Why Love Feels Like Truth to Your Heart — and Addiction to Your Brain

Last night I deleted his number seven times. This morning, I got up and typed it up from memory.

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If you have ever loved someone who was bad for you, you will recognize this special brand of madness. Love doesn’t feel like a decision — it feels like gravity. As if your heart has stumbled upon some lost law of the cosmos: This is my truth.

But here’s the awkward science: your brain reacts to love the way a drug addict’s does to a dose of cocaine.

The Lie Your Heart Believes

Love commandeers the same neural system underlying religious faith.

But fMRI studies suggest that when the subjects of our conversation are the things about which we most love to talk (or believe), the ventromedial prefrontal cortex lights up — the brain’s “certainty center.”

It’s how you’ll dispute evidence to support an abusive relationship. It feels really good to double down, as if your brain is pouring serotonin over skepticism to give it a shiny coat, as if you are a gambler who knows the next bet will right all previous wrongs.

Personal anecdata: I once dated a guy who lied about his job, his age, and his ex. When my…