Why don't people like me like me? Scientists are trying to understand: why do we fall in love with some, but do not even look at others? Why do we like those who do not like us.

Sometimes it seems that people do not treat us well enough, and we begin to worry about whether we know how to be attractive, to arouse sympathy. “I was an excellent student, I adored my parents and was happy when my dad reservedly praised me: “Clever girl,” says 29-year-old Irina. - It was easy for me to study at the institute, but I dropped out of all the companies and could not understand what was the matter. After all, I was always ready to tell my friends a lot of interesting things! .. "

obstacle course

Irina, like many of us, repeated actions that brought her success in the past: dad liked that her daughter was smart, and she believed that other men would like the same. Often, instead of focusing on the reaction of the interlocutors, we rely on our own attitudes, conscious or unconscious.

If the mother praised the son for obedience, then he may continue to think that this is the best way to earn the approval of women. He remains obedient even when it does not meet his own needs and the demands of the woman he is attracted to. Perhaps she would like to see masculinity or excitement. But he already had a stereotype of behavior, and going beyond the stereotype would mean finding himself in uncharted and unsafe territory.

Cinema and television also offer us their own standards of appearance and behavior. They have a particularly strong effect on us at a young age. What about a boy who discovers that he is not a “cool macho”, or a girl who does not look like a seductive beauty?

Meeting reality challenges us to abandon the fantasy that we can conquer everyone with the help of a great appearance, and develop our abilities and skills. “I'm not handsome, but I have an excellent baritone,” says 32-year-old Mikhail, “and if I wanted to please a girl, I just took the guitar ... Usually it worked.” But even here there are no universal recipes. Everyone is forced to create their own method.

Return of the boomerang

Seduce another without love? It's possible. But such success can turn into a crash, warns Gestalt therapist Marina Baskakova.

The prerequisites for a failed marriage are sometimes laid at the beginning of a relationship. This happens when one of the partners uses the other as a means to increase self-respect, status, prestige: to achieve goals external to the couple itself. Men can do this too, but women do it more often. The girl plays in the “closer-further”, manipulates the chosen one and his desire, either going towards him, or avoiding him, and turns herself into an overvalue. If her game succeeds and the man proposes to her, she stops her efforts, because the goal has been achieved. A man feels manipulated, a victim of emotional fraud, which is quite humiliating.

And when a woman loses control and becomes dependent on her husband - due to financial inequality or after the birth of a child - a “boomerang” returns to her: a man takes revenge for past humiliation with coldness or exactingness. There is no understanding, acceptance and care between them: these relationships simply were not created by them. An effective remedy against such mistakes is sincerity. If we are sincere with ourselves, then we honestly admit to ourselves what we want: marriage, adventure, recognition, money. Sincerely interested in others, we understand their expectations. And let's not be disappointed if we don't get what we expected.

Attention without tension

Absorbed by studies, 24-year-old Alexander only noticed a girl in the audience in his second year, who immediately interested him: “I wanted to talk to her, and I thought: I need to act like my friend Lesha, a joker, a favorite of women. After the lecture, I went up to her, started telling a joke, but it was as if my tongue had dried up to the palate.

And here is another story: “I came to the sea with the idea of ​​meeting someone, dressed up, glued my eyelashes, but to no avail,” says 36-year-old Adele. - Ten days later I got burned, my nose peeled off, I waved my hand at myself, stopped making up, and then, to my surprise, the men started talking to me. Two turned out to be Petersburgers, like me, I continue to meet with them ... ”We are easier to please others when we are not busy thinking about how to please, and we are not afraid of“ failure ”.

Adult partnership implies that we understand the interests of the other, we meet them halfway

The one who doubts his worth and believes that he needs to improve himself, “appear in a better light,” tries. We seem to pretend, and others feel insincerity, tension and shun us.

Adult partnership implies that we understand the interests of the other and meet them halfway, that we do not expect unconditional acceptance from the partner, which is possible only in an ideal parent-child relationship. But there is a difference: to take into account the interests of another or to depend on them, to hope for a favorable response - or to urgently need it to maintain self-esteem.

Change of motivation

Let's pay attention to what words are usually used when it comes to establishing contact with a representative of the opposite sex: "win", "achieve". The words themselves are aggressive, they describe some violence over circumstances and even over a partner. These efforts cause the "conqueror" overexertion, exhaustion and a feeling of fatigue. Even in the words "deserve", "attract" we find "service" and "dragging" the interests of the interlocutor in the direction we need. It's not fun, it's hard work!

This is how motivation changes. What everyone needs in the power of our human nature is the creation of close relationships in which there is trust, respect and tenderness. Instead, we hunt the person we are interested in as prey. We are trying to control his feelings, to take power over him. Perhaps it seems to us that such power will give that sense of security that was initially lacking. But it is not the struggle for power that brings real security, but mutual trust and warmth. How to find them?

Flirting or coquetry?

Sexologist Yevgeny Kashchenko suggests distinguishing the subtleties of these concepts.

One of the most famous stimulants of sexual desire - flirting. This type of behavior without sexual relations implies an elusive atmosphere of mutual respect and attention with erotic overtones: gestures, glances, hints... Flirting is often done for its own sake. Art for art's sake! By flirting, partners compensate for the impossibility of more, test their own attractiveness and at the same time the ability to arouse attraction in the object of sexual preference. A smile, a peculiar timbre of a voice, a detail of a toilet - a kind of pleasure in checking a feeling, in a hint of its possibility, in assessing the evidence of what is happening. Flirting, people go through the stage of formation of sexual attraction, and often this process develops into intimacy.

Coquetry akin to flirting, but its difference is that this phenomenon is often unconscious. The coquette strives for conquest, but only in order to enjoy the very fact of conquest, without any other goal. Like a miser who does not want to buy anything with his gold, he hoards it for the sake of the gold itself. Flirting is a much more forgivable "sin", there is even an expression - "innocent flirting", which sounds completely different than another idiom - "soulless coquetry". A coquette plays with a man, but he does not play with her, while, by flirting, the couple performs a conscious erotic game. Today, instead of somewhat old-fashioned "coquetry", "seduction" is increasingly heard - but it also requires a certain skill, skills, and not just one intuition.

Lifelong lessons

“Be interested in the interlocutor, accept him as he is, sympathize with him. It is felt and reciprocated,” say relationship guides. But what if you first try to treat yourself like that?

The basis of a harmonious personality is a sense of self-worth: when we not only recognize with our mind, but with our whole being we feel the value of our being. We open ourselves to ourselves. We discover our aspirations and try to realize them. Maybe it's family comfort or the excitement of work, or maybe freedom and enterprise. We are building a life for ourselves.

But are our interests and values ​​true, or have they been instilled into us? It is easy to understand: if they are true, they bring joy and add strength. The ability to understand your desires and enjoy their energy comes gradually.

It's like mastering an art - you have to start and keep going. All my life - as a musician and artist, they have been improving their art for years. And then the magic happens, we begin to understand others better, because we have already “learned from ourselves” and can direct our ability to others when we want.

The development of a relationship between two is like a dance

There are more and more people around who have similar values. Like us, they know how to be sincere. And then the question “How to please?” does not arise. We do not hide our desires, and the right people respond to them. We respect the freedom of our neighbor as our own, and the other feels safe and opens up to meet us.

The development of relations between the two is like a dance that is composed right there: the second responds to the movement of one with its own movement. It starts with a simple smile, a friendly look. Attentive partners gradually master coherence - understanding and sincere support of the other.

So you can dance all your life. But you can also perform a sultry "dance" of the call of nature. When partners honestly understand both themselves and the other, then a short union brings only joy.

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Scientists from Binghamton University in the United States, led by psychology professor Celia Klin, conducted an experiment involving 126 students. They were given dialogues to read, consisting of 2 replicas: in the first one there was a question, in the second - different variations of answers, consisting of one word like “yes”, “yeah”, “of course”, etc. The main feature of the answers was the presence or absence of dots at the end. After familiarization, the participants were asked to rate the degree of veracity of the answer and, surprisingly, in most cases, answers without dots were rated as more sincere, and with a dot - false.

In correspondence, we are deprived of the opportunity to exchange non-verbal signals, such as facial expressions, tone and volume of voice, body movements. All sorts of things come to replace them: capital letters and exclamation marks when we scream and get angry, deliberately made spelling mistakes when we strive to show disinterest or employment. The period is a signal of firmness of intention and the final end of the conversation, as explained by linguistics professor Mark Liberman (Mark Liberman). Therefore, a person who puts it at the end of his remark seems to us evil.

We behave better when we are expected to.

According to the Pygmalion effect, we treat people in a way that matches our perceptions of them. This, in turn, encourages the person to behave in ways that confirm the expectations of others.

In almost all social groups, the popularity of certain people determines social status and connections. But how do we recognize that certain people are popular, even when collective preferences differ from our own tastes?

Looking at a beautiful person, you are unlikely to exclaim: “Wow, he is so symmetrical!” However, many studies confirm that facial and body symmetry plays a big role in how attractive a person is. Of course, a completely symmetrical person does not exist, because biology is not perfect. However, it has been scientifically proven that the lower the level of oxidative stress (which consists in the accumulation of active damaging agents - the so-called free radicals) in a person, the more symmetrical it is.

An article from The Independent magazine tells of an experience in which 10 measurements were taken into account to assess the symmetry of the appearance of several men - a variety of things like the height of the ears and the length of the fingers. Then tests were made to assess the level of the same stress, which was mentioned above. As a result, a group of women were asked to evaluate photographs of the figures and faces of those men for physical attractiveness. As a result, the men with the most symmetrical performance and the least stress levels were named the most attractive.

Here, read the opinion of a psychologist:
“The pathological formula of love.
The formula is:
Those who like me don't like me. Those who like me don't like me.
I think that someone will object: "What is pathological here?". Indeed, it is impossible to please everyone, and it is impossible, and not necessary, that everyone pleases me. Any person has a certain type, which he subconsciously seeks. In turn, he himself refers to a certain type, which someone likes, but someone does not. So if we talk about a specific situation, then this can be an absolutely normal phenomenon, reflecting the attitude of two specific people towards each other.
BUT. There are a fairly large number of people who clearly follow the pathological formula of love. And if a partner shows interest in me, then I immediately lose all interest in him. And it does not matter that he is promising, handsome, interesting. The very fact that he is interested in me already makes him less attractive in my eyes. And the reverse situation. There is a partner who is not interested in me at all, and the mind tells me that he is an unreliable, windy egoist, relations with which will not lead to anything good. But it is he who, for some reason, clings to me. And it is with him that I want to build a relationship.
And the head of a person seems to understand everything. The mind suggests that it is more reasonable, more rational to deal with someone who likes you, but the body and emotions stubbornly pull you to conquer the one against whom the mind is desperately protesting. Paradoxically, the roots of this mechanism lie not in relation to people, but in relation to oneself.
Let's look at this mechanism in more detail, because it did not appear out of the blue. It is based on the attitude towards oneself, and this attitude is not very good, if not bad. Problems with self-esteem lead to the fact that a person divides all the people with whom he meets into two categories.
The first category of people are those whom he puts above himself. The second category of people are those whom he places below himself. The behavior towards representatives of the first and second groups may differ radically. To those who are lower than me, I can treat with disdain, do not value relations with them. I can promise something and not fulfill it, because I don't really value relations with this category of people.
What can not be said about the people whom I ranked in the second category. I put them above myself and the very fact of communicating with them, being accepted into their circle increases my self-esteem. I want to please the people whom I put above myself, to earn their favor, so I try to make them happy with me. I can even fawn and sacrifice my interests, just to stay with them.
Now let's put this into relationships. I treat myself badly, but at the same time you like me. So something is wrong with you, because no one can like me just like that. I have to earn the right to be liked. I have to do something to make another person interested in me. And you just like me. I like myself. So something is wrong with you. So you're even worse than me. Therefore, in my classification, I will put you below me, and I will not value the relationship with you. And in general I will behave in such a way that you understand how wrong you are. And if you want a relationship with me even more because of my behavior, then something is completely wrong with you. Which means I'm not interested in you. You will fall in my eyes lower and lower. Until I completely lose interest in you.
And here is a partner who ignores me. To whom I am not very interested. Treats me disrespectfully. Not interested in relationships. Well done. Figured out who I am. So, I will put you above myself. And I'll try to win you over so that I can tell myself that I'm not so bad ass. And in this way I will prove that I can be loved. For the sake of this, I agree to be patient, to wait. I will agree to what I do not agree to in my heart. For something that doesn't suit me. If only my partner stayed with me and I could prove to myself that I deserve such a person.
And what will happen if I eventually achieve the location of a partner? If he suddenly starts to treat me well. I will eventually transfer it to a category below myself and lose interest in it.
This often happens in men who seek a beautiful girl, often feeling insecure at the beginning of a relationship. Fearing that she will refuse or prefer someone else. During the period when he achieves her, he thinks only of her and he does not need anyone else. And so he achieved, and suddenly a person changes dramatically. Becomes inattentive. Prefers to spend time with friends. Starts looking at other girls.
Women often sin by agreeing initially to those relationships that do not suit them, just to be with this man. And then they complain that he does not consider her, is inattentive, does not take into account her interests at all. Despite this, she cannot even think about changing these relations.
As a result, the pathological formula of love does not lie in the plane of relations with other people, but lies in the plane of attitude towards oneself. Accordingly, it is necessary to solve not so much a problem in a relationship as a problem with one's self-esteem.“