Speaker 1: This is Doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KF
Speaker 1: I am six forty the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on
Speaker 1: demand on the iHeartRadio app. I welcome at the Doctorndy Walshow.
Speaker 1: Ok I am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about the science of love for years.
Speaker 1: I love weighing in on your love life. Heading to
Speaker 1: social media if you want to send me a DM
Speaker 1: at Dr Wendy Walsh at Doctor Wendy Walsh. Producer Kayla
Speaker 1: is checking Instagram tonight for sure. Okay, Dear Doctor Wendy,
Speaker 1: I have a friend group of four girls and we
Speaker 1: were discussing who we find the sexiest in our friend group.
Speaker 1: This is interesting. Okay, but you're not gay, as you're
Speaker 1: good about to tell me this is interesting. Okay, let
Speaker 1: me say this again. I have a friend group of
Speaker 1: four girls and we were discussing who we find the
Speaker 1: sexiest in our friend group. They all chose each other,
Speaker 1: and no one chose me. I'm not a lesbian, nor
Speaker 1: am I sexually attracted to my friends. However, this really
Speaker 1: hurt my feelings. Why is it still on my mind?
Speaker 1: Months later? First of all, why were you guys having
Speaker 1: this conversation ranking like a leaderboard of people's looks. I
Speaker 1: don't care if you ever refer to it as sexiest
Speaker 1: or prettiest or whatever. Who brought up this stupid spin
Speaker 1: the bottle game? That's crazy? So I don't like this
Speaker 1: friend group. And yes, if it's still on your mind,
Speaker 1: it's because they were rude to you, and they were
Speaker 1: considerate of your feelings and nobody should have even been
Speaker 1: playing that game. I do want to say, just go
Speaker 1: dump them. I do want to say that, But if
Speaker 1: they're your friends, I'm gonna say, you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: put it out of your mind and know that you're
Speaker 1: deeply beautiful and I love you, and that's all that matters.
Speaker 1: What a silly game, all right? Moving on, dear doctor Wendy,
Speaker 1: I found out a man I have been exclusive with
Speaker 1: had sex with a few men in the past in
Speaker 1: the past. Okay, I'm not sure how to move forward.
Speaker 1: I really like him and this makes me uncomfortable. How
Speaker 1: do I decide whether to move forward with him or not?
Speaker 1: So I should tell you that the person writing this
Speaker 1: is a woman. So if you had found out that
Speaker 1: he had sex with other women long before you came.
Speaker 1: How would you feel about it? Right? All you know
Speaker 1: about him now is that he's bisexual, and that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that he can't be monogamous or exclusive, right, So,
Speaker 1: somehow many people have this perception that someone's sexual orientation
Speaker 1: is somehow connected to, you know, whether they can be loyal,
Speaker 1: whether they can be trustworthy. So I think this is
Speaker 1: a great opportunity for you to explore with him what
Speaker 1: this is and have a conversation like, Hey, you know,
Speaker 1: I know you dated so and so before and now
Speaker 1: you're dating me and we are exclusive. But I'm just
Speaker 1: wondering if you're gonna be happy, you know, if your
Speaker 1: bisexuality needs to be satisfied with both genders, whether it'll
Speaker 1: be enough to be in a heterosexual relationship for you.
Speaker 1: Can we just talk about it, and you've got to
Speaker 1: bring it up in a kind of non judgmental way, right,
Speaker 1: because that is the fear so many women, Oh, he's
Speaker 1: just gonna step out on me with a guy and
Speaker 1: he's gonna say, well, that doesn't count. You know, there
Speaker 1: are women out there who say the same thing, and
Speaker 1: the dudes don't like it either, Right, So I think
Speaker 1: it's an opportunity to be more intimate, emotionally intimate, and
Speaker 1: discuss these things and find out what it means to
Speaker 1: him and explore maybe some prejudice that you have about that.
Speaker 1: All right, moving on, dear doctor Wendy. My boyfriend has
Speaker 1: been unemployed for three months and finally found employment, which
Speaker 1: is great, but it's at a strip club. Who No,
Speaker 1: he smells like other women and drinks every night when
Speaker 1: he gets in bed. You mean he doesn't drink in bed.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming you mean he drinks every night, and when
Speaker 1: he gets in bed, he smells like other women unless
Speaker 1: he's drinking in bed. I don't know. I need him
Speaker 1: to work because you know the economy, but I'm not
Speaker 1: secure in this. What should I do? That's a tough one.
Speaker 1: This is his livelihood. I think the focus should be
Speaker 1: the drinking issue, right, and the smelling like other women,
Speaker 1: Because just because you work at a strip club, whether
Speaker 1: you're on the door or your bartender serving drinks, whether
Speaker 1: you're security guard, doesn't mean you're touching other women. So
Speaker 1: how is he smelling like other women? I don't think
Speaker 1: the whole room is just sprints with perfume everywhere, right,
Speaker 1: So You need to talk about this with him. You
Speaker 1: need to talk about what his day is like, his
Speaker 1: night is like, when he goes to work. You want
Speaker 1: to talk about the pressure. Usually people in those environments
Speaker 1: that are highly sexualized environments, they get so used to
Speaker 1: it that they're not turned on. Doesn't feel like a
Speaker 1: sexual environment to them. It just feels like another work environment.
Speaker 1: But talk to him about it, and yeah, I can
Speaker 1: understand how you feel. I'm just trying to imagine, like
Speaker 1: my sweet Julio heading off every night to a strip club,
Speaker 1: watching naked women all having spontaneous erections, just saying I
Speaker 1: don't know, it could happen. It could happen. I don't know. Uh,
Speaker 1: but hey, a good opportunity to talk about it, isn't it? All? Right? Oh,
Speaker 1: here's a good one. I get this question a lot,
Speaker 1: Dear doctor Wendy. Is it okay for me to tell
Speaker 1: a man whom I've only been seeing for a month
Speaker 1: that I love him? We aren't in a relationship, but
Speaker 1: I love him so much already. I don't know if
Speaker 1: he feels the same way. Should I tell him? Or
Speaker 1: will I look crazy?
Speaker 2: Girl?
Speaker 1: You will look crazy? You will look crazy. You're not
Speaker 1: in a relationship. You've only been seeing him for a month. No, no, don't, please, don't. Don't.
Speaker 1: Any woman I know who's done this too prematurely because
Speaker 1: they got all the dopamine and oxytocin, vasapressin. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: talk about all that in just a minute in their system.
Speaker 1: It's like a drug, you know, and then before they
Speaker 1: know it, out it comes I love you, and the
Speaker 1: dude's like, Abel, I'll know you, like we had a
Speaker 1: couple dinners. I don't know. Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy, we
Speaker 1: gotta go to break. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy
Speaker 1: Wall Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on
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Speaker 1: four hour KFI Newsroom.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 2: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty, Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Just
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Speaker 1: All right, back to the subject at hand, which is
Speaker 1: the science of love. It is so funny whenever I
Speaker 1: say the words the science of love, I get sometimes
Speaker 1: some quizzical expressions from people like how could love be
Speaker 1: a science? You know, I'm a journalist. I started writing
Speaker 1: about relationships nearly thirty years ago. Okay, I'll admit it.
Speaker 1: I was trying to fix my own love life. Back then,
Speaker 1: I had ooh, a long string of well, intoxicating flings
Speaker 1: and sweet romances. But the problem was they all ended.
Speaker 1: They ended sour and awful, and I was always sitting
Speaker 1: in a bathtub crying at the end of it, all
Speaker 1: in tears, an ocean of tears. I was crying at
Speaker 1: least a bathtub of tears. So I went to therapy,
Speaker 1: and therapy started to crack open the door because it
Speaker 1: made me aware that there was a common denominator in
Speaker 1: all of those terrible relationships, and that common denominator was me.
Speaker 1: I was the one choosing my own man pain. But
Speaker 1: later I decided to go to graduate school. That was
Speaker 1: in my thirties, and that really flung open the gates
Speaker 1: to reveal the whole game board of love, and I
Speaker 1: like to say the whole game board of life, because
Speaker 1: they're intrinsically connected. So that's when I started singing about
Speaker 1: the science of love to anyone who would listen. But
Speaker 1: I got to tell you, my preaching sometimes still falls
Speaker 1: on deaf ears. So let's see. I've done a dissertation
Speaker 1: on attachment theory, I've written three books on relationships. I've
Speaker 1: done thousands of blogs, podcasts, episodes, TV appearances. I am
Speaker 1: still stunned when someone scoffs at the idea that love
Speaker 1: is a science. You see, we still have these romantic
Speaker 1: diehards out there. They post comments online about waiting for
Speaker 1: their so mateo I'm gonna throw up, that it's all
Speaker 1: about fate, that it's cosmic destiny, that it's just chemistry,
Speaker 1: that there are mysterious forces of attraction. Blah blah blah blah. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm about to present some evidence that love really is
Speaker 1: a biological, psychological, and sociological science, and it's got a
Speaker 1: ton of quantifiable data. But before I give you a
Speaker 1: few examples from the world of science, let me first
Speaker 1: say this. You should know why you should care. You
Speaker 1: see our relationships are intrinsically connected to our physical health,
Speaker 1: our mental health, and wait for it, the health of
Speaker 1: our grandkids and our great grandkids. You see, our love
Speaker 1: lives can actually change our genes. Our relationships, if they're
Speaker 1: good or bad, or toxic or not, can affect our hormones,
Speaker 1: our neurochemistry, and we will pass on those genes. It's
Speaker 1: called intergenerational trauma. So if you're in a traumatic bond,
Speaker 1: a toxic relationship, your genes are being shaped to tolerate that,
Speaker 1: or to look for that, or to respond in a
Speaker 1: fight or flight with even nice people because of that,
Speaker 1: and those genes get passed on to your kids and grandkids.
Speaker 1: All right, So let me give you a few fun
Speaker 1: facts from my favorite world of science, and let's start
Speaker 1: with the biology of love. You might have heard me
Speaker 1: say this before. People who smell the most delicious actually
Speaker 1: might help you have better sex. Okay, stay with me.
Speaker 1: There's research to support the idea that our body odor
Speaker 1: called pheromones advertise are immune system genes. Now, mother Nature
Speaker 1: made sex with someone who has a different set of immunities,
Speaker 1: really because mother Nature wants us to create stronger, fitter children. Right,
Speaker 1: Most genes when two people made them procreate, they might
Speaker 1: take long legs from one, curly hair from another, blue
Speaker 1: eyes from another, except immune system genes they combine to
Speaker 1: create a stronger human. But even if you don't plan
Speaker 1: on making babies, the sex lives of people with different
Speaker 1: immune systems tend to stay exciting for longer, according to science,
Speaker 1: just saying, pay attention to your nose, here's another fun
Speaker 1: biological fact about our love life. Oxytocin can be a
Speaker 1: big problem for women when they try to just hook up,
Speaker 1: sport sex, night stands, no strings attached, situationship, whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it. You see, the three primary neurohormones
Speaker 1: that create feelings of love are oxytocin sometimes referred to
Speaker 1: as the cuddle hormone, vasopressin I like to call that
Speaker 1: that exciting hormone, and dopamine the delusion hormone. So when
Speaker 1: women have sex, their body often produces so much oxytocin.
Speaker 1: In fact, and no other time in their life does
Speaker 1: it produce that much oxytocin except when they're breastfeeding their
Speaker 1: baby to establish the bond. So during sex, some women
Speaker 1: can accidentally fall in love bond with someone they didn't
Speaker 1: intend to bond with Uh huh. That's how oxytocin can
Speaker 1: play tricks on us. And the love hormone dopamine makes
Speaker 1: you look through life with rose colored glasses. Like literally,
Speaker 1: your partner can do no wrong when you're in those
Speaker 1: early stages of love lust and you're high on that hormone.
Speaker 1: All right, Another fun biologic fact, high testosterone man are
Speaker 1: more prone to cheating. Check his ring finger, ladies, is
Speaker 1: his ring finger long or longer than his middle finger?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it longer than his pointer finger? Does he have
Speaker 1: a low voice? Oh? This is because of exposure to
Speaker 1: certain hormones during pregnancy. And sadly, these guys are prone
Speaker 1: to invitelity, infidelity. They're vulnerable to it. Now, you can't
Speaker 1: say your genes made you do it, because there we're
Speaker 1: a thinking person, right, we have a brain. We can
Speaker 1: stop ourselves. All right. When we come back, let's talk
Speaker 1: more about the science of love, from psychology to sociology.
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 2: AM six forty Welcome back to.
Speaker 1: The Doctor Wendywall Show in KFI AM six forty live
Speaker 1: everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I am talking about the
Speaker 1: science of love. For you few naysayers out there who
Speaker 1: still think love is to science. It is a science.
Speaker 1: There are researchers in universities all over the world researching
Speaker 1: the biological pieces of love. Our behavioral pieces are sociological pieces.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because the other day I was having my
Speaker 1: class take an attachment test. And if you want to
Speaker 1: take an attachment style test, you go to let's see, Well,
Speaker 1: why don't you just google the words Chris Frayley, fr
Speaker 1: l e Y, Chris Frayley, attachment test. He's a researcher.
Speaker 1: He's collecting all kinds of data on attachment and then
Speaker 1: he collects also after he asks you questions about you know,
Speaker 1: how you feel about your best friend, then your mom,
Speaker 1: your dad, your lover, et cetera. He puts it all together.
Speaker 1: It gives you an attachment score. But they've also been
Speaker 1: collecting some demographic and other information, and I thought it
Speaker 1: really interesting because one question they added recently is what
Speaker 1: photograph is on the home screen of your cell phone.
Speaker 1: Uh huh. It says something if you have your primary
Speaker 1: attachment figure there, but if you've got your dog or
Speaker 1: you've got some landscape, just saying, all right, let's talk
Speaker 1: about psychology. Speaking of attachment theory, people with an anxious
Speaker 1: attachment style text more. You see, the anxiety around love
Speaker 1: means that they have perceived threats of abandonment. So the
Speaker 1: person who thinks they're always being abandoned is going to
Speaker 1: text constantly, or they're going to monitor the locations of
Speaker 1: their loved one. It's really interesting to note that there
Speaker 1: are neuroscientists out there who study attachment who can literally
Speaker 1: see attachment style when they put people in MRI machines.
Speaker 1: They've had people look at pictures of like neutral pictures,
Speaker 1: and then pictures of their parents or their best friend
Speaker 1: or whatever, and then sometimes a picture of their lover.
Speaker 1: And they've found sometimes some people when they're looking at
Speaker 1: a picture of their or their boyfriend or girlfriend, the
Speaker 1: fear centers of their brain light up. Do do do doo?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Attachment so interesting. It's all formed early in life, then
Speaker 1: we go out in later life and try to replicate it,
Speaker 1: which is the next fun fact on the science of
Speaker 1: love from the world of psychology. Childhood trauma can actually
Speaker 1: make us choose painful partners during early life. In particular,
Speaker 1: trauma or neglect can create certain feelings or certain behaviors
Speaker 1: that I'm sad to say are sociologically pathological, meaning that
Speaker 1: people might form bonds with prospective partners who physically or
Speaker 1: emotionally hurt them. I just want to assure everybody that
Speaker 1: all this is treatable. All this is healable by going
Speaker 1: to see a licensed clinical therapist who understands about attack
Speaker 1: the theory of attachment. But there's also the stuff that
Speaker 1: people talk about the most, and that's what I call
Speaker 1: the sociology of love. So here's a couple facts about
Speaker 1: what's happening in our social world in our ability to
Speaker 1: acquire or keep partners. There are economists out there who
Speaker 1: believe that assortative mating may be creating the big economic
Speaker 1: divide that we are seeing in this country. SOT assortative Assortative.
Speaker 1: Assortative mating is the tendency to choose romantic partners who
Speaker 1: are just like you. Whether they look like you, they
Speaker 1: behave like you, Their education is about the same, their
Speaker 1: income is about the same they might live in the
Speaker 1: same zip code. So there are behavior economics economists. Thank
Speaker 1: you some behavioral economic economy. Why am I having is
Speaker 1: stumbling over that word behavioral economists economy. There we go economists,
Speaker 1: and they believe that this assortitateive mating is playing a
Speaker 1: role in the concentration of wealth in a very small
Speaker 1: group of Americans. Just saying, if like kinds stay with
Speaker 1: like kinds. Here's another fun sociological fact. The feminization of
Speaker 1: college campuses is creating a partner crunch for women. I've
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot during the last few decades.
Speaker 1: More women than men are achieving higher education, and many
Speaker 1: of these women still prefer to date men who have
Speaker 1: the same amount of education or more, and this is
Speaker 1: causing a disparity of desired malemates for many women. I
Speaker 1: always tell these women, your idea of a power guy
Speaker 1: could be a guy who knows how to power a stroller.
Speaker 1: Just saying. So, I've been talking about how love is
Speaker 1: a science, and for every example of research that I've
Speaker 1: mentioned in the areas of biology, psychology, and sociology, there
Speaker 1: are hundreds more research studies. As we speak. Researchers are
Speaker 1: working in universities around the globe, and they're continuing to
Speaker 1: find deeper meaning and understanding in the areas of human sexuality, bonding,
Speaker 1: family formation, and gender. I am thrilled to be here
Speaker 1: every week continuing to report the work of these groundbreaking scientists.
Speaker 1: And I really believe that understanding the science of love
Speaker 1: helps us understand the rules for life, and it helps
Speaker 1: us shape our behavior in a way that we can
Speaker 1: all create longer, more fulfilling lives for ourselves. I have
Speaker 1: to say I have put all this science into action.
Speaker 1: I used female mating strategies that I read about in
Speaker 1: books by evolutionary psychologists, and I did as hard as
Speaker 1: it was, I did exactly what they said. When I
Speaker 1: was on those dating apps finding my husband, Literally if
Speaker 1: a guy wasn't responding quick enough, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: he's either apathy, he's got dating apathy, or he's got
Speaker 1: so many women talking to him. He's out of my league.
Speaker 1: So why father pursuing it. I want the guy who's
Speaker 1: got a ton of energy for me, who adores me. Oh,
Speaker 1: and I found him, which was really really great. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I am always here for you on KFI every Sunday
Speaker 1: from seven to nine PM. I want you to send
Speaker 1: me your questions on my social media. The handle on
Speaker 1: Instagram and YouTube and TikTok and Facebook is at dr
Speaker 1: Wendy Walsh. At doctor Wendy Walsh. I will always keep
Speaker 1: your name private and confidential, and sometimes I change around
Speaker 1: identifying facts, but send me your relationship questions because it's
Speaker 1: always fun to weigh in on the show. It's good
Speaker 1: to be here with you every Sunday. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being here with me. E've been listening to
Speaker 1: the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show on KFI AM six forty
Speaker 1: live everywhere on the iHeartRadio Act. You've been listening to
Speaker 1: Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live on
Speaker 1: KFI A M six forty from seven to nine p m.
Speaker 1: On Sunday and any time on demand on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: app