Why Early Romance Makes Us Nervous

Valentine’s Day rolls around this Saturday - a day of despair for some, joy for others, and an anxious mix for most everyone else. Whether you have a sweetheart this Valentine’s Day or not, you may have a memory of those sickly and obsessive feelings that pop up in the early days of a romance. Turns out that scientists call this chronic edginess “attachment anxiety”. And don’t worry, it’s perfectly normal.

Paul Eastwick of Northwestern University is researching these notorious dating dynamics and discovered that the promise of a new relationship may spark measurable anxiety, but it turns out this anxiety may be a biological trigger for us to forge ahead and attach. To prove it, Paul goes straight to the nervous nellies themselves: speed daters. And he joins us to explain more.

(Photo courtesy thatjonesboy via Flickr/Creative Commons)