Cat String Theory and Banduran Theory Combined: The Science Behind True Love That Lasts
What does science say about love? And I don’t mean Bachelor/Bachelorette love or Married At First Sight Love, but real love.
Let’s Start with Cat String Theory
The Cat String Theory is simple; to keep the love alive, we are basically playing a game of a ball of wool and a cat. Leave the wool with the cat, and it will probably be interested in it for a while, but that interest dies, it can return, but ultimately, it can die pretty quickly. However, if you hold that piece of wool just out of reach, that cat would be more enticed by this wool when it’s almost unattainable, but faith believes you can reach it. The Cat would most likely play like this for hours on end until it truly tires.
This theory illustrates that humans remain more interested in another person when they’re playing hot and cold. Give a little interest, just enough, and the spark will stay alive a lot longer than if you were too clingy or too distant.
Have you ever heard of that playground crush when being ignored and sometimes mean actually meant that person had a crush on you? Well unfortunately, this type of behaviour lasts a lot longer than primary school.
While a little more sophisticated than pulling a girl's ponytail, in the adult world, pulling a girl's ponytail turns into showing a balance of insecurity but also scarcity to attain the perfect romantic relationship somehow. Give too much, and you’ll be seen as clingy. But show too much interest, and all of a sudden, you are seen as a player. Regardless of this, it is still a gameplay cause the Cat String Theory is about keeping the balance of availability and unattainability to keep the attraction alive.
While this would be a good spot to write a conclusion and wrap up this article, I’m wanting to go a couple of steps further and add Banduran Theory and Sternberg’s theory into the mix.
Banduran Reciprocal Determinism
According to Bandura, our environment influences our personal factors (such as our beliefs, thoughts, sexual preferences, expectations and preconceptions), and these are all caused by each other e.g. reciprocal determinism. The combination of our environment (for example, how our parents brought us up or how our school teachers influenced us to be eager in class or completely absent) and our personal factors influence the choices we make.
So How Does The Cat String Theory Relate to Banduran Theory?
If the environment affects our personal factors, does this mean that our environment taught us that to be keen (Australian slang meaning to be eager to do something or someone) and truly keen on another person, we need the perfect amount of them otherwise we would either feel overwhelmed by their presence or completely disregard their half-ass attempt of being semi-interested? Or is it that our sexual preferences and expectations are telling us that to be sexually attracted to another, they need to play hard-to-get or hot-and-cold to keep us interested otherwise, I’ll just get bored?
But When It Comes To Me…
I know that with my hobbies, I definitely go through periods where I’m super keen to buckle down and work on whatever it is, sewing, dancing, but then other times, I could not bear the thought of even thinking about working on whatever hobbie, I get bored and whine up with hundreds of dollars spent on a new hobbie that I’m not even interested in anymore. Indeed, love can just be like my ADHD brain and up taking any hobbie (will be discussing ADHD in further articles, stay tuned!).
Parting Thoughts
Whether media is telling you one thing (type of environmental influence), or your thoughts and feelings are telling you another (personal influences), it seems that science is telling us that playing hard to get may be more attractive to us than it may want to admit. It’s truely mystifying.
Knowing all of the aforementioned, I’m probably still going to wear my heart on my sleeve while protecting my heart and maybe consider that someone who can be open and honest with me but also slightly distant may be more interested than I originally thought.
How do you feel about (what may be) a very controversial topic? Let me know in the comments.
Welcome to the mind of Rachel T Huang. Next week I will be discussing a “Part 2” in my true love articles and will be discussing Diane Felwlee’s individual fatal attraction. Stay Tuned!
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