What Is This Thing Called Love?


Lucky me. I’m the romance author who gets to write a blog on Valentine’s Day. Cliché, right? Well, earlier this week, I found a fascinating special on Public Radio about love, and learned some interesting things:



Neurologist Lucy Brown said the brain of a person head over heels in love resembles the brain of a person high on cocaine.



Anthropologist Helen Fisher believes romantic love is a basic human drive that evolved to keep people together long enough to procreate and continue the species.



Esquire writer and editor A.J. Jacobs underwent an MRI to see how he would react to looking at pictures of his wife versus pictures of Angelina Jolie.  He says he has now scientifically proven  he loves his wife.



Jacobs is one man who believes we’ve over-romanticized romance, and that it’s time for some down-to-earth, feet-on-the-ground Valentine messages. And he’s created some hysterical ones called Valentines for Rational Lovers. Here’s a sampling:







Public Radio's "What Is This Thing Called Love?” one-hour special is part of its series titled The Really Big Questions. You can listen to more at: http://trbq.org/love/


Until next month,


Jenna

http://amzn.com/B00HFJRY1W

5 comments:

Carly Carson said...

His Valentine's cards are cute. But I'm not sure about the messages. While I certainly agree that the day has been over-commercialized, I think I prefer the "old-fashioned" kind of message. I love learning new things so thanks for doing the research!

Jenna Ives said...

Carly -
If you like fun facts about Valentine's Day, I saw these on msn.com this morning:

Most historians link the lover's holiday to an annual celebration in Rome that occurred every Feb. 15. During the boisterous bonanza, men stripped naked and spanked young maidens with animal-skin whips in an effort to increase fertility. While history buffs don't unanimously agree on who the original Valentine was, the most popular suspect is a clergyman in ancient Rome. When the emperor outlawed marriage during wartime (because he believed single men made better soldiers), Bishop Valentine performed secret wedding ceremonies. It wasn't until 496 A.D., over 200 years after the bishop's death, that Pope Gelasius I officially declared Feb. 14 as Saint Valentine's Day.

Jenna

Carly Carson said...

Ha that's funny, what msn said. I wrote a blog on this subject a while back. My research said the women were the naked ones. I remember it so well because I thought, what is in this for the women? At least we've done away with that custom!

Natasha Moore said...

"Neurologist Lucy Brown said the brain of a person head over heels in love resembles the brain of a person high on cocaine."

I've always said I get a high at the end of a romance novel and I pick up another one immediately because I want to feel that high again. Yep, we're dealers and pushers of the HEA high :)

And I guess the idea of "settling" might be realistic, but to me it's a little sad...

Sam Beck said...

Thanks for these V-Day messages!

I'll take my hearts & candy, (and "Best Mom" trophy from the 5 yr. old), but I would also laugh my a$$ off if my card had read, "The pros of being with you outweigh the cons." ;)