Dating. Mating. Relating.

To your brain, there are many similarities between gambling and love. They are both an exciting chemical high with a mixture of hope, profits, and potential for loss. Both love and Las Vegas can be intoxicating. But there is another secret way that gambling resembles certain kinds of love attachment — both are based on a behavioral learning theory called random interval reward system.

Learning theorists like Pavlov (and his dog,) Watson, and Skinner spent their professional lives attempting to figure out what motivates animal and human behavior. One of the things that was discovered is that the most effective way to get an organism (that’s you) addicted to a behavior was to administer the reward in a random way. The recipient of the reward doesn’t know when or what is coming but the very the fact that it is random and pleasurable makes them glued to the behavior. This is the basic principle behind a slot machine. Say you were given a consistent, small reward with every fifth pull of the level. You would probably quickly become bored and move on. And if the reward was exactly one-dollar each time, even though it was given at random intervals, still you would eventually become bored.

The secret is the varying size of the reward and varying the interval rate. If on the tenth pull, for instance, you received a nice pay off, your brain would have “learned” to survive ten pulls. To keep you going, a series of small payoffs might come quickly. In this example, the machine knows that you will continue to deposit money for at least ten pulls if it has rewarded you at least once in that manner. Believe me, the owners of Vegas casinos have calculated all these odds years ago, and they know how to set the random intervals to keep the player addicted to popping in coins. Surprise, surprise, the house always wins.

So what has this got to do with love and courtship? Well, imagine that every contact, compliment, or even intimate glance from a lover is perceived by your brain as a positive reward. Now imagine that it is given in a random way. I like to call this the “Bad Boy Success Formula.” Bad Boys are particularly good at using the random interval reward system. And bad Boys are very seductive to women. It’s because a Bad Boy’s fear of emotional intimacy causes him to dash in and out of a woman’s life in what feels like a random way. In actuality, his pattern of advance/retreat is a reflection of how much emotional intimacy he can tolerate, but who’s looking below the surface when you’re staring at the phone wondering why he hasn’t called?

Each time a Bad Boy feels it is safe to return to a woman, their object is usually to obtain physical intimacy. Since sex is their goal they are particularly savvy at coming on with compliments and making their target feel like a queen — all rewards that women thrive on. Bad Boys are also the very best apologizers I have even met. The apology is part of their schtick to wedge back in your door. Sometimes their words of contrition resemble a kind of emotional intimacy so chicks fall for it, again and again.

But Bad Boys aside, the very uncertainty of a growing relationship with it’s emotional highs coupled with feelings of insecurity, can cause a kind of attachment based on a reward system. Something to think about as you date. Are you getting bored with the nice guys or consistent gals who are on time and available? Maybe that’s because your brain has tasted the pain and excitement of a random interval reward relationship. It might be time to sit back, take a deep breath, and look a little closer at the consistent one. The ultimate pay out might be much greater.

Many blog readers email me with questions about a common trend in love, the long distance relationship. Far from being a new convention, the LDR has exploded in numbers thanks to internet dating and our capitalistic pressure to chase money and jobs around the country, and indeed the globe. But can it ever really work? Can long distance love eventually become a cozy same-city nest? Can a stay-at-home relationship survive a stint abroad?

The answer is a bit complicated. In general the very dynamics that create and sustain a long distance relationship are different from those of a consistent stay-at-home relationship. LDR’s are marked by plenty of autonomous alone time and peppered with a series of “honeymoons” in various hook-up cities. Stay-at-home love is more often about the daily work of love and life. And the players tend to be different. If you’ve read some of my past blogs about the psychological theory called “Attachment Theory” you’ve probably guessed already that emotionally avoidant individuals might really dig an LDR, while more anxious or preoccupied folks like to have a shorter tether.

So, the big question I get asked a lot is what to do if one morphs into the other. And, how to make an LDR come home to roost. My advice: Be prepared for plenty of conflict. All change is painful. Emotional change has it’s own particular brand of sting. But emotional change, when it brings self awareness and/or a new level of compassion, is ultimately good.

First, consider the clauses that the original unconscious contract contained. We all make silent contracts in every relationship. For instance, all my girlfriends know without me having to say it, that they’ll be rescheduled on my calendar if a work obligation comes up. And, most of them also have signed on with their blessings that a great guy comes first. Girlfriends are a supportive bunch and, above all, we want happiness for each other. We’ve never discussed this, but I know it’s true. It has played out in the past.

And what might be in the silent contract of romantic love? Usually it’s about the amount of contact, the kind of contact (email, voice, face-to-face), and the content of the contact. What I mean is, how much commentary about emotions is contained in the communication. Some partners can handle, and even crave, a lot of honest, authentic talk about feelings, and many, many others would prefer to have a root canal.

In the long distance love contract the clauses about contact are very easy to adhere to. If one partner prefers less contact he or she becomes literally unavailable, on a different time zone, with phones turned off. Period. You can’t argue with that kind of communication boundary. In stay-at-home love, it’s a little harder to duck and cover. There he is, walking in the door, ready for love and the F-word (feelings.) If a long distance relationship is filled with strict communication boundaries, the shift to a day-to-day relationship may be extremely challenging.

And what about a stay-at-home relationship that is about to undergo a transition that involves distance? First, know this. relationships are affected by environmental stimuli. And environment affects our perception of ourselves and our partner potential. For instance, let’s say you live in a small town and your guy is one of the best looking, smartest dudes on main street. Then your job takes you to New York. While you may have firm plans for your boyfriend to follow you out within a year, something happens that you were unprepared for. Suddenly your guy looks like chump change beside the crowds of hunky, capitalists on Wall Street. Or, he takes a semester in London and finds that a Kate Moss clone with a comely accent, is more attractive than his high school sweetheart. Take a deep breath people. I’m not saying that all relationships as so superficial. But many are.

And that’s my point. How do you avoid becoming superficial? By getting below the surface. Yes, I’m back on Dr. Walsh’s soapbox. The real glue of every relationship, both LDR’s and the stay-at-home kind, is the degree of emotional attachment. When we have compassion for our partners, when we trust that they have our back no matter what, when we really feel seen and loved, and when we can love our partners even with their vulnerabilities, we have the glue of real love. Real attachment. That will be the thing that weathers the storms of temptation, distance, and challenging communication. Trust. To trust and be trust-worthy. Work on yourself and the world will line up in accordance with your ethics. I ask you today to be brave and begin to create a real attachment.