A little analysis of the concepts of love and desire from the point of view of

Helen Fisher & Esther Perel seen in the book "The cheater's guide to love"
By Isabella Carvajal Obando
In this small analysis, we will see how Yunior our star in the book, carries with love and desire in
a chaotic and even relatable way. Yunior, who is a black Latino man, has just lost the "love of his
life." Why may you ask? Well, his girlfriend has just found in his email, emails from fifty different
women, “sucias” he calls them. So, after many attempts to save the relationship it completely
went to waste, six years easily went down the drain. Therefore, why Yunior cheat on his
supposed love-life? He really loved her? Does he just want to have an adventure? Why if he
keeps forgetting her, he could not? What he felt for the “sucias” them? Love or desire? Well, you
and I will see it next.
First and foremost, what is love? The million-dollar question, a question that no one can certainly
answer. To try to respond that, Helen Fisher in her TedTalk named “why we love, why we cheat”
explain what romantic love is. She states that three brain systems build what we know as love,
these are lust, romantic love, and attachment ; but these are not always connected, and this
meaning that you can feel the three of them separately in different persons and not only to your
partner. Clearly, we can see how Yunior was not connecting the three to his partner, he felt a
significant attachment for her and he loved of course, but the lust he felt for her was not there,
was in the different “sucias” he slept with, we cannot doubt for sure of the love he felt for her, he
tried to change, to do the things he promised to her even if it was hard, because, he was
in love with her and the thought of being without her was painful.
So, as Esther Perel says, “maybe there was a crisis of desire”, although the maybe is leftover
because in fact there was a crisis of desire. We can see in the development of Yunior's chaotic
history, as even though they had already broken up and time passed, he kept thinking of her and
desiring her, saying that there was no woman to replace her. When the law student said that she
was expecting a baby of him, immediately the thought of having a family with her ex came to her
mind, taking the urge to leave him a voicemail saying "they must had have a baby". But then why
did this desire to be with his “ex” remained, even if he has met fantastic women? Well, I quote
Perel:
“When the other person is that far apart that you no longer see them. It's when I'm
looking at my partner from a comfortable distance, where this person that is already so
familiar, so known, is momentarily once again somewhat mysterious, somewhat
elusive. And in this space between me and the other lies the erotic élan”
So, this longing and this thinking make Junior want to want his ex, not only in a sexual way but all
this attachment and love that he felt for her increased by not being with her, that saying of "You
don't know what you have until you lose it "becomes a painful reality for our friend in question.

In my opinion, Yunior did not know how to communicate these lack of desire, although he could
have been in a relationship for six years, it is still necessary to speak and communicate the
failures or improvements that may exist in all areas of the relationship! Not because you are in a
relationship for a long time, it does not mean that everything is assured and that your partner is a
fortune teller to meet your needs, you have to talk, you need to talk.  However, I cannot entirely
blame Yunior, it is also not like he has someone to advise him, and oh, do not name his friend
(who was worse or equal to him) in the end, Yunior's mistake was not communicating with his
girlfriend.