Chocolate Psychology
This is by no means REAL psychology — I use the term very loosely because psychology covers stuff like emotions, perception, behavior, relationships et cetera.
I was walking through the supermarket one day and as I came to the checkout counter, the couple ahead of me picked a Twix bar. They were all happy and giggling and everything. A typical Disney couple. I saw them buy the chocolate and I was like “Hey, now I want chocolate too!” So I stood there and picked out a Twix too. I paid for it, checked out, and bumped into the same couple right outside the supermarket. They were sharing the Twix bar.
Nothing wrong with that… or is there?
Ever since that day, I’ve found it hard to enjoy a Twix alone. I mean, they’re 2 chocolate bars in one packet. It’s like it was made for sharing. The same applies to all the other non-single-bar chocolates. Bounty, Kit Kat, the whole lot. The fact that they’re all made up of clear multiples of 2 just screams “COUPLES ONLY!”.
Kit Kat’s are 4 rows, so it's simple, 2 rows each. Bounty? Two minibars that they can share. 100g Toblerone? 12 blocks (though the 750g one has 17 blocks, but which single person is going to buy 750g of Toblerone for themselves?) I even stopped breaking the chocolate squares off regular chocolates just so I could eat it as a whole bar in itself.
So it got me thinking, paranoid as it would seem, are chocolate companies/confectioners subconsciously DRILLING people to get into relationships?
All the signs are there!
Chocolate is used as an aphrodisiac, and as comfort food — so it has applications on both ends of the relationship graph…
Chocolate is a simple gift, with a rejection rate of almost zero… AND it's easily accessible at any shop nowadays.
It’s a stimulant, antioxidant, and even though it runs the risk of making you fat, get this:
A study reported by the BBC indicated that melting chocolate in one’s mouth produced an increase in brain activity and heart rate that was more intense than that associated with passionate kissing, and also lasted four times as long after the activity had ended.
Yeah. It makes you feel like you’ve been making out, for 4 times longer than actually making out makes you feel.
And it’s not like the companies are doing this for your benefit. They stand to gain billions if everyone were in a constant waltz either in or out of relationships. So I’m torn between carrying on a one-man crusade (by buying “couples” chocolates so there’ll be less for actual couples to buy) or swearing off chocolates altogether.
I’m mulling over my choices halfway through a Twix bar. If their ads are to be trusted, time will freeze and give me more time to think this thing over.
