How to Make Someone Fall in Love With You in 90 Minutes or Less

by Nicholas Boothman

  The fact is, most people you meet won’t be your matched opposite—but they may make great friends. Or, as in the story about Laura and Jason, they may introduce you to your matched opposite. Be open to people’s charms, but also be aware that very few of them would be a really great match for you. Likewise, you’re not going to be right for everyone, either.

  Can a Woman Ask a Man Out?

  Should a woman ask a man for a date? Conventional wisdom says, “No, it’s the man’s job to do the pursuing.” Reality says, “Sure, why not?” I have met dozens of couples where the woman did the asking and the result is a happy, balanced, long-term life together.

  What’s the best way to do it? Ask without asking. Use an indirect question. Did you ever notice that if you say to someone, “I wonder what time it is,” they’ll tell you the time, even though you didn’t directly ask for it? Or if you say, “I don’t know what kind of movies you enjoy,” they’ll spill the beans. When you use a statement like this, especially with questioning body language—raised eyebrows or raised hands—and a questioning voice inflection, the person will willingly answer a question that was never actually asked. This is a time-tested way for a woman to ask a man out on a date. It even works on paper.

  Trina is a columnist with a large city newspaper. “I met James when we went for a business lunch—it was a Thursday,” she told me. “For two hours we talked about everything. I couldn’t stop thinking about what a good time I had. I wanted to do something about it. On Friday I wrote a short thank you note that said, ‘Thanks for a great lunch. I really enjoyed myself, and the conversation. I am not sure of your personal circumstances but, if you are able and would like to, I’d like to take you for dinner sometime.’

  “Right after I sent the note I wanted to get it back but it was too late—it was gone. I went away for the weekend with some girlfriends, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was nervous, but didn’t see that much downside, other than not hearing from him at all—which would have been equivalent to a ‘no’ and a little hurt to the ego.

  “When Monday came, the phone rang and it was him. I felt relieved. We went for dinner on Tuesday night, and hey—now it’s fifteen years later, and James still has the note.”

  EXERCISE: Getting Involved

  A great way to meet people is to join a community group, a sports league, or a club or class devoted to an activity that interests you.

  Step 1: What Are You Interested In?

  Sports leagues/clubs: golf, skiing, racquetball, basketball, bowling, etc.

  Pastime clubs: book, poetry, film, cards, bingo, stamp collecting, etc.

  Classes: dance, music, cooking, language, wine-tasting, woodworking, stained glass making, etc.

  Volunteer/outreach organizations

  Community recreation outings: hiking, cycling, scuba diving, fishing, etc.

  Religious clubs

  Political associations

  Other:______

  Step 2: Name Something You’ve Always Wanted to Do/Learn

  Step 3: Find Out How to Get Involved in That Thing

  Look in your local newspaper and yellow pages, ask around, and search the Web for local organizations. Note the ones you find here:______

  Step 4: On What Day Will You Make the First Move?

  That Special Feeling

  I’m sure there have been times in your life when you saw a piece of clothing or furniture in a store window and thought, “Wow! That’s perfect for me.” Can you recall how it felt? Maybe you’ve had a similar feeling when traveling, or when meeting people who later became your best friends. It’s that blissful, relaxed feeling of just knowing you’ll get along effortlessly, and probably be friends forever. Take a moment and remember how that felt.

  On the opposite side of the coin, I’m sure you’ve met people who gave you a feeling of unease, though you might not have been able to say why. Given the choice, whom would you spend time with and whom would you reject? The first feeling is what you’ll get when you click with your matched opposite—you’ll just know he or she is right for you. It can’t be forced or faked, and not just anyone can give it to you.

  Go back and read these two paragraphs again slowly. Close your eyes and relive each feeling. Linger on what it feels like to just know something’s right. Then you’ll understand why rejection is a productive thing.

  Welcome Rejection

  Rejection is a course correction on your path to success, and instead of inspiring you to self-pity, it should inspire self-examination: “What did I learn?” you should ask yourself. And “What will I do differently next time?” If you don’t welcome rejection you’ll continue treading the same unconscious feedback loop: Make a move, get a response, react without thinking. Ask the wrong kind of person on a date, get rejected, feel rotten.

  People who do the same thing over and over and expect different results are setting themselves up for disappointment. If you keep on approaching or falling for the wrong kind of guy or gal, it’s not because you have some huge psychological problem or that there’s something wrong with you; it’s because you aren’t stopping to process the feedback that each failure is providing. Look back on your old relationships and see if you can detect a pattern that you continually play out. Hopefully, you’ll see where you go wrong, and you can use that information to recognize and understand the warning signals in the future. That’s what Daisy did when she finally figured out she’d been falling for jerks for so long that she’d forgotten how to recognize the good guys. Once she broke free of the loop, she found her career diplomat and lived happily ever after.

  So as you go out and start meeting all these new people, what are you going to do when you get rejected? Handling rejection requires an immediate adjustment in attitude. If a person doesn’t return your interest, that’s not a cue to give up and get depressed, it’s a call to move on! If you were an apple picker and you came upon a tree with no apples on its branches, would you take it personally and feel hurt and sorry for yourself? Of course not! You would just admit that there was nothing there for you and move on to the next tree. Feeling sorry for yourself means you’ve lost sight of your goal.

  People who do the same thing over and over and expect different results are setting themselves up for disappointment.

  Most people will let you know they’re not interested in a diplomatic way, but you’ll probably meet some rude and ungracious characters along the way, too. When you do, just excuse yourself politely and give thanks that you found out what kind of person he or she was relatively quickly, before you got more deeply involved. Ideally, the rejection/selection process would be painless, but you’ll probably get your feelings bruised once or twice. It’s human nature to feel bad in situations like this—but don’t. Instead, you have to welcome rejection/selection as part of the exploration, the journey, the adventure.

  Understanding the principle that there’s no rejection, only selection, means if you’re on a date and things aren’t clicking, it’s not anybody’s fault. It has nothing to do with you as an individual; it’s not personal. It just means you and your date are not complementary psychological types. So, enjoy your time together, be yourself, remain polite and gracious. At the end say thanks and goodbye and move on to someone else—or remain friends, because friends will enlarge your social circle and enrich your life.

  Everything Begins with You

  Only you can make it happen. If you are not happy with the way things are going, you are the only one with both the authority and the responsibility to change them. You are in charge of your life—you say what gets done, and you reap the rewards.

  One, two, three—no hesitation. This is the moment to take the initiative and get involved. Start slowly if that’s your style, but make socializing a priority in your life. By the end of a month you’ll be an expert at mixing and mingling, and you’ll wonder why the heck you didn’t do this before.

  4

  finding your matched opposite online

  In 1727, Helen
Morrison, a spinster in Manchester, England, placed the first lonely hearts personal advertisement for a husband in the local weekly newspaper. In response, the town mayor committed her to a lunatic asylum for a month. Not quite what she had in mind. Nevertheless, Helen Morrison was a pioneer.

  Two hundred and forty years later, and just a few miles away, the Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and their “Eleanor Rigby” (“All the lonely people, where do they all come from?”) had half the world humming to Helen Morrison’s dilemma. The difference between Helen Morrison and Eleanor Rigby, though, is that while Helen Morrison actually did something about her situation, Eleanor Rigby sat at home and “lived in a dream.” Maybe if she’d had the Internet back then she’d have met her soul mate.

  Flash forward 40 years, and the explosion of online dating services has created a new way for lonely hearts to advertise for true love. So if you haven’t found your matched opposite by using traditional ways of meeting people, here’s something you can add to your tool kit: advertising for a soul mate online.

  In many ways, finding your matched opposite online is just like finding him or her in person. At parties, bars, and in life in general you talk to a bunch of people and end up clicking with a few. The main difference, though, is obvious. In person you’re very likely to recognize the chemistry between you early on. Online you’ll have to do a lot of filtering, rejecting, and selecting based on a photograph and the written word, and even then, you still won’t know if you really click until you meet each other face-to-face.

  Is Internet dating for everyone? Probably not. Does it work? Yes, definitely—sometimes. Online dating services may well help you find your soul mate—but only after you’ve done your homework and learned to play the game. In many ways, Internet dating is like a game of tennis. It has rules, boundaries, guides—and even a net! There are beginners, intermediates, and experts. And there are various types of players. Let’s begin by looking at who they are.

  The Players

  Online daters tend to fall into four main categories, with umpteen variations.

  Romantics

  Romantics are the ones who fall in love before they ever meet. People get seduced by the e-mail back-and-forth and start fanning the flames of intimacy before there’s any evidence of physical attraction, or even a spark. They might pick up the phone to talk (a big deal for some), but often the e-mail conversation will go on for weeks, so by the time they come face to face, there’s a lot on the line. Maybe they’ll discover there’s chemistry, or maybe there isn’t, but chances are they’ve put the cart before the horse. Studies show that e-mail relationships can get far more intimate, far faster, than in-person relationships. Often there’s been so much buildup that the actual meeting is a letdown.

  Junkies

  Junkies are made up of the “cybersexers” (people who trawl for sex online), the phonies, and the addicts (obsessive-compulsive binge daters who spend every spare moment checking to see if anyone has sent them a “kiss”). They have no interest in long-term liaisons: They’re in it for the drama. Junkies tend to advertise in the “intimate encounters” sections of dating websites, but you might run into some who are trawling for long-term relationships. It can be difficult to tell the Junkies from the real thing. One clue is the speed with which they reply. In chat rooms, most people take a few moments to respond. Junkies and other Internet flirts often give themselves away by responding too quickly, sounding overeager or sleazy, or getting too intimate too fast.

  Disappearing Acts

  The third category is Disappearing Acts, or disciples of the delete key. These are the ones who instigate a connection, lead you on, and then hit the delete key on you. They stop e-mailing or chatting with you and then just drop off the face of the planet. Of course, this happens in real-life dating, too. Disappearing Acts can be very convincing at first, so it may be hard to spot them until they’ve actually vanished.

  Realists

  Luckily for you, the vast majority of people using the Internet for serious relationships are Realists. They use online dating as an introduction service, and when they find someone who looks interesting they set up a casual date to see if there’s any real chemistry. And there’s always the possibility it will lead to love. It goes without saying that this last category is where you’re most likely to find your matched opposite.

  Advertising for Love?

  Consumers love to hate advertising. On one hand, they see it as manipulative and misleading. On the other hand, they know it leads to better products and lower prices because it spurs competition. No matter how you feel about advertising, one thing is certain—it works. It works for products and it works for dating profiles. I know this might sound crass or depressing to some, but if you use the basic principles of advertising you can speed up the process of finding what you want.

  Targeting: Finding the Sites that Are Right for You

  Any good marketer will tell you that before you start firing off your message you need to know where the target is. So before we look at how you can write the perfect profile, let’s begin by figuring out where you want to broadcast your message.

  There are hundreds of dating sites out there, so be prepared to explore a bit before deciding where to focus your energy and your money. All sites are not created equal. Just like bars or clubs, different dating sites tend to attract different types of people, but often that doesn’t become clear until you’ve read quite a number of profiles. Ask friends which sites they like and why. Spend time on a lot of sites to see what works and what doesn’t.

  Some of the larger dating sites like Match.com, Yahoo!Personals, Date.com, Lavalife.com, MatchMaker.com, Udate.com, FriendFinder.com, and AmericanSingles.com cater to a broad, mainstream audience. Others like Salon.com, and TheOnion.com attract edgier, more urban, and artistic singles. These sites have more flexibility for off-the-beaten-path sexual preferences. Then there are the free-for-all sites ranging from somewhat regulated okcupid.com and plentyoffish.com, all the way to the “wild west” dating sections on craigslist.org, which is a whole other can of worms, as there are no controls whatsoever.

  • Explore community sites. A newish trend in online dating is using free social networking sites like Facebook.com and MySpace.com to find romance. Since these sites are more about friendship, it’s not as direct a route, but you can find people who have similar interests to yours and also meet friends of friends.

  • Explore sites that specialize. AsiaFriendFinder.com, Black PlanetLove.com, and Jdate.com (catering to Jewish singles) provide opportunities for meeting people in your particular ethnic/cultural community, while eHarmony.com and Tickle.com concentrate on matching by personality. LavalifePrime is for singles aged 45 and up, while ThirdAge.com is exclusively devoted to aging baby boomers, mid-lifers, and active seniors. SeniorFriendFinder.com is more focused on older seniors. And this is just for starters. There are sites for horse lovers, motorcyclists, vegetarians—you name it. Check out lots of sites and see which ones feel in keeping with your interests, lifestyle, and life stage, and attract people with your interests and values.

  If you have questions about different dating sites, try posting them on sites like fluther.com. Real people will respond to your queries.

  Once you’ve found the sites to target, you’ll need to register. Remember to fill out the entire registration form when signing up: It definitely helps in finding better matches.

  Now that you know where you’re going, it’s time to come up with a profile to attract potential matched opposites.

  The four elements to a great online presence are: first, and most overlooked, a compelling username. Next comes your headline, or hook. Then your photo, and finally your stories. These combine to make a great online ad.

  What Matters Most?

  Studies show that men tend to look first at the photo while women read the words, but in reality you never know what’s going to appeal first. A survey commissioned by ThirdAge.com asked, “When looking
at someone’s online profile, what makes you want to contact them?” Men rated a great smile, a good sense of humor, and a good figure/physique as the top three turn-ons, while women chose a good sense of humor and similar taste in music, movies, books, etc., with strong family values and great smile sharing third place. When it came to what turned them off, people looking to cheat, negative attitudes, couch potatoes, and poor spelling and grammar took the top places for men and women alike. When it came to the photo, the survey found weight matters more to men than women, tacky clothes and a bad haircut matter more to women than men.

  A Pound of Preparation Is Worth a Ton of Love

  What if you could pay someone to come up with the perfect profile for you? One that would get great results and make you feel confident about yourself? The fact is, no one can do it as well as you can—as long as you have a little guidance. That “little guidance” is right at end of this book. Completing the exercises that begin on page 319 will give you a tray full of personal insights and goodies about yourself and your dreams that you can use in your profile to make it rich and compelling. Well over half the profiles out there start off with things like, “Oh I don’t know what to write here so here goes …” or “I don’t know what I’m looking for but …” Or “Just looking to settle down …” Or “I’m very outgoing/reserved/…” Avoid these fumbling clichés and use what you learn from the exercises to write a profile that expresses your best self.