
Show HN: App for Falling in Love - ada1981
http://loveactualized.com
======
ada1981
I was so impressed with the NYTimes article I saw posted this morning about a
study done on strangers falling in love, that I took the questions from the
original study and built an app / game. Should be a great tool for first dates
or for fun with your lover. Enjoy!

The inspiration was this thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8866933](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8866933)

~~~
nether
"most terrible memory"

Yeah, there's a fun one for a first date. Seriously how do you handle that
question? Some people have had very bad things happen to them.

~~~
delish
I'm imagining how I would look/act and how my date would look/act upon
_seeing_ that question. I think the use of that question is not in
_communicating the information_ of the most terrible memory, but rather in
_seeing your partner feel sad_ , then empathizing with him/her.

This helps create a climate of intimacy and trust, regardless of the answer to
the question.

Overall, I enjoyed reading the questions and I plan to do this.

~~~
ada1981
Delish! Awesome. Do you think you would use the app? Or prefer to just have a
list of questions? Would love to get your feedback for some press inquiries we
are getting!

~~~
delish
I much prefer the app because me and my partner can't look at anything save
the question and each other. Time, space and relationship: There's only the
present question and the present partner.

I read the questions on your app without having read the list of questions on
NYT or github. When I read those questions (by myself), I was filled with
anticipation and not fear or apprehension. I think this is because your app
and these questions _pre-structure disclosure in an environment of symmetric
experience_. This is really important and I could talk more about this.

You can feel free to email me at zlrthn mouse geemail (replace mouse with @
and fix geemail). I haven't gone through the app with a potential partner but
I'll let you know when I do.

Thank you for doing this. Made my day.

~~~
ada1981
Great feedback. I'd love to talk with you more about this when the
neurotransmitters are replenished in my brain after some sleep. :)

------
ada1981
I just realized that yesterday was the to-the-day 1 year anniversary of my
girlfriend of 3 years dumping me in Palo Alto (via email) the day after she
told me she could see us married and happy together (ouch!). Woke up, read
HackerNews, and had this insatiable urge to blow off everything I had on my
plate for PRMatch.com and code this sucker up. So grateful for all the praise
/ support / people using it and signing up for more free relationship tools.

Looking forward to some wedding photos!

xo, Anthony

~~~
peteypao
Wow, that's cold! Any idea what caused her change of heart?

~~~
meric
Sounds like she was thinking about their future 'she could see us...' And
ultimately decided she wasn't going to marry him.

~~~
ada1981
At some point I'll write about it -- but she said she was terrified her family
would cut her off because they had a particular idea of a guy she was supposed
to be with. It was pretty intense and I went back to her again and again, but
ultimately -- we lacked the context to navigate it together.

------
binarymax
I have an idea for an experiment: take this to the UN and have two quarreling
diplomats go through the process with each other. Next step - world peace.

~~~
ada1981
I think it's a great idea. I'm certain there is an application of this for
conflict resolution. Guided conversation apps for specific situations.

~~~
thisjepisje
You should definitely still add the "kiss each other" easter egg in this
application :P

~~~
ada1981
Added. See my earlier comment..

[http://imgur.com/6mI0NzN](http://imgur.com/6mI0NzN)

Let me know if you find it.

~~~
thisjepisje
I see, that's awesome :)

------
c16
Zuck just liked this. Congratulations!
[https://i.imgur.com/BJHPU4w.png](https://i.imgur.com/BJHPU4w.png) (and enjoy
in in-flow of traffic)

~~~
ada1981
Thanks! Missed this one.

------
tmuir
Is the premise really that just the exercise alone produces the result?
Wouldn't two people who were totally repulsed by each other's answers not fall
in love? What about people who were just lukewarm towards each other's
answers?

If that's the case, how does this idea allude to anything other than the
concept that two people who generally get along with each other, and were
already predisposed to liking each other in the first place, would develop
feelings for each other after spending a few hours conversing and learning
about each other?

~~~
bjt
The paper linked from the article goes into this a bit. (Though I just skimmed
it.) The authors started by thinking people who had similar answers would be
more attracted, but found that wasn't the case. Just the act of opening up
seems to provide the effect.

Highlighted in purple on page 367:

"Overall, these data suggest that matching in terms of not disagreeing on
important attitudes or leading subjects to believe that they and their
partners will like each other probably has little impact on the overall
closeness subjects achieve through this procedure, or even on their mutual
attraction. "

[http://www.stafforini.com/txt/Aron%20et%20al%20-%20The%20exp...](http://www.stafforini.com/txt/Aron%20et%20al%20-%20The%20experimental%20generation%20of%20interpersonal%20closeness.pdf)

~~~
ada1981
Super interesting isn't it? Looking forward to doing some experiments with
this tool.

------
dllthomas
I like the "grab a partner" as if it doesn't matter who.

~~~
mamoswined
I kind of want to try this with someone from a gender I'm not sexually
attracted to who is also not sexually attracted to my gender. I'm assuming
we'd just end up closer friends.

~~~
baby
Or gay.

~~~
dllthomas
Or straight, depending on where you started.

But much of this thread is assuming "in love" (in the sense this practice
purportedly produces) is a state that is inherently linked to sexuality. I'm
not sure whether or not that's the case.

~~~
cheepin
Well, tightly connecting it to sexuality carries an implicit assertion that
asexual people cannot love (or be "in love"). Seems untenable.

~~~
dllthomas
It might motivate the assumption, but it doesn't have to be the case. One can
imagine a model where there is some fact about a person that determines who
they can fall in love with, and that hetero-, homo-, and bisexuality fall out
of that for people with interest in sex, but which is still present but
possibly less observable for asexual people. I have no particular confidence
that this matches reality well at all, but it should be enough to show that
there's no logical implication...

------
myrmi
This reminds me of Friendstrap:
[http://gameovenstudios.com/category/friendstrap/#description](http://gameovenstudios.com/category/friendstrap/#description)

~~~
ada1981
Friendstrap looks awesome!

------
morgante
Awesome to see this! After reading the article, I too thought about making an
app for it, but kudos to you for beating me to the punch.

I might suggest making a native app though. Several developers made an
absolute killing off their native versions of the NYT's 7 minute workout
article (eventually pushing the NYT to release their own app).

~~~
ada1981
Releasing it in the next day or so in app store ;)

------
ajslater
Did not have desired result. However, it did reveal that my parter was a
replicant.

------
orblivion
I appreciate this for the same reason I appreciate metasploit.

~~~
ada1981
[http://www.metasploit.com/](http://www.metasploit.com/) ?

~~~
orblivion
Yeah. I think of this fall-in-love trick as a sort of hack. It's certainly not
how we expect humans to work. Like metasploit, this service takes full
advantage of the vulnerability to bring it to light. Not that there's much
that can be done about it.

------
Danjambev
I found this study a few years ago, I met a women where i was working told hr
about it. A few weeks later I got the courage to ask her out on a date, (She
accepted :) and we did the 36 questions together - a year later we are now
married. It's such a powerful thing to do with someone you have just met.

Found this as well if anyone is interested - they have made a film about the
study in down under Australia, says online it comes out in 2015, heres the
link:

[https://www.facebook.com/pages/36-Questions-The-
Movie/279767...](https://www.facebook.com/pages/36-Questions-The-
Movie/279767198842157)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3511822/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3511822/)

PLD

~~~
ada1981
can you email me? I'd love to talk to you more about your experience...

anthony@175g.com

I'm the creator of LoveActualize.com

------
seba_dos1
Bug: On Nokia N900's MicroB browser on each step forward or backward it jumps
over one question, effectively skipping half of them in total.

I'm aware that it's a really old engine (from somewhere around Firefox 3.5
times), but it sounds like something trivial to fix.

------
blubbi2
I really like the carousel. Nevertheless, for those that are too lazy to click
36 times:

Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner
guest?

Would you like to be famous? In what way?

Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to
say? Why?

What would constitute a "perfect" day for you?

When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body
of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

Take 4 minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as
possible.

If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what
would it be?

If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the
future, or anything else, what would you want to know?

Is there something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven't
you done it?

What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

What do you value most in a friendship?

What is your most treasured memory?

What is your most terrible memory?

If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything
about the way you are now living? Why?

What does friendship mean to you?

What roles do love and affection play in your life?

Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your
partner. Share a total of 5 items.

How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than
most other people's?

How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

Make 3 true "we" statements each. For instance "We are both in this room
feeling ... "

Complete this sentence: "I wish I had someone with whom I could share ... "

If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share
what would be important for him or her to know.

Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time saying
things that you might not say to someone you've just met.

Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with
anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven't you
told them yet?

Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your
loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one
item. What would it be? Why?

Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing?
Why?

Share a personal problem and ask your partner's advice on how he or she might
handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be
feeling about the problem you have chosen.

Almost done. Now silently look into your partners eyes for 4 Minutes.

Congrats! You're in love! :)

~~~
hnriot
where are the interview answers? it's no good just having the questions, I
won't know what to say!

------
fallinlove
Here's an alternative version featuring random questions:
[http://www.fallinloveapp.com](http://www.fallinloveapp.com)

------
morgante
Since I'd already started my own version before seeing this, decided to
release it anyways. Quite similar, though mine is integrated into more of a
story/post format.

[http://www.cafe.com/relationships/questioning-
love?u=d39da61...](http://www.cafe.com/relationships/questioning-
love?u=d39da615-3bc1-4c0a-a3ef-55c19558fbde)

------
AntonyCamp789
Whilst I appreciate that it may not always be easy to create significant
'chat' on a first date and an app like this enables two people to enter into
questions which would otherwise not be asked and through the safety of a third
party arbiter, does it not enhance the way our culture arbitrarily relates to
love as something that is possible to manufacture and causes no risk to the
individual? An "app for falling in love"!!! The safety of these generic
questions and the way they avert an danger of imaginative import from either
party effectively over throws the possibility of the fall (i.e. risk, danger,
ingenuity) required to fall in love. Zizek recently compared online dating and
modern dating techniques (like this) to arranged marriages: neither allow for
the individual risk to fall in love (become something other than they are
through love) as both are moderated by an all powerful other, on the one hand
the parents with their infinite gaze into our lives and on the other the
normative values of our society that we find no way of freeing ourselves from
if we try to enter into love through the reproduction of cliches like this app
encourages us to.

~~~
glibgil
You lost me at "whilst". OK, not really, but your writing reads like an
audition to a contest I'm not holding. Why not just say, "taking risks in love
frees us and this app doesn't do that"?

------
kgc
Quickly looked over it. Needs spellcheck.

~~~
ada1981
It's possible I'm mildly dyslexic as my spelling is terrible. Thanks for the
reminder I need extra eyes to get this production ready.. Also, been grinding
all day. Thanks for checking it out!

~~~
mkartic
To help you out, "Couples therapists estimate that only 5% of relationships
ever break out of the power struggle and into true intimacy and self
_actulization_." s/actu/actua/ I guess? In the page titled "Warning!".

~~~
ada1981
Thank you so much! Been on a product bender for 36 hours and now have media
stuff popping. Fun times in the Love Lab ;)

------
ada1981
At the risk of my servers being breached / destroyed... I've embedded an
easter egg for you guys.. If you unlocked it, it will add an extra final slide
that should be useful for first dates ;)

[http://imgur.com/6mI0NzN](http://imgur.com/6mI0NzN)

Don't QUESTION LOVE!

------
jrockway
It says "a gift to all humans", but
[http://loveactualized.com/robots.txt](http://loveactualized.com/robots.txt)
does not appear to deny the gift to robots!

~~~
ada1981
hahaha... humans are a subset of the superset of who the gift is for.

------
rjaco31
> Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your
> partner. Share a total of 5 items.

Could someone explain this question to me?

------
Kiro
Add the space so it shows up in the Show HN tab.

~~~
ada1981
Thanks!

------
Stately
Any chance this is open-source? I'd love to translate it to Spanish, at a
request of my non-English speaking friend.

~~~
ada1981
Ok I set up a google doc where you can translate the questions if you'd like
to translate.. We will credit the folks who help translate. For now anyone
with the link can edit..

[http://bit.ly/1xjb2xh](http://bit.ly/1xjb2xh)

------
vonseel
That was quick.

~~~
ada1981
I was sprinting all day to crank it out! Think I started around 11am and went
live 11pm. Thanks for checking it out.

~~~
EGreg
Can you write up here what you had to do?

The reason I ask is I immediately thought, "Hey it's just a list of questions,
and a way to move between pages. Shouldn't take more than an hour." But
software projects are often underestimated. What took you 12 ??

~~~
nlh
I'm not the OP (and, btw, would love to hear the real answer) but having been
through the exact same process (both the "it should only take an hour" and
"wow how did that take 12 hours?" parts), here's my general answer:

Some things just take way longer than we think they will. Sometimes it's sheer
mis-estimation (setting up the basic CSS style sheet, getting the layout to
look nice, getting the transitions working properly, etc. all seem simple but
still require raw time and effort), and sometimes it's just that nasty bit
that _should_ be easy and just ends up not being easy ("why isn't the DIV
centering??") and you blink and 3 hours have gone by. And that part should
have taken 30 seconds.

So it no longer surprises me when things that should be simple end up taking
10 or 100x as long.

BTW - fantastic article on this subject I read recently:

[http://blog.hut8labs.com/coding-fast-and-
slow.html](http://blog.hut8labs.com/coding-fast-and-slow.html)

That all being said - OP - would love to hear about your process.

~~~
ada1981
YES.. I'm also more of a hack than a hacker so I often have to relearn stuff
and nuance. Today my tech cofounder from PRMatch.com forced me to goto sleep
and basically said he was going to do the ios / android apps.

------
Kiro
It would be interesting to see how much traffic spiked after Mark Zuckerberg
liked it. Do you have any data?

~~~
ada1981
I missed the Zuck like. Happy to share a snapshot of the traffic if I can find
the timestamp.

------
shawndrost
Suggestion: rename it as "The Love App". Easier to remember, better for media.

~~~
ada1981
I set up a $150 Reward Namestorm™ over at Bootname.com to see what happens to
float through. Put a buck-fiddy in there as a thanks to the community to see
what we come up with.

[https://bootname.com/website/04238657-the-app-for-falling-
in...](https://bootname.com/website/04238657-the-app-for-falling-in-love)

Bootname is a site that runs crowdsourced name brainstorming contests aka
"Namestorms" and is a Codective Ventures Portfolio company of which I am co-
founder.

------
philip1209
I wonder how well some of these questions could be adapted for job interviews.

------
faviouz
I fucking hate you guys. We're both crying now.

This game sucks.

~~~
ada1981
That can be a good thing to process difficult emotions together.

------
brendan12
www.peeps.club connects people (around NYC) biweekly to exchange these 36
questions in person, one on one.

------
notadoc
I enjoyed that article too. Bravo.

------
Mauricio_
Was this made in one day?

~~~
ada1981
Started about 11am yesterday, and I think it went live around 2am today. Then
stayed up polishing it and then there was a ton of comments online to answer.

------
arcticsoul
"Perfect for a first date"? Taking a 90 minute computer quiz? Snort.

~~~
ada1981
Idea is that you'd have the app running and actually have the conversations.
I'd be excited to try it out.

------
sp4ke
Sad that we need an app to fall in love now ... kudos for making the app
though

~~~
mbrock
There was no golden age of analog love. Love needs all the help it can get.

~~~
ada1981
Did you ever read the book Wired Love? It's about two telegraph operators
falling in love via morse code. It's from the late 1800's.

[http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2013/07/wired_...](http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2013/07/wired_love_a_ta.php)

