The Secret Ingredient To Strong Sexual Attraction: The Power of Belonging.

Moving is supposed to be one of the most stressful activities you can engage in, and it's certainly true that, um, it has been hard work just moving my stuff to this new flat here in Sheffield. But I wouldn't say it was stressful as such. Physically hard, yes, but not stressful, because what I've done is to come home in lots of ways, although I've never been here before, obviously, in this flat. But I feel as though I've come to a place where I'm greeted by name, where the people in the pub, which is 100 yards away, already know my name and what I drink and have it ready for me when I go in. No, I sound like a caricature now. But that sense of belonging is such an important part of your sexual attraction to someone. And Suzanne Noble was talking yesterday about having sex with someone 3 times and then wanting to spend the rest of your life with them, even though you know it's a bad thing and a bad decision. That's, that's kind of the oxytocin effect, the oxytocin, um, effect on, on the way in which we live our lives. But we can get it not only from sex. Sex is a good way of getting it, of course. But oxytocin is also the hormone that gives you that sense of well-being, of welcoming, of, of being somewhere that you are liked, that you are known, that you are appreciated. And even if you know in your rational mind that this is not going to work, as Suzanne Noble Noble says, you still Pursue the hope that someday it will. I have moved house now, and I'm getting the oxytocin high every day without having to have sex, to be honest. I get the sunshine reflected off the water, I get the canal, I get the— I've got a gym next door, I've got a café, I've got a pub, I've got the central city is just behind me. It is just wonderful feeling somewhere that— feeling that you are somewhere that you want to be and that wants you. And that, I think, is a metaphor for the way in which we should pursue our relationships.