The Three Steps to Making Someone Fall in Love

There is something distinctly spooky in the idea of there being any set route

to making one person fall in love with another.

It threatens to transform what should be an unconsciously based mystery into a generic

programmatic maneuver.

And yet it may be no violation of our integrity to observe

that when people do feel attracted to one another,

certain factors will often to a remarkable extent be present.

Three moves in particular appear to be central to love's genesis.

Firstly, curiosity.

The leading evidence for an harbinger of love is curiosity.

To be attracted to someone is first and foremost to want to know more.

It's to have a constantly renewed appetite for questions.

And not just any questions.

Questions that aim to unearth why someone is the way they are,

what they aspire to, who shaped them, and where they are headed.

We feel in the presence of someone properly invested in us.

When we hear, why do you think you didn't stay with them after that?

Or how come the job didn't in the end work out?

What do you believe made it

so hard to say anything

when or where might you want to go next?

Of course, the questions have to be gently handled.

The curiosity that wins us over must be measured, discreet, and unpressured.

A lot of the time, we'll be unaware that we're even being asked anything.

We'll just feel that we have a lot to say.

Ideally, our interlocutor will hover over things we've described

and make remarks that subtly invite us to deepen our reflections.

I suppose it must have been difficult to find the energy to leave

when or I wonder

if it was sad knowing

that they're now with someone who nothing here is being solicited head on

but a space is nevertheless created in

which our thoughts can evolve.

We might add the curiosity

that especially counts is the sort that's alive to pain. the kind that's sensitive

to what it would have felt like not to have

so many friends at university

or to have developed a certain kind of illness at a young age.

We feel ready to fall in love with a person who signals

that what truly interests them isn't what's going well.

They inquire into our ex who never said goodbye properly,

our father who was distant and preoccupied,

or our mother who mixed her affections with jealousy and a desire for control.

We may well feel aligned with someone who shares our interests and hobbies.

We will feel intimately connected to someone who knows about

and can tolerate our suffering.

Our culture heavily associates the birth of romance with physical moves,

with a kiss or an embrace.

But genuine romance begins somewhere else,

somewhere far less cinematic and a lot more nourishing,

with a sense of being known.

Second factor, broad-mindedness.

At the same time,

the great terror of being known is

that it's going to lead us to being judged.

Which is why the most enticing people let us know subtly

that they have a great deal of room for weirdness,

our weirdness.

They don't need to make a speech on the matter.

They don't have to say, "I accept transgressions and don't moralize around flaws."

Rather, they make their point through indirect revelations by telling us casually of some

of the less cuberous bits of their own pasts.

Maybe, I ate five packs of biscuits in a row and cried all weekend,

or by commenting on other people's lives in ways

that suggest they don't care for standard definitions of normality

or goodness.

Why would anyone care what he did so long as no one got hurt?

The result is a sense

that around this person we could show a great deal of ourselves without running

into sensual or prudishness.

We could collapse.

We could admit we were scared.

We could say we couldn't be bothered

or hated X or Y

and it would be more than fine.

Third ingredient, kindness.

The third ingredient of love is both the most benile sounding

and the most essential.

We need to feel in the presence of someone who is kind

because we all know deep down

that we're so much in need of generous interpretations.

Why did we fail?

Why are we so slow?

Why are we so weakwilled?

Why don't we take more care?

There are plenty of ostensible reasons,

most of them at the top of our minds every new day.

Because we're wretched.

Because we're not good enough.

Because we're ugly and corrupt and benal.

We can do all this very well on our own.

Self flagagillation is our second nature.

What we can't do is to come up with a kinder, more livable answers,

the ones that depend on love

because we had a tricky start

because we didn't have certain lucky breaks

because we would have needed

so much more encouragement.

We spend a great deal of time hoping our future lovers might be pretty

or tall or rich.

These are fine qualities, but if we ever find a home,

one that can shelter us from inner and outer storms,

it's going to have to be one built out of these three ingredients: curiosity,

broad-mindedness, and kindness.