Experience fear together.

A dramatic setting can kick-start your love life. Meeting a stranger when physiologically aroused increases the chance of having romantic feelings towards them…

It’s all because of a strong connection between anxiety, arousal and attraction. In the “shaky bridge study” carried out by psychologists Arthur Aron and Don Dutton in the 1970s, men who met a woman on a high rickety bridge found the encounter sexier and more romantic than those who met her on a low stable one. A visit to the funfair works wonders too. Photos of members of the opposite sex were more attractive to people who had just got off a roller coaster, compared with those who were waiting to get on. And couples were more loved-up after watching a suspense-filed thriller than a calmer film. Why? No one is sure, but the adrenaline rush from danger might be misattributed to the thrill of the attraction. But beware: while someone attractive becomes more so in a tense setting, the unattractive appear even less appealing.