6 Elements of Love
What Makes People Fall in Love? The Six Elements
by Leil Lowndes
What are the long-awaited results of Berscheid’s early studies and the deluge of those that followed?
Well, maybe Freud was right. Romantic love is enigmatic. It is difficult to capture and convert into
computerized, controlled bits and bytes of information. Instead, treating it as if it were a virus,
scholars are tackling specific questions about love, nailing down a few facets at a time. They have
made tremendous progress.
Out of the cascade of studies, six verities emerge about what makes people fall in love. To be a
successful Hunter or Huntress of hearts, you must, like Cupid, be a skillful archer, and aim your
arrow dead center at the following six targets.
I. First Impressions
You Never Get a Second Chance at Love at First Sight
The first moments you spot your Quarry—and he or she gets a glimpse of you—can be decisive.
Herein lies a ”go/no go” decision. Scientists tell us that love’s seeds are often sown during the first
few minutes of a relationship.
When two cats meet for the first time, they stop and look at each other. If one hisses, the other
bristles his coat and hisses back. However, if the first kitten gives a little nudge with its cold nose, the other kitten responds in kind, and they wind up purring together and licking each other’s coats.
A man and a woman getting to know each other are like two little animals sniffing each other out.
We don’t have tails that wag or hair that bristles, but we do have eyes that narrow or widen. We
have hands that flash knuckles or subconsciously soften in the palms-up “I submit” position. There
are dozens of other “involuntary” reactions that take place in the first few moments of interaction.
The good news is that we can learn to control these presumed involuntary reactions.
The moment you set eyes on each other, your Potential Love Partner subconsciously reads the
subtleties of your body language. In these first crucial moments, he or she can unconsciously resolve
to try for romantic takeoff or abort thoughts of love. His or her mind then becomes computer-like,
and your PLP continues to make rapid decisions about you during your first conversation, your first
date.
II. Similar Character, Complementary Needs
I Want a Lover Just Like Dear Old Me (Well, Almost)!
If you pass the first impressions test, you enter the second phase. Here your Quarry starts making
judgments about you as a Potential Love Partner. His or her subconscious mind is saying, “I want
someone like me. Well, almost like me.”
If there is to be compatibility for a lifetime, or even for a date, some similarity is necessary. Our
hearts are finely tuned instruments that seek someone who has values similar to ours, who holds
beliefs similar to ours, and who looks at the world in more or less the same way we do. Similarity
makes us feel good because it confirms the choices we have spent our whole lives making. We also look for
people who enjoy the same activities so we can have fun together. Similarity is indeed a launch pad
for a good relationship takeoff.
But we get bored with too much similarity. Besides, we need somebody to make up for our lacks.
If we have no head for mathematics, who is going to balance the checkbook? If we are sloppy, who
is going to pick up our socks?
So we also look for complementary qualities in a long-term love partner. But not any
complementary qualities—only the ones we find interesting or that enhance our lives. Hence, we
seek someone who is both similar and complementary.
III. Equity
The “WIIFM” Principle of Love
“Hey, baby, everybody’s got a market value! Everybody wears a price tag.” How pretty is she?
How much prestige does he have? How blue is her blood? How much power does he wield? Are
they rich, intelligent, nice? What can they do for me?
Does this sound ugly? Researchers tell us love is not really blind. Everybody—even the nicest
people—has a touch of crass when it comes to choosing a long-term partner. It’s no different than in
the business world where everybody asks, “WIIFM?” What’s in it for me?
I can hear some of you protesting, “No, love is pure and compassionate. It involves caring, altruism,
communion, and selflessness. That’s what love is all about.” Yes, that’s what love is all about when
good people are truly in love. You’ve probably even met couples who are deeply devoted and
would sacrifice everything for each other. Yes, this kind of selfless love that we all dream of having
exists. But it comes later—much later. It comes only after you’ve made your partner fall in love with you.
If you want to make someone fall in love with you, researchers say, you must initially convince them
they’re getting a good deal. We may not be conscious of it but, science tells us, tried and true market
principles apply to love relationships. Lovers unconsciously calculate the other person’s comparable
worth, the cost-benefit ratio of the relationship, the hidden costs, the maintenance fee, and the
assumed depreciation. Then they ask themselves, “Is this the best offer I can get?” Everybody has
a big scorecard locked away in their heart. And, in order to make people fall in love with you, you
have to make them feel they’re getting a very good deal.
IV. Ego
How Do You Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways
At the blazing core of first romantic rumblings is ego. Perhaps Cupid misses the mark when he aims
his little arrow at Quarries’ hearts. Science shows us where to really level our ammunition and take
fire—right at their egos. People fall in love with people in whose eyes they behold the most ideal
reflections of themselves.
Would-be lovers should be thrilled that ego makes the world go round, because Quarries’ egos are
very vulnerable targets. There are multifarious ways to make your Quarry feel beautiful, strong,
handsome, charming, dynamic, or however he or she wants to feel. There are big-stroke
compliments, little-stroke caresses, and a myriad of deliciously devious means to make your Quarry
feel special. Subtle procedures can convince Quarries what they’ve suspected all along: “I am different. I am wonderful. And to thank you for recognizing this amazing fact, I’ll fall in love with you.”
Everyone also hungers for security and validation. We seek protection in our primary relationship
from the cruel, cruel world. In Part Four, How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You explores
ways to make your Quarry feel that you are the salvation—you are his or her safe harbor from the
storm of life.
V. Early-Date Gender-Menders
Is There Love After Eden?
Everyone smiled knowingly in 1956 when Rex Harrison moaned from the Broadway stage, “Oh,
why can’t a woman be more like a man?” He knew his Fair Lady was a very different animal indeed.
But in the era following My Fair Lady, feminists cast serious doubt on his convictions.
Now, after many decades of pondering, presuming, and postulating on whether men and women
really differ in anything but their genitals, the envelope has been opened. The answer is—drumroll
please—yes! Men and women think and communicate in dramatically different ways.
Neurosurgeons can point to clumps of neurons in female brains that cause men like Henry Higgins in
My Fair Lady to call women “exasperating, calculating, agitating, maddening, and infuriating.”
Scientists aim their needles at the molecules in the male brain that make women accuse men of being
“insensitive clods.”
Despite the torrent of data flowing in about the genetic, cerebral, and sexual differences between
men and women, both Hunters and Huntresses continue to assume we think alike and persist in
courting each other in the way they’d like to be courted themselves. Perhaps recent scientific findings
will give men and women more insight into each other’s style, but nothing short of a frontal lobotomy
could make a permanent change in which brand of neurons our brains give off. Women will continue
to be “exasperating,” and men will still be “insensitive.” And both will keep on communicating in
styles that turn each other off, especially on the first dates.
To avoid scaring off their prey before they bag it, serious big-game hunters know all the
characteristics and habits of deer, moose, caribou, bison, and wild hogs. Likewise, serious love
Hunters and Huntresses must be well versed in gender differences if they intend to make the kill.
VI. Rx for Sex
How to Turn on the Sexual Electricity
Many books on how to turn on your partner make sex sound like flipping the switch on the
night-light next to your bed. “Press here to speed up orgasm. Stroke there for an extra charge.” Yes,
sexuality is electricity, but your Quarry’s bodily buttons only speed up or slow down the physical
functions. Mindpower is what drives the mighty machine and keeps it generating heat for many
years. The most erotic organ in your Quarry’s body is his or her brain.
For details and how-tos, there is no lack of reference books. They have names like How to Drive
Your Man Wild in Bed, How to Drive Your Woman Wild in Bed, How to Drive Your Man Even
Wilder in Bed, and How to Satisfy a Woman Every Time and Have Her Beg for More. The list
goes on. Such manuals are replete with detailed data for women on how to tickle that spot just
below the “cute little helmet” to drive him out of his gourd. Men can examine idiotproof charts on
where to let their fingers do the walking so as to not miss the U-turn that leads to her G-spot.
All of this is important stuff—very important stuff. But when it comes to actually making somebody
fall in love with you, it pales in comparison to what I’ll call brain fellatio—sucking the dreams, the
longings, and the fantasies out of your Quarry, and then creating a lifelong erotic aura that he or she luxuriates in.
Gentlemen, far more important for a woman than how many times you can “do it” in a week (or even
in a night) is the sensuality and passion you create in every aspect of your relationship. And the
sensations you give her every time you look at her. Ladies, far more important to a man than your
bra-cup size or the curve of your hips, is the size and curve of your sexual attitude and how you
deal with his individual sexuality.
Lowndes’s book is an amazing study that ranks up there with Robert Greene’s “The Art of Seduction”
as one of the greatest on the subject of love. It is definately worth reading, if you
are at the point in your life that you’re looking for love, and not just an endless array of new
women.
If you what you want is to just seduce and sleep with as many girls as you can
then click here.
About Bobby Rio I'm Bobby Rio, one of the founders of TSB. I tend to write about what is on my mind so you'll find a mix of self development, social dynamics and dating articles/experiences. For a collection of some of my favorite articles check them out.