0:00:00.974,0:00:02.692
I published this article

0:00:02.692,0:00:06.732
in the New York Times Modern Love column[br]in January of this year.

0:00:06.732,0:00:09.194
"To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This."

0:00:09.194,0:00:11.515
And the article is about[br]a psychological study

0:00:11.515,0:00:14.720
designed to create romantic love[br]in the laboratory,

0:00:14.720,0:00:17.785
and my own experience[br]trying to study myself

0:00:17.785,0:00:19.712
one night last summer.

0:00:19.712,0:00:22.359
So the procedure is fairly simple:

0:00:22.359,0:00:29.232
two strangers take turns asking each other[br]36 increasingly personal questions

0:00:29.232,0:00:31.646
and then they stare into each other's eyes

0:00:31.646,0:00:35.385
without speaking for four minutes.

0:00:35.385,0:00:38.751
So here are a couple of sample questions.

0:00:38.751,0:00:44.022
Number 12: If you could wake up tomorrow[br]having gained any one quality or ability,

0:00:44.022,0:00:46.251
what would it be?

0:00:46.251,0:00:50.965
Number 28: When did you last cry[br]in front of another person?

0:00:50.965,0:00:52.520
By yourself?

0:00:52.520,0:00:56.491
As you can see, they really do[br]get more personal as they go along.

0:00:56.491,0:00:59.277
Number 30, I really like this one:

0:00:59.277,0:01:01.761
Tell your partner[br]what you like about them;

0:01:01.761,0:01:03.526
be very honest this time,

0:01:03.526,0:01:09.006
saying things you might not say[br]to someone you just met.

0:01:09.006,0:01:13.348
So when I first came across this study[br]a few years earlier,

0:01:13.348,0:01:15.693
one detail really stuck out to me,

0:01:15.693,0:01:18.595
and that was the rumor[br]that two of the participants

0:01:18.595,0:01:21.126
had gotten married six months later,

0:01:21.126,0:01:25.050
and they'd invited the entire lab[br]to the ceremony.

0:01:25.050,0:01:28.068
So I was of course very skeptical

0:01:28.068,0:01:31.575
about this process of just[br]manufacturing romantic love,

0:01:31.575,0:01:34.756
but of course I was intrigued,

0:01:34.756,0:01:38.285
and when I got the chance[br]to try this study myself,

0:01:38.285,0:01:41.048
with someone I knew[br]but not particularly well,

0:01:41.048,0:01:44.461
I wasn't expecting to fall in love.

0:01:44.461,0:01:47.224
But then we did, and --

0:01:47.224,0:01:49.151
(Laughter) --

0:01:49.151,0:01:53.540
and I thought it made a good story,[br]so I sent it to the Modern Love column

0:01:53.540,0:01:55.467
a few months later.

0:01:55.467,0:01:59.902
Now, this was published in January,

0:01:59.902,0:02:01.806
and now it is August,

0:02:01.806,0:02:04.801
so I'm guessing that some of you[br]are probably wondering,

0:02:04.801,0:02:07.541
are we still together?

0:02:07.541,0:02:10.025
And the reason I think[br]you might be wondering this

0:02:10.025,0:02:12.649
is because I have been asked this question

0:02:12.649,0:02:16.944
again and again and again[br]for the past seven months,

0:02:16.944,0:02:20.404
and this question is really[br]what I want to talk about today.

0:02:20.404,0:02:22.331
But let's come back to it.

0:02:22.331,0:02:24.816
(Laughter)

0:02:24.816,0:02:26.882
So the week before the article came out,

0:02:26.882,0:02:29.367
I was very nervous.

0:02:29.367,0:02:32.199
I had been working on a book[br]about love stories

0:02:32.199,0:02:34.057
for the past few years,

0:02:34.057,0:02:36.890
so I had gotten used to writing[br]about my own experiences

0:02:36.890,0:02:39.931
with romantic love on my blog.

0:02:39.931,0:02:44.436
But a blog post might get[br]a couple hundred views at the most,

0:02:44.436,0:02:47.060
and those were usually[br]just my Facebook friends,

0:02:47.060,0:02:50.148
and I figured my article[br]in the New York Times

0:02:50.148,0:02:53.956
would probably get a few thousand views.

0:02:53.956,0:02:56.881
And that felt like a lot of attention

0:02:56.881,0:03:00.062
on a relatively new relationship.

0:03:00.062,0:03:04.172
But as it turned out, I had no idea.

0:03:04.172,0:03:06.285
So the article was published online

0:03:06.285,0:03:08.258
on a Friday evening,

0:03:08.258,0:03:14.040
and by Saturday, this had happened[br]to the traffic on my blog,

0:03:14.040,0:03:19.868
and by Sunday, both the Today Show[br]and Good Morning America had called.

0:03:19.868,0:03:25.255
Within a month, the article[br]would receive over 8 million views,

0:03:25.255,0:03:27.530
and I was, to say the least,

0:03:27.530,0:03:31.454
underprepared for this sort of attention.

0:03:31.454,0:03:34.403
It's one thing to work up[br]the confidence to write honestly

0:03:34.403,0:03:36.632
about your experiences with love,

0:03:36.632,0:03:39.209
but it is another thing to discover

0:03:39.209,0:03:42.112
that your love life[br]has made international news --

0:03:42.112,0:03:43.528
(Laughter) --

0:03:43.528,0:03:47.057
and to realize that people[br]across the world

0:03:47.057,0:03:52.212
are genuinely invested in the status[br]of your new relationship.

0:03:52.212,0:03:54.534
(Laughter)

0:03:54.534,0:03:59.224
And when people called or emailed,[br]which they did every day for weeks,

0:03:59.224,0:04:02.103
they always asked the same question first:

0:04:02.103,0:04:05.284
are you guys still together?

0:04:05.284,0:04:07.467
In fact, as I was preparing this talk,

0:04:07.467,0:04:09.789
I did a quick search of my email inbox

0:04:09.789,0:04:11.670
for the phrase "Are you still together?"

0:04:11.670,0:04:14.525
and several messages[br]popped up immediately.

0:04:14.525,0:04:17.265
They were from students and journalists

0:04:17.265,0:04:20.121
and friendly strangers like this one.

0:04:20.121,0:04:22.791
I did radio interviews and they asked.

0:04:22.791,0:04:26.437
I even gave a talk, and one woman[br]shouted up to the stage,

0:04:26.437,0:04:30.129
"Hey Mandy, where's your boyfriend?"

0:04:30.129,0:04:33.379
And I promptly turned bright red.

0:04:33.379,0:04:36.351
I understand that this[br]is part of the deal.

0:04:36.351,0:04:39.811
If you write about your relationship[br]in an international newspaper,

0:04:39.811,0:04:43.549
you should expect people to feel[br]comfortable asking about it.

0:04:43.549,0:04:48.170
But I just wasn't prepared[br]for the scope of the response.

0:04:48.170,0:04:52.512
The 36 questions seem[br]to have taken on a life of their own.

0:04:52.512,0:04:55.809
In fact, the New York Times[br]published a follow-up article

0:04:55.809,0:04:57.550
for Valentine's Day,

0:04:57.550,0:05:01.567
which featured readers' experiences[br]of trying the study themselves,

0:05:01.567,0:05:04.864
with varying degrees of success.

0:05:04.864,0:05:08.951
So my first impulse in the face[br]of all of this attention

0:05:08.951,0:05:13.200
was to become very protective[br]of my own relationship.

0:05:13.200,0:05:16.674
I said no to every request[br]for the two of us

0:05:16.674,0:05:19.205
to do a media appearance together.

0:05:19.205,0:05:22.479
I turned down TV interviews,[br]and I said no to every request

0:05:22.479,0:05:25.218
for photos of the two us.

0:05:25.218,0:05:27.680
I think I was afraid that we would become

0:05:27.680,0:05:32.045
inadvertent icons for the process[br]of falling in love,

0:05:32.045,0:05:36.155
a position I did not at all[br]feel qualified for.

0:05:36.155,0:05:39.336
And I get it:

0:05:39.336,0:05:42.029
people didn't just want to know[br]if the study worked,

0:05:42.029,0:05:45.071
they wanted to know if it really worked:

0:05:45.071,0:05:49.343
that is, if it was capable of producing[br]love that would last,

0:05:49.343,0:05:55.101
not just a fling, but real love,[br]sustainable love.

0:05:55.101,0:05:59.165
But this was a question I didn't feel[br]capable of answering.

0:05:59.165,0:06:01.951
My own relationship[br]was only a few months old,

0:06:01.951,0:06:07.616
and I felt like people were asking[br]the wrong question in the first place.

0:06:07.616,0:06:12.260
What would knowing whether or not[br]we were still together really tell them?

0:06:12.260,0:06:15.302
If the answer was no,[br]would it make the experience

0:06:15.302,0:06:20.898
of doing these 36 questions[br]any less worthwhile?

0:06:20.898,0:06:23.707
Dr. Arthur Aron first wrote[br]about these questions

0:06:23.707,0:06:27.785
in this study here in 1997,

0:06:27.785,0:06:32.777
and here, the researcher's goal[br]was not to produce romantic love.

0:06:32.777,0:06:34.826
Instead, they wanted to foster

0:06:34.826,0:06:38.216
interpersonal closeness[br]among college students,

0:06:38.216,0:06:40.793
by using what Aron called

0:06:40.793,0:06:45.878
"sustained, escalating, reciprocal,[br]personalistic self-disclosure."

0:06:45.878,0:06:48.920
Sounds romantic, doesn't it.

0:06:48.920,0:06:51.497
But the study did work.

0:06:51.497,0:06:54.144
The participants did feel[br]closer after doing it,

0:06:54.144,0:06:59.507
and several subsequent studies have also[br]used Aron's fast friends protocol

0:06:59.507,0:07:03.757
as a way to quickly create trust[br]and intimacy between strangers.

0:07:03.757,0:07:07.077
They've used it between members[br]of the police and members of a community,

0:07:07.077,0:07:11.814
and they've used it between people[br]of opposing political ideologies.

0:07:11.814,0:07:13.732
The original version of the story,

0:07:13.732,0:07:15.822
the one that I tried last summer,

0:07:15.822,0:07:20.233
that pairs the personal questions[br]with four minutes of eye contact,

0:07:20.233,0:07:22.485
was referenced in this article,

0:07:22.485,0:07:25.434
but unfortunately it was never published.

0:07:25.434,0:07:29.823
So a few months ago, I was giving a talk

0:07:29.823,0:07:32.005
at a small liberal arts college,

0:07:32.005,0:07:34.908
and a student came up to me afterwards

0:07:34.908,0:07:37.369
and he said, kind of shyly,

0:07:37.369,0:07:42.523
"So, I tried your study,[br]and it didn't work."

0:07:42.523,0:07:45.472
He seemed a little mystified by this.

0:07:45.472,0:07:49.861
"You mean, you didn't fall in love[br]with the person you did it with?" I asked.

0:07:49.861,0:07:52.908
"Well..." He paused.

0:07:52.908,0:07:57.482
"I think she just wants to be friends."

0:07:57.482,0:08:01.243
"But did you become[br]better friends?" I asked.

0:08:01.243,0:08:04.912
"Did you feel like you got to really[br]know each after doing the study?"

0:08:04.912,0:08:06.282
He nodded.

0:08:06.282,0:08:09.208
"So, then it worked," I said.

0:08:09.208,0:08:13.433
I don't think this is the answer[br]he was looking for.

0:08:13.433,0:08:17.799
In fact, I don't think this the answer[br]that any of us are looking for

0:08:17.799,0:08:20.097
when it comes to love.

0:08:20.097,0:08:23.301
I first came across this study[br]when I was 29

0:08:23.301,0:08:26.761
and I was going through[br]a really difficult breakup.

0:08:26.761,0:08:29.803
I had been in the relationship[br]since I was 20,

0:08:29.803,0:08:32.032
which was basically my entire adult life,

0:08:32.032,0:08:34.029
and he was my first real love,

0:08:34.029,0:08:39.439
and I had no idea how or if[br]I could make a life without him.

0:08:39.439,0:08:41.853
So I turned to science.

0:08:41.853,0:08:46.335
I researched everything I could find[br]about the science of romantic love,

0:08:46.335,0:08:52.070
and I think I was hoping that it might[br]somehow inoculate me from heartache.

0:08:52.070,0:08:53.858
I don't know if I realized this

0:08:53.858,0:08:55.506
at the time --

0:08:55.506,0:08:58.989
I thought I was just doing research[br]for this book I was writing --

0:08:58.989,0:09:01.868
but it seems really obvious in retrospect.

0:09:01.868,0:09:05.908
I hoped that if I armed myself[br]with the knowledge of romantic love,

0:09:05.908,0:09:12.201
I might never have to feel[br]as terrible and lonely as I did then.

0:09:12.201,0:09:16.659
And all this knowledge[br]has been useful in some ways.

0:09:16.659,0:09:19.840
I am more patient with love.[br]I am more relaxed.

0:09:19.840,0:09:23.090
I am more confident[br]about asking for what I want.

0:09:23.090,0:09:26.922
But I can also see myself more clearly,

0:09:26.922,0:09:31.287
and I can see that I what I want[br]is sometimes more

0:09:31.287,0:09:34.677
than can reasonably be asked for.

0:09:34.677,0:09:38.090
What I want from love is a guarantee,

0:09:38.090,0:09:40.412
not just that I am loved today

0:09:40.412,0:09:42.687
and that I will be loved tomorrow,

0:09:42.687,0:09:49.259
but that I will continue to be loved[br]by the person I love indefinitely.

0:09:49.259,0:09:52.578
And maybe it's this possibility[br]of a guarantee

0:09:52.578,0:09:54.761
that people were really asking about

0:09:54.761,0:09:58.174
when they wanted to know[br]if we were still together.

0:09:58.174,0:10:02.563
So the story that the media told[br]about the 36 questions

0:10:02.563,0:10:06.185
was that there might be[br]a shortcut to falling in love.

0:10:06.185,0:10:09.923
There might be a way to somehow mitigate[br]some of the risk involved,

0:10:09.923,0:10:12.222
and this is a very appealing story,

0:10:12.222,0:10:15.821
because falling in love feels amazing,

0:10:15.821,0:10:18.235
but it's also terrifying.

0:10:18.235,0:10:21.045
The moment you admit to loving someone,

0:10:21.045,0:10:24.528
you admit to having a lot to lose,

0:10:24.528,0:10:28.893
and it's true that these questions[br]do provide a mechanism

0:10:28.893,0:10:31.215
for getting to know someone quickly,

0:10:31.215,0:10:33.769
which is also a mechanism for being known,

0:10:33.769,0:10:38.204
and I think this is the thing[br]that most of us really want from love:

0:10:38.204,0:10:43.242
to be known, to be seen, to be understood.

0:10:43.242,0:10:46.005
But I think when it comes to love,

0:10:46.005,0:10:49.697
we are too willing to accept[br]the short version of the story,

0:10:49.697,0:10:53.273
the version of the story that asks[br]"Are you still together?"

0:10:53.273,0:10:57.267
and is content with a yes or no answer.

0:10:57.267,0:11:01.330
So rather than that question,[br]I would propose we ask

0:11:01.330,0:11:03.304
some more difficult questions,

0:11:03.304,0:11:05.068
questions like:

0:11:05.068,0:11:08.124
How do you decide who deserves your love

0:11:08.124,0:11:10.098
and who does not?

0:11:10.098,0:11:14.138
How do you stay in love[br]when things get difficult,

0:11:14.138,0:11:17.621
and how do you know[br]when to just cut and run?

0:11:17.621,0:11:19.702
How do you live with the doubt

0:11:19.702,0:11:22.743
that inevitably creeps[br]into every relationship,

0:11:22.743,0:11:24.415
or even harder,

0:11:24.415,0:11:27.480
how do you live with your partner's doubt?

0:11:27.480,0:11:31.242
I don't necessarily know[br]the answers to these questions,

0:11:31.242,0:11:36.535
but I think they're an important start[br]at having a more thoughtful conversation

0:11:36.535,0:11:40.018
about what it means to love someone.

0:11:40.018,0:11:42.549
So, if you want it,

0:11:42.549,0:11:46.752
the short version of the story[br]of my relationship is this:

0:11:46.752,0:11:49.886
a year ago, an acquaintance[br]and I did a study

0:11:49.886,0:11:52.255
designed to create romantic love,

0:11:52.255,0:11:54.391
and we fell in love,

0:11:54.391,0:11:56.193
and we are still together,

0:11:56.193,0:11:58.910
and I am so glad.

0:11:58.910,0:12:04.529
But falling in love is not[br]the same thing as staying in love.

0:12:04.529,0:12:08.360
Falling in love is the easy part.

0:12:08.360,0:12:12.748
So at the end of my article, I wrote,[br]"Love didn't happen to us.

0:12:12.748,0:12:16.092
We're in love because we each[br]made the choice to be."

0:12:16.092,0:12:19.575
And I cringe a little[br]when I read that now,

0:12:19.575,0:12:23.150
not because it isn't true,

0:12:23.150,0:12:26.006
but because at the time,[br]I really hadn't considered

0:12:26.006,0:12:29.466
everything that was contained[br]in that choice.

0:12:29.466,0:12:34.713
I didn't consider how many times[br]we would each have to make that choice,

0:12:34.713,0:12:38.173
and how many times I will continue[br]to have to make that choice

0:12:38.173,0:12:42.236
without knowing whether or not[br]he will always choose me.

0:12:42.236,0:12:47.298
I want it to be enough to have asked[br]and answered 36 questions,

0:12:47.298,0:12:52.801
and to have chosen to love someone[br]so generous and kind and fun

0:12:52.801,0:12:58.908
and to have broadcast that choice[br]in the biggest newspaper in America.

0:12:58.908,0:13:01.996
But what I have done instead[br]is turn my relationship

0:13:01.996,0:13:06.198
into the kind of myth[br]I don't quite believe in.

0:13:06.198,0:13:09.742
And what I want, what perhaps[br]I will spend my life wanting,

0:13:09.742,0:13:13.202
is for that myth to be true.

0:13:13.202,0:13:17.985
I want the happy ending implied[br]by the title to my article,

0:13:17.985,0:13:19.749
which is, incidentally,

0:13:19.749,0:13:23.534
the only part of the article[br]that I didn't actually write.

0:13:23.534,0:13:25.670
(Laughter)

0:13:25.670,0:13:31.057
But what I have instead is the chance[br]to make the choice to love someone,

0:13:31.057,0:13:34.726
and the hope that he will choose[br]to love me back,

0:13:34.726,0:13:37.280
and it is terrifying,

0:13:37.280,0:13:39.209
but that's the deal with love.

0:13:39.209,0:13:39.773
Thank you.

0:13:39.773,0:13:40.523
(Applause)