More tips on manipulating a man to fall in love with you

After all, the best kind of love is the kind you get from a set of tricks you learned from a book. The love that comes from two people meeting and falling for each other simply because they fancy each other is just so Turner Classic Movies. At iVillage, we get five simple tricks to make anyone fall in love with you from Tracy Cox. Anyone?! Well, not quite:

Besides, it's not like I'm proposing black magic or suggesting any of these techniques will force someone to fall in love with you against their will. (If they did, I'd currently be shacked up with Brad Pitt.) What they will do though is nudge the odds a lot higher in your favor. Is that really so bad?

Well, I think it is if it's game-playing. Tracy?

It would be preferable if everyone you wanted just fell in your lap, without having to play games. Unfortunately, real life doesn't always work that way.

Well, there are your two options. Wait at home for someone to fall into your lap or go out there and start hitting up men like you're a used car salesman and they are potential customers. Don't pay attention to those that say if you just have activities, interests, friends and an active social life, then you will meet men. Clearly those people are mental.

And now for the tricks to put on your mar- I mean, potential boyfriends.

Hang Around Lots...but Then Be Unavailable
The more you interact with someone, the more they'll like you, says David Lieberman, a U.S. expert in human behavior. He's right actually. Several studies show repeated exposure to practically any stimulus makes us like it more (the only time it doesn't hold true is if our initial reaction to it is negative).

Which would explain why Carson Daly, who used to merely annoy me, now makes me want to kill people.

Now, pay attention, because this is the tricky part. Just when you're convinced you've won them over and they like you, start being a little less available. And then even less, until they hardly see you at all. You've now effectively instigated the "law of scarcity."

This is known as the "Get the Shrub Elected" tactic. Remember, the more that people saw of Bush, they less they wanted to vote for him! If at all possible, have Fox tape you looking noble getting in and out of aircraft and send him the tapes. Make that your only exposure to him and he'll love you. And you'll love dating a man who finds you more adorable the less he sees of you.

There's no reason to think that if you suddenly disappear, a guy will think that you are ignoring him because you don't like him, of course. Men know that all women love them all the time.

Don't Do Nice Things for Them. Let Them Do Nice Things for You
If you do something nice for someone, it makes you feel good on two levels. You feel pleased with yourself and extra-warm toward the person you've just spoiled. To justify the effort or expense, we often over-idealize how wonderful he is to deserve it! End result: we like the person more.

These super favors are sure to come after he's decided that you don't like him anymore because you don't answer his calls. Anyday now....

When someone does something nice for us, we're pleased. But there are a whole lot of other emotions that come into play -- and they're not all good. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed. There's pressure to live up to being the wonderful person who inspired such a gift/act, not to mention pressure to return the favor. It's all even trickier if the "nice thing" comes from someone you very much like but aren't sure about yet.

I can do her one better. When he brings over a present, hold it out between your forefingers like a dead bird your cat offered as a gift and say, "What the hell is this?" while making a face. He will only try harder next time.

And now for the 2nd favorite piece of advice for tricking a man into thinking he likes you (after not returning his calls, of course)--stare him down.

Give Them the Eye
Harvard psychologist Zick Rubin set out to see if he could measure love scientifically and achieved it by recording the amount of time lovers spent staring at each other. He discovered that couples who are deeply in love look at each other 75 percent of the time when talking and are slower to look away when someone else dares to intrude. In normal conversation, people look at each other between 30-60 percent of the time... If you look at someone you like 75 percent of the time when they're talking to you, you trick their brain. The brain knows the last time that someone looked at them that long and often, it meant they were in love. So it thinks OK, I'm obviously in love with this person as well...

I can't see the problem with this plan. It's not like people look away uncomfortably when someone is staring them down or anything.

[His brain] starts to release phenylethylamine (PEA). PEA is a chemical cousin to amphetamines and is secreted by the nervous system when we first fall in love. PEA is what makes our palms sweat, our tummies flip over, and our hearts race. The more PEA the person you want has pumping through the bloodstream, the more likely he is to fall in love with you.

Or you could skip the whole process of trying to trick his brain into drugging him so that he thinks he's in love and just drug him yourself. I hear certain illegal club drugs make people suddenly fall in love with everyone around them. Sure, they are a little pricey, but they will save you staring down time and there's more evidence that they actually work.

Don't Look Away
Relationships expert Leil Lownes calls this technique making "toffee eyes." Simply lock eyes with the person you like and keep them there, even when he has finished talking or someone else joins the conversation. When you eventually do drag your eyes away (three or four seconds later), do it slowly and reluctantly -- as though they're attached by warm toffee.

Petulantly roll your eyes at the person who dared interrupt you in the process of staring down your prey. That will drive the point home further. When the foul interrupter leaves, return to your adoring gaze, sighing wistfully periodically. If this is really hard to do, pretend you're Marcia Brady and he's Davy Jones.

Practice Pupillometrics
We all know "bedroom eyes" when we see them: it's the look of lust. There's just one thing you need for bedroom eyes: big pupils.

Fuck--I knew they weren't done finding body parts that need plastic surgery.

But you can create the right conditions to inspire large pupils and get the effect. First, reduce light. Our pupils expand when they're robbed of it, one reason why candlelight and dimmer switches are de rigueur in romantic restaurants.

The aforementioned illegal club drugs also achieve the big pupil affect. Better take some yourself. Can't be more expensive than dinner in a candlelit restaurant.

To sum up: To make a man love you, come on strong and then ignore him so he wonders if he did something wrong. When you do consent to go out on a date with him, wait with an expectant look on your face for favors while declining to do anything nice for him yourself. Then stare at him lovingly like he was the last man on Earth. What kind of man could resist? Well, besides the ones who are too smart to hang out with crazy people. You know, the ones worth having.