To help keep you entertained while you pine over that one person who doesn’t seem to be aware of your existence, here are some interesting facts about love and crushes.

Time To Sync Up

Scientists study a lot of different things, and one neat thing they discovered was that if a couple spends three minutes gazing into each other’s eyes, their heartbeats synchronize. Staring into each other’s eyes is definitely a couple-type thing to do, and the effects can deepen your love for each other. Additionally, once your heart beats sync up, they can stay in tune when you are near each other without necessarily needing to “reconnect” every time you meet up.

The Cuddle Drug

Similar to cocaine, cuddling activates the happy reward part of our brain and floods it with the feel-good lovey-dovey hormones such as dopamine and oxytocin. These stimulate the brain in 12 different areas and raise our hormone levels. We begin to associate our sweetheart with feelings of safety, happiness and love—to the point where we can actually become addicted to them and suffer withdrawal symptoms if they leave for the weekend. Another amazing benefit from all these hormone levels is that they act as a natural low-dose painkiller for physical aches and pains. All of this from a couple of cozy cuddle sessions.

Time To Impress

According to some studies, scientists believe that it only takes us four seconds upon meeting someone new to decide if we like them or not. If this is true, it rather contradicts their other belief which is that it takes four minutes to impress or un-impress someone new. So if we fail those first four seconds, we still have a few minutes to strut our stuff and really shine. This is why appearances do matter—if only for those brief first impressions. After that, it is our personalities which need to shine to through nice and strong.

Growth Spurt

In the first year of being in love, our bodies go through a surge of hormones—mostly the happy kind we quickly get addicted to. These hormones flood the body, run their course and cause our bodies to become calm and relaxed (probably because we aren’t stressing out over the fact that we don’t have a girlfriend/boyfriend yet). This, in turn, causes our nerves to have a growth spurt that can last up to a year. Other people have reported growing (or at least, feeling) taller after finding themselves in a happy new relationship. Generally, in the beginning stages of a relationship, we are purposefully taking good care of our bodies which makes them healthier overall. New growth shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise in this regard.

What Women Like

Women are naturally more selective about their mates than men are because they are hardwired to find someone protective and suitable to raise a family with. Women take on a larger burden of bearing and raising children, thus making this a bit more of a serious consideration for them even if they aren’t fully aware of it. Women are attracted to men with a sense of humor, a good work ethic, a deep voice and higher levels of testosterone. Men with strong jaws and defined cheekbones have higher levels of testosterone than men with a belly which can signal low levels of testosterone, fertility and a low sex drive.

What Do Men Want

Men are natural hunters; they like a chase and a challenge to win. Thusly, they don’t really like easy women. They are visual creatures but what physically attracts them can range from the color of woman’s hair to her smile and the way her eyes sparkle. It is her personality that he will fall for. Men love the color red; it excites and attracts them. They also unconsciously look for a woman with a similar bone structure as their mother. Contrary to the fashion trends right now, men like their women curvy as this signals a healthy and fertile body. Perfect for having babies with. Additionally, they like someone who is fun to be with, playful, confident and has a sense of humor.

The Little Things

Couples enjoy holding hands because it reduces their stress levels and physical pain. Plus it is a sweet and simple gesture to feel connected with your loved one. When you have a crush on someone, you need to be careful about gazing dreamily at them from across the room too much. When you gaze at someone, your body releases the hormone phenylethylamine which can make you fall in love with them and nothing feels worse than unrequited love.

Is This For Real?

You might be in this relationship for the long haul, but he might just be looking for a fling. How can you tell the difference? Simple; if he finds your face attractive rather than your body after a while, he is in it for the long term. But if he is all about the body and less about your face, he just wants a fling.

Love Is Blind And A Little Crazy

Scientists have analyzed enough brains to know that when we are in love, our brains look very similar to individuals suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. And people in love are a little bit obsessive with their new partner. Additionally, the part of the brain which controls our reasoning is compressed—leading to impaired judgment and overlooking the annoying little does about our partner which pop up later on. This occurs because our bodies are actively trying to get us hitched so we settle down and have babies before we figure out that our partner has annoying quirks that will drive us crazy.

The Length Of A Crush

Finally, some scientists believe that a crush only lasts for four months. After that, our feelings are re-labeled as being in love. The flaw with this theory is that it can vary from person to person too much for it to be a set rule.