In a world where we strive for improvement, even love has been hacked.
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Love. What a strange feeling, emotion, and a bunch of neurochemicals.
We live in a world where it is becoming increasingly easy to connect. Yet, we find ourselves more disconnected than ever before. If you have been battling to find love, then maybe I can help . . .
A recent article highlighted Arthur Aron’s study about love, where he tried to make people fall in love by using a certain set of questions.
He invited people into his lab. Strangers. Entering through different doors. He sat them down, made them work through a questionnaire, and at the end of the session most people reported an increased level of intimacy or closeness. One pair of participants ended up getting married a couple of months later.
Ready to try the questionnaire to hack your future love?
Three sets of questions are involved, thirty-six questions in all. You sit down with the person you want to fall in love with or the person you want to fall in love with you and work through the questions.
Don’t worry about printing out all the questions and appearing confused on your date. You can find an awesome app to help hurry the process.
Set one starts off quite innocently.
- “Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?”
- “Would you like to be famous, and in what way?”
- “Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you’re going to say, and why?”
The questions are interesting and not intimidating. If you are someone who always worries about what to say on a date, memorising some of these might help you feel more relaxed.
Set 2 then gets a little bit more intimate.
- “What do you value most in a friendship?”
- “What is your most treasured memory?”
- “What is your most terrible memory?”
Set 3 goes even deeper.
- “Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.”
- “When did you last cry in front of another person or by yourself?”
- “Tell your partner something that you like about them already.”
The fourth set of questions requires you to stare into the person’s eyes for four minutes without breaking your glance. It’s not a game of stare where you’re not allowed to laugh, so you’re allowed to just be casual and relaxed. You just look into that person’s eyes for four minutes.
You might be wondering how this series of questions can make someone fall in love with you. Vulnerability. When you open up and answer personal questions, you become vulnerable. Exposed.
Self-disclosure, the sharing of personally relevant information, builds relationships in a quick and meaningful way.
Failing that, should you be unable to make someone fall in love with you, I have a second option for you. It’s an awesome app called Invisible Girlfriend. An Invisible Boyfriend app option is also available.
What does the app do?
By using this app, you can literally create your own girlfriend! You give her a name, choose her age, choose a photo, which is then crowdsourced for you, and you also create her personality.
The site and the app will help you set up a backstory. Where did you meet? What were you doing?
The app will then text you and respond to your own texts in appropriate ways. It will even call you during lunch so that you can excuse yourself to talk to your “girlfriend.”
The third and most important way to hack love is to just be yourself.
Go out, have a good time, and forget about all the stigmas and everything that society expects from you. Forget about your expectations of fun and love.
If you are on a mission to be better every day, then you are doing your part. You do not need to change the core of who you are. You are good enough, but certain corners need to be trimmed and blank spaces filled.
Building a great body, nurturing better habits, and understanding the role of men in modern society. All these things are all important for progressing in life, but they do not guarantee love.
Be patient. You’ll see that once you put yourself out there and have fun people will love you for that. They will find themselves attracted to you. And maybe, just maybe, for the next Valentine’s Day, you won’t have to use the Invisible Girlfriend or Boyfriend app.
Photo Credit: Getty Images