Khaos Theory

A romantic connection (also called pair-bonding) is a deep emotional bond to another individual. The tendency to form a deep emotional bond to another individual is an universal feature of human life.

The connections we form to our partners are designed to keep people together. When we form a connection to a partner – we want to be near that person. And we tend to feel safe and secure when our partners are around. Overall, forming a connection was designed to help create stability. If you are connected to someone and the relationship comes to an end, the sense of loss can be overwhelming – including feelings of uncertainty, fear, and despair.

Humans are designed to form a strong connections to a romantic partner because human offspring are born extremely immature (unable to care for themselves). Individuals who formed a deep connections to their sexual partners were better equipped to raise offspring. And over millions of years of human development, evolution favored people who formed a deep emotional bond to a sexual partner. As such, people living today are all the descendants of individuals who formed an emotional bond to their romantic partners in the past.

Not only are humans designed to form a deep emotional bond to a sexual partner, but the process by which we do so is very similar to how infants form a bond to their primary caregivers.

Human infants universally form a deep emotional attachment to the person who provides the most care (usually a mother). This attachment is designed to keep infants close to their caregivers, which ultimately helped ensured an infant’s survival. When infants form a deep emotional attachment to their caregiver – children feel safe and secure. For infants, attachment figures (caregivers) provide a sense of security and comfort. When separate from their attachment figure, infants will stage a protest (crying and screaming) designed to get their caregiver’s attention.

How do infants know who to form an attachment to?

Infants form an attachment to the caregivers based on the nature and amount of physical contact they have with others. Infants form an attachment to the person who provides the most physical contact – the most kissing, cuddling, caressing, and so on.

And adults do the same when it comes to forming a romantic connection. Adults form a deep emotional connection based on intimate physical contact – kissing and cuddling, etc. If you have repeated intimate contact with another person, you will most likely form a deep connection to that person. Once a connection is formed – people want to spend more time together, feel safe and secure in each other’s presence, and they will experience loss when the relationship comes to an end.

The lesson to be learned? Be careful about whom you have repeated intimate contact with – you are likely to form a strong connection to that person. And once a connection is formed, it can be very difficult to break. Doms especially tend to forget that when they dominate someone they are creating a two-way street where both will feel increasingly connected emotionally.