A girl. Two bridges. A little anxiety. Lots of adrenaline!

Physiology – the scientific study of how living things function and psychology – the scientific study of how we behave, are inextricably coupled, say scientists. A study done in Capilano Canyon near Vancouver will throw some light on this.

Across a serene river in the woods, just 10 feet off the ground, is a small but sturdy wooden bridge with enough guardrails and adequate safety that allows visitors a peaceful stroll across it.

Go up the hills another 250 feet and you will find the infamous Capilano suspension bridge. Built in the nineteenth century, it’s a shaky rope structure and spans 450 feet. It’s not a bridge for the faint-hearted. As one walks across the bridge, the whole thing shakes and one can’t help go weak on their knees.

Researchers chose the two contrasting bridges for this study. They had a young girl wait at the end of the two bridges on different days. She accosted young men who stepped off either of the bridges and introduced herself as a psychology student doing a study on how exposure of scenic attractions affected creative expression.

She gave a questionnaire and asked the young men to fill. She also offered to explain the findings later and gave her number to whoever was interested.

Researchers also sent a young male student on other days to the same two bridges and he did the same.

A week later, only three men called him.

Yes, you are right, the girl’s phone didn’t stop ringing. Men would be men!

It didn’t take a researcher to know men would call a young girl if she offers to give her phone number. What they were interested in knowing which of the men caller her more. Was it the men who crossed the safe and sturdy bridge or the ones who walked the old and shaky one.

Of the 16 men who crossed the safe and wooden bridge, only two called her.

But of the 18 men who crossed the old and shaky bridge, more than half called her.

Did the young girl’s face become more prettier at 250 feet than it did at 10 feet? Why did more men who walked the old and swaying bridge call her more?

The answer lay in how shaky the bridge was!

Physiologically speaking, when you walk on a shaky and swaying bridge at 250 feet, you feel a surge of adrenaline rushing through you. Scientists say it is the same as the sense of excitement you feel when you develop a crush on a girl.

When men walked the shaky bridge, they experienced a surge of adrenaline and it remained high when they met the girl. Anxiety and adrenaline combined to form a dreamy cocktail and heightened their romantic interest and they decided then they were going to call her.

But for the men who crossed the safe and sturdy bridge, nothing surged inside them other than the calmness of the surrounding nature and they weren’t interested in the same girl.

Remember, when the same experiment was done with a male student, men weren’t too keen to call him. Just 3 did. Maybe they were LGBT.

Researchers did a subsequent experiment wherein the same girl met young men who just walked off the old and shaky bridge but a good 10 minutes later. Very few men called the girl now. Why?

The anxiety had subsided and their adrenaline levels had come down. Along with it came down their romantic interests as well.

So, is romance not as much a thing of the heart as it is about the adrenaline rush and hormonal excitement inside our bodies?

Let’s cross the bridge when we come to it!