by MAMAMIA TEAM
You can do lots of things in 40 days.
If you’re Goliath, you can pester the Israelites enough times that David decides enough is enough and breaks out his slingshot. If you’re Jesus, you can fast in the desert without dying. If you’re Phileas Fogg, you can go halfway around the world.
But, if you’re a couple of single 20-somethings, can you fall in love?
This is Jessica. And this is Tim.
They’re friends from New York City.
And, for 40 days this year, they decided to date each other.
They also both work as designers, which explains why their website documenting the whole experiment – dubbed ’40 Days of Dating’ – looked like this:
Trendy.
Each plagued by their own relationship problems (Jessica jumped into relationships way too early, while Tim admitted to often dating three girls at once, in order to avoid commitment), Jessica and Tim set themselves the challenge of dating each other for 40 days.
At the end of each day, they would fill out a questionnaire and post it on the blog. The aim of the experiment was to gain a fresh perspective on their dating behaviour.
They agreed upon the following rules:
1. We will see each other everyday for 40 days.
2. We will go on at least three dates a week.
3. We will see a couples’ therapist once a week.
4. We will go on one weekend trip together.
5. We will fill out the daily questionnaire and document everything.
6. We will not see, date, hookup or have sex with anyone else.
So, did it work? Did they discover that all it takes to fall in love with someone is a little bit of time? Did they find out you can fall in love with anyone if you put your mind to it? Have they fallen in love, married and are currently awaiting the birth of their first child complete with a mortgage, a joint bank account and a labrador puppy?
No.
Reading through their daily journals, it becomes apparent that the pair did exactly what they had done in every other relationship. Jessica committed hard and early, wanting to know what the situation would be after the 40 days were up. And Timothy was so indecisive and afraid of commitment that his final sentence paragraph on Day 40 read:
I love her, yet I know there’s nothing else I can do. We kissed. I gave her a gift. We kissed one more time. I shut the cab door, and I walked away.
They probably ended up worse off than when they started. In that awkward void of platonic friendship with a non-platonic history.
But it wasn’t all a waste of time. The pair now have a better understanding of how they behave when dating, and ’40 Days of Dating’ is becoming a movie, with Warner Bros won an intense bidding war for film rights last month.
Oh, and they got to make some crazy pieces of experimental art and upload them onto their Vimeo.
(And for anyone who’s wondering, yes they did have sex),
Trendy.
You can read more about
What do you think of 40 Day of Dating? Do you think you can force love?
Top Comments
I just spent the best part of last night and this morning reading their entire journal. I liked it! Yes it was self-involved and excruciatingly introspective...but I think it was meant to be?
I enjoyed the premise! They're obviously both passionate and intelligent people who thought this would be a really creative "art" project, and it was. My only problem was that Jessie really seemed to want to immerse herself in the project and she really wanted to give it a chance and see where it led and what would come of it, whereas Tim acted like a sulking teenager who'd been forced into it. Jessie had stated a couple of times that she's really into psychology, and that psychology and art are her two favourite topics to read about and think about. So in that sense, I understand why she was probably a little bit more into the project than Tim was. I think she chose the wrong partner to undertake the project with. I know they had their reasons - their opposite dating behaviours meant that they would inevitably face issues which they'd have to work through - but it was almost like inevitable torture for her because they both always knew Tim would end up pulling away! So while I was reading, I wanted to slap them both because it was obvious that Tim had no real intention of changing or gleaning much from the experiment at all.
Still, anything where two humans have put so much time and effort and passion into designing and building a project like this - it deserves to be read!
I kinda think that you can force love. I think proximity generally leads to affection, especially between people where there already is a level of attraction preexisting. Arranged marriages prove this - most people who enter into arranged marriages report high levels of love and happiness years down the track (I'm talking about consentual adult arranged marriages, not dodgy old man-teenage girl forced ones).
I hope they can remain friends and colleagues.
Love happens. It happens willingly. You can never force someone to love you.