There is something special about these moments. Heart beats faster, excitement takes off. It’s finally time for your next adventure! You take your suitcase and walk through the door of the airport. The journey to the unknown begins and this can only bring you joy.

That’s the magic about airports. They have a lively atmosphere of joy. People leave to experience something different. Others come and snuggle into the arms of their own people. There is nothing boring about this place, just tension and anticipation.

Amidst this state of adrenaline, isn’t it quite normal to also encounter love? Yes, I know, as exciting as a trip is, the airport has procedures you must follow, so you don’t move with complete ease. You also have a whole trip ahead of you, so you’re probably not wearing your best. All this, however, is of little importance. It is space and time where strangers are bound together by a strange magnetic attraction, which is inevitably intensified by a healthy dose of imagination.

As the psychologist typically states in his related article on nss g-club Ira Hyman, there are psychological reasons that explain this phenomenon. One of them is related to a simple mental association game: Especially when traveling alone, you unconsciously associate the airport experience with a feeling of anxiety and uncertainty, and especially if your destination is a place unknown to you.

He adds that, paradoxically as it may seem, in situations of anxiety or stress, people can feel excitement much more easily, especially if they do not experience flight as a simple, normal process. This is why they may feel emotionally vulnerable and therefore easily attracted to those around them.

Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron’s experiment, also known as the “Capilano suspension bridge experiment”, proved this claim in an illustrative way. Wanting to demonstrate how the adrenaline that comes from a feeling of fear can influence human choices and increase attraction, the experiment split a group of male participants into two parts, each with the goal of crossing two very different bridges. In both cases, participants would interact with a very attractive woman whose sole task was to leave her phone number to the men. One bridge was small and stable, while the other was the Capilano Suspension Bridge, which swayed 70 meters above the ground. The experiment showed that almost all men who crossed the Capilano Bridge later expressed interest in the woman via text messages, unlike those who crossed the safe and stable bridge.

The findings of this simple study apply to the airport as well: In times of uncertainty and stress, we tend to form stronger bonds with the people around us. After all, we share a common, exciting experience.

The expert points out, finally, that this inexplicable attraction that we may feel for an unknown fellow passenger at an airport can also be explained by the completely opposite reasons, namely boredom: At an airport, in the cold waiting room, waiting for boarding us, in this gap between excitement and adventure, it’s easy to feel bored or nervous. What could be easier, then, for our subconscious than to look for a way to recover positive feelings by projecting an interest on our neighbor?