Help Getting A Date Article

In her latest book, Superflirt, Tracey Cox reveals 5 simple tricks that you can use to make just about anyone fall in love with you. You won't believe how easy it is to win over the object of your affection. Find out how you can send all the right signals:

Some people will read this and think what I'm suggesting is wrong. I admit it's about manipulating and meddling with people's emotions. Most particularly, people you wish to God would meddle with you. In an ideal world, I'd agree. It would be preferable if everyone you wanted just fell in your lap, without having to play games. Unfortunately, real life doesn't always work that way.

Sometimes you can spend six months living, breathing, dripping, drooling, loving and lusting after someone with zero result. And it's when that happens that the techniques that follow suddenly seem like a gift from heaven. Besides, it's not like I'm proposing black magic or suggesting any of these techniques will force someone to fall in love with you against their will. What they will do though is nudge the odds a lot higher in your favor. Is that really so bad? I don't think so. Go on, keep reading. You know you want to...

Hang Around Lots...but Then Be Unavailable

The more you interact with someone, the more they'll like you, says David Lieberman, a U.S. expert in human behavior. He's right actually. Several studies show repeated exposure to practically any stimulus makes us like it more (the only time it doesn't hold true is if our initial reaction to it is negative). So forget about being aloof, evasive, and unavailable in the beginning. Instead, find lots of excuses to spend time with him.

Now, pay attention, because this is the tricky part. Just when you're convinced you've won them over and they like you, start being a little less available. And then even less, until they hardly see you at all. You've now effectively instigated the "law of scarcity." We all know this one: people want what they can't have and by constantly being available, you diminish your value. If every time you walked outside your front door there was a huge pile of diamonds to step over, you'd hardly see them as precious would you? The law of scarcity only makes them want you. Be around and then not around and they'll want and like you. I'm stating the obvious here, but liking someone is important. We talk endlessly about chemistry, passion, sexual attraction, and even more about love, yet "like" rarely gets mention. Opposites don't attract long-term; we search for similarities in a partner. Most of us can't see the point in hanging around friends we don't like, so why do it with a lover? Liking someone is more important long-term than actually loving them. It's not just similarities in our personalities that count. If you go out with someone who looks like you, they're four times more likely to fall in love with you! "That's so true!" said a girlfriend, when I told her this trivia tidbit. "Look at my sister and her husband!" Umm -- why? Lisa's sister has bleached blonde hair, freckles, and ivory skin. Her husband is Indian. "I'm not quite with you," I said carefully. "I know it's not obvious," she said, "But it's the proportion of their faces. His mother came up to me at their wedding and said, 'They will be happy because they are the same. Look at them.' And it's true. They have the same features, in the same places, in the same proportions.

Don't Do Nice Things for Them. Let Them Do Nice Things for You

If you do something nice for someone, it makes you feel good on two levels. You feel pleased with yourself and extra-warm toward the person you've just spoiled. To justify the effort or expense, we often over-idealize how wonderful he is to deserve it! End result: we like the person more. When someone does something nice for us, we're pleased. But there are a whole lot of other emotions that come into play -- and they're not all good. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed. There's pressure to live up to being the wonderful person who inspired such a gift/act, not to mention pressure to return the favor. It's all even trickier if the "nice thing" comes from someone you very much like but aren't sure about yet. Got the point? When we're infatuated with someone, we're desperate to do nice things for him. You're much better off letting him spoil you.

Give Them the Eye

Harvard psychologist Zick Rubin set out to see if he could measure love scientifically and achieved it by recording the amount of time lovers spent staring at each other. He discovered that couples who are deeply in love look at each other 75 percent of the time when talking and are slower to look away when someone else dares to intrude. In normal conversation, people look at each other between 30-60 percent of the time. The significance of what's now known as Rubin's Scale is obvious: It's possible to tell how "in love" people are by measuring the amount of time they spend gazing adoringly. Some psychologists still use it during counseling to work out how much affection couples feel for each other. It also happens to be remarkably handy information if you want to make someone fall in love with you. Here's how it works: If you look at someone you like 75 percent of the time when they're talking to you, you trick their brain. The brain knows the last time that someone looked at them that long and often, it meant they were in love. So it thinks OK, I'm obviously in love with this person as well, and starts to release phenylethylamine (PEA). PEA is a chemical cousin to amphetamines and is secreted by the nervous system when we first fall in love. PEA is what makes our palms sweat, our tummies flip over, and our hearts race. The more PEA the person you want has pumping through the bloodstream, the more likely he is to fall in love with you. While you can't honestly force someone to adore you if he's not remotely interested (they won't let you look into their eyes for that long, for a start!), it is entirely possible to kick-start the production of PEA using this technique. Try it. I think you'll be pretty impressed with the results. Give someone the sensation of feeling in love whenever he's with you, and it's not such a huge leap of logic for him to finally decide that he is!

Don't Look Away

There was another crucial finding from Rubin's research: The couples took longer to look away when someone else joined the conversation. Again, if you do this to someone who's not in love with you (yet), you trick his brain into thinking he is, and even more PEA floods into his bloodstream. Relationships expert Leil Lownes calls this technique making "toffee eyes." Simply lock eyes with the person you like and keep them there, even when he has finished talking or someone else joins the conversation. When you eventually do drag your eyes away (three or four seconds later), do it slowly and reluctantly -- as though they're attached by warm toffee. This technique may not sound terribly inspired but, believe me, if done properly it can literally take your breath away. If you're too shy to gaze openly, skip the toffee and think bouncing ball. Look away and at the other person who's joined the conversation, but every time they finish a sentence, let your eyes bounce back to the person you're interested in. This is a checking gesture --you're checking his reaction to what the speaker is saying -- and lets him know you're more interested in him than the other person.

Practice Pupillometrics

We all know "bedroom eyes" when we see them: it's the look of lust. There's just one thing you need for bedroom eyes: big pupils. According to pupillometrics, the science of pupil study, this is the crucial element we respond to. You can't consciously control your pupils (one reason why people say the eyes don't lie). But you can create the right conditions to inspire large pupils and get the effect. First, reduce light. Our pupils expand when they're robbed of it, one reason why candlelight and dimmer switches are de rigueur in romantic restaurants. It's not just the softening of light that makes our faces appear more attractive, larger pupils also help. Scientists showed two sets of pictures of a woman's face to men. The photograph was identical, except for one thing; the pupils in one set had been doctored to make them larger. When shown the doctored photograph, men judged the woman as twice more attractive than when shown the real photo. It was repeated with a man's face and tested on women and gave the same result. Our pupils also enlarge when we look at something we like. Again, this can be proved using pictures. This time, researchers snuck a picture of a naked woman into a pile of otherwise bland, commonplace photographs then watched men's pupil size when they flicked through them. Without exception, the men's pupils expanded on cue. This means if you're attracted to someone a lot, your pupils are probably already big, black holes. All good. To ensure this is happening or to up the effect of your bedroom eyes, focus on the part of the person you like the most. (On second thought, better make it the next best thing.)