Have you ever thought about this?

Likely not.

You probably just take it for granted.

You fall in love with whoever you do.

But if you think about the people you’ve liked in the past?

You can probably identify a pattern.

I’ve always liked the work of Helen Fisher who studies romantic love, and also writes about what draws us to the people we fall in love with.

In her book Why Him Why Her?

She gets into this.

According to Fisher?

Attraction is all about hormones and neurotransmitters.

You have two of each of these that impacts who you are, and determines who you are going to find attractive. The hormones are testosterone and estrogen, and the neurotransmitters are dopamine and serotonin.

Dopamine makes you spontaneous, enthusiastic and independent.

It also makes you flexible and a risk taker.

Testosterone makes you direct and decisive.

You are also less emotional and more logical.

Serotonin makes you traditional and calm.

You are a conscientious “ducks in a row” person.

Estrogen makes you intuitive and introspective.

You are empathetic, trusting and emotionally intelligent.

What usually happens is you will have a primary type, and then another that comes in as a close second. Which of these is your dominant two types, impacts who you find attractive.

Dopamine types like dopamine types.

Testosterone types like their opposites.

Serotonin types are drawn to people like them.

Estrogen types enjoy a balancing energy.

If I look at myself, my primary type stems from high testosterone, and my secondary type from serotonin. The first makes me analytical so I think I know it all, and the second makes me a controlled concrete thinker.

Cool Girl’s primary type is serotonin based.

She is the quintissential “ducks in a row” girl.

Her secondary type is estrogen based.

This makes her sweet and empathetic.

If you look at the list above of who’s attracted to who, you can see why she and I get along. Our testosterone and estrogens make our opposites attract, and our shared serotonins mean our ducks happily swim in the same pond.

How about you?

Why don’t you have some fun?

Okay if you’re not a dopamine person?

Get analytical instead!

Think about your current or past partners.

Can you understand why you are into them?

Can you understand why some people don’t do it for you?

So what do you think? Is Helen Fisher onto something here, and if she is does it make sense to pay more attention to these traits when you’re connecting with people?