Parker mentioned this in the WDT, and I had seen the article the week prior: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/fashi ... .html?_r=0 Essentially, the article - and the study it's based on - propose the idea that you can actively fall in love with someone by creating a situation where you each expose your vulnerabilities in an escalating set of questions. The experiment is capped off by staring into the other person's eyes for four minutes. While not scientific, the couple the study used and the woman who wrote the article both claim to have fallen in love using this process. Topic: Discuss the article. Can falling in love with someone be contrived in a lab, or does it have to happen by chance? Alt Topic: I guess stories on how you fell in love.
Focus: I saw a bit on this recently too. Without having read the study we're talking about myself (yet)... 1. It makes me wonder what the definition of being in a state of love is here. What or where is the threshhold? Or what were they really trying to measure in that study? 2. So by this logic "taking the test with a person = falling in love with that person," does this test mean anyone can fall in love with anyone? The entire world? Makes sense how it could build intimacy really quickly, but real passionate romantic love? Nah, not even close. For reference... the actual study: The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness Alt-focus: The first communication I ever had with my now girlfriend was texting her a photo of a giant hickey on my friend's neck (a mutual friend of ours). Smooth. I also think of when I started to fall for her whenever I hear the theme song to The Office.
It's a trap! So, pulling her pigtails on Monday, having her push you down on the playground on Tuesday, and getting Billy Derkins to pass her a note for you that says "Do you like me? Check yes __ or no __" is not an acceptable method anymore?
Re: It's a trap! I think the judge made it very clear to you that no, that is not acceptable for a man your age. "Contrived in a lab" makes it sound like the people were given magic pills and then they just fell in love with a stranger. (So MDMA.) These questions just seem like an efficient way of cutting to the chase; they're mostly things that couples would talk through on their own given enough time, but by doing this you speed up the process. Nobody has time for anything anymore, so this is perfect.
I would like to point out that one of the fisherman on Wicked Tuna just got popped because he was at some bar when he tugged on some chicks ponytail in a "flirty" manner, she didn't take it as such and he spent some time in the click. Whatta bitch.
I think it's an incredibly effective method for falling in love with someone. Now, STAYING in love with someone, that's a different story. I've only got my anecdotal evidence to go on but here it is: I'm coming up on dating someone for two years. It takes me three to be comfortable enough with someone to ask them all the hard questions, but spending two years with someone in the same house and not having center-of-the-onion-my-mom-was-mean-to-me-and-that's-why-I-do-this sorts of conversations can get to be, not quite concerning, but at least a little strange. And as an incredibly introverted person who is more concerned with what I'm doing that day than what happened 10 years ago, dating someone who firmly leaves his past in the past means we don't tend to get into conversations like a lot of the ones prompted in this list. So we sat down and decided to get through some of them. By question 6, I had fallen in love with him for entirely different reasons than I had previously. By question 11, I realized it wasn't that we weren't close, it was that we tend to talk about our days more than we ask questions about our lives. Haven't finished the list yet, but we plan to, since it really is just a list of really good conversation starters that aren't, "How was your day?" or "Tell me again about that bitch you hate" or "Omar so IS the best character on The Wire." I think it has a lot to do with our culture's weird obsession with vulnerability. Being vulnerable is lauded publicly, but vilified privately. No one wants to hear that you're unhappy, yet we all want to have someone to validate our unhappiness. I think this test just shows two people that they're not alone, and that tends to make people want to be together.
STAYING in love is hard. STAYING in love requires accepting (not ignoring) little idiosyncrasies, disagreeing respectfully, accepting pasts, and making an honest effort every single day no matter what to love your partner as best you can. It means grinding through tedium, having open communication about things that are uncomfortable - money and sex and insecurities as well as hopes and dreams and beliefs. It means putting in the effort BEFORE you're ready to walk away to be honest about what you need so you'll want to stay...as well as being honest and saying "I can't do that for you...." and realizing when it's time to cut losses. Love starts as an emotion but becomes a verb. One falls 'in love', and then 'loves' someone. It's a verb, and not very many people act on it.
I am no expert on love, but I did get married this weekend and I was thinking a lot about how I fell in love with my wife. I don't know if expectations or standards are the proper words when talking about love, but I think that they apply here. As Shimmered stated, staying in love is actions and love becomes a verb. I think that is why my wife loves me and I love her: we both have ideas of what we want out of a relationship and see each other as the personification of what we're looking for (except I always wanted a woman who was at least 5' 8") and accept the other's flaws. If you are holding unreasonable expectations for yourself or another, then there is no way to flourish: you will suffocate. I suppose if there was a definite moment in time that I can point to where I knew I wanted to be with her it would be one of the first times she went to an academic conference and I realized after a 24-36 hours of her being gone that my days weren't nearly as fun with her gone (despite what I anticipated). I like to do things independently from time to time and will go fishing/golfing for 3-4 hours to relax but none of that provides nearly the satisfaction which having my wife near me does. So I guess that's how I fell in love, I want to share my life with her going forward
I've fallen in honest to God According to Hoyle love exactly twice. The first time, I was 21. I was much too young, I didn't understand the powerful forces at work and completely took them for granted. To this day, I believe that girl is the one I was destined to be with. It's probably good we haven't spoken in well over in a decade. How did I fall in love with her, you might ask? I was a training waiter at IHOP. Shut it. I did the schedules, and disciplined waiters/waitresses. I was sitting in the smoking section, having a cigarette, doing schedules. Someone comes up to me and says 'Hi, I'm supposed to talk to you about training.' I started to lift my eyes up to meet the voice and got far as her crotch. Her slacks said 'Z Cavaricci.' My first words to the love of my life were 'First, you can ditch those pants, they are just awful.' We dated for 6 years. Ups, downs, and everything in between. If there's any time, any woman, any where I would love to return to, it would be that moment with the knowledge of what would follow. Bad ending and all. That's how much I loved her. The second time was my wife. My father had passed away a year prior. I was not in a good place (and many of you whom have posted with me on TMMB may remember I was pretty bitter at that time). My wife became my team. Other than girl number one, I've never felt like someone was on my side. When we were dating, I felt invincible. I really did. It was the peak of my personal, social, and professional life. We didn't share exact views on everything, but we shared exact views on each other. And it was phenomenal. Despite everything that's happened since, I know what it was. Maybe the jaded man in me says the following: 'Never again.' To the folks who are talking about 'staying in love' all I can say: fuckin' A right. Tough to do, and beyond my capabilities.
After reading this article and the study, I fully believe it would work to get people to fall in love. Staying in love is a whole different conversation, but I think it gets you there. What I take from this is that sitting down and answering these questions cuts through the fear of vulnerability. We, as humans, believe over time, we can tell people things because it'll decrease the chances they'll hurt us. I think these questions support the idea that it is what we tell them as opposed to when you tell people this stuff. It gets the whole "TMI" or "It was only X date!" concept out of the window. Both people sitting down answering the questions know they're going in, so the abject fear of being vulnerability is alleviated. Roxanne's last paragraph really hits it on the head. Also, I really think this study actually gets you to know someone. I noticed how when you ask certain people about their significant other, there is a lot of "they make me happy, they make me laugh, they make me..." as opposed to describing them as an independent person. You ask them "Well what are they into?" and all they list is the stuff they're into as well. Part of this can be because that person is a narcissist, the other part is people just don't ask questions.
I don't know... I read through both articles and I don't see this as anything more than a glorified magazine quiz. Falling in love happens after you know someone's insecurities. After you find out things they aren't willing to tell you after knowing them for months, let alone in a 2 hour conversation. After spending time around them 24/7 for weeks. You might really like someone after going through these questions with them, but you aren't in love. You haven't made any sacrifices. So while I suppose this might work to some extent, saying it will make you fall in love with anyone (anyone? no...) is quite an exaggeration.
I feel like you're tautologically defining being in love as not happening until certain objective standards are reached, and you're only disagreeing with the study because those standards are outside the bounds of the study. Your standard of love means that you can't be in love with someone until you live together. There are plenty of people in the world who will say they fell in love with someone after much less time than a few weeks, and after spending much less time together than constantly being in each other's presence. Are you really saying that they're all wrong?
I think it comes down to: What's the definition of "in love"? Is it lust? Or hormones? Or something deep and abiding? If that can't be answered then the rest of the debate will be talking about such different perspectives it won't matter.
No, I'm saying it doesn't happen in two hours. I'm not going to put some arbitrary time frame or loophole on it, but that's not love. That's a connection, or interest.
I think the point of the test is to accelerate the process. The question you set up is "Why wouldn't it happen in two hours?" The answer would be "Because you don't get to know someone that fast." This process gets you talking about those things immediately, as opposed to divulging these stories over time. As I mentioned before, think about the reason you don't tell someone all your information at the outset. Now we, as humans, want to think we're always some complex creatures. That we're all special snowflakes. There is a science behind everything, to think that it's just impossible to trigger chemicals in our body with something like this is absurd. Now I don't think this thing is 100% accurate, but I can definitely see how you can get really close to someone by talking about personal stuff with people.
How to word the definition is tricky, but I do believe that it is something deep and abiding. What makes love so unique is that you return to the object of your love time and again willingly because at some level it provides a positive feedback which you cannot find elsewhere. Lust and hormones provide temporary mood swings, but I think love provides a baseline which can withstand the negative changes in lust/hormones and enhances the positives of lust/hormones. I dunno, I stopped trying to figure out exactly what love is and instead embraced how I felt while with those who cared about me
This is might ramble a little because I'm a romantic and this is about love, so... Regarding love... I won't try to define it, but I wanted to share the metaphor I use to think about it in my life. I like to think of love as a tree. When you're in a relationship with someone, you're essentially creating "that tree" together. Together, you draw sustenance from all kinds of sources, just as a tree draws sustenance from the ground, from the water, and from the sun. Early in the relationship it's easy to get energy from things, and it's easy to grow fast. Upon maturity, the tree still draws energy as it did before, but it must get it differently, or compete with other, younger trees for it. Once the tree has reached a point of stasis the question becomes not how to continue growing at the same rate as before, but how to continue growing at a stable pace and enjoy the majestic tree one has already created for oneself. I believe this is perhaps one of the greatest pleasures of a long-term relationship. Sometimes you can love a person but circumstances make it more difficult to love them. Like the tree. There's nothing the tree wants more than to be beautiful and share such radiance with the world around it... but if it is the winter and there is no sun, then it is difficult to continue growing. That doesn't necessarily mean the tree dies... just that a former source of energy is no longer available. Luckily, in the land of metaphor, relationship tree is far more adaptable than real trees. For true love, I see the tree as being resilient, if not anti-fragile to the events around it. To me, a relationship is how you go through your day-to-day life with a person. When you're with someone you love, things can get more difficult, but if you truly love them, you'll always continue to grow together. As above, sometimes an activity that you used to draw energy from might go away, but that may only be temporary, or it may be that the two of you have moved past it, together or as individuals. To take the analogy to its logical conclusion, if you were to look at a love like say Romeo and Juliet, then you would say the soil of the world was not fit for such a grand tree to take root. Just like in the real world, trees stop growing. They become stunted, they can become infected with diseases or parasites. They can become hollowed out versions of what they once were, appearing large and looming and full of grandeur, but in reality merely reflect the majesty of what once was. But it doesn't change how tall they can stand or how beautiful they can ultimately become. The above are things to guard against. There are many things that can threaten a relationship that have nothing to do with either party in the relationship, and I believe that fact should be respected, because at that point, both parties need to summon up some humility and work harder to be better individuals, or the ship is going down. Some trees bloom. Some trees bear fruit for others. Some grow taller and taller and taller that they may see the world around them better. Some are grand and are happy that way, and some are small, and are also just as happy. Some love is fast and beautiful in it's fast flowering, some love is slow-building and so becomes immune to threats around it. For true love, I don't think the tree can really die. It can be stunted, it can become dormant, it can become hollowed out... but it will always be there. At the least, the stump will be, even if the hollowed-out shell is eventually discarded back into our consciousness. There are many kinds of trees of all kinds of sizes and shapes that draw energy from any number of different things around them. And I'm just a fucking idiot... but hey, it's the image I use to think about love.
I knew y'all were some romantic motherfuckers. You've just been fucked over and jaded too much to admit it.
I believe in romance. I love the idea of having a partner in this big ol' mess we call life. New partners are thrilling - that's no shit. But the comfort of a partner who knows me? Knows that when I get off work I need to be left alone for about 45 minutes while I eat, shower, and decompress? Knows that I need orange juice AND coffee to be human in the morning? Knows that my way of dealing with stress is to be quiet for awhile, then to talk it out? Knows that sometimes I just need to be grumpy for a minute? Likes to cook with me? Seeks my opinion on things he considers important? So many other things? And a partner I know? Whose needs and wants and beliefs are things that intrigue me, challenge me, and fulfill me? I fucking love that. I love the idea of enjoying my partner and everything that goes with it. But then again, I see romance in enjoying one another. I don't see romance in flowers and candies. I see romance in the day to day existing together, acts of love for one another, and in the mundane parts of 'togetherness'. I see romance in the perfect way he arranges his legs at night so I can massage his calves with the arches of my feet. I also think most people don't know the difference between loving something and cherishing it.