Dilemma?
25 Fascinating Facts
about Love
Love is also for the young at heart
By Laura Schaefer
Love is a many-splendored thing … and a very surprising thing, too. As if
you needed proof of that, here are 25 funny little facts about love. Study
them, scratch your head over them, and share them with someone you fancy.
1. Men who kiss their
wives in the morning live five years longer than those who don’t.
2. People are more
likely to tilt their heads to the right when kissing instead of the left
(65 percent of people go to the right!)
3. When it comes to
doing the deed early in the relationship, 78 percent of women would
decline an intimate rendezvous if they had not shaved their legs or
underarms.
4. Feminist women are
more likely than other females to be in a romantic relationship.
5. Two-thirds of
people report that they fall in love with someone they’ve known for some
time vs. someone that they just met.
6. There’s a reason
why office romances occur: The single biggest predictor of love is
proximity.
7. Falling in love
can induce a calming effect on the body and mind and raises levels of
nerve growth factor for about a year, which helps to restore the nervous
system and improves the lover’s memory.
8. Love can also
exert the same stress on your body as deep fear. You see the same
physiological responses — pupil dilation, sweaty palms, and increased
heart rate.
9. Brain scans show
that people who view photos of a beloved experience an activation of the
caudate — the part of the brain involving cravings.
10. The women of the
Tiwi tribe in the South Pacific are married at birth.
11. The “Love
Detector” service from Korean cell phone operator KTF uses technology that
is supposed to analyze voice patterns to see if a lover is speaking
honestly and with affection. Users later receive an analysis of the
conversation delivered through text message that breaks down the amount of
affection, surprise, concentration and honesty of the other speaker.
12. Eleven percent of
women have gone online and done research on a person they were dating or
were about to meet, versus seven percent of men.
13. Couples’
personalities converge over time to make partners more and more similar.
14. The oldest known
love song was written 4,000 years ago and comes from an area between the
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
15. The tradition of
the diamond engagement ring comes from Archduke Maximillian of Austria
who, in the 15th century, gave a diamond ring to his fiancée, Mary of
Burgundy.
Love is a many splendered thing
16. Forty-three
percent of women prefer their partners never sign “love” to a card unless
they are ready for commitment.
17. People who are
newly in love produce decreased levels of the hormone serotonin — as low
as levels seen in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Perhaps
that’s why it’s so easy to feel obsessed when you’re smitten.
18.
Philadelphia International Airport finished as the No. 1 best airport for
making a love connection, according to an online survey.
19. According to
mathematical theory, we should date a dozen people before choosing a
long-term partner; that provides the best chance that you’ll make a love
match.
20. A man’s beard
grows fastest when he anticipates sex.
21. Every Valentine’s
Day, Verona, the Italian city where Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet
took place, receives around 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet.
22. When we get
dumped, for a period of time we love the person who rejected us even more,
says Dr. Helen Fisher of Rutgers University and author of Why We Love. The
brain regions that lit up when we were in a happy union continue to be
active.
23. People telling
the story of how they fell in love overwhelmingly believe the process is
out of their control.
24. Familiarity
breeds comfort and closeness … and romance.
25. One in five
long-term love relationships began with one or both partners being
involved with others.
BONUS:. OK, this one may not surprise you, but we had to share it: Having
a romantic relationship makes both genders happier. The stronger the
commitment, the greater the happiness!
