I read this article the other day, and it was like a light totally went on in my head.
I AM NOT BROKEN. IT IS SCIENCE.
OK, so I don’t date. I have, in the past. Sure I have. Sometimes that went better than other times. Sometimes it wasn’t painful and sometimes it was like Elaine’s favorite mode of evaluating badness and could be measured in Hindenburgs.
Never, however, did it go well. Or was it a repeated event. I’m…um…kind of the worst at dating. That’s really all I have to say about that. You’d think I’d have all these uproarious stories but mostly they range from sad to things that made numerous therapists say “um. That’s not…I don’t know what to say about that” so I don’t go into details. I promise you that you don’t want me to.
HOWEVER! I am very good at falling in love with people. If awards were given out for this? I would win them ALL. Having it be requited, well, no, those awards would not be gracing my trophy case. (SIDE NOTE: no. No, of course I don’t have a trophy case, what would I put in it, my spelling bee awards from junior high? I don’t even know where those ARE. FINE THEY’RE AT MY PARENTS’ HOUSE ARE YOU HAPPY?) Sometimes it’s a quick thing and sometimes it takes forever but all of a sudden BAM I fall crazy in love with someone and then I’m a stupid giddy schoolgirl and eventually I end up getting my heart broken or I have to tough-love myself and say, “AMY. You stop this RIGHT NOW. This person IS NOT INTERESTED.”
OK, so anyway. I don’t date after the failed internet-dating experiment of 2005 (I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT) and I try REALLY REALLY HARD not to fall in love with people who aren’t interested (and honestly, if I fall in love with them, they’re not going to be in love with me, because I can pick ’em. Ooh, can I pick ’em. I have a RADAR for the people who aren’t going to fall in love with me. They’re the ones I want, apparently. You know that song about “I love a parade?” That’s me, only with a CHALLENGE. I love a challege!) I try hard. It doesn’t always work but I try really hard.
But then I found this article and I realized WHY I am broken and choose these people, even though they’re honestly kind of jerks most of the time. And I’m really quite intelligent otherwise.
IT IS NOT THAT I’M BROKEN IT IS SCIENCE.
Here’s the thing that all of these men have in common: they ALL do this same thing. So apparently I have a type.
They act TOTALLY INTO ME and then they act ALL COLD AND WEIRD and then they act TOTALLY INTO ME AGAIN and this goes back and forth and back and forth and I have no idea what to make of it and it’s like a person watching a tennis match until they get all dizzy and fall over. And then get hit by a bus.
You’d THINK that would make someone say, “Hey, this person I’ve hitched my wagon to, they’re an asshole, time to move on,” but NOPE. Not me! I sit around waiting for the crumbs of acknowledgement.
So I THOUGHT it was because I was broken and also quite stupid, until I read that article I linked to above. NOT BROKEN. SCIENCE!!!
It’s apparently the “allure of unpredictable romantic partners.” That sounds nice, doesn’t it? Like a romantic comedy. Possibly starring Ewan McGregor. I’d watch that. Probably while crying.
So the sciency types did this test where they gave subjects fruit juice and water and scanned their brains while doing it. The subjects’ brains lit up like a Christmas tree with dopamine when the fruit juice/water rewards came at unexpected intervals, while the brains just kind of yawned and played another hand of solitaire when the rewards came at predictable 10-second intervals.
Apparently, our brains, going back to CAVEMAN TIMES, are programmed to signal us to pay attention when something unexpected happens. They signal us by releasing dopamine. Dopamine, in case you’re not obsessed with weird-ass shit like I am, is your pleasure chemical. Among many other things, it signals a feeling of bliss. It’s one of the chemicals your body’s stewing in when you’re all stupid-giddy in love.
So being with a partner who’s unpredictable about his/her affection is like being inconsistently given fruit juice – it fires off your dopamine like a shootout at the OK Corral. The smart, thinky part of your brain might be all “THIS IS THE WORST SUCK!” but your animal brain is all “Ahhhhh that’s the stuff! SIGNAL! SIGNAL!” and is filling your brain with DRUGS. Drugs that make you feel PLEASURE.
Your brain is a dark alley on the bad side of town filled with drug pushers. Didn’t your mom teach you to stay away from those places? Tsk.
So our smart brains say “this person is bad news!” and our drugged-up brain lolling around in an opium den is all “NO NO GIMME MORE” so you’re torn and according to science you keep going back to the person, but you don’t even KNOW you’re doing this shit, because it’s happening WAY DEEP DOWN IN YOUR PSYCHE.
This is super-distressing, science.
I totally knew I was doing this, I just didn’t know there was a reason. Other than the brokenness, of course.
This reminds me of the study with the rats and the uncertain results. Our beloved Andreas attempted mightily to find me a link to this and could not, but here, I’ll let him tell you about it, he’s better than a link anyway:
@lucysfootball Still looking for the actual study, but the point was that the uncertainty of the reward created higher fixation rates..
— Andreas Heinakroon (@heinakroon) November 20, 2012
@lucysfootball ..than the absolute certainty of a reward, ie rats stopped to press the lever if it ALWAYS delivered a pellet of food…
— Andreas Heinakroon (@heinakroon) November 20, 2012
@lucysfootball ..They only used it if actually hungry. If they cound’t figure out when the reward would come, they’d keep on pressing it.
— Andreas Heinakroon (@heinakroon) November 20, 2012
(Ignore where it looks like I’ve repeated the same thing three times, that’s just because he’s responding to my tweet three times. I promise I don’t say the same thing over and over. Well, I *do*, just not that obnoxiously. MOST of the time, anyway.)
So I remember reading about this study, probably in one of my psych classes in grad school. There were these rats. And the rats were in a cage with a lever. The lever could distribute food whenever they pressed it, or the lever could be dicked with so it gave food out at unpredictable intervals.
As Andreas said, the rats that were in the cage where they knew the outcome, they’d stop on by the lever if they wanted a nosh.
The rats in the unpredictable cage would beat their little paws bloody against that lever, hoping against hope that this time, this press, this would be the one. The one that would bring the manna down from the heavens. Because it happened once. IT COULD HAPPEN AGAIN.
(I think this is probably the same mentality that leads people to gamble until they lose their homes.)
I’m the rat. I’m the beating-my-paw-bloody-against-the-lever rat.
BUT, according to SCIENCE, we ALL are. It’s not just me! It’s ALL of us! Because of the effing DOPAMINE!
Also, being a person with a screwed-up brain (no, seriously, that’s why they put people like me on antidepressants, because our seratonin and such are all out of whack) I can only assume my dopamine is probably all weird like the rest of my brain chemistry.
SCIENCE! Why are you screwing with me? It’s not bad enough you gave me bad skin, eyes, and frazzly hair? Now you have to make me fall in love with jerks, too? (Well, happy to say, most of that is in the past. Because as an adult, I just decided I’M NOT DOING THIS ANYMORE and refuse to fall in love at ALL. That’ll teach ’em. I just removed myself from the game. WINNER!)
Well, here’s a newsflash, people who think they can just be assholes because science backs you up and therefore you can just treat people’s hearts casually: science might be drugging us up, but our smart brains eventually get fed up.
Like addicts who have had enough, we finally reach a breaking point where we’re tired of waking up on some stranger’s porch wearing poorly-chosen clothing choices with a taste in our mouth akin to used kitty litter and we say NO MORE and we start attending AA. Or we go cold turkey. Or we just say, hit the road, Jack, no more of your stupid games, I’ll find someone who actually gives a shit ALL the time, not just when they feel like it or need something or just for the fun of it all.
Also, you might be a little bit of a psychopath. Just think about that for a minute, ok? If you’re not interested in someone, TELL THEM THAT. Don’t leave them hanging. Just tell them you’re not interested and let them move on, jerko.
BUT, that being SAID, I am just so pleased science has an explanation for why I’m a rat with a bloody paw. Thanks, science. You really came through. Now let’s talk about this unruly hair thing, science. SURELY YOU HAVE A REASON FOR THIS. I am tired of looking like a rooster.
