Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
Attention doesn't mean intention
What love bombing looks like
Love bombing looks like good morning texts every day, grand gifts, and beautiful dinners. When the person hears that something didn't work for the other, they shift and pull away. It was performative: they did it because getting someone felt good, and it wasn't about the person at all.
The math
A mother's line covers the math: when you start at 100, where else are you going to go? Texting all day and making future plans while seeing you once a month doesn't add up. Dopamine arrives in anticipation, which makes the pattern hard to leave.
Going slow
Going slow lets the nervous system acclimate to a new person. First date just to see if there's a second, second to see if there's a third. Early on, one question matters: can I say no to this person? Do they get mad, push, and pressure, or do they respect it?
Why does anticipation feel better than receiving?
Neuroscientists Kent Berridge and Terry Robinson of the University of Michigan separate wanting from liking in the brain's reward system. Dopamine systems turn out to be more closely tied to wanting, the motivation to pursue something, than to pleasure itself. Berridge and Robinson reported in 1998 that rats with nearly all their dopamine neurons depleted still showed pleased facial reactions to sugar. They were just not motivated to go get it.
How can closeness be built so quickly?
In 1997, Arthur Aron and colleagues published a study in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in which pairs of strangers answered 36 increasingly personal questions over 45 minutes. These pairs reported feeling closer afterward than pairs who made small talk. The study showed that sustained, escalating, mutual self-disclosure can produce feelings of closeness within a single sitting.
More from On Purpose with Jay Shetty
