The Fall
Let me hypothesize something to start with. Imagine a software passing the Turing test to its fullest meaning. What is Turing test you might ask. To put it in simple words, its when a machine can fool you into thinking it’s a human. Now let’s assume you stumbled onto one online and have been exchanging texts for a while without realizing its a bot. Perhaps even start talking to each other on some form of voice chat. The hard and fast rule of this friendship — “You can’t see me and neither can I see you”. I’ll refer to this bot as “person” from here on.
It’s a she(he).. *if you are he(she). Apparently, you both like butterscotch ice-cream and don’t fancy rock music. You describe yourself as a methodical and planning one while that person claims to be spontaneous “you only live once” kind. The person has a warm cheerful voice but weirdly talks a bit slow (hmm.. wonder why). You get to know that both of you share a normal and simple upbringing, nothing dramatic. Both of you love night sky. The person is really not interested in the sport you love. The person has some interesting answers when asked how she(he) sees her(him)self in future. After you run out of the basic getting to know Q&A, you just exchange conversation about random things. She(he) asks if you are alright when you mention your bad day. Cracks up a lame joke that shouldn’t be funny but it is! You are like.. “You are crazyy! XD”
Oh, by the way.. both of you are single. ;P
I am sure you have some vague form of this person forming in your head. If not, read the above description again and try to form one -_- . With a great deal of certainty, if you manage to keep up this friendship, I can tell in due course of time, you might find yourself falling in love with this person. You don’t think so? Don’t kid yourself. You ain’t that “Sakht” as you thought you were.
According to a small online search I undertook, most people fall in love with the person with the kind of characteristics described above i.e. a person who shares a lot of similarities with you but just enough differences to make them unique, a person who shows interest in your life and doesn’t hold back to share theirs with you. It’s someone you could imagine with a smile on your face even if you would have not seen them ever. Just from their qualities that you have interpolated and extrapolated from the exchange of the data. You can imagine spending time with them without getting bored.
As much as the physical attraction and the chemical soup in brain are the reason for the initial attraction, the above thought experiment points out that they are secondary for love. To be more general, any kind of love.
Love is more psychological than physical. You love anything that you put your efforts into. You love the dish that you prepared but used to hate when your mom did. You love anything that makes you feel wanted. You love your cute puppy and can see yourself dying for it if needed. That good boi wags its cute tail and runs at every delayed sight of you, missing you, making you feel needed. You love and are possessive about things that enable you. You love your DSLR camera and would probably bite somebody’s hands off if they tried to use it without your consent.
So, after watching a sci-fi movie yesterday in which a guy falls in love with an AI (which is also a humanoid unlike our person in the story who is more like the personal assistant from the movie “Her”), I asked myself the question, “How/Whom do we fall in love with?” and tried to find some scientific explanations that convinced me. All I got were the names of a bunch of hormones that flood your brain and how it is evolutionary. Also that its a field that is being researched till date with very little inferences. I was hoping for a more psychological answer than chemistry or evolution but I was too lazy to scour through Google Scholar. So set out on this thought experiment train and found myself making this “person” who seems quite nice. And realized that the answer to be
KNOWING
You can only fall in love with a person if you KNOW them. I really hope you understand when I say “KNOW” and not just “know” (in all caps). Anything else is just a phase where you are most likely physically attracted and which most probably won’t last long enough.
How many of us have tried asking Google assistant, Siri or Bixbi: “Do you like me?” and were impressed by the cheeky answers? The very fact that we ask such question and expect flattery shows that we yearn to connect with a “person” on a more psychological ground. And the best way to do that is to try and really KNOW them.
There is this interesting and really popular study on Interpersonal closeness conducted by Aron et al. that prescribes 36 probing question that can allow you to KNOW a person (stranger or otherwise) which can accelerate the intimacy/closeness you feel for them. Can be tried out with anyone. It needn’t be between two people hoping to be romantically involved.
Paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146167297234003
Questions list: https://medium.com/@sidamsi/36-questions-to-get-close-to-someone-5a06bb7777c2
The questions set is practically is a shortcut to KNOWING someone or at least accelerate that process.
Ughhh.. I don’t know. Was that a bit too unstructured cluster of thoughts? :(
Anyway the point is, I was wondering about the checklist that we unknowingly refer to and unknowingly use to fall for someone so much so that it needn’t even be physically human. Something that could give me at least a convincing answer to “Whom are(am) we(I) likely to fall in love with?” without the details of chemistry (I really don’t like chemistry :/).
Turns out it’s a “person”…
A person who seems to demand your effort
A person who seems to make you feel wanted
A person who shows all the prospects of being someone who could enable you
A person who shares your interests but is beautifully unique
A person who is not shying away from being vulnerable and sharing things with you.
If you find such person, you my friend better wear a helmet, get a parachute and brace yourself for you are all set up for a big fall :)
