Despite what they say in all those Harlequin romances or in the lyrics of those old fashioned love songs, you aren’t drawn to your partner by some mystical force that can’t be explained. Nor the love arrow of some winged brat with his genitals covered who’s got nothing better to do with his life than flitter around all day making people go gaga over each other.  

It’s pure biology. 

We smell our way to love eternal. It’s not our colognes and perfumes and all the other stuff we use to cover up good old stinky Mother Nature, but those invisible chemicals, such as pheromones, that make us fall in love “at first sight.” It’s not not his chiseled features, strong nose, curly hair or even his manly bulge that make her chemistry go haywire, it’s the fact that she’s ovulating and she sniffs out his high level of testosterone. 

Perhaps if Romeo and Juliet had realized that it was all in the nose, one would have said to the other, in the immortal words of that philosopher bully Nelson Muntz on The Simpsons, “Smell ya later.” A lot of high school students would have been grateful that there was one less classic to read. 

Instead of “I’m glad I found you,” perhaps Valentine’s Day cards should declare: “I’m glad I smelled your pheromones that day.” Or, "Forget the roses, smell my testosterone." 

Of course, that's a sure-fire way to kill a very lucrative holiday (it’s estimated that Americans will spend over $17 billion this year on gifts for their “loved ones."). Americans are strictly smell-phobic when it comes to their bodies.  

And no wonder. Advertisers on TV and in magazines have spent decades convincing us that the bacteria in our armpits are our worst enemy. Americans shell out over $2 billion a year to make our pits smell like the great outdoors or the inside of the local flower shop. 

Covering those sweat glands comes with another price tag as well: it might actually prevent us from finding our "life partner," since it conceals one of the smells that signals to a potential bedmate that we have a different immune system.

And one theory of what attracts people to each other says that it’s the difference in our immune systems, not his deep manly voice or the size of her boobs, that makes us want to abandon all reason and take that trip down the aisle and pledge to "love, honor and obey till death do us part."

What's wrong with au naturel? It served humans well for millions of years. The Romans, Egyptians, Babylonians, Mongolians and others had no trouble hooking up, despite the fact that the average person reeked of all sorts of natural smells. The other mammals, too, have never found the need to cover up what exudes from their skin.

Only the killer ape loathes the very smells that give him the thing he cherishes the most.