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Hey, it's Mariel. I saw this video the other day of a little bird that's sitting on somebody's kitchen counter.

It must be a pet.

And the bird, it sees a potential mate on the floor.

So it jumps down and sidles up to the other bird, nuzzles it, tries to mount it.

Yes, that's the yin-yang twins playing in the background. knuzzles it, tries to mount it. Hey, how you doing, love, mommy?

Let me whisper in your head.

Yes, that's the ying yang twins playing in the background.

The iconic seduction song,

Wait, the Whisper song.

It came out in 2005.

Anyway, then you realize the other bird,

it's not actually a bird.

It is a bird wind up toy.

I feel like I've done this before in dating. Set my sights on somebody juicy,

slid into their view, did my little mating dance, and then realized they were not a suitable companion. And yet I couldn't stop thinking about them, even after I knew they were a wind-up toy.

I would say limerance is an altered mental state fundamentally.

So it's a state that many of us go into in the early stages of love.

And it's kind of a profound romantic infatuation with another person.

So the kind of early experience of limerence could quite be well described as sort of love intoxication.

Tom Bellamy is a neuroscientist and author of the book Smitten,

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