How the Female Brain Falls in Love

Relationships have always fascinated me, and I often found myself spending hours and hours listening to audiobooks and online content about different relationship topics. From the secrets to maintaining a relationship to seduction, I love digging deep into different types of dynamics and patterns that can exist between two people.

Some of the books I came across are Robert Greene’s “The Art of Seduction” (unabridged), and even some of the pick-up artists’ bible, “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists” and “The Truth”, both by Neil Strauss.

In the past couple of years, I’ve also been ardently researching the masculine and feminine dynamics, not only in relationships but also within myself. I found myself really drawn to understand how the dance of seduction and attraction can play out between two people, between their masculine and feminine polarity.

Recently, I came across two books that really grounded my understanding of the main differences between men and women, and why certain dynamics in my own relationships seemed so hard to work out.

Dr. Louann Brizendine’s “The Female Brain” and “The Male Brain” are based on scientific research on women’s and men’s brains, and she describes how our hormonal differences directly impact our way of thinking and behaving in different phases of our lives and in relationships.

The main differences between the female brain and the male brain

The female brain is mainly influenced by estrogen, oxytocin and dopamine when it comes to bonding, while the male brain is mainly influenced by testosterone, vasopressin and dopamine.

Because of these differences, and how our brains are infused with these different hormones since gestation, we are often driven to value certain aspects of relationships, as well as how we behave as result.

For example, while men have more tendency to take action, compete and explore, women tend to favor harmony and cooperation. Women’s brains are more in tune with emotions and all the subtler signs such as body language during an interaction, putting a strong emphasis on connection, while men’s brains tend to shut off the emotional parts in order to focus on problem-solving.

The more we can understand our differences, the more we can actually appreciate and minimize our conflicts, and use our complementary capacities to work together instead of against each other.

Men also usually thrive from stress and find themselves bonding over overcoming obstacles together, whereas women usually bond over relaxing and intimate activities together.

The popular push-pull techniques for seduction

Perhaps some of the most common techniques I’ve read from different books, content and specialists are playing with hot and cold.

To seduce your target person, you have to masterfully play with your level of enthusiasm and availability while maintaining a sense of mystery. This often means pulling back at certain times, so that you tease the other person and trigger their dopamine reward system to keep them hooked up for more, just like how people get hooked up with gambling.

Part of these techniques is also about triggering the other person’s insecurities so that they keep feeling obsessed about you.

I have personally experienced a similar dynamic (quite an unhealthy version) in one of my past relationships.

So after reflecting on this, and after reading the two books on the male and the female brain, I can now see clearly how it actually worked on me and why it didn’t work out for me in the long run.

How the female brain bonds and falls in love

When it comes to attachment, estrogen drives us to feel the need to interact and bond with others harmoniously, oxytocin keeps us more and more attached to someone, and dopamine keeps us motivated and looking forward to more interaction.

During the first two weeks of women’s menstruation cycle, estrogen levels raise and we feel more and more driven to interact and connect with others, which culminates in the ovulation phase.

With emotional and physical intimacy, and especially with orgasms during physical intimacy, the production of oxytocin gets triggered so that we start to bond with the other person.

As we meet someone and enjoy spending time with this person, our dopamine reward system leads us to fantasize and look forward to meeting him more times.

Mainly because of estrogen and oxytocin, women often have a stronger intuition as well as hypervigilance regarding how emotionally connected they are with their partners.

So when a man applies push-pull techniques to keep her hooked on him, he can trigger a woman’s fundamental brain wiring, making her obsessed with him by trying to figure out how to fix their connection.

The problem with this kind of dynamic is that it can trigger high cortisol levels in her body. This can significantly lower her estrogen and oxytocin levels, which affects her long-term capacity to really become attached to him.

When a woman is hooked on him by the need to harmonize their relationship, she is not truly becoming attached to him. Her brain is wired to fix any issue that threatens the harmony of her connections because of its own evolutionary reasons (as women depended on others for survival), so she would continuously obsess over their relationship until she can finally break the pattern herself.

And she will eventually break it, as continuous cortisol production blocks the production of estrogen and oxytocin, blocking her from getting attached to him (oxytocin), or even her desire to do so (estrogen).

I have personally experienced this, and in one of my past relationships, I was feeling so frequently stressed by the hot and cold dynamic that I ended up detaching myself from the other person, even if I was obsessed with working things out with him.

For a woman to fall in love and develop a healthy attachment with her partner, she needs to have a safe and stable space where she can relax and feel secure to open herself up to the other person.

Estrogen levels drive her to desire connection and interaction. The more she can enjoy the time spent together, in a safe and relaxed space, the more oxytocin gets produced, to make her feel bonded with her partner.

And all this leads to her dopamine reward system keeping her longing for more.

For the female brain to fall in love, she needs to first feel safe, relaxed and cherished with stability and consistency. Then the quality of the time spent together and the intimacy gradually builds her attachment toward her partner.

Suggestions for bonding with the female brain

In Dr. Louann Brizendine’s book, she described how the ability of a woman to orgasm is linked to how relaxed and safe she feels in the moment and towards her partner.

A woman can be both gentle and calm like the Summer breeze, and wild and powerful like tsunami waves. But her heart and body are like a delicate and sophisticated flower that gradually opens up if she can slowly ease into joy and pleasure, and out of stress.

Foreplay is often underrated, and yet an ambiance of playfulness and intimacy, even way before sex, can create safety and connectedness that can be a strong aphrodisiac and bonding experience for a woman.

The aftercare can also affect how the bonding develops. As a woman’s brain is filled with oxytocin, any bonding interaction (such as cuddling and gentle touches) can further enhance the effect.

And it is often the small things, and not necessarily the big ones, that foster little bids of connection throughout the day. Simple gentle touches while passing by each other, a cup of water out of care for the other, or appreciating each other’s company through simple words or even a smile, all these can slowly build up an intimate ambiance that opens up a woman’s heart and relaxes her body.

And the better they know about each other’s preferred love languages, the better.

Lastly, one of the strongest aphrodisiacs, at least based on my experience, is the consistency and stability of my partner. It’s not by accident that many romantic novels write about male main characters who are consistently and ardently after the woman they desire.

It’s not really the grandiose displays of romance that matter, but rather the consistency of her partner’s desire that does the ultimate trick.

Since women are wired to detect any potential threats (such as loss of attraction) in a connection, any perceived lack of stability can potentially stress her out in the long run and block her capacity for bonding.

Besides, there is just something really delicious about men who knows what they want and shows up consistently.

At the end of the day, what I love about men is how their masculine energy allows us to ease into our own feminine energy even more.

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Mónica Valverde is a daydreamer navigating the experience of human life. She’s in love with Spirituality, Inner Work and Relationships.

If you find this interesting, feel free to check out other related articles:

Why Marriage Counseling Didn’t Work For Me And What I Wish I Knew

3 Feminine Principles That Improved My Relationships

3 Relationship Myths That Stubbornly Persists In The Personal Development World

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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