两颗红豆
中文 | English
We’d like to thank Nick Fang for translating this article from Chinese to English to spread the science behind love and dating. If you would like to help translating or proofreading our articles, please email [email protected]
We have been collecting dating feedback from our users and we found that there’s a huge difference when it comes to perception of love.
Some people can describe their feelings accurately:
“When she smiled at me, I can feel my heart beat faster.”
“We have a smooth conversation, but the spark is missing.”
Some are especially good at catching details:
“His starts to look around when he talks about his father, there’s probably secrets that he wants to keep”
“I’m always the one asking questions. Either she’s shy or she’s not interested.”
Some people feel nothing after a date. “Not bad” is probably how they felt. Especially those who use a mathematical models to review a date. Interpersonal emotions are very confusing for them, it’s much easier to rate it on a scale of one to ten.
When looking for the “right answer” in the dating process, they have to quantify the whole thing and create a detailed set of scoring standards including appearances, family background, career status, economic situation, etc. Then they will rate each candidate based on the highest score. When they meet up with their date, they would have prepared a list of questions to evaluate their date, including questions like where you plan to buy your house after marriage, who does the chores, how are we going to take care of our parents, etc. They end the date with tons of useless information and sometimes fail to figure out what went wrong on a date.
Take going on a date for an example, why do some act on their instinct and some rely on logical analysis? We could try to use the concept of Intuitive Thinking and Logical Thinking to explain.
Intuitive Thinking: A mode of thinking based on emotions and feelings.
Logical Thinking: A mode of thinking based on logic.
Dating primarily relies on intuitive thinking. For example, during a date, most people don’t analyze each sentence before they say it. But it doesn’t prevent us from forming a first impression on our date. Intuitive thinking seems to be unprocessed; it seems to have never went through a conscious process actually because we already had enough experience to decide. However, logical thinking does need to be cultivated through a series of rigorous analysis and reasoning. During the dating process, intuitive thinking takes control most of the time, but logical thinking can help aid our decision.
Logical thinking isn’t bad, but the lack of intuitive thinking could hinder your dates.
Hard to judge whether your feeling towards them
Those who lack intuitive thinking are weaker on emotional perception. In other words, they’re less sensitive to the outer world.
• His voice is charming
• The way he smirks while talking is cute
• The way she plucks her hair is super cute
……
For those who have strong intuitive thinking these can be reasons for them to be attracted to someone, but for those who lack intuitive thinking, it’s difficult for them to feel attraction. They just can’t decipher the hidden messages behind these behaviors. Accidental meet ups and small talks in life require us to use our intuitive system in order to process this information and it’s difficult for those who lack intuitive thinking. Therefore, during a date, they had to plan out their questions to help sort it out. They have to first evaluate their date on the likelihood of fulfilling their requirement, only then can they proceed to a more personal conversation. From this perspective, it’s difficult for them to know if they feel attracted or not.
Have a hard time telling whether one’s interested or not
Insensitive to emotional changes can also be a sign of weak intuitive thinking, both internally and externally. During a date they often lack the ability to notice positive and negative signals from their date.
We had a case like this in the past. During the first date, the guy was constantly serving the girl food even though she already rejected him several times. He thought the girl was shy and kept doing his own thing as he thought he was being polite. After the date ended, the girl had an overall negative impression, the fact that the guy kept trying to serve her food felt like an invasion of her boundary. Her displeasure was clearly on her face, and she had stopped eating, but the guy kept pushing her to eat more. The guy never noticed her displeasure and thought the date went well as he got all the answers he wanted, and the food was good.
Because they lack the ability to read between the lines, they tend to ruin dates without knowing it. When limited communication is not enough to judge whether they feel attracted or whether they have potential for a second date, they would even want more time to gather information. Even after they get disqualified by those with intuitive thinking, they would be so confused thinking to themselves: “we haven’t interacted at all, how come we’re not a good fit?”.
Lack of intuitive thinking is unfavorable for a person’s interpersonal communication and emotional interaction with people. So, how do you cultivate your intuitive thinking?
Take note of dating tips
Intuitive thinking is based on experience, so one must learn the dating basics first before proceeding. For example, people with weak intuitive thinking are generally weak in artistic aesthetics as well. A precisely edited photo and a random tourist photo makes a world of difference for us, but the difference is minimal for them. We know that profile pictures greatly affect one’s popularity on dating apps, so if we don’t improve our aesthetics and photography skills, it will hinder our performance when it comes to online dating.
Engage in more social activities
In order to develop intuitive thinking, book knowledge is not enough, we also need real life practice. Intuitive thinking needs to be developed through interpersonal interaction, during this process we will sharpen our observation skills, mobilize our senses rather than relying on logical decisions. For those with weak intuitive thinking, inputs from oneself may not be of much help, we should listen to feedback from others to understand how our behaviors affect them.
If you need help with intuition in dating? Feel free to contact 2RedBean consultants for advice.