A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

In her pleased excitement, Ruth walked around the desk to give Carol a reassuring hug. It was one of the few times that the two had actually come into physical contact. It was brief. Carol was a little embarrassed, but greatly relieved by Ruths reaction. Ruth exulted in happy anticipation. Now that Xaviers Love Two had fallen on to someone else, she was all the more eager to see her friend, since he posed no danger. Theres just one thing that bothers me, Ruth said after she had resumed her seat across from Carol. Its Scott Brigham. I dont know him. So they arranged for Ruth to meet Scott at Carols the next night for dinner.

Chapter XV Epilogue
Eventually, Love Two will be discovered, but it might not be found where the psychologists have been looking for it. Alan Browne in Love Two. I felt very sorry for Dr. Young. If he was no better than any of the others, he was no worse. No one quite anticipated all the heavy artillery that would be directed at him from all sides. Just because he said he loved me. Another tragic love story. Nancy Mackintosh in her diary. he year is 2049. Carol Eisman and Ruth Payne relax side by side in the comfortable mobile bedchairs with which they maneuver through the wide hallways and garden paths of the house they had built for themselves. Until she died, Ruth and Donnas mother, Edna, who had retired to a gracious old age, lived in a wing of the building especially designed for her. They had made a happy, busy, yet still independent, female trio. Now Ruth and Carol, in their nineties, kept up with scientific work in their separate quarters, but lately were spending more and more time together, just talking about all that had happened and about what might happen in the future. Together, they reminisced partly with sadness, partly with regret, and partly with pride. hen Brew3 proved successful with humans, all hell did, indeed, break loose, just as Carol had anticipated, but in some ways that she could not have guessed. Others had copied Carols formula, and effective love potions flooded the market. The political upheaval was penetrating. Congressional sessions lasted until the wee morning hours. Some conservative senators were unyielding: Brew-3 was a dangerous drug, immoral to use. Love was not something that should be messed with. A more moderate, but still highly moralistic view was that it should be banned until more was known about it. On the furthest left, egged on by the latest incarnation of the 1960s love children, were those who advised no restriction be placed on use until more was known about its positive, as well as possible negative, effects. In the meantime, as might be expected from what Carol, Xavier, Ruth, Scott, and Donna had known from those first meetings as a working group, once the cat was out of the bag or, if you prefer, the genie out of the bottle, the unstoppable march of events began to unfold. Unfortunately, especially in view of later events, there did arise a schism among the five who attended those now historical meetings. Because of their past experiences, and whatever else that made

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

them what they were, Donna, Xavier, and Scott joined ideologically to encourage wide use, and were impatient with governmental opposition. Scott had said, Now that we know it works, and now that we know, or have fairly good assurance that it is safe, and we also know its power for good, it would be wrong to withhold it from people. Donna had said, Think of the people who wont get divorced if they can be made to love each other again. Xavier was more moderate. He had said, I am thinking mainly of disease protection. If used to induce monogamy, which it would do, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases could be stopped in their tracks. On the other hand, I wish we knew more about it and I wish we had an antidote. But Scott and Donna had insisted that only if it is used can remaining questions be answered. They said that now that we finally possess what people have longed for since before the beginning of the written word, they have a right to it. Carol and Ruth, and partly Xavier, the three who had experienced Love Two, were less certain about what the next step should be. They could see the advantages, but they could also see reason for concern. They had always felt that way, and so, aside from Ruths yearly lecture, they had written almost nothing on the subject. When people began to get excited about the early animal work about which Carol had published a brief account, many researchers tried to repeat her experiments, but they were unable to find the ingredients from which the critical element could be derived. Carol and Ruth had stayed out of the conflict. Through studied discretion they refrained from calling undue attention to themselves. They confined what little writing they did to scientific journals, and they resisted being objects of focus for the media by diverting attention to the work of other researchers. Carol would say, I think you really want to talk with someone doing active research. She would routinely refer them elsewhere. Often, she would even supply the reporter with the other researchers phone number and email address. It had worked well, protecting them from curious eyes and distracting attentions. As they grew older and spent less time in their labs, their garden and dogs, plus conversation with each other, gave them a pleasant position from which to reflect on and to observe from a distance the unfolding consequences of their Love Two scientific handiwork. Thus it was only from a comfortable distance that Carol and Ruth had watched the social changes unfurl. They did not serve as witnesses during Congressional deliberations. They had predicted some of what actually happened, but other things came as a total surprise. They predicted that the love potion would be added to the governments list of illegal substances thereby producing black market opportunities, but they had not predicted Scott Brighams synthesizing of a safe antidote and cure of Love Two. For years, what to do about Brew-3 had been bandied about among governments. Not surprisingly, aside from illegal traffic, it was the Scandinavians who first accepted and used Brew-3, even before the antidote was found. After that there was widespread use, legal and illegal, among African countries. When, finally, it was unequivocally shown that the Love Two object was selected within minutes of ingesting the drug, several other countries passed laws that would allow at least limited and controlled use. At the end, before the antidote, the United States and Spain were the only countries banning use or production of Brew-3. This had been followed by another wave of scientific migrs. But what happened to Donna and Scott was the worst of all our memories, Ruth said, one summer day as she and Carol sat in the warmth of their garden. They had not spoken much about that part of the story. Their adventures had a happy ending, Carol offered. I know, but I miss them. They are getting on in years, and there have been so many terrorist disruptions to email, that communication has been difficult.

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

hat had happened after their group meetings was that Xavier returned to his sons and new wife in Australia, where he worked for Brew-3 acceptance in Africa and among some of the tribes in New Guinea. His main concern, and his success, was in stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Scott and Donna became public activists. They arranged for Brew-3 manufacture and distributed it just enough above cost to pay for a modest living. Yes, they had, of course, taken it with each other. Whether their partnership would have been as strong without it can never be known. Eventually, laws were passed that they broke. After serving concurrent sentences of two years each in prison, they left the United States using falsified documents. In Portugal, where they remained for the rest of their lives, Scott developed the Love Two antidote. They called it L2-minus. It was hardest on Edna, who could never again see her daughter, her son-in-law, or her grandchildren, should there be any. There would, however, be no grandchildren. Edna had only Arthur, but Arthur did travel to Maine twice a year to spend time with his grandmother. She had been a mentor to him, and had influenced his decision to become a journalist. Peters fate was also sad, Carol said. Peter had, himself, been the victim of a terrorist attack at a hospital where he was working with small pox victims. He died a hero, Ruth said. A lesser person would have been defeated, but my husband was never a lesser person, not even in his most foolish days of psychotherapeutic silliness. By the time they were released from prison, Donna and Scott were well into middle age. Scott had used the incarceration period for scientific thinking. By the time he had settled in a Portuguese laboratory, he was ready to get back into his biochemical efforts toward the antidote. While serving his prison time he had developed a theory of how an antidote might relate to Brew-3; it only remained actually to carry out the work. Although they had been largely spared first hand experiences, Carol and Ruth were keenly aware of the many changes that were occurring across the globe. Political conditions were under perennial upheaval in many countries. There was terrorism based in religious dissatisfaction, and there was more terrorism based in vengeance. Wide use of Brew-3 had been temporarily banned by the military of several countries where it was feared that a love pill would undermine the will to fight and, especially, to kill. However, most scientists maintained that, just as Love Two had little or no effects on other aspects of the persons personality, it would produce no diminution in willingness to fight. Some even contended that a person capable of fierceness without Love Two would be even more capable of fierceness when fired by the motive of love. Or, a soldier in the throes of Love Two would probably be less willing to leave his love to return to the battlefield, or if he could not stop thinking about her in the midst of battle, his effectiveness would surely diminish. The issue had not been settled, and Carol and Ruth made no guesses publicly or privately. The most encouraging thing about what had happened since Brew-3 was synthesized was that floodgates opened to achieve what Alan Browne had hoped for: the kind of research into human nature that might save the world through self-knowledge. People had always feared self-knowledge, Ruth said. They always have and they still do, Carol replied. But weve made some inroads, Ruth noted. I suppose we have, Carol agreed. And, eventually, we had help. Dan Dennett, Richard Lewontin, Paul Gross, Helena Cronin, and many others raised their voices in support of Brew-3. Thats right. It was brave of them because it was in the middle of the governments war against Brew-3. And against use of evolutionary theory, Carol added. There was a long pause. Then Carol said, There is something I think you should know about that first time, when I took the love potion.

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

I remember well. We based much of our later work on the excellence of your reported measures, your blood readings and subjective estimates of intensity, especially regarding intrusive thinking, were perfectly correlated, which meant they measured the same thing. That was the beginning, and how I admired the totally scientific way you dealt with the experience. Without that, things might have gone differently indeed. You kept records for five years. Yes, my records, published along with Xaviers, were important in influencing others to take up the study of Love Two. Even in the midst of all that hoopla about restricting use of Brew-3, some realized that natural Love Two was still there for studying. Most of the physiological work was done on natural Love Two, once researchers learned how to detect it from verbal reports. But, she said after an unusually lengthy pause, there was something I never told you concerning the object of my Love Two. You mean Chico? Ruth asked. I often wondered about your relationship, but I knew it was not my business to know the personal details. It was your business more than you realized. What do you mean? Chico was not the object of my Love Two experience. Who was? You were. The two old ladies who had sparked a social revolution sat quietly for a long moment. Both wished they could start again. There were so many interesting problems still to be tackled. With an effective love potion, as well as cure and accurate timing, even in the United States it had become possible for couples to apply for joint treatment. The procedure stabilized family situations. Divorce dropped to near zero, except in cases of true incompatibility. But true incompatibility did not occur often, because it became customary to select mates on the basis of mutual interests, preferences, DNA analysis, and political opinions. Only after those things were agreed on was Love Two administered to align romantic and sexual feelings with mate preferences. It was especially useful when computers matched strangers. In the United States, many objections were made at first some astute, some inarticulate. Until the law was finally changed, the United States had been the only remaining country in which there were crimes, including murders, committed because of the love potion. We were wise to stand apart from the controversies, Ruth said. We were wise never with the one secret exception to have used it on humans. We knew others would take it up, and we knew it would be controversial But I am stunned by your revelation. I had no idea. Of course you didnt. We know Love Two can be hidden. How did you recover? I never really did, but I was always too embarrassed to tell you. Besides, we know only too well from the many cases weve studied, that a person who is the object, but not in the state, feels uncomfortable. My word! said Ruth as they both looked outward to watch the action at the bird feeders.

Cezannes Cupid, in Plaster