The clip captures Taylor leaving the stage in one of her signature bedazzled bodysuits, waving goodbye to her fans. The instant she spots Travis, awaiting her with his hands held politely behind his back, she runs to him.
He smiles and shakes his head, like he can’t believe his luck. She throws her arms around his neck and kisses him. Their lips remain locked as they spin around slowly. She whispers something in his ear as he continues to hold her close. Confetti falls. Fans shriek. Then they disappear from view.
I’ve never been a diehard Swiftie. I attended the Eras tour, but I wasn’t moved to tears. I don’t parse her lyrics for Easter eggs or eagerly await the release of each Taylor’s Version album. And prior to Travis, I’d never been all that invested in her romantic life — particularly the Joe Alwyn phase. (Hard pass.) And yet, like seemingly every other pop-culture obsessive the world over, that moment in Argentina turned me into a de facto body-language expert, a consumer of countless TikTok videos and “Today Show” segments, a hopeless romantic, a true believer.
Suddenly, I found myself a not-so-neutral observer in the very sort of story I was trained to cover: how a hitmaking blond and a good-natured tight end managed to capture the attention of a divided nation, increasing NFL ratings, boosting Kelce jersey sales and somehow making Taylor even more ubiquitous than she already was.
What was it about that clip of them kissing that made me — made us — feel so damn good?
What kind of good? That’s important.”
I’m on the phone with Dr. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist and senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute who has spent her career studying brain imaging to understand how love impacts humans.
My Taylor-and-Travis infatuation felt like the gooey, swelling in your throat kind of good. The suspended in some dreamy place where all of life’s promise is fulfilled kind of good. A feeling, Fisher suspects, that comes from oxytocin, a hormone produced by your brain that gives you a sense of calm, of sweetness.
“It’s the basic neural mechanism of attachment,” she says. Others might have seen that moment in Buenos Aires and experienced a dopamine surge — “a feeling of intense pleasure, energy, motivation and optimism” that is often correlated with the rapture of romantic love.
