Lab Report #31: Lovely Illusions > Dangerous Delusions
Lessons from falling in love with a room full of strangers
Dear Ludic Liberators,
I have a theory that I could fall in love with anyone. Everyone has something delightful, genuine, heart-meltingly human about them. Everyone warrants at least a little bit of adoring regard. I especially enjoy being able to love someone’s under-loved parts — their weird quirk or insecurity or aspect that’s not considered conventionally desirable. Allowing oneself to be loved is to expose a vulnerability; to love another is to make that vulnerability feel safe.
Yet I also feel very suspicious of my easy propensity to love. It can make me blind to my more rational sensibilities. Love has many forms (the Greeks had it figured out — see this color wheel of love ), and this quick-to-love quality is ludus — a non-attached, playful, teasing type of feeling and relating. The word shares its root with ludic (which means playful if you don’t know it yet!), but also with the words illusion and delusion. Both illusion and delusion describe the experience of misperception, believing the trick of the game. But whereas an illusion is temporary and will typically dissolve, a delusion is a more dangerous kind of deception that can lead to an ongoing cognitive distortion or obsession.
As I play with falling in love in my own life, I try to remember to engage with ludus responsibly — it’s a powerful drug! (There’s a whole subreddit dedicated to people trying to recover from limerence — the condition of chronic unreciprocated infatuation)!
Which is why the February lab, facilitated by Indigo Esmonde, was so medicinal and educational. Indigo led the group through a participatory design process and gameplay on falling in love. We established what felt to us like a very ambitious goal to have 46 instances of falling in love among 12 participants and had about 45 minutes complete our mission.
By the end of the play, we ended up falling in love a remarkable 169 times! 👏👏👏
How did that happen?
First, we made the conditions for what counted as a “love instance” ridiculously permissive while still based on real signals we’ve all felt before: warmth in the heart at the thought of someone else, cheeks burning, openness to being changed, sparkly eyes, deep curiosity, etc.
Second, we conducted simple but time-tested love-inducing experiments: gazing into each other’s faces, genuinely and generously complimenting one another, sharing something honestly and vulnerably, drawing together.
Third, the “instances” didn’t require rigorous evidence or accountability. We used the honor system to track how many times we fell in love. Our love did not have to be “tested.”
And finally, and perhaps most importantly, we didn’t suppress any of our urges to feel fluttery about each other (well, maybe some other people did! I’m speaking for myself here as someone who was falling in love left and right).
Afterwards, we felt a little “high and out of control” — both opened up by the possibility that love was so easy and abundant and suddenly afraid to close the virtual window and be without this effervescent collective gaze. Someone named that they wanted to lay on the floor “with our heads on each others’ bellies.” A smaller group of players stayed after Lab for another whole hour, quietly talking and grounding the dizzy energy.
Through play, we realized that the love feeling is easy to create, but was also misty and unsustainable — like a fog machine, a sparkly light. The love we made was an illusion — a feeling of being effectively delighted by the game. It’s enjoyable like the magic of iridescence, glitter, disco balls, a beautiful light, an uplifting intoxicant. It is impressive that we can create this virtual euphoria just by giving ourselves permission to feel the feeling, and collaborate with each other to amplify it.
Many players wondered whether they could take this attitude outside, to their own dating lives. Could this experiment help us feel more ease and less nervousness when falling in love IRL? Maybe! Although what made it so comfortable to “win” at love in the Lab was knowing that the love we felt didn’t have to be sustained or reciprocated — we wouldn’t be held responsible for it in the future. Of course, we can use the rules we established at the lab to fall in spontaneous sparkly love with strangers every day or use the science-backed 36 questions to fall intentionally deeper.
But could we really liberate “love” and the notion of “I love you” from commitment to partnership or any kind of expectation? One of the players shared a quote in the chat by the poet David Whyte that might answer the question: “There’s no sincere path you can take in life without having your heart broken.” In “real life,” the stakes of the game are different. Momentary illusions might turn into torturous delusions. Or else, they might evolve into real, weighty, messy commitments! Either way: heartbreak.
Is that stickiness something we can play with too? I hope so. Stay tuned for the next series of labs in which we will tackle the rules of being in relationship (not necessarily romantic).
For now, I want you to know that:
I love how you lifted your eyebrows when you said “yes”, I enjoy playing games with you, I’m always surprised and delighted, you have such adorable floppy kitten energy, you have teddy bear energy and I love that, your desire to NOT be fallen in love with is so alluring, lol, I like the way you smile while you talk, I looooooooove how you made me wait for it omg, you have such a genuine, beautiful laugh, cute eyes and smile, I like how assertively you asked for what you needed! Your smile is so cute and authentic! I love how freely you laugh- I can feel the life flowing through you! Less talking really is more when you do it!!!! Your bashfulness is endearing, I like your ease to laugh, it was really fun to hear you narrating your present moment experience. Falling in love, oh falling in love, your ability to be delighted! What could be more delightful?! The way you were looking at yourself before, made me connect, you’re like a puppy, I love the image of you rambling for 25 minutes about physics! I wanna hear that ramble, I don’t even know what to say, I just enjoyed that, I like the bright eyes, like you are a kid still, your honesty is so cute!!, Mmm such a sweet smile, big eager puppy energy! 🙂, you seem so deep and interesting and intellectual. I want to know all your theories about life…. !!, your voice is sexy, swooning at your intellectualization of love <3, I love your cute accent and feel resonance on your words, there’s something about your smile, to me it looks like an eagerness and a shyness at the same time, I love your careful thoughtfulness and attention to change, wow the accent. I would listen to you read the dictionary aloud! I love how much you seem to really think about what you are saying as you think, you are a misty gritty dream! With your hair and humbleness.
Ludically yours,
Natalia Stroika
Existential Gamemaker / Destroyer
silly happy smile on my face at the warm remembrances of this night 💜
First off - reading about the colour wheel of love was enlightening! It feels like something I knew at one point but had forgotten. I’m struck by how much of it I can feel with/towards one person - I can really paint with the whole palette when I want to!
Second, what a delight to read this report! Being in the lab was remarkable because I got to see Indigo filter and process the chaos of our “mosh pit” into something coherent and meaningful in real time! Now, I got to see you process the entire collective experience and extract universal truths from it! So amazed by you two, so honored to be part of your play! 💗💗💗