how to make anyone fall in love with you | Page 5

choice fall in love withyou. (You notice that I have used the words Potential Love Partner several times. I will do sothroughout the book because, although it is bulkier, the phrase is more accurate than anyone, whichmy publisher wisely decided is more readable.)Who are your Potential Love Partners? First, a Potential Love Partner (or PLP) is anyone who isready for love. Timing, if not everything, at least counts a lot. For example, if someone has just lost abeloved spouse, he or she may not be ready for love. That knocks him or her—temporarily—out ofthe PLP category.Second, a Potential Love Partner is anyone free of esoteric psychological (or Lovemap) needs.These are needs that, through no fault of your own, you can't fulfill. We'll talk a lot about yourQuarry's Lovemap later.That leaves many Potential Love Partners, a myriad of hearts to choose from. Let us embark nowupon the path that leads you to the heart of the man or woman you desire.Page 92What Makes People Fall in Love? The Six Elements

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 intocomputerized, 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 havemade tremendous progress.Out of the cascade of studies, six verities emerge about what makes people fall in love. To be asuccessful Hunter or Huntress of hearts, you must, like Cupid, be a skillful archer, and aim yourarrow dead center at the following six targets.I. First ImpressionsYou Never Get a Second Chance at Love at First SightThe 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 firstfew minutes of a relationship.When two cats meet for the first time, they stop and look at each other. If one hisses, the otherbristles his coat and hissesPage 10back. However, if the first kitten gives a little nudge with its cold nose, the other kitten responds inkind, 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. Wehave hands that flash knuckles or subconsciously soften in the palms-up "I submit" position. Thereare 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 thesubtleties of your body language. In these first crucial moments, he or she can unconsciously resolveto 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 firstdate.In Part One, we will cover techniques to lure Potential Love Partners into approaching you, intoliking you, and then into making a first date. I'll share scientifically sound methods of keeping theconversation exciting and making the first date stimulating for your Quarry.II. Similar Character, Complementary NeedsI 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 wantsomeone like me. Well, almost like me."If there is to be compatibility for a lifetime, or even for a date, some similarity is necessary. Ourhearts are finely tuned instruments that seek someone who has values similar to ours, who holdsbeliefs similar to ours, and who looks at the world in more or less the same way we do. Similaritymakes us feelPage 11good because it confirms the choices we have spent our whole lives making. We also look forpeople who enjoy the same activities so we can have fun together. Similarity is indeed a launch padfor 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, whois going to pick up our socks?So we also look for complementary qualities in a long-term love partner. But not anycomplementary qualities—only the ones we find interesting or that enhance our lives. Hence, weseek someone who is both similar and complementary.In Part Two, we will explore methods of planting subliminal seeds of similarity in your Quarry's heartand ways to make him or her know that, even