12.2 — Attraction, and the Expiry Date on the Early Phase

The intense early phase of a relationship — the preoccupation, the idealisation, the inability to concentrate, the physical pull — is a real, describable state. Dorothy Tennov called it limerence; most research calls it passionate love.

It reliably fades. Estimates vary and the common range is somewhere between one and three years, longer in relationships kept partly apart, shorter under daily domestic reality.

This is the single most consequential fact in this Part, because a great many relationships end at exactly the point where the state expires — with both people concluding that the love has gone, when what has ended is a phase with a known duration.

What is actually happening

The early state has a recognisable profile: intrusive thinking about the person, idealisation, heightened energy, reduced appetite and sleep, and strong reward responses to reminders of them. Brain imaging of people in this state shows activation in reward and motivation systems — the same wanting machinery from 8.1.

Which explains three otherwise puzzling features.

It is a wanting state, not a liking state. Which is why it is more intense before the relationship is secure and diminishes once it is.

It is fed by uncertainty. Intermittent reward produces the most persistent pull (1.2). This is why an unreliable partner can feel more compelling than a reliable one, and it is worth knowing, because people frequently read the intensity as significance.

And it is not evidence about compatibility. The state can be produced by almost anyone under the right conditions, and it says nothing about whether you should build a life with them.

What actually predicts attraction

Less romantic than expected and quite well established.

Proximity. The strongest single predictor of who you end up with is who you are repeatedly near. Studies of who befriends and marries whom show remarkable effects of physical and organisational closeness.

Familiarity. Mere exposure (1.5) — repeated contact increases liking, for faces as for everything else.

Similarity. From 1.1: strong and consistent. Similar background, values, education, outlook. The "opposites attract" idea does not survive the data.

Reciprocal liking. Knowing someone likes you is one of the most powerful attraction factors there is.

Physical attractiveness, which matters most early and less as you know someone.

And arousal, misattributed. People in a physiologically activated state — after exercise, on a high bridge, in a frightening situation — rate others as more attractive. The body's arousal is being read as attraction (4.1), which is why shared exciting activity works and why intense circumstances produce intense attachments.

The transition, and why it is missed

What replaces passionate love, in relationships that last, is companionate love — deep affection, trust, shared life, comfort. Lower in intensity, higher in stability.

The transition is frequently experienced as a loss because the new state does not announce itself, and the old one was unmistakable.

Two things make the transition survivable.

Expecting it. Simply knowing the phase has a duration removes the interpretation that something has gone wrong.

And deliberately adding what used to arrive free. In the early phase, attention, novelty, curiosity and physical affection are automatic. Afterwards they are not, and they have to be scheduled. This is not a sad compromise; it is what 12.7 is about, and it is the difference between the relationships that deepen and the ones that flatten.

The two things to check before it fades

Since judgement is impaired during the early state, these are worth checking deliberately.

How do they behave when it costs them something? (10.8). The early phase is entirely cheap.

And how do they handle the first real disagreement? Not whether you have one — how it is conducted (12.1). The first conflict is more informative than the first six months of harmony, and it is the one thing the early state actively conceals, because both people are on best behaviour and neither is yet inconvenienced.

What to do

Do not make permanent decisions during the first year if you can avoid it. The state is temporary, it distorts judgement in a known direction, and it will still be recognisable afterwards if the relationship is right.

Distinguish intensity from compatibility. Intensity is produced by uncertainty and arousal. Compatibility is boring to observe and it is what you will be living inside.

Expect the transition and name it out loud when it comes. "This feels different from a year ago" is much better said than left as a private worry.

And when the free version ends, start the deliberate version. Attention, curiosity, novelty, touch — the same inputs, now chosen rather than automatic.

Next: 12.3 sorts out what the word love is actually covering, and which of its forms is the one that lasts.