A Rush of Blood to the Limbic System

As I'm sure many of you know, Romance is quite a popular genre - and why shouldn't it be? Romance itself is such a wonderful high, and who doesn't get a thrill out of reading about the sexual tension and lust between two deeply involved characters?

"Romance fiction sales remained relatively steady in 2010, though dipping slightly to $1.358 billion from $1.36 billion in 2009. And romance fiction continued its dominance of the consumer market at 13.4 percent (in terms of revenue of market categories), beating out mystery, science fiction/fantasy, and religion/inspirational titles." - Romance Writers of America

But what is love, really? Why do we get such a high from "falling in love"?

There is actually a physiological reason behind it all, and it's more than just "(s)he's crazy lol".

For those who took any basic psychology courses in college, or maybe even high school, you probably know that the frontal cortex of our brain is in charge of reasoning and decision making. From this, most of you can probably infer that the cortex is not highly involved in our decisions when it comes to romance.

Why do we get so crazy when we "fall in love"? Why are so many of us drawn to that feeling of new love? Why do we chase it, yearn for it, lust for it?

I strongly encourage all romance novelists and romance novel fans to check out this article, "Limbic Love", on the American Scientist website. It briefly discusses why we get those crazy, emotionally-charged feelings when we start falling in love, and the answer is fairly simple: the limbic system.

Those crazy feelings of love, jealousy, and euphoria? The limbic system. Those crazy acts of slapping that person who dared giving "the look" to your significant other? That's the brain redirecting the flow of blood from the cortex (remember: logic, decision-making, etc.) to the limbic system (emotions).

The limbic system is responsible for that Velcro collision called "falling in love." If our limbic patterning is off when it comes to love, we can suffer endless trouble, write psychiatrists Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon in A General Theory of Love. Dreams of falling in love and living happily ever after spin out of "the airy regions of the cortex, which drafts its scripts using imagination, logic and will."

But what happens after that? What happens when the initial "falling in love" ends, and the real relationship begins? And I don't mean the "real relationship" to mean the day you two lovebirds officially mark the day you went steady; I'm talking about the hard work of maintaining a steady, long-term relationship...a topic many romance novelists fail to cover.

Loving is limbically different from being in love. Loving is "synchronous attunement and modulation. As such, adult love depends critically upon knowing the other." Loving is what happens after the limbic thrill is gone, and it's more substantial than that thrill: "In a dazzling vote of form over substance, our culture fawns over the fleetingness of being 'in love' while discounting the importance of 'loving.'"

It's not exactly exciting to write entire novels about a couple finding their first apartment, paying the bills, and fighting over which brand of toilet paper to buy. But it's not to say it isn't important to discuss. Love and marriage isn't all about passionate lovemaking and blasting "your song" through the window at night - it's about coming together and creating a symbiotic relationship together. Your lover should also be your partner and your best friend; without such a bond, the "love" between a couple will eventually fade.

With that, I leave you all with a quote from one of my favorite novels, Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières:

“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.”

A Few More Lines from the Upcoming Novel, The Night Life.

I'm somewhat of a hopeless romantic, so naturally, every one of my stories is likely to contain a love story in some form or another.

In this case, however, the love story is more or less of a side story, and is not the main focus of The Night Life. This is probably the first piece I've written in years that does not focus mainly on the romantic prospects of the characters.

Of course, depending on how you spin it, that last sentence may be entirely false. It really depends on how you view the main character, Richard.


These next few lines, however, are actually about Tanya, the nosy and intrusive dancer who gets a little too involved in Richard's life. The love story in The Night Life belongs to her, and takes place between her and her high school sweetheart, Mickey Rodgers. They ended their relationship about a month after Mickey went to college in Colorado while she stayed behind in New Mexico, and now they find themselves reunited. Tanya quickly finds herself rediscovering her old feelings for her high school sweetheart; however, does Mickey share those feelings with her?

Would I ever see him again? It was likely, sure; we did only live an hour away from each other. Would I see him often? That, unfortunately was not likely. Meanwhile, I would be stuck here in Socorro dancing for a living, all while craving that elusive scent that clung to Mickey’s skin. Though I didn’t know it until now, I had spent the past six years in silent agony because I missed him. I must have spent at least four of those years telling myself I had forgotten him; only now did I realize that I loved him as much as I did when we were eighteen, and I couldn’t help but hope he felt the same way.

Will There Ever be an Appropriate Time for Me to Serenade Somebody With This Song?

According to my tags, I might have already posted this here before. Nevertheless, it's a beautiful song with a lovely saxophone solo.