Men Chase, Women Choose: The Neuroscience of Meeting, Dating, Losing Your Mind, and Finding True Love

Love is one of our strongest biological drives, but it can be frustratingly elusive and misunderstood. Music, literature, and movies are filled with common folklore about love and millions of TV viewers tune in to shows like The Bachelor and read the latest relationship tome with one simple hope: to uncover some nugget of mystic wisdom that will help them understand the exciting, addictive, insane experience called 'love'.  

Men Chase, Women Choose, is the first book to offer cutting-edge research that explains how the brain works when two people first meet, start to date, fall in love, and then move into long-term, real love. Maslar's unique approach brings together the latest and most relevant neurological, physiological, and biochemical research on the science of love while incorporating stories and examples of composite characters based on participants of her popular classes and seminars. She explains that 'love' is actually neural activity as well as the presence or absence of certain neurotransmitters that bathe the brain, and it follows a precisely timed path of four, easy-to-understand phases: the exciting norepinephrine-charged meeting phase; the addictive dopamine dating phase; the insane falling-in-love and losing your mind phase; and finally, the safe, warm and wonderful, true, long-term love phase.

For the past decade Maslar has made it her mission to learn all she can about the science behind falling in love, including its evolutionary benefits. Her goal—and the purpose of this book—is to help men and women find and maintain love by understanding and applying the science behind it.

The bottom line? We actually can have long-lasting, nourishing, exciting, passionate love with little or no risk!

"Men Chase, Women Choose is warm and witty with a perfect balance of science and insight.  You'll find yourself wondering why a book of this magnitude didn't come out sooner.  But like everything else in life, all in due time." --Gabe Berman, author of Live Like A Fruit Fly

"Dawn Maslar is Barbara DeAngelis meets Bruce Lipton."—Ernest Chu, author of Soul Currency

"Dawn Maslar's book Men Chase, Women Choose offers many insightful ideas on sex and relationships.  Whether in between relationships or currently in one, readers will find valuable insight on how men and women interact with each other and what dynamics long-term relationships need to work.  Maslar mixes scientific concepts, often with humor, making it a light and enjoyable read.  I highly recommend this book to anyone searching to find true love." —Theresa Braun, author Groom and Doom: A Greek Love Story and a dating blogger.

"Dawn's background and knowledge take the complicated and confusing to an 'easy to understand and applicable approach.' I have been reading, listening and using her principles over the past few years and it has made such a difference. My friends and I can't wait until her new book." —Renni Carlson, Healthy GPS Student

"I love Love. I love world-class, Olympian-level, crazy-passionate, capital-L love. I believe that deep down, we all do. But I've noticed with my Joy Training clients that many people are reluctant to own their love of love. It's fear that keeps them distanced from their oh-so-human longings for genuine connection. Fear of rejection. Fear of hurt. Fear of disclosure. Thankfully, Dawn Maslar shines the light of cutting-edge scientific information onto these fears, proving once and for all that love is our evolutionary destiny. Understanding the anthropological principles that underlie our responses to love does not lessen its beauty and enigmatic wonder, but allows us to clearly view love as a biological responsibility. Since each individual who grows in love will cause the level of our collective love-pool to rise, Dawn Maslar is undoubtedly making the world a better place by sharing her wisdom in this funny, smart, and provocative guide."—Lisa McCourt, author of Juicy Joy: 7 Simple Steps to Your Glorious, Gutsy Self

"In order to create a fulfilling life, a fundamental understanding of the way we perceive and function within our lives concerning love is absolutely necessary.  This book weaves together biological, mental and spiritual knowledge relating to love, which lays the foundation for a more empowered, fulfilling life.   As a certified life coach and speaker, helping people to make empowered choices and lead lives away from reactivity into conscious creation, I am so excited to see a book that will help facilitate clear understanding in this fundamentally important area of our lives!  This book is on the leading edge, combining the latest scientific knowledge with spiritual concepts for our progressively building, cultural quest of leading more powerful lives.  I cannot wait to have this book available for my clients!
—Jana Glass, Certified Intuitive Coach®

"Prior to working with Dawn, my life in this areas was filled with sadness and despair. I was truly hopeless and though things would never change. Well, things did change –- I changed. I am no longer shackled by my choices of yesterday. Today I have a sense of freedom I had never known was possible. My spirit has been restored and my life divinely altered. Now that is a powerful feeling!—LeLania McDaniel, Coaching Client

"We just love this book. We've been writing about relationships for years, but never looked into the science behind it. We are more 'how to do it' guys, than the 'why to works' guys but it's great. We've always known The Rules work and now we know why." —Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider, co-authors of AllThe Rules and Not Your Mother's Rules

Finally, a book that doesn't treat finding true love like a Nora Ephron movie! Biology, nature, evolution… they all play a role in helping us find that special someone. Or in keeping them from us forever. And in Men Chase, Women Choose you'll understand, once and for all, the difference between a love that endures, and a lust that flames out once the lights come on.  Anyone who still thinks making poor decisions, falling for "bad boys," or not having the right looks, money, career, car, or hair is the reason you can't meet the person of your dreams, Dawn Maslar has your wake up call." -- Eric Rogell, author of The Art of War for Dating

Dawn Maslar, MS, is an award-winning author, adjunct biology professor and the go-to authority on the science of love. She is a contributing author at scienceofrelationship.com, a collection of the leading experts in the field of scientific relationship research. She is a TEDx speaker on How Your Brain Falls In Love and worked with the TED Education division to create their Science of Attraction video. She was voted one of the Top 20 Most Followed Dating Experts on twitter and Best 28 Dating, Marriage and Relationship Blogs in the UK to followin 2015. Her work has been featured on South Florida Today, Pittsburgh Tribune and NPR.

Introduction

'What am I doing wrong?'

I looked up to see a beautiful blond woman with familiar green eyes. Her voice cracked as she held back her tears. 'I thought I did everything right, but here I am again,' she said.

Her name was Jessica, and we'd originally met when she came to me for relationship coaching two years earlier. She had a frustrating and almost predictable relationship pattern. She would meet an amazing man, and the relationship would start out with wonderful promise. But when she dated, she would get crazy. Her anxiety level would increase and she would either jump into a sexual relationship where she fell in love but he didn't, or she would pull away, finding some flaw or perceived mistrust in him. The details of each relationship were different, but eventually a glaring problem would arise. She told me the first man had lied, the second worked too much, and the third chatted with women online. Now she was here again, looking for help.

I had worked with her in the past to break her pattern of picking men that were wrong for her, but now another problem had arisen. She was picking better men, but she still couldn't seem to find love. Her problem this time wasn't with men but with herself and the dating process.

Love isn't just one thing that you luckily fall into. Finding and maintaining lifelong love is a process with several stages that are biologically different from one another. Because the stages are different, you can feel different emotions during each phase. Most people, particularly women, have trouble with anxiety. As you move along the path to lifelong love, your level of anxiety fluctuates, sometimes to the point of panic. At other times, your anxiety is gone, and you feel euphoric. This euphoric phase is the one that most people associate with love.

My goal in writing this book is to explain what happens on the path to lifelong love. I'll point out the twists and turns as well as the potholes, the places that can cause trouble and hurt you. When you understand the science of love, it will help you easily and effortlessly find nourishing and passionate, long-lasting love.

©2016 Dawn Maslar. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Men Chase, Women Choose: The Neuroscience of Meeting, Dating, Losing Your Mind, and Finding True Love. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442.