, but I don’t find
that very reassuring. Wouldn’t it be simpler to give up on love and become
a hermit?

Yours, Giles

Dear Giles,

My heart goes out to you. Unrequited love seems a sad but inevitable
part of the human lot. Psychologists reckon we start out by fancying highly
attractive people – the heart-throbs of our circle – whatever our own attractiveness.
Yet we often end up with partners who are about as attractive as we are,
so there is bound to be a steady supply of broken hearts.

New research suggests that unrequited love is bad news for both parties
– not just for the unsuccessful lover. The other person may feel a frisson
of satisfaction, but this is outweighed by annoyance at being put in a difficult
situation.

But before you retreat to your hermit’s cell to lick your wounds, consider
the perils of a lonely life. Remember that love and friendship have an important
bearing on health. Your immune system, for instance, may suffer if you feel
unloved. When researchers looked at the impact of exam stress on the immune
systems of students, they found the worst effects in students who said they
were lonely. In another study, blood pressure was higher in people who felt
unloved.

Have you thought about getting a pet? No one ever gave unrequited love
to a dog. And who knows? You may always meet a nice girl at dog obedience
classes.

Yours, May