News that a nasal spray can transform men into more sensitive and empathizing characters than they - well, we - otherwise are may or may not induce scepticism, but I'm here to confirm that it's true. How do I know this? I know because I was the 49th volunteer - not mentioned in the report under the link, but I was secretly contacted by the researchers nonetheless and asked if I'd participate long-distance. This is how it happened.
I was just sitting there one morning, having devoured a pound of raw steak for breakfast and kicked the milkman for being late, as well as kicking a couple of passers-by on the pavement for looking at me in a disapproving way, and was yelling insults at the radio because of something being said that I had a reservation about, when the phone rang. One of those researcher-people asked if I would be willing to have some stuff sprayed up my nose as part of an experiment in loving my fellow human beings, and I told her to go jump - I had no fellow human beings, only animosities. But she was very persuasive; she gave her name as Serena and said she could tell I was a reasonable guy (a very nice compliment, I thought), and if I'd only try it I might find I'd feel better about the world. I wouldn't even need to leave my kitchen; she could spray some oxytocin down the phone line. So I said yes, and she did, and the rest is history.
I ran out into the road to find someone to empathize with and I was lucky enough to see three such people. Two of them were the ones I'd earlier kicked, both now nursing bruises. I hugged them and apologized. Another guy was standing by a lamp post sobbing, and I invited him in and engaged him in a long, nothing-held-back conversation in which both of us revealed our troubles going a very long way into the past. His troubles were far worse than mine, and so I empathized, I empathized a lot, and it gave me a larger view of the vicissitudes of the human condition than I'd entertained previously - though because he didn't know what vicissitudes were I had to take some time searching for another way of saying the same thing. But in due course I got back to empathizing, and we have become firm friends. He went away no longer sobbing, and I even dare to think happy, and I now feel more at ease with other people, more in tune with them and switched on to their inner feelings, than I did before that phone call. All from a bit of nasal spray I've become a better person.