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Psychologists know how to fall in love.

Some things just fascinate me. My social psychology professor has repeatedly informed us of something which is, well, tremendously powerful. You know much less than you think you do about yourself. Who you are, what you do, and why you do the things you do, you have no idea. I walked into the class with just basic psychology knowledge, taking IB Psych HL in high school. I had no other class to teach me, but the interest for understanding why people behave had always been inside me. I still have talks with a close friend of mine, who thinks very similarly to me. To be flat out honest, the reason social psychology has fascinated me before was because of relationships, friendships, or, in short, women. How they behave, why they do certain things, when they are flirting, when they are not, what they like, and the usual. Given that there are 3 billion women out there, it is very good to learn by trial and error. Every person you meet you will, at least unconsciously, wonder why she does what she does. Now, what scares the shit out of me, is that in my first social psychology class, my professor let us know that knowing how people behave was dangerous. You can learn to manipulate people, and that is a phenomenal power. However, how much of what you do is actually done consciously?

Let us establish an argument which at least as it lies in my head, is very conflicting. First of all, I’m certain that we can agree that human beings are social beings. That is something reasonable, and which I am certain of. Secondly, human beings have an innate nature to benefit themselves regardless of others. This one is not negative, as much as it may sound. We all do it. Everyone has a job because they want to maintain their life, live well, and prosper. That is why we go to school, and college. Thirdly, we are competitive. Not only does a human being have the innate nature to benefit themselves regardless of others, but sometimes, at the expense of others. Although you may feel that you would never benefit yourself at the expense of someone, we also all do it. The world at least half the time is a zero sum game. Any benefit and joy you get, will probably be at the expense of someone else who may experience sadness. (Example: you get a job, when someone doesn’t; you fire someone from your company, to increase your profit, etc.) So, we are social beings, we benefit ourselves at the expense of others because we are innately competitive. Now, let me put something else into the mix. If a human being, through social interaction, continues to learn about how other human beings interact, and enjoys the pleasure of social interaction, and also has, like any human being, has sexual needs, to what extent is his knowledge of how human beings interact make him conscious of what he is saying, for the purpose of benefiting himself, be it physically or emotionally? In simpler terms, if you know what to say, and know how someone behaves, could you make them fall in love with you? If you are admittedly doing this on purpose, it is evident you are manipulating them consciously, and we can agree (as fun as it may be to do so) that it is wrong. However, I thought back to many of the friends I have, and how I interacted with them, and admittedly, it is tremendously difficult to act consciously when you are with them. You may try and manipulate someone, but your actions in the spur of the moment are still slightly part of your unconscious. Every action you take you usually do without thinking. So, here is my biggest inquiry.

If the knowledge of social psychology can help you interact with other beings easier than before, given that you have grown to understand how they behave, can the knowledge of how a certain person behaves allow you to, whether consciously or unconsciously, make her your friend when before it would not be so? Would that discredit love to a simple human behavior in response to certain human actions from another human being? Granted, obviously love is just a human behavior to certain actions, but I state the obvious because… scariest of all, what if such actions were planned and conscious? Can you make someone fall in love with you? Would you, if you knew how to? And most importantly, could it be anyone?

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