Romantic love is not the same as wanting to fuck someone's brains out

Well, well. Here's brain research that says fresh, romantic love has nothing to do with erect phalluses and moist vags.

"New love can look for all the world like mental illness, a blend of mania, dementia and obsession that cuts people off from friends and family and prompts out-of-character behavior - compulsive phone calling, serenades, yelling from rooftops - that could almost be mistaken for psychosis. Now for the first time, neuroscientists have produced brain scan images of this fevered activity, before it settles into the wine and roses phase of romance or the joint holiday card routines of long-term commitment.

"In an analysis of the images appearing in The Journal of Neurophysiology, researchers in New York and New Jersey argue that romantic love is a biological urge distinct from sexual arousal.

"It is closer in its neural profile to drives like hunger, thirst or drug craving, the researchers assert, than to emotional states like excitement or affection. As a relationship deepens, the brain scans suggest, the neural activity associated with romantic love alters slightly, and in some cases primes areas deep in the primitive brain that are involved in long-term attachment.
The research helps explain why love produces such disparate emotions, from euphoria to anger to anxiety, and why it seems to become even more intense when it is withdrawn. In a separate, continuing experiment, the researchers are analyzing brain images from people who have been rejected by their lovers.

"'When you're in the throes of this romantic love it's overwhelming, you're out of control, you're irrational, you're going to the gym at 6 a.m. every day - why? Because she's there,' said Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University and the co-author of the analysis. 'And when rejected, some people contemplate stalking, homicide, suicide. This drive for romantic love can be stronger than the will to live.'" More here.

WHAT? I think you may find a difference between men and women about this. Every time I've fallen in love with a woman, all I can think about is fucking her 24/7 and never getting out of bed until the two of us are lost in a sticky swamp of oblivion. A little later on, like maybe a month later, I realize I'm in love, and think of how sweet and wonderful she is. But before that, all thoughts are loin-directed. Maybe that's just me. Or am I speaking for all men here?