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Okay, I know there has been some dispute about whether or not “Love” should be researched as a science, but truth be told, I don’t want to touch that. Frankly, my opinion is if there is interest in the scientific community as well as the money to fund research, let them research! However there are some sub-aspects relating to attraction that I would be very interested in finding the basis of, primarily the neurobiological bases that underlie attraction. Also interesting to investigate would be as Liz mentioned in an earlier note: what is the biological basis for becoming accustomed to our partners? (Sidenote: I, like Emily, simply want the “answer” and for me this is generally the biological basis behind what we do.) And as Elliot addressed in his post: could we reduce the way we feel about someone to neurotransmitter release or an enzyme cascade? If we were to reduce these complex emotions into their biological constructs, what could we do with this information? Could we develop drugs to cure the pain post break-up, or use agonists to enhance the way we feel about someone? Essentially, we could alter our current paradigm of love; change it from something to be aspired, to make it something as mundane as a duty to be performed.

Something that I found to be perplexing was the idea, which Professor Le brought up, that we are not monogamous by nature. What then is the primary purpose of marriage? Does it benefit us or the species in a specific way so much so that we need it for our continued survival? I asked a question in class about the rates of break-up of long-term cohabiting couples for a reason-I am interested in whether they naturally assume the characteristics of married couples, in that they have the same strong commitments despite the lack of a legally binding relationship. It seems to me that though they have a lessened legal investment, would bonds of trust be more lasting because of the conscious decision to abstain from marriage? (I apologize if that did not make sense.) Does strong emotional commitment make or break a relationship, or is it all based on the exchange of investments?

On a final note, I find the results obtained by Ben and Amelia a bit humorous, a bit of a “keeping up with the Joneses” of relationships. Perhaps when we view our relationship as better than those around us, we downgrade the quality of our alternatives, as we view other local relationships as possibilities of what our relationship might be like. The better these relationships look to us, the less positively we view our relationships, and thus we are less likely to stay in it. Just a thought.