Alison Taylor on relationships: As Married at First Sight has shown, knowledge is dating power
The thrill of watching two pairs of complete strangers meet for the very first time at the altar is a no-brainer - but it was the science bit that really interested Alison
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Your support makes all the difference.After watching Channel 4's new social experiment documentary Married at First Sight, the main thing I've come away with is a crush on the programme's resident evolutionary anthropologist, Dr Anna Machin. She had me at oxytocin.
The thrill of watching two pairs of complete strangers meet for the very first time at the altar is a no-brainer – it's great TV – but it was the science bit (to use some vintage L'Oreal-ese) that really interested me.
For those who haven't seen it, Anna and a panel of experts – a psychologist, a therapist and a vicar (!) – whittle 1,500 volunteers down to six viable, "scientifically compatible" couples. Whether or not you're sold on The Big Idea – "Can science determine who we fall in love with?" – some of the individual science-nuggets, in particular those proffered by Anna, are irresistible.
Like the oxytocin. Personally, and perhaps surprisingly, given that I speak as somebody with a fetish for the psychology of relationships and late-night Googling, I didn't know this pleasantly named hormone played such a vital role in the bonding of two people. We need it, badly, more than ever.
To paraphrase here: fannying around endlessly messaging somebody online (AKA the Modern Way) instead of "interpersonal interaction" (meeting up in person) means vital-for-love oxytocin isn't released, so we don't lose our inhibitions (go all gooey) and our relationships never get off the ground.
It's what's released when we hug, kiss, or have an orgasm. It's also what bonds mothers and babies during breastfeeding, but I digress. As indeed I digressed from the work I was supposed to be doing when curious Googling brought me to Psychology Today's absorbing feature: "Oxytocin – The Multitasking Love Hormone". It's fascinating stuff, the chemistry of love.
Drawing on science is comforting when you're spinning out about your love life. I've long been obsessed by the wonder that is dopamine (the chemical responsible for, among other things, that cocaine-style brain hit you get when you press send on a text message to someone you fancy). And that's what I take from Married at First Sight – knowledge is dating power.
In the TV experiment, Anna was attempting to analyse her human guinea pigs' personal levels/types of oxytocin to establish how successfully they'd bond once that vital interpersonal interaction took place... at the altar. I'll be there this coming Thursday, with my bowl of crisps in front of the TV, to get my next hit of Dr Anna. Professor Brian Cox, I think, has a new rival in the heartthrob scientist stakes.
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