Science of Attraction, Compatibility & Romance | Dr. Paul Eastwick

some of those market forces that give the desirable people all the advantages.

And I promise you what you are going to hear will surprise you. Paul's research has discovered that much of what you've heard about how people select partners, date, form relationships, even break up or repartner is simply wrong. At least when you look at the actual data. For example, his data show that both men and women, when given a choice, select partners that are younger than them.

Yes, you heard that right. It's not just men. Men and women equally select partners that are younger than them, given the choice. His data also challenged the idea that financial status is more important to women when looking for male partners. Turns out that when men are looking for female partners, on average, financial status is as important as it is when women are looking for men.

And somewhat less surprising, his work shows that indeed dating apps select for qualities that are not the ones that research shows builds lasting partnerships. but he also offers solutions to those that are using dating apps to try and find a partner. Today's discussion is not just about finding a partner. It's also about what solidifies and maintains healthy relationships over time. Again, what the data say about that.

Things like physical intimacy being among the very strongest predictors of relationship stability, as well as both partners feeling that no matter who else might be attractive to them, that their partner has unique qualities that no one else can match. So whether you are in a relationship or not, looking for a relationship or not, today's discussion gets into social bonding of all sorts.

And repeatedly throughout today's episode, both as it relates to single people looking for a partner, people who are already partnered, we talk about the importance of activities that are done with other people, could be other couples or other single people, etc. And that this is critical for those wanting to meet a partner, and it turns out to be critical for maintaining a healthy long-term relationship. And we'll talk about what the data say about that. Super interesting.

So today is not just about the real data of how people rate attractiveness, find partners, and the glue that keeps people happily together. It's about the real life data and the actions that anyone can take. that help you build and sustain excellent romantic and other types of relationships. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Paul Eastwick.

Dr. Paul Eastwick, welcome.

Sort of a market based theory. You know, people even say, I married up or uh, you know, and people but quantitative measures on people, they're a six, they're a seven, they're a ten in this, but a four in that, you know, as a neuroscientist, I hear that. And I immediately go to, and again, this is just purely theoretical, oh, this sounds very limbic. This is very much of like the hypothalamus. This is very much like the kind of thing that you might expect under conditions of like

Yeah. Low mate availability. A lot of weapons and a few and very few laws, uh you know, to to regulate violence or something, meaning men will will uh harm each other in order to get access to mates. Women will um be deceptive this is the whole idea. And you step back and go, Well, that's not the world we live in now. We have a forebrain, we can make choices, we can be strategic in the direction of benevolence, we can think about kindness, and so

To me it seems we need a revision or at least a better understanding of what's actually true in twenty twenty six and forward. So if you would, what are your thoughts about what is not true based on the data? And perhaps what is true about this quote unquote evolutionary model of dating relationships and so on.

And what you do is you have a bunch of your students put a number on their foreheads and they sort of hold it up so that they can't see it, but other people can. And you tell the students your goal is to pair up with the highest value person that you can. And you don't know what your number is, but I'm gonna count to five, and then I want you all to stroll around the room and try to make mating offers to folks.

And what you see is that the people who have been randomly assigned a low number, they start to panic because what happens is that nobody will talk to them.

that reflect your core desirability, like maybe your physical attractiveness, but it could be other related traits too. It could be things like the size of your bank account or your status. What we tend to see is that when people are meeting for the first time, this is um a reasonable facsimile of how people behave. But interesting things tend to happen when people get to know each other over a little bit more time. What then tends to happen

is that that agreement that is required for that study to work. That study only works because you can read the numbers on people's foreheads. But if I were to blur that number, we wouldn't see as much pairing up. It wouldn't be as sad and as difficult for the people with low numbers. And in real life, that's kind of what tends to happen. We stop agreeing

about who the eights are and who the fives are. And people might on average say that you're a six, but if I've gotten to know you over time, it means there's a chance I think you're a nine. There's also a chance I think you're a three. And so that increase in idiosyncrasy and variability, I think, is a really fortunate thing. And it's the thing that's gonna allow a lot of partners to find each other. uh even if they're not consensually the most desirable people.

from the evolutionary narratives, but I think it plays a core part in explaining how couples get together as well.

And dislike as a barometer of what we should do or not do. Now, of course, that can be very informative in healthy ways.

Like are uh does everyone like this person? Do they not like this person? And the the words that come to mind, two words, are junior high. Like the junior high school dance for a number of reasons is kind of the first time when you know most kids are starting to hit puberty or somewhere in puberty about that phase. And so there's a lot of recognition of others and kind of like who is cool, who's not cool, who's getting attention, who's not getting attention.

Seems to surface first in junior high. Yeah. And admittedly we're all pretty immature in junior high. Yeah, exactly. So has this been looked at in in a structured way? For instance, are there adults who are um good At ignoring what you c you know, what the consensus is. And are are they able to find mates and and set up relationships more readily than people who are paying a lot of attention to what other people like and don't like?

I totally agree. It's a very junior high way of thinking about this whole process. But I think a lot of what is happening is that If people are spending time together, and I I often go back to thinking about what is it like when we're hanging out in mixed gender groups if you're heterosexual?

Talking about, you know, some family challenges that I had. I'm trying to put myself back and like w what were the things we would have been frustrated about in high school? But in you know, talking about like problems at school or problems with other friends. Like she was supportive and listened to me. And then I was supportive and I listened to her. And that reciprocity through a unique experience with another person, a lot of times this is where initial attraction comes from.

It sounds a little squishy. It doesn't sound like the sexy form of attraction that we often think about. But what we see in our work is a lot of times this is how it happens. It it takes a little while, but attraction can form when two people spend that time together sort of pulling unique things out of each other.

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It's interesting. I'm thinking about um movies. Yeah. And um admittedly I haven't seen that many romantic comedies, but there's some very awesome I've seen a a few of them. Uh but there's some awesome movies about this issue. Yeah. And I'll offer some examples that will date myself.

Kelsey couple. People like people were like, they're both winners, they're both super attractive, they're both super successful. And, you know, whether you like the Chiefs or you don't, whether or not you like her music or you don't, you're like

You're like they're like two like badass winners pairing up and it's very hard to say anything except like, wow, they totally quote unquote belong together. Right. There's just sort of so there's that pairing, and you can find that in movies and uh all the like eighties like um Uh John Hughes movie centered around this. Like um and then broke that model. We'll go back to that. The other one would be, yeah, the breaking of that model, the like.

the this very eighties, but the kind of like the athlete, you know, pairs up with the nerd. Yeah. Right. Okay. Now we nowadays we have athlete nerds. And so it doesn't work quite as well. And then the third model is the like, well, you're screwed up and I'm screwed up, but we're really good people. Like you get true romance, the movie True Romance, which is an amazing movie, right? You know, she was a

you know, not by her own choice, apparently. Like she was she's like, I've been a prostitute for three call girl for three days. And he's like, Well, I, you know, someone paid for you to be on this date with me. They fall in love. They leave their

professions, right? And they go and they go on this sort of semi-crime spree um that really uh demonstrates their immense love and devotion to one another. And the whole notion is like you're so cool. They both think the other person is super cool, don't care about their past. And kind of enjoy the fact that they're both kind of from r uh hard scrabble backgrounds. So then there's that. And what's so different about that kind of model?

compared to like today where I hear because I so I don't have a lot to offer about personal experience on apps many years ago, but it's been a while, is this notion that like everyone you hear this, everyone's competing for the same small number of people. So it seems like even those uh th those three cliche models that are presented in a number of movies, they exist. It's like Since when di is everyone thinking that they're supposed to pair up with the same small number of people?

This is like ridiculous. That's like saying everyone's supposed to like the same top three songs. Yeah. Even though you might not even like that genre of music. Yeah. That's that's um insanity.

regular acquaintances is not nearly so dramatic. So, you know, one example that I I like to use is that if if our job was just to evaluate whether somebody standing in front of us was hot or not. And it was somebody that we'd like interacted with briefly.

For us not necessarily pursuing the most appealing person. Because if there's disagreement, that means there's a chance that, well, you're gonna go for this person, I'm gonna go for that person, and it it levels out the playing field.

of with respect to who could play well, like suddenly you're playing against what felt like a grown man. Yeah. There's actually a kid in our town who I don't want to give up his name, who I think he went on to I don't ever think he became a professional soccer player, but he was just

He was like fully developed by the eighth grade. He was like facial hair and he was fast and he had like legs like tree trunks and he could move. And I mean, it was just completely dangerous to have him out on the field with the rest of us. Right. And he was

respected, adored, admired, like and it was very context dependent. This was the other thing I was gonna say. I think you and I are both scientists, so uh y coming up you spent a lot of time in labs. Yeah. I'll never forget there was a romance in a neighboring lab. Um that none of us understood. Like none of us understood.

not predictable by any other external metrics. And the fact that something so specific was the hook. Yeah. And that opened up into what turned out to be a longstanding marriage with kids. It's kind of wild. It is. But is this uncommon? Because what you described before is kind of like this. Like there's something unique that makes it feel like there's a special attraction that indicates something that opens up to a special discussion and then there's this.

kind of um intimacy right that they share yeah around aliquotting or that was spawned by aloquating yeah I don't recommend folks run out and learn how to aliquot in order to like this is not a strategy uh

You'll get some stories. I mean, maybe if they're really forthcoming, they'll give you the in jokes and they'll explain the moments that made them feel something special for this person. I think what I'm suggesting is that Those moments, the the the creation of a narrative with another person, it goes back earlier than we think.

And then a lot of times what we're doing when we're trying to figure out if we're into somebody, yes, w we look at how they look visually and we we take in all that information and it matters a lot. But we're also talking with them, forming little stories. If you have a little bit of good banter, that means when I see you at the party next week, I'm gonna wanna sit next to you and see if we can recreate that moment.

And that's often where attraction is coming from. I think that's why the apps are so hard, because it turns it into an interview where you're trying to impress other people with your traits. And again, traits are important, but it's like it it's not the life of the thing. The life of the thing is the little stories and moments that two people are sharing. And and that's, I think, is something that that people can be doing more with.

So let's spend some time on impressions that lead to desire, which ones are meaningful, which ones aren't, and which ones can be a bit misleading. I think most people are probably more intuitive about those if they're really honest, like what they find, who they find attractive. who they'd be willing to admit they find attractive if you remove all the other social inputs. Yeah. And so on. But the compatibility over time piece is the one that is really hard.

If you just look at the statistics on marriage, let alone the statistics on, you know, other relationships, it's not a bleak picture, but the numbers don't play out into if people get together and make the commitment. most of the time it works out. It unfortunately doesn't seem to be that way. Or maybe who knows? Fortunately. But so impressions leading to desire. Given that many of the people listening to this will either be thinking about their own history with their

current partner or are seeking a partner or maybe not, what do the data say about what people are picking up on as really valid cues that drive real desire as opposed to the the BS about like, well, everyone else thought they were great gr or the great on paper kind of thing.

Like searching for signals, trying to resolve the uncertainty. And the problem is that it's not like, oh, if I get sufficient evidence that you're smart, that's gonna do it. Or if I get sufficient evidence that you're really good at aliquotting, that's gonna do it. What people are I think trying to do is they're trying to figure out like, do I feel enough of something for you that I want to continue this, that I want to keep going.

Yes. And but I don't want to act like cause sometimes when people think about the spark, what they think is, oh, it's gotta be there right away and I've already got to be feeling a hundred for this person, right? I gotta be at the top of the scale. That actually isn't what happens on average. Typically if you if you look at

what most relationships look like and you look back at the beginning, the the typical first impression is middling. That's how we feel at first. Middling, just kind of, I don't know, middle of the sky. That seemed all right. You know, it was fine. And then we interacted again.

You know, whatever other people say about this person, like with me, he seems like a pretty sensitive guy. With me, he seems pretty witty. With me, you know, like I actually think he's really hot when he does XYC. And so if you accumulate enough of those, then you find yourself, you know, it's like you keep coming back. So that's how I think about it is this like slow accumulation of information. Sometimes people will encounter things like like the it.

Where there's one moment and then they tip over the edge the other way into feeling like I can't be with this person.

But this period, and it's it's my favorite thing to think about, and it's also one of the most mysterious, is yeah, but what happened from like minute 10 to you know day 30? where now you were really determined to be in a relationship with this person.

And and that's a typical amount of time. It it usually doesn't happen instantaneously that people know right away, hey, no, this is it. I want to be with this person. It's that slow accumulation. And when we look at it, It's it's almost like you've got a window of uncertainty and it's slowly collapsing. to a stable impression that people have of this person as they gather a little bit more information and a little bit more information. And what you just

hope for is that as two people, you're collapsing to a fairly stable impression that is both very positive of each other. And I think a large part that's how people get together.

To argue that it would be better to listen to the consensus that your partner is a jerk, kinda it's sort of like a you're arguing for like a sleeper effect, like there's wisdom and what other people know that you don't see. The evidence for that is actually not not great. It's it I'm i it it could be, and I'm sure it happens sometimes. But what usually happens in relationships is that

People's own impressions and perceptions tend to be the major driver. Now that can go in the other way too, because we might all agree this person would be the most amazing partner to be with. And yet you've now gotten to the point in this relationship where you don't see it anymore and you can't unsee the negative things you've seen. And so that relationship can be very hard to salvage.

We don't tend to have a hard time defending our stance on those things. But when it comes to relationships, it's almost like we're many people are walking around with. a little or a lot of that junior high narrative in their in their mind. Not necessarily be with somebody that they can't stand because everyone else thinks they're great. I think that's pretty rare. Probably happens, but it's pretty rare. But at these early stages that you study.

that they're navigating that process in a way where they're not in tune with their own taste. They're integrating all this other information in a way that's not helpful. It's not protecting them. In fact, it's it's just clouding the signal. It's noise. Right. In the signal to noise model, like it's noise. It's just pure noise. Yeah. And as a consequence,

People are wasting their time and other people's time. Yeah. And I don't believe everyone's trying to waste each other's time. It just seems that we're conditioned to do this. Yeah. And I will say it does take a pretty strong

born out of that F U to the to the elders. Right. To the community. Right. But this is a little different. Yeah.

That's the ideal, right? Where it's not exceptionally competitive. You're not worried about your friends trying to poach your partner away, but at the same time, they're supportive of the relationship because that support from friends and family, it is important. Like it certainly shapes how people feel. There's a way to navigate that that doesn't make it a, you know,

I like I'm glad you I'm glad you like my girlfriend, but like don't like her too much, please. You wanna kinda try to find that balance there. And that that's a tricky thing. I mean, I mean, I think this is a lot of what people are trying to navigate in adolescence. They're trying to Figure out, like, how can I be part of a friend group and have a romantic relationship and navigate the complexities.

That come with that. I mean, I vividly remember these like junior high, early high school experiences. of dating somebody, but also your friends are into this person. And actually it was a relationship where my girlfriend at the time broke up with me. starts dating my best friend. We're all friends now. It's all fine now. And it's like at this moment that I discover evolutionary psychology, that I discover this narrative.

And it just felt like such a double edged sword because how wonderful is it to think about How people have been navigating these challenges, ex-girlfriends breaking up with you for your best friend. This has been happening for tens of thousands of years. Like I'm not alone. I'm not the first person to experience this. And then to also read at the same time, oh my God, this reflects something true about my deep underlying value.

This is kind of scary. So those two things together weirdly were what got me hooked on this. The the feeling like evolutionary psychology is fascinating and really bleak at the same time.

I again I hate this quantitative thing, but they think the other person's attractive. They're yeah, they they're dating because they want to find someone, right? They're not resistant to commitment. They're looking for for a partner. And the number of histories that people are bringing to that. is infinite or near infinite. So let's say the hook is, listen, one person had a hard past based on um an abusive household. The other person is really gentle. They had a great

past and and the person feels very safe in that. Right. We always think about the trauma bond, right? Which is an unfortunate thing that does seem to happen. But it could also be both people had difficult pasts. Uh, you know, parents with addiction issues or mental health issues and they can relate. Okay. That's one example. The other is uh we both value X, we both value Y. And so the y the unique glue.

Yeah. Is near infinite, right? So the question I have, and this isn't a challenge, it's just a genuine um curiosity, is how do you study this process then? Because what are the universals of what I is it what people define as some kind of um

Like lock and key that they didn't know they were looking for that lock and key combination. And then they go, oh, this feels unique. And the reason I asked this is because I want to frame the science, but also I want to know to what extent being aware of what's critical.

to oneself is important in this process. Does it make sense? There's a lot of words there, but but basically like how well one knows themselves can often help lead to better choices in in partner choice. And so people go know, like, gosh, I I really, really Would like someone that I could feel understood around this or feel really safe around this or make them feel really safe around that.

So when it comes to broad principles, I love the attachment framework. I mean, what's fascinating about attachment is that this is just as evolutionary as all the other evolutionary theories you've heard about online. It's just a different evolutionary theory. But this perspective suggests that we are creatures that form bonds with each other.

We essentially crave closeness, intimacy, support. We thrive when we get it. We're more likely to recover. We sleep better. We get all of these benefits from close attached relationships. For some people or at some points in their lives, we can struggle to have those kinds of relationships. Sometimes because we become too anxious about them, we need them a little too much. We become uncomfortable in our own skin.

Or we tip the other way, we become very avoidant, we become overly independent, we become convinced that we really don't need anybody else. These are broad attachment dynamics that people will go through their whole lives having to navigate. A lot of people have probably heard about like the you can have an anxious attachment style or an avoidant attachment style. And all of that is true.

But one thing we know today from studying more couples and getting better at studying couples over longer periods of time is you realize that Boy, people's attachment orientations really can change. So somebody can come into a relationship with an avoidant, trauma-filled past. but with enough time with the right kind of person, again, sharing their unique bond, which maybe science will never crack, but they know all about it.

That person will start to become less and less avoidant with time. They'll become more secure. They'll get more of those physiological benefits out of the relationship. They'll get more of the support-related benefits out of the relationship. And that can in effect turn somebody into a more secure person. So the these are the attachment lessons that I often point to. And I think they're they're useful for at least helping me remember that tension between like, yeah, anxiety and avoidance.

two very broad processes that are always happening behind the scenes. And yet the way it unfolds for any one particular couple, it's always gonna be this weird, unique combination of stories and in jokes and little moments that scaffold up to hopefully, you know, help somebody become more secure eventually.

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Seems to me that barring um again, like an emotional or physical safety issue, the less that couples are talking to other people besides a trained therapist, yeah, if they choose to do that. Yeah. Maybe not even doing that. About their relationship. Probably the more Protected their relationship is that

We wanna I I don't think that's good, but there's the kind of um going out for external assessment piece. And as I say this, I you know, it's it's funny because we you're at UC Davis and I did my PhD there. I was just remembering like when you pick projects in graduate school You get some consensus about what's a good project. Yeah. But so much of becoming a good scientist

is kind of learning to put up the middle finger and just keep going. Yeah. As the the sort of pressure test of doing science is people going, Well, that's is that really that interesting? And you don't really know how much to pay attention to it. And it kind of pays to be a little bit

bulldog ish and just go, Yeah, I don't know, uh like and just ignore it and just keep going. I can say this is also true in any kind of creative endeavor or public facing life. Like it doesn't make good adaptive sense to pay too much attention, but Nobody wants to be the person that like steps in it or does something really stupid. But in relationships, when if something feels good, maybe we shouldn't be going out and getting, you know, putting our finger in the wind to get input.

I think probably the good version of this process or the one that I would advocate for comes from research looking at like couple friends or like double date night. So I'm not asking you for input on my relationship, but in effect, I'm asking you and maybe your partner to experience our relationship in real time by hanging out together, the four of us. And so that can often feel like validation without explicitly asking for it.

And I think that can often be a very good thing. And there's research showing that, you know, generally couples who feel like they have couple friends and are embedded in networks like that, that that generally tends to go well on average. Um So yeah, I would think about it that way. It's like you can feel that you have the support of the people around you without directly asking for their assessment of your relationship. Cause the reality is other people don't know.

And this is hard as a judge because when I encounter couples and I have friends who are in relationships, it is so tempting to look at that relationship and think like,

Well man, like she shouldn't have done that. Or I don't know. If if I were her, I wouldn't stand for this. But I'm not in that relationship. So unless you are a therapist and they're coming to you for therapy, I I find it useful to try to resist that impulse because a relationship is this vast deep store of information that two people have and often we're not privy to what's really going on there.

But that means you just have like an outsized pool of you know so everyone got someone to dance with at some point. This is what mattered in the seventh grade, right? But there were these people. I had to say there were these individuals who were not going through the admittedly like tense challenge of first dance, first slow dance. This was before phones and it was tense then too. Yeah. And they weren't doing any of that. What were they doing? They were running around.

telling people about who was doing what and who was doing that. And I remember thinking at the time, I mean, I'm no psychologist then or now, but thinking like they're avoiding the whole thing. Yeah. This is like going to a soccer game and instead of playing soccer, they're like critiquing people from the sidelines. 'Cause it's a lot easier to do that than to actually get out there and risk and risk miss, you know, like being the goalie that lets the the winning shot through.

And I remember thinking like these people are really, uh really corrosive. Um, one or two in particular. I don't know whatever became of them. Uh hopefully they're doing well in their lives. They got over this. But Those people exist throughout life. Yeah. Meaning they're rarely the people that are happy in their own relationship life. Now I have to say it's probably a Y chromosome linked disorder, but I assume that my friends who are in male friends who are in relationship.

If they're still in the relationship, that it's going great. That's funny. There's not a lot of feedback. Like there's not a whole lot of feedback exchange. That said, if something were really like really off, I assume that they would bring it up, but probably not to me.

Like there's there I do think that there's probably a sex difference here and these things are changing now. But I think that there's not a lot of sitting around talking about how well or poorly the relationship is going. It's sort of like

You know, you ask about somebody's spouse, like, how are they doing? And they go, Yeah, great. Like we we did this this weekend. There's not a whole lot of, yeah, we we had this one moment of exchange that was kind of sticky. Can I get your input on it? Like that's not happening. That's just not happening, at least not in my life.

It's largely their romantic partner. That's where they're getting most of their support, intimacy, needs met. Probably the person who at least for a while is mostly in their corner. And this is why you see across the full range of uh the arc of a relationship that men are always a little bit more eager than women.

all the way through. Through through breaking up, who who wants who's more likely to wanna break up? It's women who are more likely to wanna break up. Men are more likely to be thinking about their exes. And the the

Um I don't ever think of the word intimacy. I think of trust.

I think they can cultivate it through all the activity based things that you describe. And like I did that myself throughout my twenties and thirties. Like I could not count the number of kickball and softball teams that I participated in. And I did that not because I wanted support. I don't think I ever got emotional and cried in front of any of those guys, but I knew they were there and that if I ever had to go to that, I I could.

And you can't talk to anybody and his friend's only response is, Who's driving? Yeah. Is is kind of like the essence of what a lot of men want and kind of idealize male friendship as. Yeah. Like are we gotta go bury a body or create one? And yeah and

And there's it's just that it's the loyalty, it's the trust, is a lot's encapsulated in that. It's a bad quote unquote badass scene, right? They're about but they're about to do something real bad. I recommend that's not the friend test you want. I know people who use that as the friend test and they pay dearly.

sense that there's a um a big contradiction, not in the scientific literature, but in the public perception. Yeah. Which is this. I feel like one common narrative these days is look Men failed. They just failed. Like they didn't step up, right? They weren't committal. You know, we have to take care of them. They live much longer in a relationship. We die much earlier. Yeah. That's one narrative that you hear a lot about. It's a scary narrative, right?

Because you also hear the narrative, yeah, like women are just uh very extractive. They'll trade up, you know, how now unfortunately your friend dated your uh Right. Then uh they you they they broke up. She broke up with you first.

that there's this notion like, well, who would actually pair up with their, you know, their female friend, a woman pairing up with a female friend's husband or brother? There's a lot of them. And you never know how much of this is being these narratives are being fed. So I feel like now we're at this point That seems to be resolving a little bit, but we've been at this point where there are these two camps.

And I saw something on um Twitter X some time ago and it just like stopped me in my tracks, which said the way you destroy a society is to get the men and the women to hate each other. And maybe I would just underwrite distrust each other. Yeah. Right. And so We need to move through this. I'm not actually asking you to solve it, but what do the data say? For instance, if we were to look at dating apps.

And I ask, do you think that the dynamics on dating apps, the algorithms, which are clearly designed to make the company's money? Yeah. Do you think those are more female driven algorithms? or mail driven algorithms, not meaning who runs the companies. Oh, answered. We know the answer to that. Yeah. For the most part. The question is, do you think that the apps are trying to

optimize for more women to come to them or for more men to come to them and stay there. Because the theory is always kind of launched in the opposite direction. Right. And if that wasn't clear, uh um I'm just wondering who's who's got the power of

But I think when your goal is getting users and getting engagement, what you're probably trying to do is bring more women in. Yeah, I think so. I w what I don't know. And I don't know if anybody knows other than the people at these companies, is like, okay, but how many of those apps are in use and how many of people, you know, regular users? I'm not sure. You gotta bring more women in

But again, engagement is the goal, right? I mean, that's what the apps want. They want you spending time on it and then they want you to get the fancier features. So is that gonna be more geared toward men? It it might be. But I'm kinda speculating here. I expect that when you're trying to create an app for heterosexual men and women, you're gonna have to somehow marry those two challenges. And look, one of the bigger gender differences that we see

in the whole realm of sex and relationships is in swiping behavior. The fact that women will swipe yes on like five percent of the men they see, but men swipe yes at about fifty fifty.

with the exception of some very wealthy people who s who have kids with lots and lots of people and clearly can afford it. I don't think anyone's thinking they're gonna go out and just have kids with as many people as they possibly can. Right.

And when you do this, you find that men are about 20 times more likely to say yes to that request than women. Very few women say yes to this request, but a reasonable number of men do. But the thing about that experiment, and that experiment is very valuable and it's very influential, and I love at least that it was real, that people were actually out in the world. Doing something, even if it's a little wild and uh probably a little scary, especially for the women.

But if you do this one little tweak and you say, yeah, okay, but how about like the last time that happened to you in real life, like in a context where you knew people and then you look at the gender difference, it's not twenty times more, it's two times more.

stepping up. They're not they're not managing their own lives, let alone m making themselves somebody who would be attractive as a a partner who could listen and do and take k help take care of somebody. Because the notion of taking care is something that we can talk about. The guys are saying, well They're just all extractive. Yeah. You know, that and there's deceptiveness there and they'll trade up in a at a moment's notice, you know. And and so I mean, I don't wanna

feed the flames of distrust, but the data you just provided, what are they what is the conclusion? Like it's that's the result. But but but in that paper, what's the w the authors, you know, we the authors therefore conclude that

But for most of us, we had to get to know people over time. We needed that long process to make a good impression on somebody, because most of us are like not all that hot. And not so appealing that people fall for us the moment we see them. And so that is what I would tell these hypothetical incels is. I think part of the problem is that you're locked into a way of thinking about sex and romance that it's about a pickup line or it's about an initial impression.

I think women are more interested in casual sex when it's somebody that they like kinda know and have been friendly with for a while and have had like some good banter with. And if you surround yourself with people, not just women, but also men, and you meet friends of friends, you're gonna find more opportunities that way.

So it's like a shift in the mindset that we have about how it is we meet people and how it is we get to know them. And that hitting on strangers is like low yield, very difficult. Spending time with friends, it's time consuming, although it's enjoyable in and of itself. It's a time-consuming approach, but it's ultimately going to be better for more people, uh, uh, you know, uh on on average, at least.

I mean, I think that one of the reasons the Coldplay thing went so viral is that the woman was head of HR. So there were a number of things that were ethical violations, independent of like they tried to kind of rescue it like but w they were in love and there were marriages were failing and people were like

There are violations down the line on this, right? You know, in laboratories, many people coupled up in laboratories. Uh, you know, my advisors were always like really adamant that no one should do that. I listen to

um be can be kind of toxic to the process of d understanding and really getting in touch with one's sense of taste. I like this person, I don't. This feels safe. It doesn't feel safe. And I'm not using, by the way, the safe language to be politically correct. Like some people feel emotionally unsafe because it's just like

Like if there were a stressful circumstance, they would dissolve into a puddle of their own tears. That's a different version of it. Right. I think we all kind of like flit to the the extremes, but that's that's another aspect. But this is a context in which you can get a read of how someone behaves, their values, their reflexive levels of kindness or lack thereof with other people. You get a lot of data. Yeah. In a in a setting that

You're hopefully enjoying yourself in any way. That seems very, very valuable.

They're actually kind of watching each other as they float through these various groups. And sometimes they're talking to other folks about the fact that they're kind of on a date right now and how is it going. uh but they're also talking to each other and it's kind of a beautiful depiction of this old kind of lost art of you're dating but you're also with other people.

seeing how uh they behave and and one of the moments Where uh Ioni Sky sort of you can see are starting to fall for John Cusack is when he's actually looking out for some of the other folks there, like, you know, taking their keys away so they don't drive.

early in high school, I was like really in the skateboard community, just really focused on that. And then uh it was my junior year of high school. Um the now woman, then young woman, girl, whatever, uh asked me that it was the Sadie Hawkins dance where the the girls asked the boys. This was it's very old fashioned

She had this thing where uh it was a cold night and so she went into the bathroom, she said I'd have to like warm my hands. She was in there a really long time. And I'm standing out there and people are coming up to me and I'm like, what are you doing here?

Like, why are you at a dance? And I said, so-and-so invited me and no one believed me. There was like, there's no chance. And I have to say, it was the most mortifying thing. And I kept waiting for this moment where she would come out of the bathroom and like vindicate me. And they all kept like dissipating before she came back.

She eventually came back and I just remember thinking like, oh man, like nobody even and I'm thinking like I'm either completely outclassed, like completely outclassed, or like this is one of the best opportunities that ever landed. Uh in my lap and I'm gonna I'm gonna pursue this with everything I've got. So I went with the second thing and it anyway we uh

um quote unquote ambitious in the typical sense, although he wants to be a great kickboxer. Right. Kickboxing spore of the future. Right. Right. It's a great scene between him and and her dad where he's explaining what he's gonna do in life and and not in any kind of uh fluent way. Yeah. And her family clearly has other plans for her. But it gets to this.

thing that I had written down because I want to ask about next, which is this notion of texting in particular. So not even apps, but let's just say it's migrated off app or people meet, they exchange number and th and there's some texting. Right. And this notion of of the kind of unique um advantage, at least early on. that I think can be somewhat misleading of people who are hyperverbal. Oh.

in uh neuroscience is that it selects for hyperverbal people, where people can present their data, excite people about it, present their vision. And he said, and there's so many amazing scientists that just don't know how to communicate their data. And we're selecting for someone who can also teach, who can also do these things. And I realized he's absolutely right. You know, and some people can overcome this, but some of the best scientists in the world

Speaking isn't their forte. Yeah. Okay. So in the realm of text communication.

Some people might be screaming, No, no, no, that's what I want. You know. But there's a strong selection process now for people who can communicate quickly with their thumbs, be witty in writing. And so the hyperverbal thing is moved to text. Yeah. That's a challenge. And I do think, even though some men are very hyperverbal, there is a sex difference here that we are well aware of.

Do you think that that's skewing things? Because the ability to to kind of keep to get and keep somebody's interest early on is strongly dependent on these days on texting. Right.

So it might be that actually texting for them has at least the advantage of reducing some of the anxiety because they can take a minute to think about what they want to say before they have to actually come out with it. But I also think you're right that the ability to be witty over text.

Um, as opposed to the kind of like nonverbal listening that you're describing, that is gonna be a special advantage for some people today. So it it could very well be skewing things in the way that you describe. There's not great data on this either. I mean, I mentioned earlier we don't have great data on like the arc of the relationship.

But some of the the people that have tackled this question, uh this is a great researcher named Mimi Brinberg at at Ohio State. And what she does is she gets couples who are together and then says, uh, let me uh let me see your texts and then gets the whole text thread going with their permission. All the way back to when they first started texting. And what you see are some cool things like essentially their styles of communicating start to like cohere.

Right. It's like a pattern of mutual influence where they they get this a similar cadence and they start using similar words and uh other things as their uh talking to each other. Now, of course, those are the successful cases. So what would it look like if we had the unsuccessful cases? And I think you're right, we would see that the people who can't mask or can't be witty early on that those are the the text threads that never become couples.

Um so we just have to figure out how to recruit those folks to to be in our studies. Give us the last ten threads of of uh you know, dates that never went anywhere.

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Yeah, we're sort of veering towards compatibility. When I say, um, you know, if I were to, you know, ask a close family member, you know, like what's great about the relationship you're in, uh, this is a woman and she'll be referring to her male partner in this case. She'll generally talk about the things that he does and the things that he is able to do in support.

One person always seems to like make the bed by time I'm back from the bathroom in the morning. And you're like, no, my turn. And they they or the other person always sets out the coffee or some it's these the little thing phenomenon. Rarely is it like Sometimes it's a note, but rarely is it like, Yeah, I love the way, you know, he strings together uh, you know

sentences or something. I love the way that I love the way that um, you know, she describes this thing. You know, so it's often about actions, at least in the in the observing the qualities of the positive qualities of the male partner. Yeah. And then that's very kind of stereotypical, but I think that it just it's it's a kind of window in my mind into the difference between the quote unquote exploration and courting process.

Although the courting process, what people do arguably matters more than what they say. And the kind of long term thing. Yeah. The the the the consistency of of the the stability of the relationship over time. So I wish that you know it's it's a shame that these apps don't select for uh action.

We try to forecast what that's gonna be like as best we can, but we really don't know. And I think the like the beautiful thing, but also the challenge that a lot of relationships have is, you know, what you do is, you know, like you just described, like, okay, it becomes my job to set out the coffee and it becomes your job to mow the lawn and We create this very elaborate structure.

That guides not just our day-to-day lives and the crap we have to do, but it also guides how we communicate, when we communicate, what we communicate about. If we create a business together. That can create a relationship that starts to feel like more transactional, that's maybe less warm, it has less opportunity for connection.

As opposed to creating a relationship that builds, you know, time for fun activities together, for fun experiences. Or again, I recognize like people are stressed and often work in multiple jobs, but at least when we are interacting, Are we able to interact about the fun, silly things that brought us together in the first place? Um, I think it's it's very challenging to do these things when people go to couples therapy and the couples therapy is effective.

It's usually because therapists are able to help couples essentially like rewind all the bad patterns they've created and go back to when things were good. uh rediscover what it was that they really appreciated about each other and like recreate their relationship from there in a new way. But yeah, so many of these things are they're just deeply, deeply hard to forecast.

that people are willing or not willing to make as a as a perhaps better indication of whether somebody is interesting or appropriate for you. I realize, however, that The notion that there's a like a question or a set of questions that would say green light is that's not true.

that this just like can't be true. There's probably some answers that are red light. Everyone, you know, n knows red light. Hopefully they're paying attention to that. But the it's the yellow it's the yellow but it's the yellow lights and not knowing what questions to ask to

see if there's a sort of green light path forward. Uh w uh tell me what those questions are. Okay. Like yeah phrase differently. If two people are on a date and they have only a few minutes, it's kind of a speed dating type situation and they need to make a good assessment as to whether or not they genuinely would like to spend more time with the person again. Uh, what what are the questions they should ask?

But I think the core of what we want in an initial interaction with somebody is to take away something that feels like it was at least a little different than all the other interactions that we have. And so sometimes what that means is going a touch deeper than people are comfortable with. Now in in four minutes, it's tricky.

If you have a little bit longer, like a regular evening length date, I really like the thirty six questions test. Like this is the it sometimes it's called the fast friends procedure. But these are questions like, you know, what's one thing that you've never told somebody that you've always wanted to tell them and what's stopping you?

falling for somebody when that moment happened. When it's like I really you are telling me this. I I don't I don't think you've ever told anybody this before. And it is such a rush. I I think like, I don't know, man. The internet, it's like convince us all we care about is like sex and hotness. There is nothing like the rush of having somebody tell you something that they've never told anybody else.

And again, d this is like the stuff that gets relationships researchers excited because this is what we see in our data. Responsiveness, closeness, like building trust and all of that stuff. Now again, four minutes is really hard. Four minutes, you just gotta get a little nugget of something that you want to build off later. And maybe that is your hometown. And maybe it is like, isn't this a weird experience that we're only gonna get to chat for four minutes?

But whenever there are routes to go for a little bit more disclosure, I I usually advise that that people go for it. It it it will pay off on average, even if it can feel kind of awkward in the moment.

Uh it's not true. Much better tropical fish. A big tropical fish enthusiast. Much better. Freshwater discus. Much better fish. Owned by me'cause it would be have a really good life. Um take really good care of my freshwater discus. But in all seriousness Yes, does that mean that people are walking around harboring especially single people are harboring parts of themselves that they're craving intimacy, you know, that that's of the

Exchange things that they've never told anyone that they wish they could tell someone, feel safe enough to tell them. Is that what you're talking about? Like you know, creating a real moment of intimacy early on that's not physical intimacy. I don't even know if it's emotional intimacy. It's like

But man, humans are stories, right? We're narratives. And we want other people to be privy to that narrative and then maybe eventually be a part of it. So I think that that is often what can be very powerful. Now for people who are single and they like want to be in a relationship. I do think that it can be that sense that they're lacking. A lot of people are single and are very, very happy with their single lives. And I also understand that a lot of people, if they're single and they're dating

Look, there's a lot of reasons to be cautious. Forming a relationship is a low base rate event. It doesn't happen all that often.

But the sort of desire to open up and have somebody like really get you, it's, it's so core to the relationship science worldview. And I think it says a lot. about like who we are as a species and like how we form mating relationships.

bad and extractive and these people are always, you know, uh cold and avoidant. And like and and if those narratives were just constantly like posted on the walls and like and talked about in the uh over lunch and whispered in the hallways. it would be very poisonous to the whole environment. Yeah. And that's kind of what the internet is. Yeah. And then the traditional news, but also some podcasts, not this podcast, but will kind of amplify these narratives because they

feel juicy, they feel uh and they get clicks. Yeah. And I think we all have an innate desire to avoid danger. So we want to like know where where this stuff is. But when you step back, you go, okay, like most people are pretty well meaning. Most people are looking for good partnership. Nobody's perfect. But uh where people make mistakes, most people are like looking to at least modify their behavior over time. Like it's all

reasonably benevolent, but then there are these like yeah kind of nasty characters out there and we give them so much credit and we give them so much power and they just plain suck. Yeah. So Men and women want the same things. Let's shut them up for a second and ask what the data say.

And they are differences that then in the hands of nefarious characters online get spun out into exactly the narrative that you're describing. But the basic data on what men and women say they want It's there. Men will say they care about attractiveness in a partner more than women, and women will say they care about earning potential in a partner more than men. Now, I'm phrasing that in a particular way. And I'm I'm saying what people say they want.

Because I'm critiquing the experimental paradigms that were used. It usually had people rating a bunch of traits on scale. And as a psychologist, I have no problem with that. I'm very interested in people's subjective experiences and I use scales all the time. But we wondered, that's different.

than, or it might be different, than what happens when you're meeting people face to face and you're reacting to a set of people who might be very attractive or of middling attractiveness or not very attractive at all. And that to me seems closer to capturing what people actually want. Like if you meet 10 women, how much does their attractiveness drive your desire to date them?

How much does attractiveness affect whether you want a second date with them or not? So we ran speed dating studies to try to capture exactly this phenomenon. I'll make it about earning prospects because it's really the same, the same thing. So you we have these men and they go speed dating and some of these women are very ambitious. They're gonna be lawyers and doctors. Others are a little bit less ambitious.

And what you'd see is that the men tended to like the women a little bit more to the extent that they were ambitious. It wasn't a huge driver of their liking, but it was definitely there and it was definitely positive. But then when we flipped it and we looked at what the women were drawn to, not what they said, but what they were drawn to. They also tended to like the ambitious men a little bit. And the magnitude of that preference was identical. And it's been 20 years of this.

where we've looked at ongoing relationships, we've looked at um forty something countries throughout the world, that narrative uh plays out every time. There's no gender differences in the extent to which these traits appeal to men and women when they're evaluating like real people they've actually met. Online is different.

What people say they want is different, but real people that you've at least met face to face seems to dramatically reduce the power of the gender differences and the appeal of these traits.

If you trust that experience, I think that's likely to go better. And we don't have an experience to go on like that when it's online. When it's online, it's very easy to put people in boxes, put people in groups, and then make the groups fight each other. And I too am very distressed about all the heteropessimism.

And that's the realm I know. Men and women, they want the same things out of their relationships. Yes, there are gender differences and like the thresholds for sex and especially early on, that can be that can be really messy. Um, but overall I see a lot of similarity and a lot of potential for these the bonds that men and women form to do great things for people. And women and women and men and men and any gendered combination that you want to come up with.

Um, I think we're pair bonding creatures. We get a lot of joy and a lot of fulfillment out of that. And I wanna see men and women find a way to make it work e again.

Hope you're homopessimistic. Meaning I'm not aware because I happen to be heterosexual, but I have homosexual friends, men and women. I'm not hearing them talk a lot about how dating culture is much worse now. Right.

Like I'm I always want to be the first one to give the apps credit for that, for providing those kinds of opportunities. Classically speaking, what you tend to see is that you know, I've talked a little bit about the the time frame as people form relationships in the first place, and that sometimes we get locked into this idea that it's like, oh, it's gonna happen in an instant and and now you're together. But the reality is it's often an elongated process. That process

has tended historically to be even longer for folks who are gays and lesbians, forming same gender relationships. And I think part of that is something that you you might even call like a bigotry tax. Because if you lived in a place where it was like vaguely dangerous. to admit your same sex attractions. You gotta be really careful

before you start disclosing how you feel about somebody, because rejection doesn't just mean rejection. Rejection is maybe actually carries other threats and stigma and all of these other things with it.

With whether you were going to be upfront about how you were feeling about somebody. It wasn't in a place where you can't be fully confident. That you have a sense of safety. It could be really dangerous. So that's an important difference that we see. And I think the apps were really good at. helping people to uh to come together in that sense.

in in my mind, is somewhat informative. What's more informative is having the additional data point of where they started out.

Yeah. Because a lot of the people I know who have a lot of money, they don't have a lot of free time. So if people pair up with them thinking that they're gonna feel very financially secure and have a lot of stuff, that might be true. Yep. But um how often they're gonna see their partner or the the co-parent of their kids is an important question. And this extends both ways.

um income level and use that to forecast like for example how their partner is gonna feel about them. I mean we've done some of this work, indeed some of the work looking at gender differences. And like the reality is like a person's objective income, it has very, very small effects on how their partners feel about them.

The bigger effects are things like, you know, if if we now we scaffold up and look at like socioeconomic status. So do you have the resources to get by as a couple? That can be very challenging for people.

some other thing that might have happened or many things that happened, but is there a sex difference there? The

And that's just generally my bias from what I see in the science, which is when tragedies befall us, they affect our perceptions especially strongly. So this guy is gonna feel this. pretty hard that he's lost his job. Stepping back and looking at the broader picture of the data. It used to be true that marriages were more fragile when the woman earned more than the man in the marriage, but this stopped being true in the nineties.

So that gender difference doesn't exist anymore. And I think it's it's easy to surmise, I don't know if the sociologists who studied this have drawn exactly this conclusion, but it's easy to posit that what's happening there is that And people in general have gotten more comfortable with the gender imbalance relationships. And in the nineties, we were still getting used to this idea. Um today

even if the average couple, the man earns more than the woman, you do see that because there is a a gender difference in the in income levels on average. But in education, it's flipped now, right? Women, at least in younger couples, the woman is more likely to be educated than the man.

if they're not ambitious. Like I get that. If men are not out there like making things of themselves, I'm not worried about the women getting a better education than them. I think it's important for men to have a sense of purpose. think trade schools can be awesome, but the mismatches in the level of education and in the level of income, those don't spell a problem. We just gotta get like men feeling good about themselves again.

Um, that's the thing I worry about. Cause then that's gonna affect your sense of self. That's gonna affect you know all of your ambitions, and in really bad cases might, you know, push people to some of those nastier corners of the internet.

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in the kind of classics, pure stereotypical narrative, you know, men who are slightly older had more resources. Yeah. This isn't always true. Yeah. But there's this what apparently based on your work is a uh myth that women desire older men, uh men desire younger women. Yeah. Your work points to the possibility. That there is no gender differences in attraction to younger partners.

What brings you here every day? You know, I figured it would be like, Well, I just feel so good. And he just always says the same thing. He always just says, I don't want to lose my wife to a younger guy. And I always laugh and I go, Like I know a lot about the contour of his life. And maybe there's something he's not disclosing, but you know, anyone.

would say, like, this guy's just totally got it made and he's in and he's you know, I again I don't know the details of his life and I shouldn't, but I know enough about it that, you know, he's checked off all the boxes three or four times and then had the wisdom, in my opinion.

to not just keep working like a maniac and just spend time with his kids and grandkids preach it and his wife. But he always answers the exact same way. How's it going? He goes, pretty good. Just don't want to lose my wife to younger guys. So I'm here again today.

And so they will set people on dates. And they've got a whole pool that they're working with. And within that pool, the men who are searching for dates are older than the women by about four years on average. Okay. So that's that's what they've got to work with.

And they set people up on these dates. And so most of the time the woman is gonna be younger than the man, but there's a range. Sometimes the woman is much younger than the guy, and sometimes the woman is the same age as the guy, and sometimes the woman's even a little older than the guy. All right.

What you'd expect to see is that if men are looking for younger women and women are looking for older men, then when we look at how the age of the partner affects whether you want to go on a second date with this person. It should be the younger folks appeal to the men more and the older folks appeal to the women more. But that wasn't what we saw. We saw that the younger folks appeal to the men more, and by the way, it's not a huge effect.

It's not like the gross stereotype that's out there. Men are a little bit more interested in the women to the extent that they're younger, but it's not gigantic. Women are doing the same thing. They're a little bit more interested in the younger guy. They don't say that on paper. In fact, sometimes they're like, Don't set me up with the younger guys. And then they do and they say, huh, that was interesting. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed that date. I would like to see him again. All right.

uh my best guess. And what's so fascinating about this data set is that look, they're trying to create these couples, but you know, you only create a couple a fraction of the time. Much of the time the people don't really hit it off. But in the couples that get created, the guy was four years older than the woman. And in the couples that don't get created, the guy is four years older than the woman, because that was what they had in the sample to begin with. So

We look around and you see that age difference. That age difference is real and I am sure it means something important. And data like this just make me think. Something else is going on here. Whatever is creating this age difference, it's at least it's not, you know, age difference in in how people sort. It's not happening on date one. It's not happening at the initial attraction phase. Maybe it's happening earlier. Who puts themselves in the pool?

Maybe it's happening later. I don't know. She's gonna date this younger guy like once or twice, but then she's gonna be done with him and she'll, you know, uh settle down with somebody who's a little

We find that generally speaking, these things tend to be pretty uncorrelated. So what people think they want doesn't match up with what they actually end up liking once they meet somebody face to face. You can argue that sometimes that's not a good thing. If somebody really wants kids.

values, morals adjacent if not central, right? Yeah. I think people know what I'm saying. I mean, sure, bad people can show up at church. Yeah. But but the idea is that somebody's taking the time uh to get dressed up on a Sunday morning and go and listen to someone else speak and a lot of people are meeting that way now. Are there any data that that's a response to the kind of like wild west of

of online dating and, you know, social media and and just the general culture of like everybody. It's kind of the the culture of everybody. I mean, even in high school there were

You had reasons to interact, structures that were gonna put you in contact with each other. And to the extent that church is fulfilling a function like that, I think that's great. And in fact, I think that's exactly what's missing. And if church isn't your thing. There's like a million other things that people can do in any kind of modern urban context that are gonna be helpful along those lines. I mean, you can join any kind of intramural sports team. I mean Exactly.

Are people doing it because they're trying to limit the pools to the folks that they think will fit what they're looking for? I'll bet you some people are doing that. I'll bet that. You know, if somebody's like, I really want to be with somebody else who's active, so I'm gonna join a running club. Or yeah, I want to be with somebody who shares my value, so I'm gonna join church. I think that's great if I'm like being buzzkill scientists.

I'd probably sit here and be like, it probably actually doesn't matter. Like, join the church, join the running club, join all these things. Like, you're probably no more or less likely to find somebody that you're gonna click with.

Don't join kickball because they're a mess. I was a kickball player, so I'm allowed to say that. Uh but you should join the running club. We can't answer questions like that. In the absence of that kind of specificity, my answer is always just be around people on repeated occasions.

There's kind of a um this shouldn't be the reason uh people do it. And like the only reason people do it. But let's say um people pair up as a consequence of time there. Yeah. culture of that thing provides additional opportunities to uh grow the relationship with peers. Yeah. Right. Because there's certain things like you join an improv class, great. Like big my sister's really into drama and theater, still does

theater classes for her own her own enrichment. But like but if you meet someone there, it's not like the the the culture around it um sort of cultivates the evolution of the relationship. Like whereas in like church, like you might even get married in that church in the context of a of a hiking club like You might be out with the other couples that you meet or or s or single people that you meet for many years. Like you can sort

It's it's a community that that can grow over time. Certain things here I'm showing my ignorance around improv classes, but certain things like a pottery class or pickleball or something, like it doesn't just

at face value present a a sort of trajectory of like That's right. I'm sounding really nerdy here, but kind of like a a set of maturational stages that it that you can continue to like be in the relationship there. Does that make sense? Yep. Really stumbling for the words here. No no no. This by the way is a great reason to not meet people at work. Not meet people at work. I'm not trying to like throw a cold blanket on people to decide to meet people at work, but oftentimes it's

I don't know many women that ask men to marry them in twenty twenty six. I'm sure they're out there, but it's still

Yeah. You know, uh, you know, under the bed sheets. I promise, I promise, I this is like a public disclosure. These days it ends up on Instagram. You know, so You know, there's clearly a feedback that comes from being part of a larger structure that reinforces relationships over time.

keep moving things forward. And you're right that the workplace context is particularly tricky because many workplaces

uh of that. So I mean this gets to a question you've actually studied, which is this notion of um

And that uh affords people to have a certain amount of motivated reasoning so that when they like somebody a lot. they will find the similarities there. They will really come to think that what really matters is that we love Japanese cinema. And that we, you know, that we share the same politics. Whereas for another couple, uh, you know what, we have different politics, but that doesn't really matter to us.

Oh, who cares? Does anybody care about that? Right? So much motivated reasoning. So this is why. If what I wanted to do was take two people who had never met and assess everything I could about them and then figure out whether they were gonna be a match or not, ba based on whether they were similar. I really was probably gonna be no better than a coin flip at figuring out whether or not they were gonna click. That's actual similarity. I take things that are true about you

without the ability for you to engage in motivated reasoning. And I say, okay, you're a an eighty-three percent match on all the things I could assess. You two should like each other. When we've done studies like that.

Because we get all of this motivational latitude. When we really like somebody, we find the things we have in common, we focus on those, we convince ourselves those are the most important things in the world. And the thing is, who am I to criticize them? Because The people in the happiest relationships, that's what they're doing. They're exhibiting those kinds of biases. And it's like stupid human tricks, but it like kind of works.

dating app that's kind of cloaked for many people as a social media app. But of course I use it to teach neuroscience and and other things. And this will be on Instagram. So I mean, I'm a big fan of of Instagram and other social media platforms for teaching and learning, and I say that sincerely. But the majority of the time spent now is not

Who's the one person that would get you to not engage with anyone else in in the world? In other words, set down what you called. And I've never heard this before, the derivation of alternatives. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is an interesting term. Yeah. So in some ways, like committed partnership is about setting aside the idea that there might be somebody better for us.

Litigates? No. Yeah. That he that he's involved in. Yeah. That he helps resolve. Uh win for his clients. Yeah. Started with uh a uh innocuous communication on its w starts with a like starts with a like starts with a conversation starts with a gr ends up in the corner of a grievance or a or a a commonality that sense And then the derivation of alternatives emerges and eventually the relationship does.

They think that person is less desirable than any other metric you might want to come up with for how desirable that person actually is. That's what we mean by derogation of alternatives. It's like they're coming in up here, but because I'm partnered with you and I'm happy with you, I see them as less desirable than they actually are. Side note, that's why it's one of the reasons why.

The marketplace metaphor starts to break down because people actually start to become bad barometers of what is quote unquote good. You stop seeing this alternative's actual value because you're so happy with the person that you have. Okay. So this is a good thing and this is a real defense mechanism that people have.

Huh, I'm just, you know, we're we're we're chatting a little bit. This isn't going to go anywhere. And things escalate.

is that there can be some value to, you know, in in her first book I think, and I haven't read it, but um the the excerpt that was uh relayed to me was this notion like, oh, like someone isn't feeling as much chemistry in their relationship. So like The woman, this wouldn't happen nowadays, most likely, but goes to a bar and like flirts a bit and then like some some sense of of um sexual confidence.

is restored and then her husband is then attracted to her differently again. And, you know, I've heard the more crude phrase, doesn't matter where you get your appetite as long as you eat at home. This is more of the nineteen fifties, sixties variety. By the way, none of these statements come from me, uh, although my mouth is saying them. These are things that you hear out there, right?

Perhaps even better if people acknowledge this aspect of self that is still attracted to other people. They talk about it. What you're talking about is really a more of a protective cloak around the commitment. I do sense people are veering back toward that. What you're describing?

Something like a protective mechanism. Again, it's playing with fire, but if you look in studies where they ask people, have a sexual fantasy about your partner now. How much sexual desire do you feel for your partner? It has gone up. Great. That's pretty straightforward. Now please have a sexual fantasy about, I don't know, whoever's in second place that's not your partner. then you h start having sexual feelings for that person.

And you start having sexual feelings for your partner at the same time. So it's exactly the metaphor that you're describing that when we feel a sense of attraction, it can rebound onto our partner. And by the way, it doesn't happen in the reverse. Okay. So the partner, your current partner, again, for most people in happy relationships, holds a special position, you might say, where even when there is a little bit of a threat, and I've noticed somebody

it it rebounds somewhat. I don't advise that people go out and do this.

Those are the warning signs because then what will start to happen is that the protective layer that people typically put around their partners, it will start to erode.

Uh there might be attraction, there might not be, but you develop some degree of intimacy. Some people would disclose a lot on planes. Yeah. And then you never hear or talk to them again. Yeah. Nowadays there's almost always an opportunity for people to follow up and connect with people. That's what James Sexton is referring to. Yeah. When he talks about social media being a um an uh

Barring other person's language here and an attack vector, you know, on a relationship. And maybe that is a good reason for people who are in committed relationships to just get off of social media, period. But it's also a context where people and quote unquote spend time with people for other reasons. Yeah.

rapport around, oh yeah, uh so and so referring to their spouse really likes that actor or actress. Like it's like yeah it's just kind of a thing that they understand, right? But it's over there. Right. It's it's it's at a distance. Yeah, it it's not um it's not like a looming threat.

the thought that like it could disappear at a moment's notice because of of a of a mistake that we would make, it it can be threatening to most people, e even if we're imagining ourselves engaging in the actions that would bring things to an end.

Going to a gym and I had a tr truly just platonic friendship with this woman. Uh, she would go to the gym too. Back then, not a lot of women worked out in gyms, if I'm honest. Like it'd be like it was like not a lot of women lifted weights. It was like something that was kind of reserved for guys or for female bodybuilders, but She wasn't a bodybuilder, but she she liked lifting weights. Yeah. And super fit. She's a super accomplished athlete now.

um one day when we were leaving, she was like really upset. I was like, what's up? And she's like, all these guys kept coming up to me. And I'm like, well, that's happening all the time. Like, right, you know, she's like, no, they were all really unattractive. And I said, Okay, well you're good at dealing with you, like she was very skilled. She's very beautiful then and now and so very skilled at like saying thanks but no thanks.

And then she said something that was absolutely like shocking to me that I've shared with other female friends and some men, and they always go, No way. And she said, I feel like I have to go like flirt with a really attractive guy now. And it was clear that despite being incredibly attractive, incredibly accomplished. And soup super athlete.

questioning her own value. This is very evo evolutionary biology, because the guys that were approaching her were in her mind very quote unquote low value, unattractive. It like got to her. You know, of course, my interpretation was, Okay, guys, the next time a really attractive woman walks up to you and seems like she's chatting you up.

You don't know that it's actually about you. Right. You know like just know that it may not be about you. Like like note to sell. And what's wild is that years later, I observed and talked to someone in a basically same dynamic. Yeah. But she's married. And she said, yeah, if a bunch of people hit people always hit on this other woman too. It's like if they do that.

I sort of feel like I have to go kind of um get a clear perception again of whether or not I could be with an attractive guy. And now granted, she's married to a super successful what Anyone, male or female, would describe a super good looking guy. Yeah. And they have a super stable family. And I thought to myself, oh my God.

And I don't know that this is unique to women. I don't know, but it's kind of weird if you think about it. Now it could be their unique insecurity, but it's like if data start coming in. Let's flip it. Yeah. Day if a lot of really attractive people of the opposite sex start talking to you, whoever's listening to this, that you perhaps start to wonder if something

Important is going on there. There's information there. Yeah. I just would like you to reflect on this. I've been perplexed by it for a long time. In some sense, it makes total sense. But as a scientist, I've learned, yeah, but just like like what's really going on here?

That we do have a level of attractiveness and it changes as we age. There is a consensus out there about how desirable we are. And that consensus is not gonna stay exactly where it is. It's gonna shift. And you might be in a relationship and be very happy with the person who unambiguously thinks you're a 10 and yet still wonder, what does everybody else think? Like, do they think I'm a seven? Do they think I'm a four? What has happened to me?

So I totally get that that experience of how am I coming across to the world? Is it less than I thought it was? And that the only great information that you have. is how strangers respond to you. It's sort of a funny way of flipping all of this stuff around because again, as a relationships researcher, my bias is always Your husband thinks you're a 10. You think he's a 10. You won the lottery. Like that's it. You did it.

I acknowledge, yeah, there can be cases where we still wonder about what strangers think of us and it might matter to our sense of self-worth and sense of who we are. So So I'm not gonna judge it, but it is a fascinating flip of the way I typically think about these things.

If people understood that those are two different things, sometimes we refer to it like as the shiny object, but that that's a an aspect of self or it's an aspect of of wanting that's not it's not not real. It's real. But that's the same thing. maybe there's a way to compartmentalize it so that it's has the potential to be toxic to relationship. Yeah. But acknowledging that it's real, that it's part of our wiring.

might diffuse some of its power. Like I said, some of these couples that are like, oh yeah, like what's the the phrase couples have where they're like, oh you get a it's like a hall pass. Oh yeah. Which is never gonna happen, right? She's like, you know, so-and-so, you know, my my wife gets a hall pass with cause because basically it's never gonna happen. Yeah. Right. Right. So it's not really a hall pass.

It's a it's a it's a hall pass that uh exists in this alternate universe where um the other person could actually sleep with someone. Be careful with the hall pass no shit because I don't know where that could lead. I'm not suggesting

And it is a bimodal distribution. People who are happy and content and focusing on their life and can say That was the younger, more attractive. working funny sexy whatever and this is men and women versus the like tortured I'm not getting work. The work is not as good as it used to be. I mean, there it's like and I've seen this with people who had uh fame young for other reasons in sports and things like that, and they are crushed. And so what you wanna say is like

Just realize that you have this awesome aspect of self that doesn't live in you right now anymore, but it's still you. Like you got that. Yeah. You know, I think there's a similarity here. Like if people just be like, I've got everything I need. And I'm good because yeah, that other stuff exists and I feel good about it. Not like I'm gonna pretend it doesn't exist. Seems like that could be a very functional way to move through life for people who have this insecurity. I

I failed. And I think people reinforce this even unintentionally. You know, you you go through a breakup, a dating breakup, and people say, I'm so sorry, I know what that's like. Come over and have some ice cream. you go through a divorce and people say, Well, what happened? Because they're trying to make sure that it doesn't happen to them because they're interpreting it as a failure.

And boy, I think if we give each other a little bit of grace and see it all as, yeah, that was the thing that happened. It was real. It mattered in that moment. Things happen along the way. It it it it didn't work out. I changed, you changed. Like being able to accept that like all of those things are real and have or had value. You know, I'd love to try to encourage people to do that. I know, like, there's so many people out there right now who are like, yeah, but my ex is a dick.

And I I'm with you. I totally get that. And to the extent that there's any ability to hold these two thoughts in mind simultaneously, I think it's good.

And I do think it was built on the trials and tribulations and great things. You know. Now I'm careful to not ask too many questions. Yeah. And she's careful to ask not ask too many questions. We we actually have um uh selective uh ignorance around around certain we just like I don't care. Like I genuinely don't

go down certain lines of inquiry and she doesn't either. And I think it's great. Yeah. I think it's great. I think it's uh it sets up a like a you're the we're here now. This is time moving from now forward and where it goes, w we determine that. But but histories are real. And I have always admired I have a few friends that um paired up

Very early. And they went through all these developmental milestones together. First jobs. Some even graduate college as couples, kids, you know, all this stuff. And there's something really beautiful about people that You'd you know, have a long developmental trajectory to big milestones that they reach together. Nowadays people are pairing up later, they're getting divorced and remarrying. It's harder to build a common narrative.

Not only do you have to face the possibility of getting back out there, but you're also losing the continuity with yourself. You're losing the stories and the narratives that you've built with this other person and all of those memories and all of those components.

is that all we have is time and energy. Yeah. And when we invest. Time is running. There's no do-over. Right. You know, there's no do-over. So I think that people carry a lot of resent about the time lost.

To the extent that you can hold on to the good parts of the story, the parts that you want to remember, that you want to keep it be so painful when you're going through the breakup in the first place that I think a lot of times people just want to like take all of it. Put it in a box and get rid of it.

And I again I do believe in the Church of Esther Perel, which is that there are ways of recultivating sexual feelings about somebody that actually are sexual feelings about somebody, it's not like a switch. where it's just on or it's off and we know just when we look at them that sometimes it's about the things we're talking about, the time we spend together or the time that we spend apart. And that that can be rekindling in various ways. So I think

The key thing for me is not to engage in fatalism about the sexual desire component. That when s like the when the passion fades in a relationship. That doesn't mean that it's gone f forever. It might not be something that you feel like every day at seven PM anymore. It might be the kind of thing that that comes to the fore in certain circumstances, or when you're not totally exhausted. I I think that's okay. And a lot of relationships can absolutely thrive under those circumstances.

And you can push it to extremes too, where it's like, my partner hasn't been sexually attracted to me in, you know, years and years. Like that's gonna be tough.

And part of the reason that's tough is'cause you don't have the sexual intimacy. But also part of the reason that's tough is'cause it's making me feel terrible about myself. So these things all like cascade in various negative ways, but I think they can also be be helped in ways too that, you know, that engage some of these more, you know, the the parts of our brains that at least we're more uh aware of and and have some agency over.

Yes, it can those feelings can uh wax and wane. And yes, life circumstances and raising kids and job and stress. Yes, yes, and yes. I I think uh everyone, including me, acknowledges that. This idea that it's not important after a certain stage or that a really healthy romantic relationship can exist without that. What I'm hearing is the data point in the other direction.

In both cases, feeling like this person is a good lover or likely to be a good lover in the case of the attraction scenarios is a very, very good sign for

Uh very interesting. Final question. Sounds like a game show. Okay. Final question.

was also there for when your spouse went hunting for the day or gathering and you didn't know if they were gonna come back or they came back after sundown when normally they're there at sundown, it's for when your baby was sick. Like this notion that like stress was only about predation and like so just it's just so stupid.

I'd like to uh have words with whoever came up with that. That's so dumb. It makes no it's not true. Yeah. What are the questions that students are asking most often nowadays? Because I realize that as a you know 50 year old male. Uh I suffer from a number of different delusions about relationships as it is for people in their twenties, uh thirties now. Um and

Maybe for everybody, because we're all in our own experience. But I think even though the college classroom is not a perfect sample by any stretch. Presumably there are a lot of different people in there.

Sometimes I fall back on the well, look, like these th these groups and things like we were talking about, these clubs, th they're still out there. You can still get out there and meet people.

that any generation feels like, but things have changed now. And sometimes it takes a while to know like what has really changed. I do think that these students go out less often. I think they drink less often. I think they

are they aren't spending time socializing in the same way and they're interfacing more with technology. That's probably helping some people and it's probably really making it hard for some other people. And so Um, you know, I try to like live the example of hey, like I spent time hanging out with people in groups and it was hard and I got rejected and you know, my high school girlfriend dumped me, but I ended up doing okay.

And um I hope that other people can like resonate with that message in my glasses.

And it took like zero planning. It was an email that basically just went out. And no one person was in charge. It was just kind of in the collective. Yeah. They did uh like cooking competition things where you'd meet at someone's house and everyone would have to bring like a particular dish and then everyone would try'em.

And I had no time in graduate school. I was working all the time. I would make time for these things occasionally and they were a lot of fun. Yeah. Like these things are super easy to do. Yeah. You don't have to have any real athletic ability or cooking ability, trust me. Um it I just feel like there's so much opportunity for that, but the barrier must be really there for people if they're not doing these things. Cause I think it was just reflexive.

Like these th whether it's the entertainment companies or the apps, et cetera, they're they they they're trying to keep you away from real socialization. Young people, don't don't you like rebelling and stuff? Rebel against this. You know, exactly. Like form these groups, go out and meet people again in person. I think it's coming back. I I really do. I I think the pand I think it's like a it was like a long pandemic hangover where we we just kind of forgot.

This part of our social architecture. But but it's coming back. It it didn't go anywhere. We're still social creatures. And we also have these great frontal lobes. And even if you don't feel like going out and interacting with people, you can kind of nudge yourself to do it. Um and I I think uh I think that's pretty fantastic.

n new findings. Um, but you've created your own new field, basically, uh, which is of course why your book, which we'll provide a link to, um, and your work is is so popular. And and it I love the optimism that it shines into every interaction. I'm sure people picked up on that, that you're not a doom and gloom guy. You're a solutions guy.

Really appreciate your time here. Um many people will thank you, both those in relationship. You learn some things to, you know, armor your relationship, understand your relationship better yourself. And uh and for those who are who are seeking partners or who are just observing the world around them and are content where they're at, um they're going to benefit. So thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

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