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 similarand complementary .
In Part Two, we will explore methods of planting subliminal seeds of similarity in your Quarry's heart and ways to make him or her know that, even though you two are basically alike, you are different in so many utilitarian, fun, and interesting ways.
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, " ?" What's in it for me? WIIFM
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 loveisall 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 onlyafter you've made your partner fall in love with you.
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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 personc'somparable 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.
Is all lost if you weren't born drop-dead gorgeous, or if your grandfather's name wasn't Vanderbilt or Kennedy, or if you don't have the compassion of a Dr.
Schweitzer? No. In Part Three, we will
explore silver-tongued verbal skills to replace the silver spoon that was never in our mouths when we were born. In that way, we can satisfy some very choosy Quarry.
IV. Ego
How Do You Love Me? Let Me Count the
Ways
At the blazing core of first romantic rumblings eisgo.
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 shewantsto 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 differ-Page 13
ent. 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 followingMy 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 toassume 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
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other off, especially on the first dates.
To avoid scaring off their prey before they bag it, serious big-game hunters
