Revisiting: The Look of Love
/The Look of Love was a trick I published on the site back in 2016. Familiarize yourself with it if you want this post to make sense.
I wanted to mention how I do this effect these days, one-on-one, with no wingman helping me out.
The trick looks the same. I ask the person to name an object of a particular color and then I remove a photo of that object in that color from my wallet. While the effect is pretty much the same, there are some slight tweaks to how I approach it.
So let’s say I’m seated with someone out at a cafe or restaurant.
Imagine
“Let’s try something,” I say. “I’ve got an object in mind. First, think of any color. Not like a super-specific, 64-count Crayola box color, but just any regular standard color.”
“Pink,” she says.
I become slightly excited. “Ah! This just got more interesting. Okay, now think of any sort of object in the world A tangible thing you can touch.”
“Anything?” she asks. “Uhm… a palm tree.”
My jaw drops. “Are you kidding me? Did you see something? Did someone tell you? Someone told you.”
She’s on the defensive now. “What? What do you mean?”
“Don’t play with me. Someone told you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says.
“Are you serious? You don’t know what I’m talking about?”
I let my attitude change from skeptical to, “Did this really just happen?”
“Okay… so… uhm… there was this old game show… Hold on, check this out,” I say as I pick up my phone and search for something online. “If I can find it… wait… here it is.”
I then show her a blog post called, “The most fruitful game show in TV history.” It’s about an old game show called At First Sight which paired up random men and women and the most compatible ones—as determined by a series of challenges—would be matched up on a date and win a cash prize. I don’t read the post word-for-word, but I just sort of summarize it. I mention how they only shot three test-episodes of the show but four couples that met on the show ended up married.
Then I get to this part which I do read word-for-word:
“Okay, check this out, it says, ‘The show was made up of different games, challenges, and “tests.” Of these, the one that seemed to be most predictive of a compatible match was a segment called “At Second Sight,” where the man would have an image of an object of a certain color on him and the women would have to guess what it was, based solely on intuition. Of the four couples produced by the show, all had at least a partial match of color and/or object during this segment.’
“Apparently that was based on a game people played at the time called, The Soulmate Test. Where guys would carry a picture or drawing with them and if a woman named a similar object they were compatible or something.
“I’ve been trying it with people, just because I thought it was interesting to hear what people would guess. Not because I really thought much about it.
“But check this out.”
I pull out my wallet, remove an envelope and give it to the person I’m with. She opens it and finds a picture of a pink palm tree.
Method
I think you can put the pieces together. You send the image to the printer while you’re supposedly trying to find the article. There is more than enough time to do this. If I said, “Find a picture of a yellow can opener,” you would just google yellow can opener and hit images. If I said, “Find this article on a blog you once read,” that would be a more time-consuming thing. So don’t worry about rushing to find the right picture. You, of course, just have the article bookmarked so you can bring it up immediately after you send the picture.
I now ask for the color first as opposed to the object. This makes a little more sense, because if they get the object right first, then the color would almost be an afterthought. But if they get the color right it’s more like, “Huh, okay, this is interesting. But now for the real test.”
I don’t bring up anything about the old show or the old “soulmate test” until they’ve got it right. Then at that point, when I’m excited about it, I begin to explain it, realize I’m not doing it clearly, then go to the phone to bring up the article to help explain. That, to me, feels very natural. I wouldn’t bring out the article initially because why go to all that trouble for this thing that probably isn’t going to work anyways? And pulling up the article before showing the picture also makes sense, because I want to put the picture in context and explain why I even have it.
So that’s how I do the trick with no secret partner. In an ideal world, I’d use the confederate method, but this is just so much easier to pull off, so it’s the version I use most often.
The blog the article appears on is a supplement to this site which features a few different articles I use to work my way into tricks, as well as a whole lot of articles that have nothing to do with any trick. So the blog really seems like it’s just someone’s collection of interesting stuff. It feels completely normal. And the fact that it hasn’t been updated in a couple years only makes it more normal.
You can read more about the idea behind that blog here.
I have the printer in a pocket in my computer bag which is at my side. The photo spits out pretty much right into my hand. I use my own card to sealed envelope set-up which isn’t written up anywhere because it’s not the sort of thing anyone else would like. Just search for “card to wallet” and “sealed envelope” and you’ll find a number of different options online.
Two potential changes I’m considering making.
I may start using this Instax printer rather than the Zip printer. I like that the photos look like those mini-polaroids. Potential issues might be the size of the printer and if they’re nosier than the Zip printer. The cool thing is, if they do work for my needs, I might be able to us some of my ideas for aging a Polaroid to create an older looking photo. (Thanks to ML for suggesting this.)
I may go with David Regal’s Cop Wallet for this. That wouldn’t allow me to use an envelope, but I could just throw the wallet on the table at the very start and say, “We’ll get back to that later,” which I think would feel very fair to the audience. I’m considering it.
And finally, while I refer to this game show and the “soulmate test” when I perform it the trick, I don’t then say, “Look, this must mean we’re soulmates and have a special connection.” The purpose of mentioning the show is to give some sort of historical context for why I might be carrying a “random” picture with me. That’s all.