If you manage to make a person look forward to meeting you, it will trigger the release of dopamine, the pleasure hormone. It happens more often when a person is waiting for something than when they actually receive it.
Summary:
- Avoid meeting with the person too often.
- If you do meet frequently, leave them in suspense.
- Let them wonder for as long as possible whether you will meet, have sex with, or spend the night with them.
- Don’t give them a guarantee that these things will happen. Or happen again.
- Do this in a completely natural and spontaneous way. Read how.
- Examine the reasons why this is the only thing that motivates some people.
Before reading how to apply this, it is important to know:
Some people might find this behavior immature, and you might annoy them.
However, with such people, things usually go smoothly from the start, and it’s clear that they are looking for a serious relationship. So you won’t need to play with their dopamine.
These individuals are searching for serotonin, the hormone of stability (popularly known as love hormone), and they’re the ones who are upfront about wanting a genuine connection. Your task is to understand who you’re dealing with to avoid playing games with the wrong person.
On the other hand, since some people enjoy everything dopamine offers—passion, uncertainty, anticipation, and excitement—this approach will likely work for a second group of people (a little bit immature one).
This dopamine-driven fun serves only for bonding in the first few months.
Using it on purpose throughout the relationship is unhealthy for you, your partner, and the relationship.
In the first few months, people are primarily looking for fun and excitement, and at the same time, they are examining whether the partner in front of them is a good candidate for something longer. That’s why it’s good to use this dopamine game only at first (again, with more immature people), but at the same time to present yourself as a person of great character worth keeping even after the dopamine excitement starts to wane.
Dopamine should, therefore, only serve to keep the person with you long enough for them to discover you, not to manipulate them.
After the person finds what they love about you and you’ve presented yourself as someone worth keeping, with the time invested considered an investment in the relationship, you should transition to the subtler hormone together, serotonin, the hormone of stability and bonding.
A significant group of people operate solely on dopamine, and nothing less interests them.
Sometimes, you recognize them as exciting, restless, and adventurous types who cannot settle down with one person or in one place. In any case, their need for dopamine sets them apart from others.
If you’re not ready to constantly be at the peak of excitement with them, you won’t have luck with them.
- Oh, I know this sounds great, but I didn’t mean that they entertain and excite you. Rather than you entertaining them.
When they have you and feel that the task is too easy, they move on because it’s no longer thrilling. In that case, you should come to terms with it like this: “I had someone in front of me who only wanted excitement. I want stability and a serious relationship, and I’m unwilling to sacrifice my life, nerves, and time to entertain someone. It’s time to move on.”
Some people pretend to want stability, even though their only motivation seems to be excitement and the release of dopamine.
Sometimes, you’ll meet people who say they like stable things, but that dopamine rush actually drives them.
You can recognize them by the way they make dramatic and exciting scenes, and then try to reconcile. The emphasis is on intentionally doing these exciting scenes (quarrels, absence, unpredictability, drama, etc.). Sometimes, you will even recognize that their reaction to the event is premature, so you can conclude that you may have a dopamine type in front of you.
- Note: All of these traits must be explored because they can represent something entirely different for a person. When someone is angry, even if it is illogical to you, you must investigate the factual background behind it: dopamine need or authentic hurt.
Also, make sure to distinguish your current partner’s behavior from a previous partner’s. The manifestations can be similar, but the causes are entirely different.
Now, let’s get to the point. I’ve talked about relationship dynamics before, but it’s good to repeat:
- After mutual interest and the desire for a date, the intrigue and excitement about that person begin to grow.
- They are a completely unknown person; they haven’t revealed their flaws yet.
Everything about them seems promising, and life sounds lovely.
The most promising aspect is the momentum of the unknown. It’s crucial for releasing dopamine, which was once thought to be the hormone of excitement. It turned out to be the hormone of anticipation.
Dopamine works on the principle of anticipating something and decreasing when that expectation is met. But knowing that we feel most excited when we expect something, we can conclude that people feel most excited when they’re waiting for something. Far more than when they receive it.
So, it’s crucial to maintain this high hormone level for the person to constantly feel excited about seeing you. How do you achieve that?
It’s achieved by ensuring that the person interested in you continuously determines if they’ll get what they want from you.
If a person associates anticipating you with pleasure, you will become the object of their pleasure. Of course, you must evoke positive emotions in the person not only when they are waiting for you but also when they are with you. If you become the object of their pleasure, there is a high chance of developing romantic feelings.
Remember, dopamine works best while waiting.
Satisfaction is associated with anticipation.
For instance, a situation where a person is 100% certain they’ll meet you tonight. You’ve reassured them multiple times, sent eight messages specifying where and when you’ll be, suggested the meeting, posted on Instagram that you’re going out tonight, and, in the end, engraved it in stone. That person genuinely has nothing to worry about, and their dopamine stops being released. There’s no anticipation when everything is certain.
However, if the person isn’t entirely sure how things will unfold with you, their dopamine is active.
And to be clear, I’m not suggesting that you keep someone in suspense and inform them half an hour before a meeting that you are coming. Some people do that, and it works well for them (while others wait excitedly dressed up for a night out). I advise you to leave some uncertainty in the person’s mind until a convenient moment. For example, if the meeting is in the evening, it’s okay to confirm it in the morning. However, the story continues; let’s explain how.
If you do this for a while, the person will realize it’s your strategy. And dopamine starts to decline.
That’s why giving off the overall impression that you’re not entirely sure about the relationship is essential.
But before we proceed, a little consolation for those upset and writing to me: “What is this! These are games and manipulations!” What can we do. Human nature likes games and excitement. We even have hormones for that, so we must give people what they’re interested in.
In essence, it is how to maintain constant excitement through your unpredictability and reduced interest in that person. This might be challenging for some of you because you want to give them everything immediately and offer your heart on a silver platter (even though you’ve known them for only two weeks).
There are a few ways to achieve this, but the person you are interested in can be more than 100% sure initially. Still, we’re talking about people who like this. Fewer people will find this annoying.
📌 I once read a study where people were offered the opportunity to meet (and possibly kiss 😊 ) their favorite celebrity. They were given the option to do it immediately or in a week, and people could choose. Interestingly, people always chose for it to happen in a week. Why? Because instinctively, we know that the one-week wait will bring us greater satisfaction than the actual encounter with that personality. If that personality is also inspiring, it’s a perfect match.
Some general suggestions to make a person feel unsure about whether you like them.
Don’t show entirely openly how interested you are in that person at the beginning of the relationship.
The fewer outbursts like “Oh, I had such a great time on our date” or “I am so excited about you!” the better for you. Don’t insist on meetings, but suggest them in the same or even smaller measure than that person. Leave the impression that you’re somewhat indifferent about meeting them. Additionally, there’s a great benefit to acting differently while messaging than in in-person meetings. Of course, you should be more cold in your messages and warmer or more interested in person. But the essence is uncertainty.
And let’s say you can occasionally be a bit “unpleasant”: don’t reply to messages on time, cancel a meeting from time to time, and so on.
The “three months” theory : How to not break up
This can also be achieved spontaneously, without any games
By having a vibrant and fulfilling life or simply by respecting your own rules.
For example, if you work for eight hours, then go to training and have other obligations, if you stick to that, you won’t need to cancel meetings falsely. You won’t have time for them when you have your obligations. Under obligations, I also consider your emotional state, for instance, when you don’t feel like going out and aren’t in the mood.
This way, the person will be uncertain about how much you like them.
Don’t chase after them, don’t be obsessed with them, and have other things to do in life.
Also, if you don’t cancel your activities—birthdays, training sessions, hanging out with friends—or change your schedule just because you’ve fallen in love, you’ll achieve natural dopamine release in person for the same reasons.
- Of course, there are people for whom this strategy won’t work, but it won’t work for other reasons that you can read about on this blog.
Why Do People Fall Out Of Love Suddenly?
And let’s be clear: whether you do this intentionally or spontaneously, don’t play with it if the person you’re dealing with doesn’t approve of it.
As I mentioned, someone in front of you might interpret this as playing with them, and you might lose them. Test this slowly and see how much dopamine the person needs.
Even if it’s not an intentional game, having a fulfilling life will benefit you, and you’ll exude dignity and self-respect. These qualities should appeal to the other person unless they’re entirely… weird.
Can you be addicted to a person?
This dopamine-driven game is addictive because the anticipation is so thrilling: will it happen or not? Will I succeed this time or not?
People can spend their entire lives waiting just because the dopamine rush gives them such a thrill.
Although this text is written in your favor and deals with how to captivate someone with dopamine, I still hope someone isn’t doing this to you. And even if they are, I hope that after reading this text, you recognize that it’s just a hormonal game, not a unique trait of that person.
If you realize that someone is playing with your dopamine levels, please stop playing along. It’s too risky to spend your life that way because one day, when you turn around, you’ll say: My life passed in waiting, like the life of that old lady in the movie Great Expectations.
You only have one life; don’t waste it on someone’s ability to trigger that one hormone for you.
What Causes Obsession With a Certain Person
And here are a few more notes
Firstly, if all of this has angered you, it’s probably because someone has done this to you or is currently doing it, and you have a trigger.
But look: you’re thinking so much about that person, precisely because of dopamine. So maybe you’re reading this text because of that. Therefore, the dopamine trick works flawlessly, even if it upsets you.
It’s also possible that you belong to a group that genuinely seeks only security and dislikes such games.
However, getting upset with human nature doesn’t make much sense. It is what it is. But if you’re among mature individuals who don’t crave dopamine, you should look for people like yourself with calmer tendencies.
The second thing is that the more elusive a person is, the more dopamine you need to give them.
Although our natural inclination is to immediately attach less accessible people to ourselves with security, guarantees, and agreements so they won’t leave us, it’s the opposite.
Bind them to you with uncertainty, without guarantees, and with as few agreements as possible. Strange but true mathematics of human nature.
All in all, this approach gives you significant chances of forming a connection with many people. But for some, it simply won’t work. It’s related to the nature of these individuals, the period in their life when you appeared, their needs, and so on. I hope this post has been helpful overall, and please share your results with me.
And remember, the dopamine game is a game of nerves and patience. Let the one who is more patient win.
Dee
