Can You Make a Man Fall in Love With You?

I found an email in my inbox from a reader of my newsletter who demanded to know.

Here's my take:

Yes, I suppose you can make a man fall in love with you. In the 80s, a book by Tracy Cabot (entitled How to Make a Man Fall in Love With You) suggested -- if I remember correctly -- that you determine whether your target is auditory, visual, or tactile.

Then she recommended the application of several NLP techniques, including something called 'mirroring' to make a guy feel in sync with you, which would cause him to fall in love.

According to the reviews on Amazon, her technique works. I tried it halfheartedly when I read the book all those years ago, but I felt like a fraud.

Later, during my relationship with Mister-I-Love-You-But-I'm-Not-in-Love-With-You, a co-worker told me she was an expert on making a man fall in love.

Do tell, I begged her.

Her technique involved finding out everything she could about a man's likes and dislikes. If he liked the Yankees, she learned the stats and bios of every player on the team. If he hated The Sex Pistols, she would burn Johnny Rotten in effigy.

This struck me as manipulative and a lot of work. This woman had the energy, though. She'd been married three times.

In the end, I decided I didn't ever want to "make" someone love me: If I worked to make a guy fall in love with me, eventually I'd have to work to keep him in love with me (or, more accurately, that fake-o me I'd painstakingly manufactured).

Longtime readers of this blog and my newsletter know that I wholeheartedly endorse using the Law of Attraction to draw the right man into one's life. (Hey, I used it myself, and it worked.)

For those who are new here or want a refresher, here's what you do:

1) Know what you don't want in a man (a cheater, a bragger, a liar, a bleeding bore, a financial idiot, a know-it-all, a control freak. If you're stuck, think back to the things you disliked about an ex).

2) Turn those negative qualities around. Make them positive. For example, if you don't want a liar, you want an honest man.

3) Write an affirmation: "I am happily involved with (or married to) a loyal, loving, reliable, successful, fun man." (That's an example; feel free to make up your own affirmation with the qualities that will make you happy.)

4) Rewrite, recite, think said affirmation many times throughout the day, making sure to feel the emotions you'd feel if indeed you were with such a man (this may seem tricky at first but keep it up; it works).

5) Get the heck out of the house. Join Toastmasters, hang around coffee shops on open-mic nights, go to bookstores, attend lectures in natural food stores, grab a friend and hit Monday Night Football at a neighborhood bar.

If you know what you want in a man, you're likely to recognize him when he appears. If you widen your social circle, it's very likely he will appear.

Why settle for "making" a man fall in love (which amounts to trying to fit a square peg into a round hole) when you could attract one who will make you happy for the rest of your life?