Why would a parent encourage their children to become fans of a team that does nothing but lose?

Why are there so many adults at Disneyland without kids?

Why do QVC customers often have a closet or room full of unopened packages?

Why do so many people still listen to the local radio station in the car, when every song ever performed or recorded is at their fingertips?

Why will people work more hours for less money at a nonprofit vs. a for-profit company?

Why are there such intense, lifelong fans of certain car brands?

Why would a person get a tattoo on their body of a professional team logo?

I could go on and on with questions like this, questions that seem to illustrate illogical, irrational decisions by people. A professional sports franchise is a for-profit enterprise, similar to many entertainment businesses. Disneyland is a de facto children’s experience, yet there are millions of adults who have visited without kids. QVC is a TV-shopping retailer with millions of customers, many of whom buy product and never open the package. Terrestrial radio stations are jammed full of annoying commercials and often play the same songs over and over, and yet have retained close to 40% market share in the car. Not-for-profit companies often pay significantly less and require more time and passion from employees to sustain the business than for-profit companies, yet they employ millions of people across the country. Car companies like Ford and Chevrolet have customers who have become lifelong fans of the brands, often staying loyal despite years of disappointing products.

And finally, tattooing a team logo on your body is quite the decision, considering that team is structured as a business to be very similar to thousands of other kinds of companies. It sells sponsorship, tickets, pays its employees, sells merchandise, food and beverage…would you get a theme park logo tattooed on your body? Probably not. But many of us can understand why someone would get their favorite professional team’s logo tattooed. In fact, on a certain level, many of us understand all these examples. We understand it on an intuitive, gut level, but maybe not a rational, logical level.

That is because each is an example of a Friendship, which is polar opposite of the Transaction.

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The Friendship is long-lasting,

feels like love,

and you can be satisfied with what you have.

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Unlike the Transaction, the Friendship is processed by the structures in the brain known as the Limbic System. It is a less rational and more emotional, less logical and more instinctual area of the brain. The Limbic System generates feelings, values relationships and creates trust. It is the part of the brain that bonds us to things. It is the brain area that allows us to enter into the Friendship.

The Friendship is a complicated process and obviously not as “brute-force” as the Transaction. It’s basic structure could be as follows:

1. A person has an interaction, an experience that creates thoughts and feelings of being seen and cared for.

2. The brain interprets this experience as being “safe,” and releases Oxytocin (as well as other neuropeptides like Vasopression, Serotonin, etc),

3. Oxytocin downregulates the activity of the amygdala, the fear center of the brain, flooding the person with feelings of love, trust and vulnerability, and

4. The experience is allowed to enter the long-term (Social Recognition) memory of the brain via the Hippocampus, which it the part of the Limbic System responsible for determining where memories go.

To distill this down even further, the process of making a “friend” involves an authentic, caring interaction that speaks to who you are. It is something that comes from being with someone, that sense of togetherness that emulates feelings of safety and security, feelings that our brains literally evolved over millions of years to look for. The neurotransmitters involved are special and unique, with mechanisms of action that would only come into play if the brain truly feels safe. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense for an antelope to be flooded with oxytocin all the time…that would render its fear center muted, thus limiting its ability to run from the cheetah when attacked.

Making friends through limbic bonding is a survival mechanism. One of the most important and immutable natural laws in the world is survival in numbers. A sheep separated from its flock has a much lower likelihood of survival. Same for a fish away from its school, a lion away from its pride, and so on. These animals aren’t choosing to be together, they are instinctually bonded. The baby chimp holding onto its mother is doing so because Oxytocin bonded them.

This is why that magical doorway, the hippocampus, allows these experiences of true, authentic friendship to be saved in Social Recognition memory. Any of your most cherished memories, the faces of your children, that smell of your mother’s home cooking…all of them involved a deep, powerful feeling of love that came from Oxytocin’s downregulation of your amydala. It is as if your brain, in those moments, realizes that it is safe, it is secure, and survival is at its maximum probability. So it creates your “wall of family photos” in your brain so you will remember the experience forever, with the intent of finding those same conditions as many times as possible.

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The Friendship is very different than the Transaction.

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Here is someone experiencing a Transaction…

The beautiful thing about Friendship, whether it is with yourself, your family, your best friend, a work colleague, your favorite band or sports team or your first car that you felt like you could drive anywhere in the world, is that it can’t be bought. It came from a place of truly feeling safe, a special place in your brain only reserved for those closest to you, those who your brain believes will protect you with every cell in their body. Oxytocin is a neurotransmitter that is intimately associated with bonding to our family, the group of living beings with our survival embedded in their hearts. With love. Those of us with kids know the feeling well, a feeling that isn’t about winning or success, but about protection, openness, vulnerability and trust. It is not comparative, or about utility…it is simply about that which we are bonded to, and nothing more.

We’ve heard it said many times, but hopefully now the famous line holds a different meaning…

Can’t buy me love.