How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You Leil Lowndes (nonfiction book recommendations .TXT) 📖

parents how to cope with their offspring. Today, controversy swirls around his doctrine of permissiveness, but the well-intended doctor leaves the world with at least one good axiom. He said, in essence, "Tell the little tyke that he is great, and it will encourage his greatness."

I call this techniqueSpocking after this baby philosophy. Spocking , on an adult level, is doing the same with your significant other. Divulge what you love, appreciate, or admire in your Quarry so he or she will keep doing those things you love, appreciate, or admire.

People start to fall in love for a myriad of different reasons. The logic, flowing from your Lovemap, can seem as arbitrary as loving the way she wrinkles her nose when she laughs

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or adoring the way he caresses your cheek. You might have fallen in love with him when, the first time you invited him to dinner, he washed the dishes.

You might admire her strength in the face of crisis or respect his sense of honesty.

To stay in love (and therefore keep your Quarry in love with you), encourage that which you adore. Say

"I love the way you wrinkle your nose when you laugh." Say, "It's so exciting when you caress my cheek." Say, "Believe it or not, one of the things that I really love about you is the way you offer to do the dishes." Say, "I admire your strength in the face of crisis." Say, ''I respect your deep sense of honesty.''

I remember a lovelyNew Yorker cartoon, so poignant I cried. The drawing was of an obviously poor, overweight, and exhausted couple sitting at their kitchen table. The husband, in his T-shirt, hadn't shaved. The wife had curlers in her hair. Dirty dishes and diapers hung on a makeshift clothesline strung from a pipe to the fridge. They were drinking coffee out of chipped old mugs.

The caption was the man smiling at his wife, saying,

"I just love the way you wrinkle your nose when you laugh." The couple looked genuinely happy, in spite of the mess, in spite of their poverty, in spite of their exhaustion. IfSpocking was part of their daily life, they probably were.

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TECHNIQUE #46:

SPOCKING

Think about the subtle, maybe even silly, things you love about your significant other. Then, at odd moments, tell him or her what those things are.

Your partner is not a mind reader. More than just saying "I love you," you need to tellwhy.

Many people neglect to tell their significant other wharet allyturns them on. (Yes, this applies to sex, also.) The sig-Page 157

nificant other, not realizing its importance, stops wrinkling her nose, caressing your cheek, or washing the dishes. Then one tiny bulb goes out in the magnificent array of glimmering lights that make up love.

If other bulbs start burning out one by one, the love can go dark. If your significant other becomes insignificant to you, you are both losers.

KeepSpocking the qualities in the ones you love to keep the love alive.

PART FOUR

PRINCIPLE OF LOVE (WHAT'S IN IT

FOR ME?)

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During a heated argument, a man I once loved snarled at me, "Everybody's got a value on the open market, baby." I was appalled. How crass! How could he see people as commodities, especially somebody he said he loved? What a repulsive way to look at relationships!

To me, love was beautiful. Love was pure. It was the source of the most intense pleasure known to mankind and had no parallel in human experience. To me, love was sharing, trusting, total giving of self.

The words of Robert Burns had reverberated in my heart since childhood: "Love, 0 lyric Love, half angel and half bird. And all a wonder and a wild desire." To hear my lover liken his loved one's qualities to pork bellies or soybeans on the commodities market was too much. I stormed out of the room. And, soon thereafter, out of the relationship.

Now, many years later, older and, some few could argue, wiser, I wonder, "Was he right?" Not in his manner of presentation, certainly. But in his facts? It surprises no one to hear, "Everyone wants to get the best deal possible in life." Nor are they shocked when they learn about the law of supply and demand in business. People don't even flinch when sales gurus preach that, in all human interaction, the big question is —(what's in it for me?) Page 162

Why do we recoil when researchers tell us the same natural laws apply to love?

Recently, the scientific community, not content with the theories of love proposed by Sigmund Freud (sublimated sexuality) or Theodore Reik (filling a void in oneself), set out to get the real skinny on love.

Conducting numerous surveys and laboratory experiments, scientists peeled back a deeper layer of the human psyche. Did they uncover some ugly facts? Did they confront a monster? Some might say

"yes." Others would laugh it off and say, "Of course not."

Whether you see their findings as the abominable snowman or the archangel of truth, the result is quite simply this: Studies do indeed support the thesis that everything and everybody has a quantifiable value on the open market. And everybody wants to get the best deal possible in love as well as in life. Researchers christened their findings theequity(or exchange ) theory of love. It's sort of like the oldhorse-trading principle .

Why Is Finding Love Like Horse Trading?

The equity theory of love is based on the same sound business principles of barter and open market value.

Everything has a value. Everything has a price. As with that of a product, a person's value can be subjective. Generally, the world agrees on what's a good catch and what's a shoddy one.

In the world of horse trading, there aretop-grade champions or nags(horses ready for the glue factory).

At a horse auction, buyers look for qualities they describe aspretty movers , good disposition, no bad vices , and even flashy . Are humans really so different?

All these horse qualities affect the sales price. If you are trading a registered horse