What happens when love and travel are paired? What
happens when we only see our date when we are both
someplace new and exciting?
Part
of the fascination with the idea of only seeing your love comes
from the memories of dating someone I met on a plane many years ago.
I
am a professional speaker and travel every week and he also traveled every week
and was separated with small children so when he was home he had his
children.
So
when we started dating we often met not only in our home cities but in cites we
happened to be traveling to at the same time. We wanted to spend
much more time with each other once we fell in love!
What
I know about nonverbal behavior, specifically how intense short bursts of time
to interact and various new environment effect interspersion interactions is
that this kind of dating can be very fun, heady and exciting. For example, there
is research that shows
in
dating there is a significant positive correlation
between adrenaline and attraction, which means as levels of adrenaline
increased, so did level of attraction.
1. Choosing exciting places for a first date increases the chances of the
other person falling for you. There is a definitive link between danger and
physical/romantic attraction.
2. There is also a classic experiment conducted by Arthur Aron and his
colleagues, researchers gave upper-middle-class middle-aged couples a list of
activities that both parties agreed were “pleasant” (like creative cooking,
visiting friends or seeing a movie) or “exciting” (skiing, dancing or attending
concerts) but that they had enjoyed only infrequently. Researchers instructed
each couple to select one of these activities each week and spend 90 minutes
doing it together. At the end of 10 weeks, the couples who engaged in the
“exciting” activities reported greater satisfaction in their marriage than
those who engaged in “pleasant” or enjoyable activities together.
3.
Surprise and novelty is also a
potent force for attraction and liking. When something novel occurs, we tend to
pay attention, to appreciate the experience or circumstance, and to remember
it.
4.
Travel can make people feel free for worries and cares and we like those who are associated with rewarding events and whose
behavior is intrinsically rewarding. We dislike those whose behaviors are a
burden to us. At the level of motivation, conscious or unconscious, we seek to
maximize our rewards and minimize costs. We seek relationships and continue in
these if the rewards exceed the costs and therefore yield a profit (Kelley,
1979; Kelley & Thibaut, 1978; Rusbult, 1980).
I
also know that if you love someone you want to be with them as often and for as
long as possible and you want them to be a part of every day. My cell phone is
678-358-6160
Called,
“The Gold Standard of body language experts” by the Washington Post, credited
in the New York Times with bringing body language to the national
consciousness, Patti does several national media interviews a week.
She
is the author of eight books she speaks to and consults with Fortune 500
companies, law enforcement organizations, Hospitals and groups like ours.
You
can see her regularly on The Today Show, CNN, Good Morning America, Fox News,
PBS, The Discovery Channel, and The History Channel as well as in publications
such as Psychology Today, Bloomberg Business Week, Fortune, Esquire,
Oprah, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and many more. She has been the
National Spokesperson for many products such as Wrigley’s gum and Pup-Peroni
Dog Treats.
Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at
www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at
www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at
http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.
