When you meet someone attractive, dopamine and cortisol spike, creating obsessive thoughts that feel like love but are actually lust. True love is quieter: a stable, lower-arousal state, not the neurochemical chaos of early attraction.
Is how do we recognize whether we are dealing with love or lust, obsession, or an actual desire to be in a committed relationship?
When we first meet someone and we're really excited about them, and there's like that surge of connection that you feel with this person, it's called chemistry. We think that it's love, but really what's happening is that dopamine is increasing, cortisol is increasing. There's almost like a little mini crisis that's happening because we are not in control anymore. This person is sort of like in our thoughts. For people who really value value novelty and adventure, who lean more towards dopamine. That's really exciting, but at the same time, it also can be incredibly destabilizing. When that increases, serotonin decreases. If someone already has low serotonin, or even just the natural decrease of serotonin with the rise of cortisol, what happens is that then we start to become obsessive and we start to ruminate and we start to think we love this person when really you're in lust.
The Library of Minds: Brain Coach: How to Stay Sharp When AI Does the Thinking | Jim Kwik
