‘Better shape up,’ ‘cause this love is chemical

“I got chills, they’re multiplyin’”

(It’s probably the norepinephrine, Danny.)

“And I’m losing control”

(Seratonin, maybe, causing that temporary insanity?)

‘“Cause the power you’re supplyin’, it’s electrifyin’”

(My guess would be that’s the dopamine, amping Mr. Zuko like a rail of coke or a hit of crack.)

“You better shape up, ‘cause I need a man/And my heart is set on you”

(Sandy, that big bold statement could be attributed to any one of the neuro-transmitting monomines.)

“Better shape up, you better understand/To my heart I must be true”

(There she goes. I’m hearing commitment; expressing the vasopressin)

“Nothing left, nothing left for me to do”

(Zuko’s a goner. Already a slave to the testosterone surge, it’s just a matter of time before the oxytocin does him in.)

Some guy nerdier than I has theorized that as many as 100 trillion chemical reactions occur in the body every day, and obviously most would go unnoticed and unseen if you don’t count the violent volcanic reaction of a Supreme Chalupa on the gastrointestinal tract.

With Valentine’s Day doing what it does, there’s lots of science happening, and I’m not just talking about covalent bonding (hubba hubba).

The jury is still out on the whole pheromone thing in humans. Unless you’re a fruit fly or monitor lizard, the question of whether the ladies are giving off a chemical compound initiating a little scent selection, or if dudes just stink, has yet to be conclusively answered.

So, yes, those ads for Andros cologne in the back of your old man’s nudie mags did end up being a musky waste of money.

But the love reaction is strong, and many of us are probably in the grips of it a little more intensively today. Danny and Sandy were a small example of the three chemical stages of falling head over heels.

Stage 1 is pretty straightforward, according to biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, a researcher for the famously sex-obsessed Kinsey Institute.

As we gear up to obsess over the sexy, all lust in our loins and passion in our hearts, men and women are awash in testosterone and estrogen. Boring. This we know.

Stage 2 is more complicated; it’s the stage of attraction where people lose their minds, get weak in the knees and feel high, high, high.

Fisher says the “monomines,” a specific group of neuro-transmitters, start shooting off dopamine (also triggered by drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine and nicotine), norepinephrine (better known as adrenaline for that flushed, flutterly feeling) and serotonin (a key chemical attributed to temporary insanity).

This is the stage where, if gone awry, being lost in love can quickly become being lost in a restraining order with chloroform, duct tape and rope stockpiled in the back of your unmarked van.

Stage 3 is where hot and heavy has kind of worn off to some extent, but the bonds created will last a lifetime, or until stages 1 and 2 occur with a neighbor, a co-worker or your mate’s best friend. Beware, though, some of this stage gets a little creepy.

Stage 3 focuses on attachment, or longer-lasting more committed relationships, where the nervous system is releasing the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin.

Vasopressin is kind of cool, because it’s been studied as it relates to prairie voles (a hamster-like rodent), sex drive and monogamy. Primarily an amino acid relative to the function of kidneys, it is released by the body following coupling, which these committed voles do like … um, rabbits.

Fisher wrote that when voles were given drugs that suppressed their vasopressin release, they lost interest in each other. Long story short, “He-vole’s just not that into you.”

The creepier of the two attachment hormones is oxytocin, which is one big can of oedipal worms.

Released during climax between two lovers, oxytocin is also released by a mother during childbirth and expressed in her breast milk while suckling her little piggy.

It goes: the more sex someone has, the more oxytocin they produce, the stronger their bond gets, like (gulp) a mother and her child. No wonder so many marriages end in divorce — mommy and daddy issues in the bedroom are no good for anyone.

So, I suppose that one could take solace knowing that the money to be spent on your significant other this weekend, the long line to get a table for dinner to be endured, the guilt one mate will make the other feel for getting that dollar-store knockoff Hallmark card and a dusty box of $5 chocolates rather than a Tiffany bracelet and five dozen long stems is beyond human control.

It’s animal, it’s chemical, and in Danny Zuko’s case, “it’s electrifyin.’”