Reply To: Falling in love : a study

[MrAntiquity]

I think that when people offer advice (friends, family, etc) they make the mistake of elevating commonality as dating advice–“Hey–you and x would be perfect for each other–you both have these qualities”….

These are important for compatibility, perhaps, and they can be things that help relationships work, but when it comes to trying to establish romantic/sexual connections, it’s completely off the mark.

What this study suggests–and I guess this is what Lee/Eric discuss a lot too with respect to connections–is that discovery is much more powerful than commonality. If you can use an interaction to help a woman discover herself–that’s extraordinarily powerful, and it seems like that’s what this study is doing. (Incidentally, it’s also what things like The Cube, or The 5 Questions Game, and all of these pickup ‘techniques’ are capitalizing on as well.

Another thing I like about what the author has to say is the idea of love–or even interest– as a conscious decision–not just “something that happens”. Active rather than passive–which is also something that the advice-givers in our lives always tend to ignore. Again, I always saw these things as purely passive “It just happens” or “There was just chemisty” or whatever. Which is very unhelpful to those who don’t know how to experience that sort of “happening”. So for those people, you can pretty much sit back and wait….forever. This article helps to dispel that idea.