[0:00] When you look at who gets the right
[0:02] swipes and who receives messages on the
[0:05] apps, it's the most popular people. I
[0:08] mean, folks have claimed that it's one
[0:10] of the most unequal markets in the
[0:12] world, but regular acquaintance is not
[0:16] nearly so dramatic. I don't think the
[0:19] influence of attractiveness ever goes
[0:21] away, right? There's always going to be
[0:23] an unlevel playing field to some extent,
[0:26] but the more that people spend time
[0:28] together getting to know each other, it
[0:31] reduces some of those market forces that
[0:34] give the desirable people all the
[0:36] advantages.
[0:38] Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast,
[0:40] where we discuss science and
[0:42] science-based tools for everyday life.
[0:47] I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor
[0:49] of neurobiology and opthalmology at
[0:51] Stanford School of Medicine. My guest
[0:53] today is Dr. Paul Eastwick, a professor
[0:55] of psychology at the University of
[0:57] California, Davis. Today we discuss the
[0:59] science of attraction, mate selection,
[1:01] and relationships. And I promise you
[1:03] what you are going to hear will surprise
[1:05] you. Paul's research has discovered that
[1:07] much of what you've heard about how
[1:08] people select partners, date, form
[1:11] relationships, even break up or
[1:13] repartner is simply wrong. At least when
[1:15] you look at the actual data. For
[1:17] example, his data show that both men and
[1:20] women when given a choice select
[1:22] partners that are younger than them.
[1:24] Yes, you heard that right. It's not just
[1:26] men. Men and women equally select
[1:28] partners that are younger than them
[1:29] given the choice. His data also
[1:31] challenged the idea that financial
[1:33] status is more important to women when
[1:35] looking for male partners. Turns out
[1:37] that when men are looking for female
[1:38] partners, on average, financial status
[1:41] is as important as it is when women are
[1:43] looking for men. And somewhat less
[1:45] surprising, his work shows that indeed
[1:47] dating apps select for qualities that
[1:49] are not the ones that research shows
[1:51] builds lasting partnerships. But he also
[1:53] offers solutions to those that are using
[1:55] dating apps to try and find a partner.
[1:57] Today's discussion is not just about
[1:59] finding a partner. It's also about what
[2:01] solidifies and maintains healthy
[2:03] relationships over time. Again, what the
[2:05] data say about that. Things like
[2:07] physical intimacy being among the very
[2:09] strongest predictors of relationship
[2:11] stability. As well as both partners
[2:13] feeling that no matter who else might be
[2:15] attractive to them, that their partner
[2:16] has unique qualities that no one else
[2:18] can match. So whether you are in a
[2:20] relationship or not, looking for a
[2:22] relationship or not, today's discussion
[2:24] gets into social bonding of all sorts
[2:27] and repeatedly throughout today's
[2:28] episode both as it relates to single
[2:31] people looking for a partner, people who
[2:32] are already partnered, we talk about the
[2:34] importance of activities that are done
[2:36] with other people, could be other
[2:37] couples or other single people, etc. And
[2:40] that this is critical for those wanting
[2:42] to meet a partner and it turns out to be
[2:44] critical for maintaining a healthy
[2:46] long-term relationship. We'll talk about
[2:48] what the data say about that. Super
[2:50] interesting. So today is not just about
[2:52] the real data of how people rate
[2:54] attractiveness, find partners, and the
[2:56] glue that keeps people happily together.
[2:58] It's about the real life data and the
[3:00] actions that anyone can take that help
[3:02] you build and sustain excellent romantic
[3:04] and other types of relationships. Before
[3:06] we begin, I'd like to emphasize that
[3:08] this podcast is separate from my
[3:09] teaching and research roles at Stanford.
[3:11] It is however part of my desire and
[3:13] effort to bring zero cost to consumer
[3:15] information about science and science
[3:16] related tools to the general public. In
[3:19] keeping with that theme, today's episode
[3:20] does include sponsors. And now for my
[3:23] discussion with Dr. Paul Eastwick. Dr.
[3:25] Paul Eastwick, welcome.
[3:27] >> Thank you so much for having me. A lot
[3:29] of theories out there, a lot of
[3:30] speculation about attraction, dating,
[3:34] romance, and relationships, which are
[3:36] separable things. Of course, we'll talk
[3:38] about all of them. But one of the
[3:40] semi-dominant themes in the public
[3:43] narrative and indeed on many podcasts is
[3:47] is kind of anchoring to evolutionary
[3:49] theory which to put it really coarsely
[3:53] sort of a market-based theory. You know
[3:55] people even say I married up or uh you
[3:57] know and people but quantitative
[3:59] measures on people they're a six they're
[4:01] a seven they're a 10 in this but a four
[4:04] in that. You know, as a neuroscientist,
[4:06] I hear that and I immediately go to, and
[4:09] again, this is just purely theoretical.
[4:12] >> Oh, this sounds very limbic. This is
[4:14] very much of like the hypothalamus. This
[4:16] is very much like the kind of thing that
[4:17] you might expect under conditions of
[4:19] like um low food availability,
[4:22] >> low mate availability, a lot of weapons
[4:24] and a few and very few laws, you know,
[4:26] to to regulate violence or something.
[4:28] Meaning men will will harm each other in
[4:31] order to get access to mates. women will
[4:33] um be deceptive. This is the whole idea.
[4:37] And you step back and you go, well,
[4:38] that's not the world we live in now. We
[4:40] have a forebrain. We can make choices.
[4:42] We can be strategic in the direction of
[4:44] benevolence. We can think about
[4:45] kindness. And so to me, it seems we need
[4:49] a revision or at least a better
[4:51] understanding of what's actually true in
[4:53] 2026 and forward. So, if you would, what
[4:56] are your thoughts about what is not true
[4:59] based on the data
[5:01] >> and perhaps what is true about this
[5:03] quote unquote evolutionary model of
[5:05] dating relationships and so on. The
[5:07] marketplace ideas, I think they
[5:10] definitely have their place and it deres
[5:14] from a a sensible evolutionary
[5:16] perspective like what you're describing.
[5:19] I think it describes well what happens
[5:22] in initial attraction settings when
[5:26] people are really meeting for the first
[5:28] time. There's this class demo that I do
[5:32] in my undergraduate classes. A lot of
[5:34] people use this demo and what you do is
[5:38] you have a bunch of your students put a
[5:40] number on their foreheads and they sort
[5:42] of hold it up so that they can't see it
[5:45] but other people can. and you tell the
[5:49] students your goal is to pair up with
[5:52] the highest value person that you can
[5:55] and you don't know what your number is,
[5:57] but I'm going to count to five and then
[5:59] I want you all to stroll around the room
[6:00] and try to make mating offers to folks.
[6:04] And what you see is that the people who
[6:06] have been randomly assigned a low
[6:07] number, they start to panic because what
[6:10] happens is that nobody will talk to
[6:13] them.
[6:13] >> And this is random. uh you know
[6:15] otherwise it would be very unethical and
[6:17] also who would decide but
[6:18] >> but people don't like it. I mean if you
[6:20] get a low number
[6:21] >> it's not an enjoyable experience
[6:24] >> and I think there is a parallel to what
[6:27] people are experiencing as they're
[6:29] growing up or maybe even if they're a
[6:31] little older and they're going to a
[6:33] party and they haven't met anybody
[6:34] there. So this is an analogy
[6:39] for how people internalize and you know
[6:43] act upon something that we call mate
[6:45] value and it's it's like what you
[6:47] describe. It's supposedly linked to
[6:49] traits that reflect your core
[6:52] desiraability like maybe your physical
[6:55] attractiveness but it could be other
[6:57] related traits too. It could be things
[6:59] like the size of your bank account or
[7:01] your status.
[7:02] What we tend to see is that when people
[7:05] are meeting for the first time, this is
[7:08] um a reasonable faximile of how people
[7:12] behave.
[7:13] But interesting things tend to happen
[7:17] when people get to know each other over
[7:19] a little bit more time. What then tends
[7:22] to happen is that that agreement that is
[7:26] required for that study to work. That
[7:28] study only works because you can read
[7:30] the numbers on people's foreheads. But
[7:33] if I were to blur that number, we
[7:35] wouldn't see as much pairing up. It
[7:37] wouldn't be as sad and as difficult for
[7:40] the people with low numbers. And in real
[7:42] life, that's kind of what tends to
[7:44] happen. We stop agreeing about who the
[7:47] eights are and who the fives are. And
[7:50] people might on average say that you're
[7:51] a six, but if I've gotten to know you
[7:53] over time, it means there's a chance I
[7:56] think you're a nine. There's also a
[7:58] chance I think you're a three. And so
[8:00] that increase in idiosyncrasy and
[8:04] variability, I think, is a really
[8:07] fortunate thing. And it's the thing
[8:09] that's going to allow a lot of partners
[8:12] to find each other uh even if they're
[8:14] not consensually the most desirable
[8:16] people. Consensually meaning in the eyes
[8:19] of others.
[8:20] >> Right. Right. Right. Right. So even if
[8:23] on average people think uh you're kind
[8:25] of middling with enough time people are
[8:29] more likely to find okay but okay you
[8:31] all think I'm a five but she thinks I'm
[8:33] a 10. And then what you're kind of
[8:35] crossing your fingers for are these
[8:36] moments where and I think she's a 10
[8:38] too. And it's this uh level of sort of
[8:42] disagreement or the emergence of what we
[8:45] might comp call compatibility that I
[8:47] think is it's been missing from the
[8:50] evolutionary narratives, but I think it
[8:52] plays a core part in explaining how
[8:55] couples get together as well. Wow. Um so
[8:58] many things come to mind. Uh the first
[9:00] thing that comes to mind is the
[9:02] question, you know, who and what are
[9:04] others looking at? Yeah, it seems like
[9:06] one of the more I want to use the word
[9:08] immature, but let's say less evolved,
[9:10] not in the evolutionary biology context,
[9:12] but kind of like life maturation sense,
[9:14] like less evolved aspects of self is
[9:16] when
[9:17] >> we are not thinking about what we
[9:19] actually like and don't like,
[9:21] >> but we're paying a lot of attention to
[9:22] what other people like and dislike as a
[9:25] barometer of what we should do or not
[9:27] do. Now, of course, that can be very
[9:29] informative in healthy ways, but when it
[9:32] really comes down to it, it's a
[9:34] potentially very toxic aspect of human
[9:37] nature, right? So, what I what I hear
[9:39] you saying is that at some point there's
[9:41] this kind of um dating, romance, and
[9:44] relational maturity that people come to
[9:47] where they're really able to sense what
[9:49] they actually like and they're able to
[9:52] put the blinders up to how other people
[9:54] are necessarily behaving. like are does
[9:57] everyone like this person? Do they not
[9:58] like this person? And the the words that
[10:00] come to mind, two words are junior high,
[10:03] >> like the junior high school dance for a
[10:05] number of reasons is kind of the first
[10:06] time, you know, most kids are starting
[10:08] to hit puberty or somewhere in puberty
[10:10] at that phase. And so there's a lot of
[10:11] recognition of others and
[10:13] >> kind of like who is cool, who's not
[10:15] cool, who's getting attention, who's not
[10:17] getting attention seems to surface first
[10:20] in junior high.
[10:21] >> Yeah.
[10:21] >> And admittedly, we're all pretty
[10:22] immature in junior high. Yeah. Exactly.
[10:24] So, has this been looked at in in a
[10:27] structured way? For instance, are there
[10:30] adults who are um good
[10:33] >> at ignoring what you you know what the
[10:36] consensus is? And are are they able to
[10:38] find mates and and set up relationships
[10:41] more readily than people who are paying
[10:42] a lot of attention to what other people
[10:44] like and don't like? Yes, I'm I am sure
[10:47] that there's considerable individual
[10:50] variability in how people react to
[10:54] what's going on around them. Sometimes
[10:56] you see this phenomenon called mate
[10:58] choice copying. But what that
[11:00] essentially means is that you know you
[11:03] kind of look to see who's attracted to
[11:05] somebody in my uh you know is everybody
[11:08] attracted to this person? Well, there
[11:10] must be some signal there. I'll sort of
[11:12] follow that.
[11:14] I totally agree. It it's a very junior
[11:17] high way of thinking about this whole
[11:19] process. But I think a lot of what is
[11:23] happening is that if people are spending
[11:26] time together and I I often go back to
[11:28] thinking about what is it like when
[11:31] we're hanging out in mixed gender groups
[11:33] if you're heterosexual.
[11:35] So we're spending time together and
[11:38] maybe for whatever reason I happen to
[11:41] spend more time with this person. we
[11:42] find something interesting to chat
[11:44] about. I see her reacting in situations
[11:47] that other people don't get to see. And
[11:50] so the particular time that I spend with
[11:53] her ends up being the material that I
[11:57] use that causes my opinion to diverge
[12:00] from everybody else's. So everybody else
[12:01] might be like, "She's not all that
[12:02] great." And I think, "But you weren't
[12:05] there when we were hanging out talking
[12:08] about, you know, some family challenges
[12:10] that I had. I'm trying to put myself
[12:12] back in like what were the things we
[12:14] would have been frustrated about in high
[12:15] school. But you know talking about like
[12:17] problems at school or problems with
[12:18] other friends like she was supportive
[12:21] and listened to me and then I was
[12:22] supportive and I listened to her and
[12:25] that reciprocity through a unique
[12:28] experience with another person. A lot of
[12:31] times this is where initial attraction
[12:33] comes from. It sounds a little squishy.
[12:36] It doesn't sound like the sexy form of
[12:39] attraction that we often think about,
[12:41] but what we see in our work is a lot of
[12:44] times this is how it happens. It it
[12:46] takes a little while, but attraction can
[12:49] form when two people spend that time
[12:52] together sort of pulling unique things
[12:54] out of each other. I'd like to take a
[12:57] quick break to acknowledge one of our
[12:59] sponsors, David. David makes protein
[13:02] bars unlike any other. Their newest bar,
[13:04] the Bronze Bar, has 20 gram of protein,
[13:07] only 150 calories, and zero gram of
[13:09] sugar. I have to say, these are the best
[13:12] tasting protein bars I've ever had, and
[13:14] I've tried a lot of protein bars over
[13:16] the years. These new David bars have a
[13:18] marshmallow base and they're covered in
[13:20] chocolate coating and they're absolutely
[13:23] incredible. I of course eat regular
[13:25] whole foods. I eat meat, chicken, fish,
[13:27] eggs, fruits, vegetables, etc. But I
[13:29] also make it a point to eat one or two
[13:31] David bars per day as a snack, which
[13:33] makes it easy to hit my protein goal of
[13:35] 1 gram of protein per pound of body
[13:36] weight. And that allows me to take in
[13:38] the protein I need without consuming
[13:40] excess calories. I love all the David
[13:42] Bronze Bar flavors, including cookie
[13:44] dough, caramel chocolate, double
[13:46] chocolate, peanut butter chocolate. They
[13:48] all actually taste like candy bars.
[13:50] Again, they're amazing. But again, they
[13:52] have no sugar and they have 20 gram of
[13:54] protein with just 150 calories. If you'd
[13:57] like to try David, you can go to
[13:58] davidprotein.com/huberman.
[14:01] Right now, David is offering a deal
[14:02] where if you buy four cartons, you get
[14:04] the fifth carton for free. You can also
[14:06] find David on Amazon or in stores such
[14:08] as Target, Walmart, and Kroger. Again,
[14:10] to get the fifth carton for free, go to
[14:12] davidproin.com/huberman.
[14:15] Today's episode is also brought to us by
[14:17] Lingo. Lingo is an everyday wearable
[14:19] that tracks your glucose 247. Glucose
[14:23] drives a lot of key processes that
[14:24] support energy, body composition, and
[14:27] long-term health. When glucose is
[14:29] constantly spiking and crashing, that's
[14:31] where we can start to see metabolic
[14:32] dysfunction. And over time, that can
[14:34] even progress to pre-diabetes. Right
[14:36] now, about 115 million adults in the US
[14:39] have pre-diabetes. Most don't know it,
[14:42] and a higher percentage of men have it
[14:44] than women do. Often, there aren't clear
[14:46] symptoms of pre-diabetes early on, so
[14:48] people don't tend to look into it. But
[14:50] the fact is that metabolic health is
[14:52] shaping how your body functions every
[14:53] day, whether you feel it or not.
[14:55] Tracking your glucose with Lingo can
[14:57] help you see how food, activity, and
[14:59] stress impact your glucose throughout
[15:01] the day. I personally have used Lingo,
[15:03] and it's been an invaluable tool for
[15:05] improving my metabolic health. If you
[15:07] would like to try Lingo, Hubberman Lab
[15:09] listeners in the US and UK can save 10%
[15:11] on a 4-week plan. Just visit
[15:14] hellolingo.com/huberman
[15:16] for more information. Terms and
[15:18] conditions apply. Again, that's
[15:19] hellingo.com/huberman.
[15:22] >> It's interesting. I'm thinking about um
[15:25] movies.
[15:26] >> Yeah.
[15:26] >> And um admittedly, I haven't seen that
[15:29] many romantic comedies, but there's some
[15:30] very there's some pretty awesome I've
[15:32] seen a few of them. Uh but there's some
[15:34] awesome movies about this issue.
[15:37] >> Yeah.
[15:37] >> And I'll offer some examples that will
[15:39] date myself, but
[15:42] >> that seem to fall into at least three
[15:43] bins.
[15:44] >> One is
[15:47] you're awesome. I'm awesome. Let's get
[15:50] together. All right. Nowadays, I think
[15:52] regardless of music taste, I think the
[15:54] kind of uh like royally celebrated
[15:57] couple is not a royal couple.
[15:59] Incidentally, I would say it's like the
[16:01] Taylor Swift
[16:02] >> Kelsey couple. People like people are
[16:04] like they're both winners. They're both
[16:06] super attractive. They're both super
[16:08] successful. And you know whether you
[16:10] like the Chiefs or you don't, whether or
[16:11] not you like her music or you don't,
[16:13] you're like, you're like they're like
[16:15] badass winners pairing up
[16:18] >> and it's very hard to say anything
[16:19] except like, wow, they totally quote
[16:21] unquote belong together, right? There's
[16:23] a sort of So there's that pairing and
[16:24] you can find that in movies and uh all
[16:26] the like ' 80s like um uh John Hughes
[16:29] movies centered around this like um and
[16:31] then broke that model. We'll go back to
[16:33] that. The other one would be Yeah. the
[16:35] breaking of that model. the like the
[16:37] it's this is very 80s but the kind of
[16:39] like the athlete you know pairs up with
[16:42] the nerd right okay now we nowadays we
[16:45] have athlete nerds and so it doesn't
[16:47] work quite as well
[16:48] >> and then the third model is the like
[16:50] well you're screwed up and I'm screwed
[16:51] up but we're really good people
[16:54] >> like you get true romance
[16:55] >> the movie True Romance which is an
[16:57] amazing movie right you know she was a
[17:00] >> you know not by her own choice
[17:01] apparently like she she's like I've been
[17:03] a prostitute for three call girl for
[17:04] three days and he's
[17:06] Well, I you know, someone paid for you
[17:08] to be on this date with me. They fall in
[17:09] love. They leave their
[17:10] >> professions, right? And they go and they
[17:12] go on this sort of semi-rime spree um
[17:16] that really uh demonstrates their
[17:18] immense love and devotion to one
[17:19] another. And the whole notion is like
[17:21] you're so cool. They both think the
[17:23] other person is super cool, don't care
[17:24] about their past, and kind of enjoy the
[17:26] fact that they're both kind of from
[17:29] >> uh hard scrabble backgrounds. So then
[17:31] there's that. And what's so different
[17:33] about that kind of model compared to
[17:36] like today where I hear because I so I
[17:39] don't have a lot to offer about personal
[17:40] experience on apps many years ago but
[17:42] it's been a while is this notion that
[17:44] like everyone you hear this everyone's
[17:46] competing for the same small number of
[17:48] people.
[17:48] >> So it seems like even those those three
[17:51] cliche models that are presented in a
[17:53] number of movies they exist. It's like
[17:57] since when did is everyone thinking that
[17:59] they're supposed to pair up with the
[18:01] same small number of people? This is
[18:04] like ridiculous. That's like saying
[18:05] everyone's supposed to like the same
[18:07] >> top three songs even though you might
[18:09] not even like that genre of music.
[18:11] That's that's um insanity.
[18:13] >> Yeah, the apps absolutely pull for this.
[18:17] So when you look at who gets the right
[18:21] swipes and who receives messages on the
[18:24] apps, it's the most popular people. I
[18:27] mean, folks have claimed that it's one
[18:28] of the most unequal markets in the
[18:31] world. I mean, it's basically a
[18:32] kleptocracy. The extent to which Yeah,
[18:35] kleptocracy, right? The extent to which
[18:36] it's skewed, right? That there's like,
[18:38] you know, the rich, quote unquote, who
[18:41] have all the, you know, who who get all
[18:43] the all the the right swipes at the top.
[18:46] But regular acquaintance is not nearly
[18:50] so dramatic. So, you know, one example
[18:54] that I like to use is that if our job
[18:57] was just to evaluate whether somebody
[19:00] standing in front of us was hot or not,
[19:02] and it was somebody that we like
[19:03] interacted with briefly
[19:06] and we're making just simple binary
[19:09] judgments, you and I are going to agree
[19:12] about like 2/3 of the time. So that's
[19:15] that's better than 50/50, but it's far
[19:18] from 100%. I I think actually that would
[19:20] surprise a lot of people. There's a
[19:21] reasonable amount of disagreement there.
[19:24] That's already starting to set the stage
[19:27] for us not necessarily pursuing the most
[19:31] appealing person because if there's
[19:33] disagreement, that means there's a
[19:35] chance that, well, you're going to go
[19:36] for this person, I'm going to go for
[19:37] that person, and it it levels out the
[19:41] playing field somewhat. I don't think
[19:44] the influence of attractiveness ever
[19:46] goes away, right? There's always going
[19:48] to be an unlevel playing field to some
[19:50] extent, but the more that people spend
[19:53] time together getting to know each
[19:55] other, it reduces some of those, you
[19:58] know, uh th those market forces that
[20:00] give the desirable people all the
[20:02] advantages.
[20:04] >> Yeah. The reason junior high school
[20:06] seemed so dreadful in my memory. I mean,
[20:09] I had a good time in junior high school,
[20:10] but it it was largely, at least for me,
[20:12] the fact that people in my peer group,
[20:16] cuz it was a pretty broad age range,
[20:17] were were still um among the guys were
[20:20] hitting puberty at different rates.
[20:21] >> Yeah.
[20:22] >> So, like a game of soccer that at one
[20:25] time was pretty even with respect to who
[20:28] could play well, like suddenly you're
[20:29] playing against what felt like a grown
[20:31] man. There's actually a kid in our town
[20:33] who I don't want to give up his name who
[20:35] I think he went on to I don't ever think
[20:37] he became a professional soccer player,
[20:38] but he was just
[20:39] >> he was like fully developed by the
[20:41] eighth grade. He was like facial hair
[20:43] and he was fast and he had like legs
[20:45] like tree trunks and he could move and I
[20:46] mean it was just
[20:47] >> completely dangerous to have him out on
[20:49] the field with the rest of us, right?
[20:51] And he was
[20:52] >> respected, adored, admired like and it
[20:54] was very context dependent. This was the
[20:56] other thing I was going to say. I think
[20:57] you and I are both scientists. So,
[20:59] coming up, you spent a lot of time in
[21:01] labs.
[21:01] >> Yeah.
[21:02] >> I never forget there was a romance in a
[21:04] neighboring lab um that none of us
[21:07] understood. Like none of us understood.
[21:09] >> That's funny.
[21:09] >> And I remember asking my friend who was
[21:11] in this pairing and he said the
[21:15] attraction for him, although she was
[21:16] also attractive, but the the the hook
[21:20] was her prowess at aloquotting. So
[21:23] there's a thing you do with antibodies
[21:24] and labs where they come in and you have
[21:26] to put them into the little things so
[21:27] that you know you freeze out a little
[21:28] bit and apparent
[21:29] >> really hard.
[21:30] >> Yeah. You get good at it. But apparently
[21:32] like he walked in one day and she had a
[21:34] bunch of these little tubes stuffed
[21:35] between her fingers and she was just
[21:36] aloquotting really quickly while talking
[21:39] and from that moment he was just like
[21:40] smitten.
[21:41] >> That's beautiful.
[21:42] >> And I'll say they both never heard an
[21:44] example this good. I was like her
[21:46] aloquatting process like it or prowess
[21:49] and I thought to myself like is this
[21:50] like tapping into something? They they
[21:52] actually have children. He's his
[21:53] professor. They have children together.
[21:55] They seem very happy. I think anyone
[21:56] would say they're both attractive
[21:58] people. But their pairing seemed like
[22:01] >> not predictable by any other external
[22:03] metrics. And the fact that something so
[22:06] specific was the hook.
[22:08] >> Yeah.
[22:09] >> And that opened up into what turned out
[22:10] to be a long-standing marriage with kids
[22:13] is kind of wild. It is.
[22:15] >> But is this uncommon? Because what you
[22:16] described before is kind of like this,
[22:18] like there's something unique that makes
[22:19] it feel like there's a special
[22:21] attraction that indicates something that
[22:23] opens up to a special discussion and
[22:24] then there's this
[22:25] >> kind of um intimacy, right, that they
[22:28] share
[22:29] >> around aloquading that was spawned by
[22:31] aloquading. I don't recommend folks run
[22:33] out and learn how to aloquat in order to
[22:35] like this is not a strategy. Um but
[22:38] that's the thing.
[22:38] >> Thematically it might be, but um so what
[22:41] are your thoughts on something like
[22:42] that? Okay, this is an incredible
[22:44] example and I think if if we're talking
[22:47] about couples, I think most people would
[22:49] find this idea intuitive that if you
[22:52] know I ask somebody what is what is it
[22:55] that you love about your wife or what is
[22:56] it that you love about your husband? You
[22:58] know, you're going to get a bunch of if
[23:00] you get them talking for long enough,
[23:02] you'll get some idiosyncratic details.
[23:04] You'll get some stories. I mean, maybe
[23:06] if they're really forthcoming, they'll
[23:08] give you the in jokes and they'll
[23:10] explain the moments that made them feel
[23:13] something special for this person.
[23:16] I think what I'm suggesting is that
[23:20] those moments, the the the creation of a
[23:23] narrative with another person, it goes
[23:25] back earlier than we think. And that a
[23:28] lot of times what we're doing when we're
[23:30] trying to figure out if we're into
[23:31] somebody, yes, we look at how they look
[23:35] visually and we we take in all that
[23:37] information and it matters a lot. But
[23:39] we're also talking with them, forming
[23:43] little stories. If you have a little bit
[23:46] of good banter, that means when I see
[23:47] you at the party next week, I'm going to
[23:50] want to sit next to you and see if we
[23:51] can recreate that moment. And that's
[23:54] often where attraction is coming from. I
[23:56] think that's why the apps are so hard
[23:59] because it turns it into an interview
[24:01] where you're trying to impress other
[24:02] people with your traits. And again,
[24:05] traits are important, but it's like it
[24:07] it's not the life of the thing. The life
[24:09] of the thing is the little stories and
[24:11] moments that two people are sharing and
[24:14] and that's I think something that that
[24:16] people can be doing more with.
[24:19] >> I'd like to divide this process that we
[24:21] call dating, romance, relationships,
[24:23] etc. into some pieces that may or may
[24:26] not be the right way to segment it. So,
[24:28] so please um change any of what I'm
[24:30] about to, you know, toss out. We're
[24:33] talking about impressions.
[24:34] >> Yeah.
[24:35] >> That either seed or don't see desire for
[24:39] more time. So, interest
[24:41] >> and then that I'll just broadly separate
[24:42] with compatibility over time.
[24:44] >> Yeah.
[24:45] >> So, let's spend some time on impressions
[24:47] that lead to desire. Which ones are
[24:49] meaningful? Which ones aren't? Which
[24:51] ones can be a bit misleading? I think
[24:53] most people are probably more intuitive
[24:55] about those if they're really honest,
[24:57] like what they find, who they find
[24:58] attractive,
[24:59] >> who they'd be willing to admit they find
[25:01] attractive if you remove all the other
[25:03] social inputs.
[25:04] >> Yeah.
[25:04] >> And so on. But the compatibility over
[25:06] time piece is the one that is really
[25:08] hard. If you just look at the statistics
[25:10] on marriage, let alone the statistics
[25:12] on, you know, other relationships.
[25:14] >> It's not a bleak picture, but the
[25:16] numbers don't play out into if people
[25:18] get together and make the commitment.
[25:21] Most of the time it works out. It
[25:22] unfortunately doesn't seem to be that
[25:24] way or maybe who knows fortunately but
[25:26] so impressions leading to desire given
[25:29] that many of the people listening to
[25:30] this will they'll be thinking about
[25:32] their own history with their current
[25:34] partner or are seeking a partner or
[25:36] maybe not. What do the data say about
[25:39] what people are picking up on as really
[25:42] valid cues that drive real desire as
[25:47] opposed to the
[25:48] >> the BS about like, well, everyone else
[25:50] thought they were great or the great on
[25:52] paper kind of thing. The early phases
[25:55] especially are just naturally filled
[25:57] with a lot of uncertainty. And I think
[26:00] this is a bummer for a lot of people
[26:02] because it can feel like you're really
[26:04] into somebody or like they're really
[26:05] into me and then it turns on a dime. So
[26:08] part of that is about like searching for
[26:11] signals trying to resolve the
[26:13] uncertainty. And the problem is that
[26:15] it's not like, oh, if I get sufficient
[26:17] evidence that you're smart, that's going
[26:19] to do it. Or if I get sufficient
[26:21] evidence that you're really good at
[26:22] aloquotting, that's going to do it. What
[26:25] people are, I think, trying to do is
[26:28] they're trying to figure out like, do I
[26:30] feel enough of something for you that I
[26:33] want to continue this that I want to
[26:35] keep going? Yes. And but I don't want to
[26:38] act like cuz sometimes when people think
[26:40] about the spark, what they think is,
[26:41] "Oh, it's got to be there right away and
[26:43] I've already got to be feeling 100 for
[26:44] this person, right? I got to be at the
[26:46] top of the scale." That actually isn't
[26:48] what happens on average. Typically, if
[26:51] you if you look at what most
[26:53] relationships look like and you look
[26:55] back at the beginning, the the typical
[26:57] first impression is middling. That's how
[26:59] we feel at first. Middling. Just kind of
[27:01] I don't know, middle of the sky. That
[27:03] seemed all right. You know, it was fine.
[27:05] And then we interacted again.
[27:06] >> Not bad, not over the top.
[27:07] >> Not bad. Not Not over the top. And as we
[27:10] spend a little more time together, oh,
[27:12] like actually I find him pretty funny or
[27:15] I think he's really smart or um you
[27:19] know, I really like how good a listener
[27:21] he was. And I think what people are
[27:24] often trying to do is get enough moments
[27:27] that fit enough of these different trait
[27:30] categories that they think, well, you
[27:32] know, whatever other people say about
[27:34] this person, like with me, he seems like
[27:37] a pretty sensitive guy. with me, he
[27:39] seems pretty witty. With me, you know,
[27:42] like I actually think he's really hot
[27:45] when he does XYZ. And so if you
[27:47] accumulate enough of those, then you
[27:49] find yourself, you know, it's like you
[27:51] keep coming back. So that's how I think
[27:53] about it is this like slow accumulation
[27:56] of information.
[27:58] Sometimes people will encounter things
[28:00] like like the ick where there's one
[28:03] moment and then they tip over the edge
[28:05] the other way into feeling like I can't
[28:07] be with this person.
[28:08] >> Is that typically women who feel that
[28:10] about men? I mean do men describe that?
[28:12] >> I think yeah men have those experiences
[28:15] too. It is pretty underresarched. And
[28:18] one of the reasons why is because this
[28:20] whole phase I'm talking about is
[28:22] remarkably hard to study because we as
[28:25] researchers we're very good at how do
[28:28] you feel about somebody if you're
[28:29] looking at a picture or if you've hung
[28:31] out for like four minutes. I mean that's
[28:34] what a lot of the initial attraction
[28:35] paradigms look like. I like those
[28:37] paradigms. I study those paradigms
[28:39] myself. And then it's very easy to
[28:41] recruit couples and then see what
[28:44] happens to them. what explains why their
[28:46] relationships stay together and why they
[28:48] fall apart. But this period and it's
[28:51] it's my favorite thing to think about
[28:53] and it's also one of the most mysterious
[28:55] is Yeah, but what happened from like
[28:58] minute 10 to you know day 30 where now
[29:03] you were really determined to be in a
[29:06] relationship with this person and and
[29:08] that's a typical amount of time. it it
[29:11] usually doesn't happen instantaneously
[29:13] that people know right away, hey, no,
[29:15] this is it. I want to be with this
[29:17] person. It's that slow accumulation. And
[29:20] when we look at it, it's it's almost
[29:23] like you've got a window of uncertainty
[29:26] and it's slowly collapsing to a stable
[29:31] impression that people have of this
[29:33] person as they gather a little bit more
[29:36] information and a little bit more
[29:37] information. And what you just hope for
[29:40] is that as two people you're collapsing
[29:44] to a fairly stable impression that is
[29:46] both very positive of each other. And I
[29:49] think a large part that's how people get
[29:51] together
[29:52] >> and hopefully accurate too.
[29:54] >> Yeah. So the accuracy part is
[29:56] interesting because I mean you know I'm
[29:58] a psychologist. I'm a social
[30:00] psychologist and so social psychologists
[30:02] are big into well your perception is
[30:05] your reality and boy do you see a lot of
[30:08] evidence especially in relationships
[30:11] that people are biased when it comes to
[30:14] their romantic relationships
[30:15] >> in what sense
[30:16] >> it can happen in ways like you know
[30:20] everybody kind of agrees that your
[30:21] partner's a jerk but you genuinely don't
[30:24] think they're a jerk and when they're
[30:26] with you they don't seem like a jerk so
[30:28] any kind measure I would take your
[30:31] perception of, you know, your partner
[30:33] versus everybody else's perception. You
[30:36] would seem to be horribly positively
[30:38] biased
[30:40] for your partner.
[30:42] The question is whether you're wrong and
[30:46] I land on the side of I mean from your
[30:50] perspective you're not
[30:53] to argue that it would be better to
[30:56] listen to the consensus that your
[30:58] partner is a jerk kind it's sort of like
[31:01] um you're arguing for like a sleeper
[31:03] effect like there's wisdom in what other
[31:06] people know that you don't see.
[31:09] The evidence for that is actually not
[31:11] not great. It's it I'm it it could be
[31:14] and I'm sure it happens sometimes, but
[31:17] what usually happens in relationships is
[31:20] that people's own impressions and
[31:22] perceptions tend to be the major driver.
[31:25] Now, that can go in the other way, too,
[31:27] because we might all agree this person
[31:29] would be the most amazing partner to be
[31:31] with, and yet you've now gotten to the
[31:34] point in this relationship where you
[31:35] don't see it anymore, and you can't
[31:36] unsee the negative things you've seen.
[31:39] And so, that relationship can be very
[31:41] hard to salvage. The statement has been
[31:45] made by someone I know and trust about
[31:48] all things in life, all things in life,
[31:51] not just relationships, but certainly
[31:52] including them, that
[31:54] If people just treated
[31:57] their taste in people, in music, in art,
[32:03] in experiences the same way they treated
[32:05] their taste in food, everyone would be a
[32:08] lot better off.
[32:10] >> Meaning,
[32:11] if one has the impression that they
[32:14] really like something, they really like
[32:16] this person, then just go for it. I
[32:19] mean, unless there's some sort of danger
[32:21] they're not aware of, right?
[32:22] >> Okay. Okay. And which and we'll talk
[32:23] about consensus, communicating danger,
[32:26] separate separate issue, but it crosses
[32:28] into this online dating thing based on a
[32:30] lot of conversations I've had with young
[32:32] men and women. But music, you hear it,
[32:36] you either like it or you don't. We
[32:38] don't tend to have a hard time defending
[32:41] our stance on those things. But when it
[32:44] comes to relationships, it's almost like
[32:46] we're many people are walking around
[32:48] with a little or a lot of that junior
[32:51] high narrative in their in their mind.
[32:53] >> Not necessarily be with somebody that
[32:56] they can't stand because everyone else
[32:58] thinks they're great. I think that's
[32:59] pretty rare. Probably happens, but it's
[33:01] pretty rare. But at these early stages
[33:04] that you study, that they're navigating
[33:07] that process in a way where they're not
[33:09] in tune with their own taste. they're
[33:11] integrating all this other information
[33:13] in a way that's not helpful. It's not
[33:15] protecting them. In fact, it's it's just
[33:17] clouding the signal. It's noise,
[33:19] >> right? In the signal to noise model,
[33:20] like it's noise. It's just pure noise.
[33:23] >> And as a consequence,
[33:25] >> people are wasting their time and other
[33:27] people's time.
[33:28] >> Yeah.
[33:28] >> And I don't believe everyone's trying to
[33:31] waste each other's time. It just seems
[33:34] that we're conditioned to do this. Yeah.
[33:36] And I will say it does take a pretty
[33:39] strong
[33:40] person to say, "Listen, I know that's
[33:45] what you see. I know that's what they
[33:47] say, but like this person's great. Like
[33:49] they're right for me." And when people
[33:51] do that in general, people tend to back
[33:53] off.
[33:53] >> And of course, there's
[33:55] >> Shakespeare about this, right? But that
[33:57] tends to be cultural pressure of like,
[33:59] "No, you two can't be together or the
[34:02] parents don't want her or one set of
[34:03] parents." I mean some of the greatest
[34:05] romances have been born out of that fu
[34:08] to the to the elders to the community
[34:11] but this is a little different. Yes. You
[34:14] know, it's a tricky thing to navigate
[34:16] because I I think one of the best
[34:18] situations to end up in is where you're
[34:23] in a relationship and let's say it's a
[34:25] new relationship and your friends around
[34:27] you basically think, you know, we're
[34:30] happy for you and we're going to
[34:33] celebrate you and, you know, we're going
[34:36] to celebrate this relationship. We
[34:38] support you. We just wouldn't be
[34:40] terribly interested in this person
[34:41] ourselves. That's the ideal, right?
[34:44] Where it's not exceptionally
[34:46] competitive. You're not worried about
[34:48] your friends trying to poach your
[34:50] partner away, but at the same time,
[34:52] they're supportive of the relationship
[34:54] because that support from friends and
[34:57] family, it is important. Like, it
[35:00] certainly shapes how people feel.
[35:03] there's a way to navigate that that
[35:05] doesn't make it a you know like I'm glad
[35:08] you I'm glad you like my girlfriend but
[35:10] like don't like her too much please. You
[35:12] want to kind of try to find that balance
[35:14] there. And that's a tricky thing. I mean
[35:16] I think this is a lot of what people are
[35:18] trying to navigate in adolescence.
[35:20] They're trying to figure out like how
[35:23] can I be part of a friend group and have
[35:26] a romantic relationship and navigate the
[35:29] complexities that come with that. I
[35:31] mean, I vividly remember these like
[35:34] junior high, early high school
[35:36] experiences
[35:38] of dating somebody, but also your
[35:41] friends are into this person. And
[35:42] actually, it was a relationship where my
[35:46] girlfriend at the time broke up with me,
[35:48] starts dating my best friend. We're all
[35:51] friends now. It's all fine now. And it's
[35:53] like at this moment that I discover
[35:56] evolutionary psychology, that I discover
[35:58] this narrative. And it just felt like
[36:01] such a double-edged sword cuz how
[36:03] wonderful is it to think about how
[36:06] people have been navigating these
[36:08] challenges, ex-girlfriends breaking up
[36:11] with you for your best friend. This has
[36:13] been happening for tens of thousands of
[36:15] years. Like I'm not alone. I'm not the
[36:18] first person to experience this. And
[36:20] then to also read at the same time, oh
[36:23] my god, this reflects something true
[36:26] about my deep underlying value. This is
[36:29] kind of scary. So those two things
[36:33] together, weirdly, were what got me
[36:36] hooked on this. The the feeling like
[36:38] evolutionary psychology is fascinating
[36:40] and really bleak at the same time.
[36:43] >> Yeah, I agree. Uh I was going to say
[36:45] brutal. I'm sorry you had to go through
[36:47] that. Although I'm glad you're all
[36:48] friends. I think it happens. It's all
[36:49] good. probably not to everyone, but I I
[36:51] can remember similar experiences where
[36:53] you're just like, "Oh man, what a gut
[36:54] punch." And part of the maturational
[36:56] process is um
[36:58] >> realizing like, okay, they might be
[36:59] better suited and they'll be someone for
[37:01] me. And
[37:02] >> honestly, they were better suited for
[37:03] each other.
[37:04] >> All right. All right. I have a question
[37:06] about the science or how to study these
[37:08] sorts of things. So, if I set aside my
[37:11] science hat and I say, "All right,
[37:13] >> you can study this stuff, but wait,
[37:16] >> if we're talking about a a kind of
[37:18] unique hook, like let's just assume the
[37:20] person the people are within the range
[37:21] of attractiveness. Again, I hate this
[37:24] quantitative thing, but they think the
[37:25] other person's attractive, they're they
[37:27] they're dating because they want to find
[37:29] someone, right? They're not resistant to
[37:31] commitment. They're looking for for a
[37:33] partner. And the number of histories
[37:36] that people are bringing to that is
[37:39] infinite or near infinite. So let's say
[37:41] the hook is listen one person had a hard
[37:44] past based on um an abusive household.
[37:48] The other person is really gentle. They
[37:50] had a great past and and the person
[37:52] feels very safe in that. Right? We
[37:54] always think about the trauma bond,
[37:55] right? Which is an unfortunate thing
[37:57] that does seem to happen. But it could
[37:59] also be both people had difficult pasts.
[38:02] you know, parents with addiction issues
[38:03] or mental health issues and they can
[38:04] relate. Okay, that's one example. The
[38:06] other is uh we both value X, we both
[38:09] value Y. And so the the unique glue,
[38:12] >> yeah,
[38:13] >> is near infinite, right? So the question
[38:15] I have and this isn't a challenge, it's
[38:17] just a genuine um curiosity is how do
[38:20] you study this process then? Because
[38:22] what are the universals of what is it
[38:25] what people define as some kind of um
[38:29] like lock and key that they didn't know
[38:30] they were looking for that that lock and
[38:32] key combination and then they go oh this
[38:34] feels unique and the reason I asked this
[38:36] is because I want to frame the the
[38:38] science but also I want to know to what
[38:41] extent being aware of what's critical to
[38:44] oneself is important in this process.
[38:46] >> Does that make sense? There's a lot of
[38:48] words there, but basically like how well
[38:50] one knows themselves can often help lead
[38:52] to better choices in in partner choice.
[38:54] >> And so people go know like gosh, I I
[38:56] really really would like someone that I
[38:58] could feel understood around this or
[39:00] feel really safe around this or make
[39:02] them feel really safe around that. With
[39:03] any relationship, it's almost like you
[39:05] have to hold these two seemingly
[39:07] contradictory truths at the same time.
[39:09] One is that
[39:10] >> no two people in the history of the
[39:12] world have experienced what we're
[39:14] experiencing right now. And yet there
[39:18] are broad general principles that we can
[39:21] point to that can explain some of the
[39:25] dynamics of every romantic relationship
[39:27] that has ever existed. So when it comes
[39:31] to broad principles, I love the
[39:34] attachment framework. I mean, what's
[39:36] fascinating about attachment is that
[39:38] this is just as evolutionary as all the
[39:40] other evolutionary theories you've heard
[39:42] about online. It's just a different
[39:44] evolutionary theory. But this
[39:46] perspective suggests that we are
[39:49] creatures that form bonds with each
[39:52] other. We essentially crave closeness,
[39:56] intimacy, support. We thrive when we get
[39:59] it. We're more likely to recover. We
[40:02] sleep better. We get all of these
[40:04] benefits from close attached
[40:06] relationships.
[40:08] But for some people or at some points in
[40:11] their lives, we can struggle to have
[40:16] those kinds of relationships sometimes
[40:19] because we become too anxious about
[40:21] them. We need them a little too much. We
[40:24] become uncomfortable in our own skin or
[40:27] we tip the other way. We become very
[40:30] avoidant. We become overly independent.
[40:33] We become convinced that we really don't
[40:35] need anybody else.
[40:37] These are broad attachment dynamics that
[40:40] people will go through their whole lives
[40:42] having to navigate. A lot of people have
[40:44] probably heard about like the you can
[40:46] have an anxious attachment style or an
[40:48] avoidant attachment style and all of
[40:50] that is true. But one thing we know
[40:52] today from studying more couples and
[40:55] getting better at studying couples over
[40:58] longer periods of time is you realize
[41:01] that boy people's attachment
[41:03] orientations really can change. So
[41:06] somebody can come into a relationship
[41:09] with an avoidant trauma-filled past, but
[41:13] with enough time with the right kind of
[41:15] person, again sharing their unique bond,
[41:18] which maybe science will never crack,
[41:20] but they know all about it.
[41:23] That person will start to become less
[41:25] and less avoidant with time. They'll
[41:28] become more secure. They'll get more of
[41:30] those physiological benefits out of the
[41:32] relationship. they'll get more of the
[41:34] support related benefits out of the
[41:36] relationship and that can in effect turn
[41:40] somebody into a more secure person. So
[41:43] the these are the attachment lessons
[41:45] that I often point to and I think
[41:48] they're they're useful for at least
[41:49] helping me remember that tension between
[41:51] like yeah anxiety and avoidance. Two
[41:55] very broad processes that are always
[41:58] happening behind the scenes and yet the
[42:01] way it unfolds for any one particular
[42:03] couple. It's always going to be this
[42:04] weird unique combination of stories and
[42:07] in jokes and little moments that
[42:10] scaffold up to hopefully, you know, help
[42:13] somebody become more secure eventually.
[42:16] I'd like to take a quick break and
[42:18] acknowledge our sponsor, AG1. AG1 is a
[42:21] vitamin mineral probiotic drink that
[42:23] also includes prebiotics and adaptogens.
[42:26] I discovered AG1 way back in 2012, long
[42:29] before I ever had a podcast, and I've
[42:31] been taking it every day since. The
[42:33] reason I started taking AG1 and the
[42:35] reason I still take it every day is
[42:37] because AG1 is, to my knowledge, the
[42:39] highest quality and most comprehensive
[42:40] of the foundational nutritional
[42:42] supplements on the market. AG1 is
[42:44] designed to support things like gut
[42:45] health, immune health, and overall
[42:47] energy. And it does so by helping to
[42:49] fill any gaps that you might have in
[42:51] your daily nutrition. I get asked pretty
[42:53] much all the time, "If I could only take
[42:55] one supplement, what should that
[42:56] supplement be?" And my answer is always
[42:58] AG1. It has just been so helpful for
[43:01] supporting all aspects of physical
[43:03] health, mental health, and performance.
[43:05] If you would like to try AG1, you can go
[43:07] to drink AG1.com/huberman
[43:10] to get a special offer. For a limited
[43:12] time, AG1 is giving away a free bottle
[43:14] of their new Omega-3 co-enzyme Q10
[43:16] product. Omega-3 and co-enzyme Q10 are
[43:19] known to support cardiovascular health,
[43:21] cellular health, and energy, generally,
[43:23] brain health, and much more. I
[43:25] personally take them both every day.
[43:27] Again, go to drinkaga1.com/huberman
[43:30] to get a free bottle of the new Omega-3
[43:32] co-enzyme Q10 with your first AG1
[43:34] subscription.
[43:36] Seems to me that barring um again like
[43:39] an emotional or physical safety issue,
[43:41] >> the less that couples are talking to
[43:43] other people besides a trained
[43:45] >> therapist, if they choose to do that,
[43:47] maybe not even doing that about their
[43:50] relationship, probably the more
[43:52] protected their relationship is. So
[43:54] that's interesting.
[43:56] >> The the darts of uh envious people.
[43:59] >> Um
[44:00] >> the unhelpful positive comments from
[44:03] people, right? Because there could be
[44:04] instances where a relationship is really
[44:06] flagging and and
[44:08] >> someone doesn't disclose that and they
[44:10] they don't really understand what's
[44:12] going on and were they not to share that
[44:14] then, you know, everyone's getting all
[44:15] this positive input and they think,
[44:16] well, I think this is just how it's
[44:18] supposed to go.
[44:19] >> So there's the suffering and silence
[44:20] piece. Y
[44:22] >> we want to I I don't think that's good.
[44:24] But there's the kind of um going out for
[44:29] external assessment piece. And as I say
[44:32] this, I you know it's it's funny because
[44:34] we the year at UC Davis and I did my PhD
[44:36] there. I was just remembering like when
[44:38] you pick projects in graduate school,
[44:41] you get some consensus about what's a
[44:42] good project. But so much of becoming a
[44:44] good scientist is kind of learning to
[44:46] put up the middle finger and just keep
[44:48] going as the the sort of pressure test
[44:51] of doing science is people going, "Well,
[44:53] that's is that really that interesting?"
[44:54] And you don't really know how much to
[44:56] pay attention to it. And it kind of pays
[44:58] to be a little bit bulldogish and just
[45:01] go, "Yeah, I don't know like and just
[45:04] ignore it and just keep going." I can
[45:05] say this is also true in any kind of
[45:07] creative endeavor or public facing life.
[45:08] Like it doesn't make good adaptive sense
[45:11] to pay too much attention but nobody
[45:14] wants to be the person that like steps
[45:15] in it or does something really stupid.
[45:17] But in relationships when if something
[45:20] feels good
[45:21] >> maybe
[45:22] >> we shouldn't be going out and getting
[45:24] you know putting our finger in the wind
[45:25] to get input. So it's fascinating
[45:28] because I mentioned earlier that right
[45:30] the the extent to which you feel at
[45:33] least like the people around you have
[45:36] your relationships back that's a useful
[45:40] thing but I think that probably isn't
[45:43] happening through a process of
[45:47] yeah like pseudotherapy I want to talk
[45:49] to my friends about my relationship or
[45:52] at least to the extent that that is
[45:53] happening I bet you're right that has
[45:56] some real risks. I think probably the
[45:59] good version of this process or the one
[46:00] that I would advocate for comes from
[46:03] research looking at like couple friends
[46:06] or like double date nights. So, I'm not
[46:10] asking you for input on my relationship,
[46:13] but in effect, I'm asking you and maybe
[46:16] your partner to experience our
[46:19] relationship in real time by hanging out
[46:21] together, the four of us. And so that
[46:25] can often feel like validation without
[46:29] explicitly asking for it. And I think
[46:32] that can often be a very good thing. And
[46:34] there's research showing that, you know,
[46:36] generally couples who feel like they
[46:37] have couple friends and are embedded in
[46:39] networks like that that that generally
[46:42] tends to go well on average. Um so yeah,
[46:46] I would think about it that way. It's
[46:47] like you can feel that you have the
[46:49] support of the people around you without
[46:51] directly asking
[46:53] for their assessment of your
[46:55] relationship because the reality is
[46:56] other people don't know. And this is
[46:59] hard as a judge because when I encounter
[47:03] couples and I have friends who are in
[47:05] relationships, it is so tempting to look
[47:07] at that relationship and think like,
[47:09] well, man, like she shouldn't have done
[47:11] that or I don't know if if I were her, I
[47:14] wouldn't stand for this. But I'm not in
[47:16] that relationship. So unless you are a
[47:19] therapist and they're coming to you for
[47:21] therapy, I find it useful to try to
[47:24] resist that impulse because a
[47:27] relationship is this vast deep store of
[47:31] information that two people have and
[47:33] often we're not privy to what's really
[47:36] going on there.
[47:37] >> I'm going back to junior high school
[47:38] again and I can remember at this one
[47:40] game I hope this isn't dramatic.
[47:41] >> No, no, it's not. Not at all. But we had
[47:43] this uh all girls school in our in our
[47:45] town, Castilea School, which was a
[47:47] boarding school. And so their dances
[47:49] were the best because they'd invite
[47:51] people from other schools, but all the
[47:54] >> guys were really excited to go, right?
[47:56] Cuz the numbers were really like worked
[47:57] out really well in our favorite women
[48:00] and and and boys and girls in our
[48:02] school, right? Would go to these dances.
[48:04] But that means you just have like an
[48:06] outsized pool of so everyone got someone
[48:08] to dance with at some point. This is
[48:09] what mattered in the seventh grade,
[48:11] right? But there were these people I had
[48:14] to say there were these individuals who
[48:16] were not going through the admittedly
[48:20] like tense challenge of
[48:22] >> first dance, first slow dance. This was
[48:24] before phones and it was tense then too.
[48:27] >> And they weren't doing any of that. What
[48:28] were they doing? They were running
[48:30] around telling people about who was
[48:32] doing what and who was doing that. And I
[48:34] remember thinking at the time, I mean,
[48:35] I'm no psychologist then or now, but
[48:37] thinking like they're avoiding the whole
[48:39] thing. Yeah, this is like going to a
[48:40] soccer game and instead of playing
[48:41] soccer, they're like critiquing people
[48:43] from the sidelines cuz it's a lot easier
[48:45] to do that than to actually get out
[48:46] there and risk and risk miss, you know,
[48:49] like being the goalie that lets the the
[48:50] winning shot through. And I remember
[48:52] thinking like these people are really uh
[48:54] really corrosive.
[48:56] >> Um, one or two in particular, I don't
[48:58] know what ever became of them.
[48:59] Hopefully, they're doing well in their
[49:00] lives. They got over this. But
[49:02] >> those people exist throughout life.
[49:04] >> Yeah.
[49:04] >> Meaning they're rarely the people that
[49:06] are happy in their own relationship
[49:08] life. Now, I have to say it's probably a
[49:09] Y chromosome link disorder, but I assume
[49:12] that my friends who are in male friends
[49:14] who are in relationship.
[49:16] If they're still in the relationship
[49:18] that it's going great.
[49:19] >> That's funny.
[49:19] >> There's not a lot of feedback. Like
[49:21] there's not a whole lot of feedback
[49:22] exchange. That said, if something were
[49:24] really like really off, I assume that
[49:27] they would bring it up, but probably not
[49:29] to me. like there's I do think that
[49:31] there's probably a sex difference here
[49:33] and these things are changing now, but I
[49:35] think that there's not a lot of sitting
[49:36] around talking about how well or poorly
[49:39] the relationship is going. And so like,
[49:41] you know, you ask about somebody's
[49:42] spouse like, "How are they doing?" And
[49:43] they go, "Yeah, great." Like we did this
[49:44] this weekend. There's not a whole lot
[49:46] of, "Yeah, we we had this one moment of
[49:47] exchange that was kind of sticky. Can I
[49:49] get your input on it?" Like that's not
[49:50] happening. That's just not happening. At
[49:52] least not in my life. I'm glad you
[49:54] brought up these gender differences
[49:55] because I think you're hitting on one
[49:57] that at least again as a relationships
[49:59] researcher I would sit here and say I
[50:01] think this is the big one. And the big
[50:04] one is that women generally are better
[50:08] at cultivating social support from all
[50:11] corners of their lives, not just their
[50:14] romantic partner. Whereas for men, it's
[50:18] largely their romantic partner. That's
[50:20] where they're getting most of their
[50:23] support, intimacy needs met. Probably
[50:25] the person who at least for a while is
[50:28] mostly in their corner. And this is why
[50:31] you see across the full range of the arc
[50:35] of a relationship that men are always a
[50:37] little bit more eager than women.
[50:39] >> Eager in what sense?
[50:40] >> Eager in in all the ways. I want to be
[50:43] in this relationship in the first place.
[50:45] I'm more likely to say I love you first.
[50:46] I'm more I'm more likely to want to be
[50:48] exclusive. I'm more likely to want to
[50:50] take things to the next level.
[50:51] >> Men are more willing to do that.
[50:52] >> Men's counter current to all this stuff
[50:54] about men being non-committal.
[50:56] >> Yeah. Right. So like I don't uh I don't
[51:00] this is what there's like new review
[51:02] papers on this that are really
[51:04] compelling and it's like kind of the
[51:06] same effect size across the board which
[51:08] is how we talk about you know how big is
[51:10] the sex difference? You know, it's it's
[51:13] mediumsiz, but it's just right there all
[51:16] the way through through breaking up. Who
[51:18] who wants who's more likely to want to
[51:20] break up? It's women who are more likely
[51:22] to want to break up. Men are more likely
[51:23] to be thinking about their exes.
[51:25] >> And the the not while they're in a
[51:28] relationship.
[51:28] >> Right. Right. Right. Not while they're
[51:29] in a relationship. Right. Now it's over.
[51:31] >> That's the meme. You know, I went
[51:32] online. The meme is like, who's he
[51:35] thinking about? Who's Okay. Yeah.
[51:36] Exactly. The reason put forward for
[51:38] this, and I find it very compelling, is
[51:40] that
[51:42] That's because men just don't quite have
[51:45] their social lives put together in the
[51:48] same way that women do. Meaning they
[51:49] don't have a lot of male friends or
[51:52] here. By the way, I want to put up a
[51:53] disclaimer at the beginning. I should
[51:55] have said this to make the conversation
[51:57] more fluid. We're framing everything in
[51:59] the context of heterosexual pairings,
[52:01] but I I think it's fair to assume that
[52:04] this would also extend to homosexual
[52:06] pairings.
[52:06] >> I think it would
[52:07] >> in in many ways. But
[52:09] >> men have friends. Yeah,
[52:11] >> I realize activity based friendships
[52:14] are, you know, kind of the the dominant
[52:16] theme.
[52:17] >> Men not getting having connection in
[52:21] other things.
[52:22] >> You know, is it could it be that the
[52:25] like the connection that I feel to my
[52:26] male friends and co-workers is is very
[52:28] deep.
[52:29] >> They're important to me. They're like
[52:30] family to me by now. We spend so much
[52:31] time together.
[52:32] >> So, it feels connected.
[52:34] >> It's just but it's a very different kind
[52:36] of um I don't ever think of the word
[52:39] intimacy. I think of trust.
[52:41] >> Yeah.
[52:41] >> And I'm not trying to just, you know,
[52:42] like be, you know, put up a wall to my
[52:44] whatever feminine traits I happen to
[52:46] harbor, you know, like I I I'm I'm cool
[52:48] with that. I'm good with the idea that I
[52:52] have emotions and that I have needs and
[52:53] stuff, but I but I think it it just
[52:55] makes good intuitive sense to me that if
[52:58] I have something that I'm really that I
[53:00] want input on that's of a more like has
[53:03] a more of an emotional undercurrent that
[53:06] I would bring that to my romantic
[53:08] partner. So, here's the question I would
[53:11] pose and I would be clear. I'm not a
[53:12] therapist. I'm a scientist. But I would
[53:14] I would ask you this.
[53:17] If something went wrong, do you feel
[53:20] like you have a sense that there are
[53:22] other people in your life and not your
[53:25] partner but other people that you could
[53:27] go to if you needed to?
[53:29] >> Definitely.
[53:30] >> See, that is the essence of social
[53:33] support. It's actually not literally do
[53:36] you take people up on it. It's do you
[53:38] kind of have a vague sense that people
[53:40] are around and that's the part that
[53:42] matters. That's the part that gives us
[53:45] the health and well-being benefits. It's
[53:47] like a bank account you never have to
[53:49] dip into. It just gives you the sense to
[53:52] dip into it.
[53:52] >> Yeah. Right. Right. There you go.
[53:54] >> Luckily, it's a vast account. I try not
[53:56] to make too many withdrawals on it.
[53:58] >> Yeah.
[53:58] >> So, just the feeling that it's there is
[54:02] really the core component. And I think
[54:03] there are a lot of men, not you and not
[54:06] me, but a lot of men out there that
[54:08] don't feel like they have that social
[54:11] support bank account,
[54:12] >> like a close male friend or female
[54:15] friend or female friendly platonic or
[54:17] family for that matter. I mean, you
[54:19] know, who's who's more likely to like
[54:21] lose touch with siblings? I I I'm
[54:24] willing to bet that that's more likely
[54:25] to be men, too. So, I think this is part
[54:29] of like the modern challenge of
[54:32] masculinity that that that worries me
[54:35] that I point to like I want to help men
[54:37] at least have that sense. I think they
[54:40] can cultivate it through all the
[54:42] activity- based things that you describe
[54:44] and like I did that myself throughout my
[54:47] 20s and 30s. Like I could not count the
[54:49] number of kickball and softball teams
[54:51] that I participated in. And I did that
[54:55] not because I wanted support. I don't
[54:59] think I ever got emotional and cried in
[55:01] front of any of those guys, but I knew
[55:02] they were there and that if I ever had
[55:05] to go to that, I I could. You I'm
[55:08] talking about memes and internet themes
[55:09] and I have to be careful doing that
[55:11] because I don't want to put too much
[55:12] weight on the uh the direction of those
[55:15] things and what they really mean. And
[55:16] the science is what I'm interested in.
[55:18] But, you know, I think um most guys
[55:21] would probably say that that scene in
[55:23] that movie, The Town, where uh Ben
[55:25] Affleck walks in and says, you know,
[55:27] listen,
[55:29] yep, we got to do something. People are
[55:30] going to get hurt. We got to do this.
[55:32] And you know, like, and you can't talk
[55:33] to anybody. And his friend's only
[55:34] response is who's driving.
[55:36] >> Yeah.
[55:37] >> Is is kind of like the essence of what a
[55:39] lot of men want and kind of idealize
[55:41] male friendship as. Like, are we got to
[55:43] go bury a body or create one? And
[55:46] there's it's just that it's the loyalty.
[55:47] It's the trust. A lot's encapsulated in
[55:49] that. It's a bad quote unquote badass
[55:51] scene, right? But they're about to do
[55:53] something real bad. I recommend that,
[55:55] right? That's not the friend test you
[55:56] want. I know people have used that as
[55:58] the friend test and they paid dearly for
[56:00] it. Right. But the point is that friends
[56:02] who aren't going to ask too many
[56:03] questions that they can hold in the
[56:06] center of their um mind without any long
[56:11] preamble that your friend needs
[56:14] something and you'll do whatever it is
[56:17] that they need because you love them.
[56:19] >> I think that that's what's the deeper
[56:21] layer of it.
[56:23] I'm realizing there I have this like
[56:26] sense that there's a a big contradiction
[56:29] not in the scientific literature but in
[56:31] the public perception
[56:32] >> which is this I feel like one common
[56:35] narrative these days is
[56:38] >> look men failed they just failed like
[56:42] they didn't step up right they weren't
[56:44] committal you know we have to take care
[56:46] of them they live much longer in a
[56:48] relationship we die much earlier
[56:51] >> that's one narrative that you hear a lot
[56:53] about. It's a scary narrative, right?
[56:56] >> Because you also hear the narrative,
[56:58] yeah, like women are just uh very
[57:00] extractive. They'll trade up. You know
[57:02] how unfortunately your friend dated your
[57:05] uh then they you they broke up. She
[57:07] broke up with you first.
[57:08] >> Right. Right. But, you know, a lot of
[57:10] the things that come into play like the
[57:11] Coldplay concert affair that got went
[57:13] viral was about this woman and you know,
[57:15] and a lot of it was pointed at her, him
[57:17] too, but you know, it was like
[57:19] >> a lot was made of this thing that does
[57:22] happen.
[57:22] >> Yeah.
[57:23] >> That there's this notion like, well, who
[57:25] would actually pair up with their, you
[57:28] know, their female friend? A woman
[57:30] pairing up with a female friend's
[57:31] husband or brother. There's a lot of
[57:32] that. And you never know how much of
[57:33] this is being these narratives are being
[57:35] fed. So, I feel like now we're at this
[57:37] point that seems to be resolving a
[57:40] little bit, but we've been at this point
[57:41] where there are these two camps and I
[57:44] saw something on um Twitter X some time
[57:46] ago and it just like stopped me in my
[57:48] tracks which said the way you destroy a
[57:49] society is to get the men and the women
[57:51] to hate each other and maybe I would
[57:53] just underwrite distrust each other.
[57:55] >> Yeah.
[57:56] >> Right. And so
[57:57] >> we need to move through this. I'm not
[57:59] actually asking you to solve it but what
[58:01] do the data say? For instance, if we
[58:04] were to look at dating apps and I ask,
[58:07] do you think that the dynamics on dating
[58:09] apps, the algorithms, which are clearly
[58:11] designed to make the company's money?
[58:13] >> Yeah.
[58:13] >> Do you think those are more femaledriven
[58:16] algorithms or maledriven algorithms? Not
[58:19] meaning who runs the companies. We know
[58:21] the answer to that
[58:22] >> for the most part. The question is, do
[58:25] you think that the apps are trying to
[58:27] optimize for more women to come to them
[58:31] or for more men to come to them and stay
[58:33] there? Because the theory is always kind
[58:36] of launch in the opposite direction. And
[58:38] if that wasn't clear, um I'm just
[58:40] wondering who's who's got the power. My
[58:43] understanding now again, the dating apps
[58:45] are hard to decipher because like these
[58:48] companies don't share data with us. I've
[58:50] worked with some matchmaking companies
[58:52] data. They're more interested in
[58:54] generally in collaborating with
[58:56] scientists because they've they got to
[58:58] make people on dates happy. They don't
[59:00] work on engagement, they work on happy
[59:02] dates right?
[59:03] >> So, they're more interested in talking
[59:04] to scientists.
[59:05] >> But I think when your goal is getting
[59:07] users and getting engagement,
[59:09] >> what you're probably trying to do is
[59:11] bring more women in because my
[59:14] understanding is that there's more men
[59:15] on the apps. Yeah, I think so. I what I
[59:19] don't know and I don't know if anybody
[59:21] knows other than the people at these
[59:22] companies is like okay but how many of
[59:24] those apps are in use and how many
[59:26] people you know regular users I'm not
[59:28] sure. So you got to bring more women in
[59:32] but again engagement is the goal right I
[59:36] mean that's what the apps want you
[59:38] spending time on it and then they want
[59:40] you to get the fancier features. So is
[59:42] that going to be more geared toward men?
[59:45] It it might be, but I'm kind of
[59:48] speculating here. I expect that when
[59:50] you're trying to create an app for
[59:53] heterosexual men and women, you're going
[59:56] to have to somehow marry those two
[59:58] challenges. And look, one of the bigger
[60:01] gender differences that we see in the
[60:04] whole realm of sex and relationships is
[60:07] in swiping behavior. the fact that women
[60:10] will swipe yes on like 5% of the men
[60:12] they see, but men swipe yes at about
[60:15] 50/50. But that fits the kind of
[60:18] evolutionary quote unquote narrative
[60:20] like men being less selective, wanting
[60:22] to spread their
[60:23] >> their DNA, this kind of thing. I mean,
[60:26] >> to my mind, that whole thing around like
[60:28] men want to spread their DNA. Okay. Like
[60:31] I believe in in evolutionary biology,
[60:33] sure, but there's a lot of modern
[60:38] features that make like accountability
[60:40] for offspring and things like it's not
[60:41] like men can run around just having kids
[60:42] with anyone and and afford all of that,
[60:44] right? It's I mean, you know, we were
[60:46] talking earlier the sort of like two
[60:47] models. There's like the there's like
[60:49] the Genghask Khan ideal within this
[60:52] evolutionary
[60:53] >> biology model and then there's, you
[60:56] know, kind of like where are we now? I
[60:58] mean, I don't think anyone
[61:00] with the exception of some very wealthy
[61:01] people who who have kids with lots and
[61:03] lots of people and clearly can afford
[61:04] it,
[61:04] >> I don't think anyone's thinking they're
[61:06] going to go out and just have kids with
[61:07] as many people as they possibly can,
[61:09] >> right?
[61:10] >> And so what what's so interesting about
[61:12] these gendered dynamics is that from my
[61:16] perspective, they tend to get the
[61:18] largest the biggest gulf between men and
[61:21] women in the situations that are the
[61:23] weirdest. So, for example, we this is
[61:26] and this is a real study. You recruit
[61:29] confederates. So, that means it's
[61:30] somebody who's working for the
[61:32] experimentter. And then uh they go
[61:34] around campus and they ask people, "I've
[61:36] noticed you around and I find you very
[61:37] attractive. Would you like to go to bed
[61:39] with me?" And when you do this, you find
[61:43] that men are about 20 times more likely
[61:46] to say yes to that request than women.
[61:49] Very few women say yes to this request,
[61:52] but a reasonable number of men do. All
[61:55] right. But the thing about that
[61:57] experiment, and that experiment is very
[61:59] valuable, and it's very influential, and
[62:00] I love at least that it was real, that
[62:03] people were actually out in the world
[62:05] doing something, even if it's a little
[62:08] wild and uh probably a little scary,
[62:10] especially for the women. But if you do
[62:13] this one little tweak and you say,
[62:15] "Yeah, okay, but how about like the last
[62:18] time that happened to you in real life,
[62:20] like in a context where you knew people
[62:22] and then you look at the gender
[62:23] difference, it's not 20 times more, it's
[62:25] two times more."
[62:27] >> What do you mean?
[62:27] >> It's like the last time somebody you
[62:29] know, like among a group of friends like
[62:32] ask like, "Hey, do you want to go hook
[62:33] up?" How much more likely then are men
[62:37] to say yes than women? And men are still
[62:41] more likely, but they're only twice as
[62:43] likely rather than 20 times as likely.
[62:45] >> So, this is not my belief, but the
[62:47] cynical um incel types on the internet
[62:51] or the just cynical guys will say will
[62:54] say, "Oh, that's because women are
[62:55] sleeping around more than they used to
[62:57] when the first experiment was done." I
[62:59] don't believe that's true. But I can
[63:01] tell you that would be their reflexive
[63:03] response. Like like there's so there's
[63:05] this ammo there these arrows that each
[63:07] side holds. one side holds the
[63:09] >> guys aren't stepping up. They're not
[63:11] they're not managing their own lives,
[63:13] let alone making themselves somebody who
[63:15] would be attractive as a a partner who
[63:17] could listen and do and take help take
[63:18] care of somebody because the notion of
[63:20] taking care is something we can talk
[63:21] about. the guys are saying, "Well,
[63:24] they're just all extractive, you know,
[63:26] that and there's deceptiveness there,
[63:27] and they'll trade up in a at a moment's
[63:29] notice, you know, and and so
[63:31] >> I mean, I don't want to feed the flames
[63:34] of distrust, but the data you just
[63:37] provided, what do they what is the
[63:39] conclusion? Like, so that's the result,
[63:41] but but in that paper, what's the the
[63:44] authors, you know, we the authors
[63:46] therefore conclude that?" So I would I
[63:48] would conclude this
[63:50] >> that approaching strangers
[63:53] is especially in a romantic or sexual
[63:56] context is very very tricky, very
[64:00] challenging and it is a weird modern
[64:02] skill because we actually evolved in
[64:06] environments where you didn't actually
[64:07] meet that many strangers. So if some
[64:10] people are adept at that, God bless. But
[64:13] for most of us, we had to get to know
[64:16] people over time. We needed that long
[64:19] process to make a good impression on
[64:21] somebody because most of us are like not
[64:24] all that hot and not so appealing that
[64:27] people fall for us the moment we see
[64:28] them. And so that is what I would tell
[64:30] these hypothetical incels is I think
[64:33] part of the problem is that you're
[64:35] locked into a way of thinking about sex
[64:38] and romance that it's about a pickup
[64:40] line or it's about an initial
[64:41] impression. I think women are more
[64:44] interested in casual sex when it's
[64:46] somebody that they like kind of know and
[64:48] have been friendly with for a while and
[64:51] have had like some good banter with. And
[64:53] if you surround yourself with people,
[64:56] not just women, but also men, and you
[64:59] meet friends of friends, you're going to
[65:01] find more opportunities that way. So,
[65:04] it's like a shift in the mindset that we
[65:06] have about how it is we meet people and
[65:09] how it is we get to know them. and that
[65:11] hitting on strangers is like low yield,
[65:15] very difficult. Spending time with
[65:17] friends, it's time consuming, although
[65:19] it's enjoyable in and of itself. It's a
[65:22] timeconsuming approach, but it's
[65:24] ultimately going to be better for more
[65:27] people. Uh, you know, on on average, at
[65:30] least in light of the apps, social
[65:33] media, this divide, I I'm very grateful
[65:36] that you're bringing up this notion of
[65:38] spending time in small groups. Yeah,
[65:40] probably around certain activities.
[65:42] Could be pickle ball, could be a
[65:43] barbecue, could be I mean that's how
[65:45] people used to meet. You know, sometimes
[65:48] there's work adjacency. I mean, I think
[65:50] that one of the reasons the coal play
[65:51] thing went so viral is that the woman
[65:53] was head of HR. So there were a number
[65:55] of things that were ethical violations
[65:56] independent of like they tried to kind
[65:58] of rescue it like but they were in love
[66:00] and there were marriages were failing
[66:01] and people were like there are
[66:03] violations down the line on this right
[66:05] you know in laboratories
[66:07] >> many people cuddled up in laboratories
[66:09] you know my adviserss were always like
[66:11] really adamant that no one should do
[66:12] that I listen interesting oh yeah
[66:14] >> so they try to lock it down I mean in
[66:16] graduate school I I worked alone in the
[66:18] lab but my graduate adviser actually uh
[66:20] suggested I not even date within our
[66:22] graduate program this is peerto-peer I
[66:23] was a graduate student and for the most
[66:25] part I I obeyed but I was so focused on
[66:28] work and and I guess it happened with
[66:30] like you'd go to meetings you meet other
[66:32] graduate students so it was really
[66:33] peerto-peer
[66:34] >> in my post-doal laboratory my adviser
[66:37] was like vocal to everyone like no
[66:39] dating in the lab and of course there
[66:40] are certain married couples nowadays
[66:42] with kids
[66:43] >> several of them in fact that met in the
[66:44] lab just by proximity interest and who
[66:46] knows aloequading prowess who knows
[66:48] >> somebody out there an incredible aloquat
[66:51] that never got to attract somebody to my
[66:54] knowledge this by the way folks again
[66:56] this is not a way to attract a mate
[66:58] unless you're a molecular biologist
[66:59] perhaps but I think that there's real
[67:03] value in this in this because unlike our
[67:05] earlier discussion where other people's
[67:07] input
[67:08] >> um be can be kind of toxic to the
[67:11] process of understanding and really
[67:12] getting in touch with one's sense of
[67:14] taste I like this person I don't this
[67:15] feels safe it doesn't feel safe and I'm
[67:17] not using by the way the safe language
[67:18] to be politically correct like some
[67:20] people feel emotionally unsafe because
[67:22] it's just like like if there were a
[67:24] stressful circumstance, they would
[67:25] dissolve into a puddle of their own
[67:27] tears. That's a different version of it,
[67:28] right? I think we all kind of like flit
[67:30] to the the extremes. But that's that's
[67:32] another aspect.
[67:33] >> But this is a context in which you can
[67:35] get a read of how someone behaves, their
[67:38] values, their reflexive levels of
[67:41] kindness or lack thereof with other
[67:43] people.
[67:44] >> Yeah.
[67:44] >> You get a lot of data.
[67:46] >> Yeah.
[67:47] >> In a in a setting that
[67:49] >> you're hopefully enjoying yourself in
[67:51] any way. That seems very very valuable.
[67:54] >> So we're talking 80s movies and 90s
[67:56] movies already. So I'm gonna throw out
[67:58] Say Anything.
[67:59] >> Oh yeah.
[67:59] >> Do you remember Say Anything?
[68:00] Absolutely. So the John Cusack lead
[68:03] character um asks out the Ioni Sky
[68:06] character, but where they go on their
[68:09] first date is absolutely fascinating.
[68:11] They go to a party. So, they are clearly
[68:15] going together, but they don't spend the
[68:18] whole party like attached to each other
[68:20] and they're not interviewing each other
[68:22] like they met on an app. They're
[68:24] actually kind of watching each other as
[68:26] they float through these various groups.
[68:29] And sometimes they're talking to other
[68:31] folks about the fact that they're kind
[68:32] of on a date right now and how is it's
[68:34] going, but they're also talking to each
[68:37] other. And it's kind of a beautiful
[68:39] depiction of this old kind of lost art
[68:43] of you're dating, but you're also with
[68:46] other people seeing how uh they behave.
[68:49] And and one of the moments where I sky
[68:53] sort of you can see are starting to fall
[68:55] for John Cusack is when he's actually
[68:58] looking out for some of the other folks
[69:00] there like you know taking their keys
[69:01] away so they don't drive. And I I think
[69:05] that that idea of like watching how we
[69:07] behave around other people can be very
[69:09] powerful.
[69:10] >> So one of his unique qualities was that
[69:12] he's protective of other people and
[69:14] responsible and he put other people's
[69:15] safety ahead of his own desire to go out
[69:17] and drink that night or something.
[69:18] >> Yeah.
[69:18] >> Yeah. I forgot that scene.
[69:20] >> I'm I I That's a perfect segue to what I
[69:22] was going to say next, but I'm brought
[69:24] to this mildly traumatic experience in
[69:26] high school where I didn't go any go to
[69:28] any high school dances early in high
[69:30] school. I was like really in the
[69:31] skateboard community, just really
[69:32] focused on that. And then uh it was my
[69:35] junior year of high school.
[69:36] >> Um the now woman, then young woman,
[69:41] girl, whatever, uh asked me that. It was
[69:43] the Satie Hawkins dance where the the
[69:45] girls asked the boys. This was very
[69:48] oldfashioned, right? Like I've heard
[69:49] this. It already assumes, right, that
[69:51] the guy that the guys always ask the
[69:53] girls, which was pretty much the
[69:54] standard.
[69:55] >> We go and um she was a year older and
[69:58] extremely beautiful, super kind. It
[70:00] ended up being a very long-term
[70:01] relationship. But I remember going and
[70:03] she had something back then where her
[70:05] hands would get really cold.
[70:07] >> She had this thing where it was a cold
[70:08] night. And so she went into the
[70:10] bathroom. She said, "I'd have to like
[70:10] warm my hands." She was in there a
[70:12] really long time. And I'm standing out
[70:14] there and people are coming up to me and
[70:17] they're like, "What are you doing here?"
[70:19] Like, "Why are you at a dance?" And I
[70:20] said, "So and so invited me." And no one
[70:23] believed me. They was like, "There's no
[70:24] chance." And I have to say, it was the
[70:26] most mortifying thing. And I kept
[70:28] waiting for this moment where she would
[70:29] come out of the bathroom and like
[70:30] vindicate me. And they all kept like
[70:32] dissipating before she came back. She
[70:33] eventually came back. And I just
[70:35] remember thinking like, oh man, like
[70:36] nobody even and I thinking like I'm
[70:38] either completely outclassed, like
[70:41] completely outclassed or like this is
[70:44] one of the best opportunities that ever
[70:45] landed uh in my lap and I'm going to I'm
[70:47] going to pursue this with everything
[70:48] I've got. So I went with the second
[70:49] thing and anyway, we uh
[70:51] >> this is John Cusack enter.
[70:52] >> It was it was brutal. Like I had to sit
[70:54] there and like you know and like no one
[70:56] believed me. They actually thought like
[70:57] I just like snuck in or something like
[70:59] that. Anyway,
[71:01] the John Cusack example is a really good
[71:03] one because his character in that movie
[71:05] is a little awkward along certain
[71:06] dimensions. He's certainly not as um
[71:09] quote unquote ambitious in the typical
[71:10] sense, although he wants to be a great
[71:11] kickboxer. Kickboxing sport of the
[71:13] future, right? It's a great scene
[71:15] between him and and her dad where he's
[71:17] explaining what he's going to do in life
[71:18] and and not in any kind of uh fluent way
[71:23] >> and her family clearly has other plans
[71:25] for her. But it gets to this thing that
[71:29] I had written down because I want to ask
[71:31] about next which is this notion of
[71:33] texting in particular. So not even apps
[71:36] but let's just say it's migrated off app
[71:38] or people meet they exchange number and
[71:39] there's some texting right and this
[71:42] notion of of the kind of unique um
[71:45] advantage at least early on
[71:48] >> that I think can be somewhat misleading
[71:51] of people who are hyperverbal. Oh,
[71:54] interesting.
[71:55] >> And in particular among men. And so
[71:56] here's what um I think years ago when I
[71:59] was on the job market for academic
[72:01] science, a really fantastic
[72:03] neurobiologist who actually read uh ran
[72:05] um let's just say a very famous school
[72:07] in Boston's brain science center. Um
[72:09] they never admit the name of their
[72:10] school anyway. um said to me, he said,
[72:13] "You know, the worst part about the job
[72:15] search process in uh neuroscience is
[72:19] that it selects for hyperverbal people
[72:21] where people can present their data,
[72:23] excite people about it, present their
[72:24] vision." And he said, "And there's so
[72:26] many amazing scientists that just don't
[72:28] know how to communicate their data
[72:30] >> and we're selecting for someone who can
[72:32] also teach, who can also do these
[72:34] things." And I realize he's absolutely
[72:36] right, you know, and some people can
[72:38] overcome this, but some of the best
[72:40] scientists in the world, speaking isn't
[72:42] their forte.
[72:43] >> Yeah.
[72:43] >> Okay. So, in the realm of text
[72:45] communication, there's a kind of a bias
[72:48] toward can somebody like a good listener
[72:51] in a face to face interaction like a guy
[72:53] can just sit there, listen,
[72:55] >> not interrupt, nod, maybe reflect,
[72:59] >> maybe reflect, tell me more. Well, that
[73:02] must have been interesting, hard,
[73:03] whatever, you know, and can convey a lot
[73:06] of of genuine ability to uh to
[73:10] communicate and bond
[73:12] >> over text, just listening
[73:16] >> doesn't work. In fact, if it's just
[73:17] like, wow, that must have been hard to
[73:19] like a paragraph this long, like it
[73:21] starts to fall flat. And this is where I
[73:23] think
[73:24] >> some people might be screaming, no, no,
[73:26] no, that's what I want. you know, but
[73:28] there's a strong selection process now
[73:31] for people who can communicate quickly
[73:33] with their thumbs, be witty in writing.
[73:36] >> And so the hyperverbal thing has moved
[73:38] to text.
[73:39] >> Yeah,
[73:40] >> that's a challenge. And I do think even
[73:42] though some men are very hyperverbal,
[73:45] there is a sex difference here that we
[73:47] are well aware of.
[73:48] >> So do you think that that's skewing
[73:51] things? because the ability to to kind
[73:53] of keep to get and keep somebody's
[73:54] interest early on is strongly dependent
[73:56] on these days on texting,
[73:57] >> right? I think this is a really good
[74:00] point. You know, I was reminded of some
[74:03] work, this is early work in the like
[74:07] online interaction space that suggested
[74:11] that actually anxious people get a lot
[74:14] out of being able to communicate with a
[74:17] keyboard or with texting because they
[74:19] don't get so overwhelmed. So, this is
[74:22] probably going to be somebody who also
[74:25] on a first date would be having a bit of
[74:27] a tough time. So, it might be that
[74:31] actually texting for them has at least
[74:34] the advantage of reducing some of the
[74:36] anxiety because they can take a minute
[74:37] to think about what they want to say
[74:40] before they have to actually come out
[74:41] with it. But I also think you're right
[74:44] that the ability to be witty over text
[74:49] um as opposed to the kind of like
[74:51] nonverbal listening that you're
[74:52] describing that is going to be a special
[74:55] advantage for some people today. So it c
[74:58] it could very well be skewing things in
[75:00] the way that you describe. There's not
[75:02] great data on this either. I mean I
[75:04] mentioned earlier we don't have great
[75:05] data on like the arc of the
[75:07] relationship.
[75:08] But some of the the people that have
[75:11] tackled this question uh this is great
[75:14] researcher named Mimi Binberg at at Ohio
[75:16] State. And what she does is she gets
[75:19] couples who are together and then says,
[75:22] "Uh, let me uh let me see your texts."
[75:26] And then gets the whole text thread go
[75:28] with their permission all the way back
[75:31] to when they first started texting. And
[75:33] what you see are some cool things like
[75:36] essentially their styles of
[75:37] communicating start to like cohhere,
[75:40] right? It's like a pattern of mutual
[75:42] influence where they they get the
[75:44] similar cadence and they start using
[75:46] similar words and other things as
[75:49] they're talking to each other. Now, of
[75:51] course, those are the successful cases.
[75:53] So, what would it look like if we had
[75:55] the unsuccessful cases? And I think
[75:57] you're right. We would see that the
[75:59] people who can't match or can't be witty
[76:03] early on that those are the the text
[76:06] threads that never become couples. Um,
[76:09] so we just have to figure out how to
[76:10] recruit those folks to to be in our
[76:13] studies. Give us the last 10 threads of
[76:15] of uh, you know, dates that never went
[76:17] anywhere.
[76:18] >> I'd like to take a quick break and
[76:20] acknowledge one of our sponsors,
[76:22] Element. Element is an electrolyte drink
[76:24] that has everything you need and nothing
[76:26] you don't. That means the electrolytes,
[76:28] sodium, magnesium, and potassium, all in
[76:30] the correct ratios, but no sugar. Proper
[76:33] hydration is critical for brain and body
[76:35] function. Even a slight degree of
[76:37] dehydration can diminish your cognitive
[76:39] and physical performance. It's also
[76:41] important that you get adequate
[76:42] electrolytes. The electrolytes, sodium,
[76:44] magnesium, and potassium are vital for
[76:46] the functioning of all cells in your
[76:48] body, especially your neurons or your
[76:50] nerve cells. Drinking element makes it
[76:52] very easy to ensure that you're getting
[76:54] adequate hydration and adequate
[76:56] electrolytes. My days tend to start
[76:58] really fast, meaning I have to jump
[77:00] right into work or right into exercise.
[77:02] So, to make sure that I'm hydrated and I
[77:04] have sufficient electrolytes, when I
[77:05] first wake up in the morning, I drink 16
[77:07] to 32 ounces of water with an element
[77:09] packet dissolved in it. I also drink
[77:11] Element dissolved in water during any
[77:13] kind of physical exercise that I'm
[77:14] doing, especially on hot days when I'm
[77:16] sweating a lot and losing water and
[77:18] electrolytes. Element has a bunch of
[77:20] great tasting flavors. In fact, I love
[77:22] them all. I love the watermelon, the
[77:23] raspberry, the citrus, and I really love
[77:25] the lemonade flavor. So, if you'd like
[77:27] to try Element, you can go to
[77:28] drinkelement.com/huberman
[77:31] to claim a free element sample pack with
[77:33] any purchase. Again, that's
[77:34] drinkelement.com/huberman
[77:37] to claim a free sample pack. Yeah, we're
[77:40] sort of veering towards compatibility
[77:42] when I say um you know, if I were to,
[77:44] you know, ask a close family member, you
[77:46] know, like what's great about the
[77:47] relationship you're in, uh this is a
[77:50] woman, and she'll be referring to her
[77:51] male partner in this case. She'll
[77:54] generally talk about the things that he
[77:57] does and the things that he is able to
[78:00] do in support that may or may not even
[78:02] require the ability to speak. Now, he's
[78:04] not aphasic, you know, um but you know,
[78:08] it's
[78:09] >> it's more about like
[78:11] >> what he does. And when we've had
[78:13] conversations on this podcast in the
[78:14] past about kind of relationship glue and
[78:16] things like that, it's like it's like,
[78:18] oh, that they always like, you know,
[78:20] >> one person always seems to like make the
[78:22] bed by the time I'm back from the
[78:23] bathroom in the morning and you're like,
[78:25] "No, my turn." And they they or the
[78:26] other person always sets out the coffee
[78:28] or some it's these the little thing
[78:30] phenomenon. Rarely is it like sometimes
[78:33] it's a note but rarely is it like
[78:36] >> yeah I love the way you know he strings
[78:38] together uh you know sentences or
[78:42] something like I love the way that I
[78:43] love the way that um you know she
[78:46] describes this thing you know so
[78:48] >> it's often about actions at least in the
[78:50] in the observing the qualities of the
[78:52] positive qualities of the male partner
[78:54] and that's very kind of
[78:55] >> stereotypical
[78:57] >> but I think that it just it's it's a
[78:59] kind of window in my mind into the
[79:01] difference between the quote unquote
[79:04] exploration and courting process,
[79:06] although the courting process, what
[79:08] people do arguably matters more than
[79:10] what they say,
[79:11] >> and the kind of long-term thing,
[79:15] >> the the consistency of of the stability
[79:18] of the relationship over time.
[79:20] >> So, I wish that, you know, it's it's a
[79:21] shame that these apps don't select for
[79:23] uh action. The only way to do that would
[79:26] would be something where you would say,
[79:28] "Okay, if you're going to sign up for
[79:29] this app, you know, we're going to ask
[79:31] you to go on at least three dates with,
[79:33] you know, anybody that you match with,
[79:35] and we want to see you dating in these
[79:37] very different circumstances where the
[79:40] point isn't always to just talk at each
[79:43] other. That also you like you got to do
[79:46] things together." I wish there were
[79:47] dates that were like assemble this IKEA
[79:50] furniture.
[79:50] >> Don't people still go for like a hike or
[79:52] go to a show?
[79:52] >> Yeah. Yeah. No, that's that that's good,
[79:54] too, cuz at least it's it's talking and
[79:56] interacting, but a different kind of
[79:58] talking and interacting. I want I want
[79:59] like physical challenges. Get out of
[80:01] this escape room, stuff like that.
[80:03] Anyway, I'm not actually handle.
[80:05] >> Yeah, right. You're right. Yeah. So, you
[80:07] got to be witty, but also not panic.
[80:09] >> Do you suggest that? Is it is it like a
[80:10] first date?
[80:11] >> I don't know. Maybe third date.
[80:12] >> Okay.
[80:13] >> Third date sounds good for escape. I
[80:15] want to be clear. I've never I've only
[80:16] done the the escape room board games.
[80:18] >> You're just throwing people under the
[80:19] bus just to see what happens. Get to
[80:20] that date. Yeah. No, no, I'm just
[80:22] kidding. But like you know events that
[80:24] sporting events I mean things that are
[80:26] um uh that are exciting that you're
[80:30] doing together but also facilitate
[80:32] interaction I think can be really good.
[80:35] It is very very hard though to simulate
[80:40] the patterns of what would it be like to
[80:43] be in a long-term relationship with this
[80:45] person and the 4,000 daily
[80:48] responsibilities that come with that.
[80:51] And I think even when we are really
[80:54] crazy about somebody early on, we try to
[80:58] forecast what that's going to be like as
[80:59] best we can, but we really don't know.
[81:03] And I think the like the beautiful thing
[81:06] but also the challenge that a lot of
[81:08] relationships have is you know what you
[81:10] do is you know like you just described
[81:12] like okay it becomes my job to set out
[81:14] the coffee and it becomes your job to
[81:16] mow the lawn and we create this very
[81:19] elaborate structure that guides not just
[81:23] our day-to-day lives and the crap we
[81:25] have to do but it also guides how we
[81:28] communicate when we communicate what we
[81:30] communicate about. If we create a
[81:33] business together,
[81:36] that can create a relationship that
[81:37] starts to feel like more transactional,
[81:40] that's maybe less warm, has less
[81:42] opportunity for connection
[81:45] as opposed to creating a relationship
[81:47] that builds, you know, time for fun
[81:50] activities together, for fun
[81:52] experiences, or again, I recognize like
[81:55] people are stressed and often working
[81:56] multiple jobs, but at least when we are
[81:58] interacting, are we able to interact
[82:00] about the fun, silly things that brought
[82:03] us together in the first place. Um, I
[82:06] think it's it's very challenging to do
[82:08] these things. When people go to couples
[82:10] therapy and the couples therapy is
[82:11] effective, it's usually because
[82:15] therapists are able to help couples
[82:19] essentially like rewind all the bad
[82:21] patterns they've created and go back to
[82:23] when things were good. uh rediscover
[82:26] what it was that they really appreciated
[82:29] about each other and like recreate their
[82:31] relationship from there in a new way.
[82:33] But yes, many of these things are
[82:35] they're just deeply deeply hard to
[82:37] forecast.
[82:39] >> Yeah. And there's always the natural
[82:41] desire to want to know if one's time and
[82:44] energy is well spent. I mean it's really
[82:47] in some sense the most um important
[82:51] investment is time and energy of I mean
[82:54] and uh it's kind of all we have it's all
[82:56] we have and that's very evolutionary in
[82:59] its core. You talked before about this
[83:01] kind of crystal ball question or um
[83:04] probing for particular disclosures that
[83:07] people are willing or not willing to
[83:09] make as a
[83:10] >> as a perhaps better indication of
[83:12] whether somebody is interesting or
[83:15] appropriate. Yeah.
[83:16] >> For you. I realize however that the
[83:19] notion that there's a like a question or
[83:21] a set of questions that would say green
[83:23] light
[83:24] >> is that's not true. That just can't be
[83:28] true. There's probably some answers that
[83:29] are red light. Everyone, you know, knows
[83:31] red light. Hopefully, they're paying
[83:33] attention to that, but they it's the
[83:35] yellow it's the yellow but it's the
[83:37] yellow lights and not knowing what
[83:38] questions to ask to see if there's a
[83:40] sort of green light path forward. Tell
[83:43] me what those questions are. Like,
[83:45] phrased differently. If two people are
[83:47] on a date and they have only a few
[83:49] minutes, it's kind of a speed dating
[83:51] type situation and they need to make a
[83:52] good assessment as to whether or not
[83:54] they genuinely would like to spend more
[83:56] time with the person again.
[83:58] uh what what are the questions they
[84:00] should ask?
[84:01] >> All right. So, I like the questions that
[84:03] are a little bit more offbeat. You know,
[84:05] what people tend to do on speed dates is
[84:07] they they want to find common ground
[84:10] quickly. You know, if it's college
[84:12] students, maybe we're going to talk
[84:13] about their major. Uh do we share a
[84:14] major? No. Uh like pivot. Uh where are
[84:16] you from? And they'll try to find
[84:18] something that they can bond over
[84:23] and that can work very well. But I think
[84:26] the core of what we want in an initial
[84:29] interaction with somebody is to take
[84:31] away something that feels like it was at
[84:33] least a little different than all the
[84:35] other interactions that we have. And so
[84:38] sometimes what that means is going a
[84:42] touch deeper than people are comfortable
[84:44] with. Now in in 4 minutes it's tricky if
[84:49] you have a little bit longer like a
[84:50] regular evening length date. I really
[84:53] like the 36 questions test. Like this is
[84:56] the sometimes it's called the fast
[84:58] friends procedure, but these are
[85:00] questions like, you know, what's one
[85:02] thing that you've never told somebody
[85:04] that you've always wanted to tell them
[85:05] and what's stopping you? Or
[85:07] >> people answer that.
[85:08] >> Yeah. I mean, after if you've been
[85:10] hanging out with somebody for 60 to 90
[85:13] minutes, that is a pretty good way to
[85:17] elicit real depth and give like both
[85:21] people a chance to do some reciprocal
[85:23] self-disclosure cuz that's what people
[85:25] want. That's what people connect over is
[85:27] like I've like I feel like I've just
[85:30] heard you. Maybe it's true, maybe it's
[85:32] not, but I feel like you've just told me
[85:34] something that you haven't told most
[85:36] people and maybe you haven't told
[85:38] anybody. I vividly remember falling for
[85:42] somebody when that moment happened. It's
[85:45] like I really you are telling me this. I
[85:48] I don't I don't think you've ever told
[85:50] anybody this before and it is such a
[85:54] rush. I I think like I don't know, man.
[85:57] The internet, it's like convince us all
[85:59] we care about is like sex and hotness.
[86:01] There is nothing like the rush of having
[86:04] somebody tell you something that they've
[86:05] never told anybody else. And again, this
[86:08] is like the stuff that gets
[86:09] relationships researchers excited
[86:10] because this is what we see in our data.
[86:12] Responsiveness, closeness, like building
[86:15] trust and all of that stuff. Now again,
[86:17] four minutes is really hard. Four
[86:19] minutes you just got to get a little
[86:21] nugget of something that you want to
[86:22] build off later. And maybe that is your
[86:25] hometown and maybe it is like, "Isn't
[86:27] this a weird experience that we're only
[86:29] going to get to chat for 4 minutes, but
[86:31] whenever there are roots to go for a
[86:34] little bit more disclosure, I usually
[86:36] advise that that people go for it. It it
[86:39] it will pay off on average, even if it
[86:42] can feel kind of awkward in the moment."
[86:44] Do you think there's uh more excitement
[86:47] if one gets the sense that the other
[86:49] person is um taking a bit of a risk in
[86:53] disclosing it? Not like I've been dying
[86:55] to tell somebody this and there's never
[86:56] been opportunity. Thanks for giving me
[86:58] the opportunity and
[86:59] >> you know I whatever. I always, you know,
[87:02] wanted to come back in my second life as
[87:04] a guppy or something. I I don't know.
[87:05] I'm picking a trivial example on purpose
[87:08] cuz it's not true. Much better tropical
[87:10] fish. Big tropical fish enthusiast. much
[87:12] better freshwater discus. Much better
[87:14] fresh owned by me cuz it would be have a
[87:16] really good life. Um take really good
[87:18] care of my freshwater discus. But in all
[87:21] seriousness, does that mean that people
[87:23] are walking around harboring, especially
[87:26] single people are harboring
[87:29] parts of themselves that they're craving
[87:31] intimacy, you know, that that's of the
[87:34] exchange things that they've never told
[87:36] anyone that they wish they could tell
[87:37] someone, feel safe enough to tell them.
[87:39] Is that what you're talking about? you
[87:41] know, creating a real moment of intimacy
[87:43] early on. That's not physical intimacy.
[87:46] It's
[87:47] >> I don't even know if it's emotional
[87:48] intimacy. It's like it's like human
[87:50] connection, right? It's like I'm a
[87:53] person that's had particular experiences
[87:55] and you're a person that's that's had
[87:57] particular experiences and we have these
[87:59] like narratives and stories about
[88:01] ourselves.
[88:02] >> Again, the science historically has been
[88:04] so focused on traits and I get it. Like
[88:07] I and I understand the evolutionary
[88:08] focus on traits, but man, humans are
[88:11] stories, right? We're narratives and we
[88:14] want other people to be privy to that
[88:17] narrative and then maybe eventually be a
[88:20] part of it. So I think that that is
[88:23] often what can be very powerful. Now for
[88:25] people who are single and they like want
[88:27] to be in a relationship, I do think that
[88:31] it can be that sense that they're
[88:33] lacking. A lot of people are single and
[88:35] are very very happy with their single
[88:37] lives. And I also understand that a lot
[88:39] of people if they're single and they're
[88:40] dating.
[88:42] Look, there's a lot of reasons to be
[88:44] cautious. Forming a relationship is a
[88:46] low base rate event. It doesn't happen
[88:48] all that often.
[88:50] >> And it's time costly. It can be
[88:51] financially costly. It's energetically
[88:54] costly. Exactly. It's very
[88:55] energetically.
[88:56] >> Exactly. Like we don't go around forming
[88:58] relationships with everybody. But I I
[89:00] also happen to think that like once the
[89:02] ball gets rolling, the pull can be very
[89:04] strong. And part of that pull is this
[89:08] this desire to have somebody kind of see
[89:11] me, get me, understand me. I might be
[89:14] talking about securely attached people
[89:15] on average, right? There's always going
[89:17] to be that avoidance pull too, like
[89:19] people need to self-protect to some
[89:22] extent, but the sort of desire to open
[89:25] up and have somebody like really get
[89:26] you, it's it's so core to the
[89:29] relationship science worldview and and I
[89:32] think it says a lot about like who we
[89:35] are as a species and like how we form
[89:37] mating relationships.
[89:39] You've said in um so many words uh
[89:43] before uh that men and women essentially
[89:45] want the same things.
[89:47] >> Yeah. I think that's going to hit some
[89:49] people square in the face and they're
[89:50] going to say that is so not true. Men
[89:53] just want blank. Women just want blank.
[89:55] >> I I'm like on this campaign lately to
[89:58] try and defang
[90:00] >> the trolls. Yeah.
[90:02] >> That seem to have like it's like it we
[90:05] were in high school. Let's leave junior
[90:06] high school. Let's go to high school.
[90:08] And there were like a bunch of like
[90:09] really awful people. Let's evenly
[90:12] distribute it between the sexes. Let's
[90:13] just do that for fairness sake. Yeah.
[90:15] >> And they're like constantly pointing out
[90:17] how
[90:18] >> these people are always bad and
[90:21] extractive and these people are always,
[90:23] you know, uh, cold and avoidant and like
[90:25] and and if those narratives were just
[90:27] constantly like posted on the walls and
[90:29] like and talked about in the uh over
[90:32] lunch and whispered in the hallways, it
[90:34] would be very poisonous to the whole
[90:37] environment. And that's kind of what the
[90:38] internet is. and then the traditional
[90:41] news, but also some podcasts, not this
[90:43] podcast, but will kind of amplify these
[90:45] narratives because they feel juicy. They
[90:48] feel uh and they get clicks.
[90:50] >> And I think we all have an innate desire
[90:52] to avoid danger. So, we like know where
[90:55] where this stuff is. But when you step
[90:57] back, you go, right? Like most people
[90:59] are pretty well-meaning. Most people are
[91:00] looking for good partnership. Nobody's
[91:02] perfect, but uh where people make
[91:05] mistakes. Most people are like looking
[91:06] to at least modify their behavior over
[91:08] time. Like it's all reasonably
[91:11] benevolent, but then there are these
[91:13] like
[91:14] >> kind of nasty characters out there
[91:16] >> and we give them so much credit and we
[91:19] give them so much power
[91:20] >> and they just plain suck.
[91:22] >> Yeah.
[91:22] >> So
[91:23] >> men and women want the same things.
[91:25] Let's shut them up for a second and ask
[91:27] what the data say. This was one of the
[91:29] first things I studied when I started
[91:31] looking at attraction like almost 20
[91:34] years ago now. And in part because I
[91:37] found the gender differences
[91:38] fascinating. It was very clear for
[91:41] decades and decades that if you ask men
[91:43] and women about the qualities they want
[91:45] in a partner that you'll see these
[91:47] differences show up pretty routinely and
[91:50] they are differences that then in the
[91:52] hands of nefarious characters online get
[91:54] spun out into exactly the narrative that
[91:56] you're describing. But the basic data on
[91:59] what men and women say they want, it's
[92:02] there. Men will say they care about
[92:04] attractiveness in a partner more than
[92:06] women. And women will say they care
[92:07] about earning potential in a partner
[92:09] more than men. Now, I'm phrasing that in
[92:12] a particular way. And I'm I'm saying
[92:15] what people say they want because I'm
[92:18] critiquing the experimental paradigms
[92:21] that were used. It usually had people
[92:24] rating a bunch of traits on scales. And
[92:27] as a psychologist, I have no problem
[92:29] with that. I'm very interested in
[92:30] people's subjective experiences and I
[92:32] use scales all the time. But we wondered
[92:36] that's different than or it might be
[92:40] different than what happens when you're
[92:42] meeting people face to face and you're
[92:45] reacting to a set of people who might be
[92:48] very attractive or of middling
[92:50] attractiveness or not very attractive at
[92:52] all. And that to me seems closer to
[92:55] capturing what people actually want.
[92:57] Like if you meet 10 women, how much does
[93:01] their attractiveness drive your desire
[93:05] to date them? How much does
[93:06] attractiveness affect whether you want a
[93:09] second date with them or not? So, we ran
[93:11] speed dating studies to try to capture
[93:14] exactly this phenomenon. I'll make it
[93:17] about earning prospects because it's
[93:18] really the same the same thing. So, we
[93:21] have these men and they go speed dating
[93:23] and some of these women are very
[93:24] ambitious. They're going to be lawyers
[93:25] and doctors. Others are a little bit
[93:28] less ambitious. And what you'd see is
[93:30] that the men tended to like the women a
[93:33] little bit more to the extent that they
[93:34] were ambitious. It wasn't a huge driver
[93:36] of their liking, but it was definitely
[93:39] there and it was definitely positive.
[93:41] But then when we flipped it and we
[93:43] looked at what the women were drawn to,
[93:45] not what they said, but what they were
[93:47] drawn to, they also tended to like the
[93:49] ambitious men a little bit. And the
[93:52] magnitude of that preference was
[93:53] identical. And it's been 20 years of
[93:56] this where we've looked at ongoing
[93:58] relationships. We've looked at um you
[94:01] know 40 something countries throughout
[94:03] the world. That narrative uh plays out
[94:06] every time. There's no gender
[94:08] differences in the extent to which these
[94:11] traits appeal to men and women when
[94:14] they're evaluating like real people
[94:16] they've actually met. Online is
[94:18] different. What people say they want is
[94:20] different. but real people that you've
[94:22] at least met face to face seems to
[94:25] dramatically reduce the power of the
[94:27] gender differences and the appeal of
[94:28] these traits.
[94:30] >> Fascinating and runs countercurrent to I
[94:32] think what many people including I have
[94:34] heard out there.
[94:35] >> Yeah. But but I think the like I think
[94:37] the key lesson here is like
[94:41] >> believe your subjective experience when
[94:44] you're interacting with somebody and
[94:46] you're getting to know them. And maybe
[94:47] that subjective experience is like,
[94:49] "She's hot, but I am not feeling this."
[94:51] And maybe that subjective experience is
[94:53] like, you know, I know that maybe to
[94:56] some people he looks like he doesn't
[94:57] have his life together, but I really see
[94:59] a spark there.
[95:02] If you trust that experience, I think
[95:05] that's likely to go better.
[95:08] And we don't have an experience to go on
[95:10] like that when it's online. When it's
[95:12] online, it's very easy to put people in
[95:14] boxes, put people in groups, and then
[95:15] make the groups fight each other. And I
[95:18] too am very distressed about all the
[95:20] heteropessimism.
[95:22] >> Yeah. Right. That's It's not my term,
[95:24] but it's one of my favorite terms.
[95:25] >> Do you know who coined it?
[95:26] >> I know the year is like 2019, but I
[95:28] forget the author. Yeah, look it up.
[95:30] >> Great term. Heteropet. Right. It's like
[95:33] men and women can't get along. How could
[95:34] they get along? They've got different
[95:36] interests and different priorities.
[95:38] Look, in the close relationships realm,
[95:40] it's not true. And that's the realm I
[95:43] know. Men and women, they want the same
[95:45] things out of their relationships. Yes,
[95:48] there are gender differences and like
[95:50] the thresholds for sex and especially
[95:52] early on that can be that can be really
[95:55] messy. Um, but overall I see a lot of
[95:59] similarity and a lot of potential for
[96:01] these the bonds that men and women form
[96:04] to do great things for people and women
[96:06] and women and men and men and any
[96:08] gendered combination that you want to
[96:09] come up with. Um, I think we're pair
[96:13] bonding creatures. We get a lot of joy
[96:15] and a lot of fulfillment out of that.
[96:17] And I want to see men and women find a
[96:19] way to make it work again.
[96:21] springboarding off of the heteropesses.
[96:23] Yeah. term, which is great because it
[96:25] encapsulates so much even though what it
[96:27] encapsulates is definitely not great.
[96:29] Yeah. The term I'm about to use is gonna
[96:31] sound um
[96:33] >> like it means something uh it doesn't.
[96:35] But is there any research on
[96:37] homopessimism, which is not the same as
[96:39] homophobia? Homopim meaning I'm not
[96:41] aware because I happen to be
[96:43] heterosexual, but I have homosexual
[96:44] friends, men and women. I'm not hearing
[96:47] them talk a lot about how dating culture
[96:49] is much worse
[96:51] >> now.
[96:51] >> I hear this too.
[96:53] >> But
[96:54] >> then again, uh sample size isn't that
[96:56] great here.
[96:57] >> So I don't know because a lot of the
[96:59] same things apply in terms of like apps.
[97:02] Uh sure cultures vary. Yeah.
[97:05] >> But there are some constants in this
[97:07] picture. Um so in any research yours or
[97:12] others research about um homosexual
[97:16] dating and couples is there pessimism
[97:19] guys saying well guys these days and
[97:21] women saying in uh yeah lesbian women
[97:25] let's just you know for lack of a better
[97:26] term um saying
[97:28] >> women these days
[97:29] >> I don't think that's out there nearly to
[97:32] the same extent. I think some of the
[97:35] like interesting components that you see
[97:38] out there is look the apps I think did
[97:41] they did a lot of good in the world for
[97:43] people who you know just felt like their
[97:46] social networks had no options in them
[97:48] but especially for people who might have
[97:51] been living in places that were
[97:52] genuinely unsafe for gays and lesbians
[97:55] and might have helped them to find
[97:57] romantic partners. So like um I always
[98:00] want to be the first one to give the
[98:02] apps credit for that for providing those
[98:04] kinds of opportunities.
[98:06] Classically speaking, what you tend to
[98:09] see is that, you know, I've talked a
[98:11] little bit about the the time frame as
[98:14] people form relationships in the first
[98:16] place. And that sometimes we get locked
[98:17] into this idea that it's like, oh, it's
[98:19] going to happen in an instant and and
[98:20] now you're together. But the reality is
[98:22] it's often an elongated process. That
[98:26] process has tended historically to be
[98:29] even longer for folks who are gays and
[98:32] lesbians forming same gender
[98:33] relationships. And I think part of that
[98:36] is something that you you might even
[98:38] call like a bigotry tax because if you
[98:42] lived in a place where it was like
[98:44] vaguely dangerous to admit your same-sex
[98:48] attractions, you got to be really
[98:51] careful before you start disclosing how
[98:55] you feel about somebody because
[98:56] rejection doesn't just mean rejection.
[98:58] Rejection is maybe actually carries
[99:00] other threats and stigma and all of
[99:02] these other things with it.
[99:03] >> Loss of jobs. Exactly. We've seen
[99:04] examples of that like it's sort of again
[99:07] it plays on stereotypes but um I'm I'm
[99:09] going to assume some of it is true. Uh
[99:11] like in in Mad Men, right? There's a
[99:14] disclosure and then it doesn't go well.
[99:16] >> Right. Right.
[99:17] >> Yeah. It doesn't go well.
[99:18] >> I love the movie Call Me By Your Name.
[99:20] >> I don't think I've seen it.
[99:22] >> Yeah. It's it's it's about 10 years old.
[99:23] It's it's Luca Guadanino and and he's a
[99:26] fabulous director, but it's about two
[99:29] men who get together over the course of
[99:30] a summer. young men who find it's it's
[99:33] one of Timothy Shalamé's earlier movies
[99:37] >> and one of the things they come to
[99:38] regret is that like we didn't disclose
[99:41] our feelings sooner but it's it the
[99:43] movie was taking place in the 1980s so
[99:46] you had to be really careful with
[99:50] whether you were going to be upfront
[99:51] about how you were feeling about
[99:53] somebody. wasn't uh in a place where you
[99:56] can't be fully confident that you're
[100:00] have a sense of safety, it could be
[100:02] really dangerous. So that's an important
[100:03] difference that we see and I think the
[100:04] apps were really good at helping people
[100:08] to uh to come together in that sense. I
[100:11] have a question about um financial
[100:14] stability and level.
[100:16] >> Yeah,
[100:17] >> you mentioned there aren't real big
[100:19] gender differences there. Earlier we
[100:21] were saying scientists are always uh
[100:23] doing the opposite of improv. Instead of
[100:24] yes and they always say yeah but you
[100:27] know what yeah but what about it's it's
[100:30] a it's in our training
[100:31] >> income level on its own or amount of
[100:34] money that somebody has in my mind is
[100:37] somewhat informative.
[100:39] >> What's more informative is having the
[100:42] additional data point of where they
[100:44] started out. Oh, interesting.
[100:45] >> Because people with money who um didn't
[100:49] have to work very hard to get it,
[100:51] >> it's a different picture. Now, some
[100:53] people might say like, "Who cares?" And
[100:55] I will make the argument that some
[100:56] people some people who had to make a
[100:58] work very hard to make their money
[101:00] >> often times are still in the working
[101:02] hard mode. The the the the twist in the
[101:05] in the high level of income thing like
[101:08] that. The additional question that's
[101:09] useful is how much free time do you
[101:10] have?
[101:11] >> Yeah. A lot of the people I know who
[101:13] have a lot of money, they don't have a
[101:14] lot of free time. So, if people pair up
[101:17] with them thinking that they're going to
[101:18] feel very financially secure and have a
[101:20] lot of stuff, that might be true.
[101:22] >> But, um, how often they're going to see
[101:24] their partner or the the co-parent of
[101:27] their kids is an important question. And
[101:28] this extends both ways. like so many of
[101:31] these attributes that in the abstract
[101:33] sound really good to us, but then when
[101:35] you actually put it in a person that
[101:37] also has all these other attributes and
[101:39] things going on, you realize like, wait
[101:40] a minute, their cutthroat ambition
[101:42] actually wasn't that great, right?
[101:44] Because it means that they're never
[101:46] around. I think for this reason
[101:49] it can be very challenging especially if
[101:51] you're looking at long-term
[101:52] relationships to take things like like a
[101:55] person's um income level and use that to
[101:58] forecast like for example how their
[102:01] partner is going to feel about them. I
[102:02] mean, we've done some of this work,
[102:04] indeed some of the work looking at
[102:05] gender differences and like the reality
[102:07] is like a person's objective income, it
[102:11] has very very small effects on how their
[102:14] partners feel about them. The bigger
[102:17] effects are things like, you know, if
[102:19] now we scaffold up and look at like
[102:22] socioeconomic status. So, do you have
[102:23] the resources to get by as a couple?
[102:26] That can be very challenging for people.
[102:29] I've seen numerous examples of uh
[102:32] couples where the man loses his work
[102:35] >> and if he's not able to get stable work
[102:38] again reasonably soon.
[102:40] >> Yeah.
[102:40] >> In most of the
[102:41] >> this isn't a peer-reviewed study. Most
[102:43] of the examples I can think of um the
[102:46] couple eventually dissolved
[102:48] >> and it wasn't necessarily for a lack of
[102:52] enough resources. Families were able to
[102:54] help etc. Um and of course we could talk
[102:56] about depression. We could talk about
[102:59] some other thing that might have
[103:00] happened or many things that happened,
[103:01] but is there a sex difference there? The
[103:04] part that I find the most intuitive
[103:06] about these examples is that when a man
[103:09] loses his job like that, and I love that
[103:12] there are other resources around, so we
[103:14] know that that's not the exact problem.
[103:16] My guess is that the challenges are
[103:20] coming more from his like genuine
[103:23] troubling like loss of identity, loss of
[103:26] self. what am I going to do with myself?
[103:28] And less maybe not zero, but less about
[103:32] his uh partner thinking, oh, now he's no
[103:36] longer a provider. And that's just
[103:39] generally my bias from what I see in the
[103:42] science, which is when tragedies befall
[103:44] us, they affect our perceptions
[103:47] especially strongly. So this guy is
[103:49] going to feel this pretty hard that he's
[103:52] lost his job.
[103:54] Stepping back and looking at the broader
[103:56] picture of the data, it used to be true
[104:00] that marriages were more fragile when
[104:03] the woman earned more than the man in
[104:06] the marriage. But this stopped being
[104:08] true in the '9s. So that gender
[104:11] difference doesn't exist anymore. And I
[104:14] think it's it's easy to surmise. I don't
[104:17] know if the sociologists who studied
[104:19] this have drawn exactly this conclusion,
[104:20] but it's easy to posit that what's
[104:22] happening there is that people in
[104:25] general have gotten more comfortable
[104:27] with the gender imbalanced
[104:28] relationships. And in the '9s, we were
[104:30] still getting used to this idea.
[104:33] Um today
[104:35] even if the average couple, the man
[104:37] earns more than the woman, you do see
[104:39] that because there is a gender
[104:40] difference in the in income levels on
[104:42] average. But in education, it's flipped
[104:45] now, right? women, at least in younger
[104:48] couples, the woman is more likely to be
[104:50] educated than the man.
[104:51] >> More educated or or educated period.
[104:53] >> More educated than the man in the
[104:55] relationship, right? So, so women are
[104:57] earning more of the, you know, uh,
[104:59] higher degrees. So, if there's a
[105:02] mismatch, probably the woman has more
[105:04] education than the guy.
[105:07] That's not a risk factor
[105:10] relative to if they were the same level,
[105:13] relative to if, you know, he were
[105:15] higher. It just doesn't really seem to
[105:18] be doing anything. I know we can like
[105:20] get really nervous about like what does
[105:21] it mean for men's desiraability if
[105:24] they're not ambitious. Like I get that
[105:27] if men are not out there like making
[105:29] things of themselves, I'm not worried
[105:31] about the women getting a better
[105:33] education than them. I think it's
[105:36] important for men to have a sense of
[105:37] purpose. I think trade schools can be
[105:40] awesome, but the mismatches in the level
[105:43] of education and in the level of income,
[105:46] those don't spell a problem. We just got
[105:48] to get like men feeling good about
[105:50] themselves again.
[105:51] >> And the data say they're not.
[105:53] >> Yeah. I mean, I think that's what you
[105:55] see. I mean, the data that concern me
[105:57] the most are that men and I think
[105:59] especially low SCEs men, they're the
[106:02] ones that feel like their social
[106:04] networks are gone. They don't know where
[106:06] to go to get any kind of companionship.
[106:09] So, if they're really feeling that acute
[106:12] sense of loneliness, of lack of
[106:14] belonging, you know, among like real
[106:16] people in their lives, um that's the
[106:20] thing I worry about because then that's
[106:21] going to affect your sense of self.
[106:22] that's going to affect, you know, all of
[106:24] your ambitions and in really bad cases
[106:28] might, you know, push people to some of
[106:29] those nastier corners of the internet.
[106:32] I'd like to take a quick break and
[106:33] acknowledge our sponsor, Function.
[106:36] Function provides over 160 advanced lab
[106:39] tests to give you a clear snapshot of
[106:40] your bodily health. This snapshot gives
[106:43] you insights into your heart health,
[106:44] your hormone health, autoimmune
[106:46] function, nutrient levels, and much
[106:48] more. They've also recently added access
[106:50] to advanced MRI and CT scans. Function
[106:53] not only provides testing of over 160
[106:56] biomarkers key to your physical and
[106:57] mental health. It also analyzes these
[107:00] results and provides recommendations for
[107:02] improving your health from top doctors.
[107:04] For example, in a recent test with
[107:06] function, I learned that some of my
[107:07] blood lipids were slightly out of range.
[107:10] As a result, I decided to start
[107:11] supplementing with nattokinise, which
[107:13] can naturally help reduce LDL
[107:15] cholesterol. And it did. In a follow-up
[107:17] test, I could confirm that this strategy
[107:19] worked. My blood lipids are now back
[107:21] exactly where I want them. Comprehensive
[107:23] lab testing of the sort that function
[107:25] offers is just so important for health.
[107:27] I mean, how else are you going to know
[107:28] what's going on under the hood? And
[107:30] while I've been doing blood work for
[107:31] years, it used to be timeconuming,
[107:33] complicated, and expensive. In fact, I
[107:35] used to spend thousands of dollars per
[107:37] year trying to get this kind of data.
[107:39] And the data, frankly, were not all that
[107:41] good. But now with Function, it's
[107:43] extremely easy and affordable. A
[107:45] function membership is only a dollar a
[107:47] day, $365 a year. And if you think about
[107:49] the information it provides and the
[107:51] health challenges it helps you avoid and
[107:53] the proactive things that it can do for
[107:55] you to enhance your health, I truly look
[107:57] at it as a savings. To learn more, visit
[108:00] functionhealth.com/huberman
[108:02] and use the code hubman for a $50 credit
[108:05] towards your membership. Again, that's
[108:07] functionhealth.com/huberman.
[108:10] in the kind of classic pure
[108:12] stereotypical narrative, you know, men
[108:14] who were slightly older
[108:17] had more resources.
[108:19] >> Yeah.
[108:20] >> This isn't always true.
[108:22] >> But there's this what apparently based
[108:24] on your work is a uh myth that women
[108:28] desire older men. Uh men desire younger
[108:31] women.
[108:32] >> Yeah.
[108:32] >> Your work points to the possibility that
[108:35] there is no gender differences in
[108:37] attraction to younger partners.
[108:38] >> Yeah. And look, let me say that this is
[108:40] I think one of the more tenant
[108:42] >> and it's a big and it's a big sample
[108:43] size 4000.
[108:45] >> I'm like so and uh I'll weave a quick
[108:48] anecdote. There's this guy at the gym
[108:51] that I sometimes go to.
[108:53] >> He's probably in his like 70s or
[108:54] something and he's in
[108:55] >> what great shape. He's retired. He made
[108:58] money. He's enjoying life. He's got
[109:00] grandkids. He's like he just seems like
[109:02] I don't know him that well, but it seems
[109:03] like he's really got it together and
[109:04] he's really loving life. And I always
[109:06] say, uh, what brings you here every day?
[109:09] You know, I figured it would be like,
[109:10] why it just feels so good. And he just
[109:12] always says the same thing. He always
[109:13] just says, I don't want to lose my wife
[109:15] to a younger guy. And I always laugh and
[109:17] I go,
[109:18] >> then like I know a lot about the contour
[109:20] of his life. And maybe there's something
[109:22] he's not disclosing, but you know,
[109:24] anyone would say like this guy's just
[109:26] totally got it made. He's in and he's,
[109:28] you know, I again I don't know the
[109:29] details of his life and I shouldn't, but
[109:32] I know enough about it that, you know,
[109:34] he's checked off all the boxes three or
[109:36] four times and then had the wisdom in my
[109:38] opinion to not just keep working like a
[109:40] maniac and just spend time with his kids
[109:43] and grandkids and his wife. But he
[109:45] always answers the exact same way. How's
[109:46] it going? He goes, "Pretty good. Just
[109:47] don't want to lose my wife to younger
[109:49] guys. So, I'm here again today."
[109:50] >> Let me tell you about this study. And
[109:51] look, again, I'm a scientist and
[109:53] sometimes the data I'm like, "Huh? You
[109:56] don't say. I didn't see this one coming.
[109:59] I mentioned this earlier. So, we
[110:00] partnered up with folks who do
[110:03] matchmaking. So, these are people who
[110:06] are paying for a service
[110:09] because they want to be in a long-term
[110:11] relationship.
[110:12] And so, they will set people on dates
[110:15] and they've got a whole pool that
[110:16] they're working with. And within that
[110:18] pool, the men who are searching for
[110:20] dates are older than the women by about
[110:23] four years on average. Okay? So that's
[110:26] that's what they've got to work with.
[110:28] And they set people up on these dates.
[110:30] And so most of the time the woman is
[110:33] going to be younger than the man, but
[110:34] there's a range. Sometimes the woman is
[110:36] much younger than the guy. And sometimes
[110:38] the woman is the same age as the guy.
[110:40] And sometimes the woman's even a little
[110:41] older than the guy. All right? So what
[110:45] you'd expect to see is that if men are
[110:48] looking for younger women and women are
[110:50] looking for older men, then when we look
[110:53] at how the age of the partner affects
[110:56] whether you want to go on a second date
[110:57] with this person,
[111:00] it should be the younger folks appeal to
[111:02] the men more and the older folks appeal
[111:04] to the women more. But that wasn't what
[111:06] we saw. We saw that the younger folks
[111:07] appeal to the men more. And by the way,
[111:09] it's not a huge effect. It's not like
[111:12] the gross stereotype that's out there.
[111:14] Men are a little bit more interested in
[111:16] the women to the extent that they're
[111:17] younger, but it's not gigantic. Women
[111:19] are doing the same thing. They're a
[111:21] little bit more interested in the
[111:23] younger guys. They don't say that on
[111:26] paper. In fact, sometimes they're like,
[111:28] "Don't set me up with the younger guys."
[111:29] And then they do and they say, "Huh,
[111:31] that was interesting. I enjoyed that. I
[111:33] enjoyed that date. I would like to see
[111:35] him again."
[111:36] >> Are the stated reasons um similar in any
[111:39] way? For instance, are both groups
[111:40] saying less less baggage? That would be
[111:42] kind of a cliche answer, but we could
[111:44] place that on either side.
[111:45] >> I don't know. And I would love to know.
[111:48] I think sometimes when women are when
[111:50] they downrate like whether they care
[111:54] about attractiveness or something. I I
[111:57] think sometimes they are like kidding
[111:59] themselves a little bit that they
[112:01] actually do appreciate a younger guy
[112:04] who's maybe is fit and in shape or they
[112:06] don't fully appreciate how exciting it
[112:08] would feel to be sitting across the
[112:11] table from a guy like that. I mean, this
[112:12] is my best uh my best guess. And what's
[112:15] so fascinating about this data set is
[112:18] that look, they're trying to create
[112:19] these couples, but you know, you only
[112:22] create a couple a fraction of the time.
[112:24] Much of the time the people don't really
[112:26] hit it off, but in the couples that get
[112:29] created, the guy was four years older
[112:31] than the woman. And in the couples that
[112:32] don't get created, the guy is four years
[112:34] older than the woman cuz that was what
[112:36] they had in the sample to begin with. So
[112:39] we look around and you see that age
[112:42] difference. That age difference is real.
[112:44] And I'm sure it means something
[112:46] important. And data like this just make
[112:49] me think something else is going on
[112:51] here. Whatever is creating this age
[112:55] difference, it's at least it's not, you
[112:56] know, a age difference in in how people
[112:58] sort, it's not happening on date one.
[113:02] It's not happening at the initial
[113:03] attraction phase. Maybe it's happening
[113:06] earlier who puts themselves in the pool.
[113:08] Maybe it's happening later. I don't
[113:10] know. She's going to date this younger
[113:12] guy like once or twice, but then she's
[113:14] going to be done with him and she'll,
[113:15] you know, settle down with somebody
[113:17] who's a little older.
[113:18] >> She said she's done with him.
[113:19] >> Yeah. Right. Exactly. Right. But Right.
[113:21] But it could go the other way, too.
[113:22] >> Well, what I've heard before, uh, cuz
[113:24] I'm 50, I have some, uh, female friends
[113:26] who are dating, and they'll say that
[113:29] they do date younger guys, but then the
[113:31] deal breaker is if the guy says he wants
[113:35] >> kids. Kids, that's tough.
[113:36] >> And then
[113:38] >> the So the agreement is to move on based
[113:41] on that. Often this is a common
[113:43] reasonably common thing. Yeah. Actually
[113:45] hear about this more and more these
[113:47] days.
[113:47] >> Yeah. And I think um one thing that that
[113:51] online dating affords is if you've got
[113:54] something like that that's exceptionally
[113:56] important to you, there are
[113:58] opportunities to filter on it. Um we
[114:01] haven't talked about this too much yet,
[114:02] but but you can get into a whole line of
[114:06] research and studies on, you know, oh,
[114:08] if people are filtering for things in
[114:10] the abstract, does that match what's
[114:12] ultimately going to appeal to them when
[114:13] they meet face to face? We find that
[114:15] generally speaking, these things tend to
[114:17] be pretty uncorrelated. So what people
[114:19] think they want doesn't match up with
[114:22] what they actually end up liking once
[114:24] they meet somebody face to face. But you
[114:27] can argue that sometimes that's not a
[114:29] good thing. If somebody really wants
[114:30] kids, shouldn't it be within their power
[114:34] to craft a pool of partners who also
[114:37] want kids to give them that opportunity?
[114:39] Like that seems like a reasonable
[114:42] humanistic thing to do. And so to the
[114:44] extent that the apps are able to do that
[114:46] or these services are able to do that, I
[114:48] think that's uh that's ultimately a good
[114:50] thing. I think
[114:51] >> click like want kids or not.
[114:53] >> Yeah, I think I think often I think I I
[114:55] think you can I in in some apps that
[114:58] might be like a special feature you have
[114:59] to pay for things. These things get
[115:01] complicated.
[115:02] >> Who knows if the news is accurate uh
[115:04] because it's not real data. It's sort of
[115:05] whatever the news decides to shine a
[115:08] light on. this idea that um more young
[115:10] people are going to church with which is
[115:12] a values plural uh indicator like
[115:15] >> you know people can most churches are
[115:18] open to whoever shows up but the
[115:20] assumption is that people are there uh
[115:22] for certain reasons that they're either
[115:24] trying to build on or or have certain
[115:27] values
[115:28] >> that are sort of family children uh
[115:33] >> values morals adjacent if not central
[115:36] right I think people know what I'm
[115:37] saying I mean sure bad people can show
[115:38] up at church, but but the idea is that
[115:40] somebody's taking the time uh to get
[115:43] dressed up on a Sunday morning and go
[115:45] and listen to someone else speak and a
[115:47] lot of people are meeting that way now.
[115:49] Are there any data that that's a
[115:50] response to the kind of like wild west
[115:53] of
[115:54] >> um of online dating and you know social
[115:58] media and and just the general culture
[116:00] of like everybody it's kind of the the
[116:02] culture of everybody. I mean even in
[116:04] high school there were subgroups. Some
[116:06] people moved between subgroups, but
[116:08] it's, you know, it the the vastness of
[116:11] the internet and social media,
[116:14] >> even if you state your preferences about
[116:16] what you do and don't want to see on
[116:18] social media is like it's a flood. I
[116:20] mean, I see people and things on there
[116:21] from way back when that like they're not
[116:23] bad people. I have no interest in what
[116:25] they're doing now. And then occasionally
[116:26] I see people I'm like, "Oh, no way." And
[116:28] reconnect. So, but it's a it's a fire
[116:30] hose.
[116:30] >> Yeah. And you need some way to reduce it
[116:33] to something manageable. I mean, again,
[116:35] we we evolved in an environment where we
[116:38] knew like 50 other people, you know,
[116:40] that's like your group. You you probably
[116:41] knew more than that. Maybe you know,
[116:43] like 150, some nearby groups, but that's
[116:46] all ages and all genders and everything
[116:48] else. It's a small number of potential
[116:51] partners for you, but you had reasons to
[116:55] interact, structures that were going to
[116:57] put you in contact with each other. And
[116:59] to the extent that church is fulfilling
[117:01] a function like that, I think that's
[117:03] great. And in fact, I think that's
[117:05] exactly what's missing. And if church
[117:06] isn't your thing, there's like a million
[117:09] other things that people can do in any
[117:11] kind of modern urban context that are
[117:14] going to be helpful along those lines. I
[117:16] mean, you can join any kind of inter
[117:18] mural sports team. I mean,
[117:20] >> improv class.
[117:21] >> Exactly. Yeah. So, I think the improv
[117:24] classes are amazing because not only is
[117:27] it a chance to interact in a group over
[117:30] a a period of time where you don't get
[117:33] to opt out if you don't love somebody
[117:35] right away, but also you're like
[117:37] practicing being vulnerable and in, you
[117:41] know, being responsive and things like
[117:42] that. So, I think these things are all
[117:44] wonderful. Are people doing it because
[117:47] they're trying to limit the pools to the
[117:49] folks that they think will fit what
[117:52] they're looking for? I'll bet you some
[117:54] people are doing that. I'll bet that,
[117:57] you know, if somebody's like, I really
[117:59] want to be with somebody else who's
[118:00] active, so I'm going to join a running
[118:02] club. Or, yeah, I want to be with
[118:04] somebody who shares my value, so I'm
[118:05] going to join church. I think that's
[118:07] great. If I'm like being buzzill
[118:10] scientist,
[118:12] I'd probably sit here and be like, it
[118:14] probably actually doesn't matter. Like,
[118:16] join the church, join the running club,
[118:18] join all these things. Like, you're
[118:20] probably know more or less likely to
[118:22] find somebody that you're going to click
[118:24] with.
[118:25] >> It's more about getting yourself in a
[118:26] small group environment.
[118:27] >> Exactly. Exactly. But I'll be the first
[118:29] to say like when it comes to like the
[118:31] base rates of these things, like if your
[118:34] if your goal was, you know, in 90 days I
[118:37] want to be in a relationship, what are
[118:39] the things I should do that give me the
[118:41] best likelihood? I'm embarrassed to say
[118:43] my field can't answer that question. I
[118:45] can't tell you, you know, use two apps
[118:48] and use these two apps and go to church.
[118:50] Don't join kickball cuz they're a mess.
[118:52] I was a kickball player, so I'm allowed
[118:54] to say that. Uh but you should join the
[118:56] running club. We can't answer questions
[118:59] like that. So, in the absence of that
[119:02] kind of specificity, my answer is always
[119:04] just be around people on repeated
[119:07] occasions.
[119:08] >> I'm not trying to provide push back
[119:09] here. I'm not qualified to do it. I'm
[119:11] going to I'm from a totally different
[119:12] field. But I feel like there's certain
[119:15] small group smallish group environments
[119:17] like church. But there there could be
[119:18] other examples like for instance like a
[119:20] hiking club or rock climbing or
[119:22] something like that where
[119:24] >> there's kind of a um this shouldn't be
[119:26] the reason uh people do it and the only
[119:28] reason people do it but let's say um
[119:30] people pair up as a consequence of time
[119:32] there
[119:33] >> that the culture of that thing provides
[119:36] additional opportunities to uh grow the
[119:39] relationship with peers right because
[119:41] there certain things like you join an
[119:42] improv class great like big my sister's
[119:44] really into drama and theater still does
[119:46] theater classes for her own her own
[119:48] enrichment. But like but if you meet
[119:49] someone there, it's not like the the the
[119:51] culture around it um sort of cultivates
[119:53] the evolution of the relationship. Like
[119:55] whereas in like church like you might
[119:57] even get married in that church in the
[119:59] context of a of a hiking club, like you
[120:01] might be out with the other couples that
[120:03] you meet or or single people that you
[120:05] meet for many years. Like you can sort
[120:07] of it's it's a community that that can
[120:09] grow over time. certain things here I'm
[120:11] showing my ignorance around improv
[120:13] classes but certain things like a
[120:15] pottery class or pickle ball or
[120:16] something like
[120:17] >> it doesn't just at face value present a
[120:21] sort of trajectory of like
[120:22] >> that's right
[120:23] >> I'm sounding really nerdy here but kind
[120:24] of like a a set of maturational stages
[120:27] that it that you can continue to like be
[120:29] in the relationship there does that make
[120:32] sense really stumbling for the words
[120:33] here no totally this by the way is a
[120:35] great reason to not meet people at work
[120:39] >> not meet people at work. I'm not trying
[120:40] to like throw a cold blanket on people
[120:42] who decide to meet people at work, but
[120:44] often times often times that the
[120:46] relationship doesn't necessarily
[120:48] flourish in the context of the work
[120:50] environment. It's not like the work
[120:51] environment makes the relationship grow.
[120:53] I've seen more things split over time if
[120:55] both people work there. Often times they
[120:56] have to move to separate buildings,
[120:58] >> right?
[120:58] >> Um just for a variety of reasons, but
[121:01] it's not like the culture encourages it.
[121:03] Whereas there are certain things that
[121:04] are a bit more since you were talking
[121:07] for a moment there like an evolutionary
[121:08] biologist like we evolved in small
[121:09] villages and small groups where
[121:11] >> you know you had peers and elders that
[121:13] that provide this positive reinforcement
[121:15] on relationship. You know it's kind of
[121:17] an interesting thing like no matter how
[121:19] evolved we are or progressive we are.
[121:23] >> I don't know many women that ask men to
[121:24] marry them
[121:25] >> in 2026. I'm sure they're out there, but
[121:28] it's still the
[121:30] >> tacid assumption that men are going to
[121:32] do the asking.
[121:33] >> Yeah.
[121:34] >> Just saying.
[121:35] >> Okay. So, how progressive are we really?
[121:37] Right. It's also true that when people
[121:40] get married, most of the time they stand
[121:42] up in front of other people and state
[121:44] their vows. This is not like, you know,
[121:47] uh, you know, under the bed sheets, I
[121:49] promise. I promise I This is like a
[121:50] public disclosure. These days it ends up
[121:53] on Instagram,
[121:54] >> you know. So, you know, there's clearly
[121:57] a feedback that comes from being part of
[122:00] a larger structure that reinforces
[122:03] relationships over time.
[122:05] >> Yeah. And it can be a big
[122:06] >> You promised, you didn't just promise to
[122:07] me, you promised to the whole world,
[122:09] >> right?
[122:10] >> And that can be an important source of
[122:11] support, too, because then it's that at
[122:14] least the subjective sense like these
[122:16] people have our backs, right? if we run
[122:19] into hard times,
[122:21] >> there's a community that's going to be
[122:23] there and support us.
[122:25] >> And then I think you're right on the
[122:27] initial attraction side, having a sense
[122:30] that we're part of this larger
[122:33] collective that there's something about
[122:35] that that that feels good and provides
[122:37] structure that like that can help keep
[122:40] moving things forward. And you're right
[122:42] that the workplace context is
[122:44] particularly tricky because many
[122:46] workplaces don't want to encourage that
[122:50] kind of thing. And it's going to often
[122:51] happen anyway. And probably the smartest
[122:54] workplaces are the ones that allow for
[122:55] the possibility that peers are going to
[122:57] get together and have structures in
[122:59] place that that will be able to keep the
[123:02] personal life appropriately personal and
[123:04] then you know deal with the fallout if
[123:05] the if the fallout happens. One place I
[123:08] trained might have been UC Davis. All
[123:10] the junior faculty of which there were
[123:12] many of them when I first joined there
[123:13] were a large fraction of couples in the
[123:17] department or who had spouses in other
[123:19] departments
[123:21] >> I think more than 80% of those couples
[123:23] ended up divorced now wow
[123:25] >> now we can't there are a lot of
[123:27] variables there fortunately most of them
[123:28] are on good terms um I can't say they
[123:31] ended up with other people in the
[123:32] department that didn't happen
[123:34] >> but you know I watched and was like whoa
[123:37] like this is interesting uh you know
[123:39] this didn't I want to say didn't end
[123:41] well cuz I think they're all happy now
[123:43] but there does seem to be some
[123:45] additional stress uh of that. So I mean
[123:48] this gets to a question you've actually
[123:49] studied which is this notion of um
[123:52] >> similarity.
[123:53] >> So maybe we should talk more about that
[123:54] because it's more data driven uh
[123:56] question which is perceived similarity
[123:59] matters more than actual similarity.
[124:02] What is perceived similarity? So
[124:04] perceived similarity is this general
[124:07] sense like we have a lot in common.
[124:09] There are a million things that we could
[124:11] talk about. We share the same values and
[124:15] attitudes and preferences about things
[124:17] in general. But notice the way I'm
[124:20] describing it. I'm not tethering it to
[124:22] any particular attitude or value or
[124:25] preference or anything else because it's
[124:27] so free floating. I as the perceiver get
[124:31] to attach it to whatever I want and that
[124:36] uh affords people to have a certain
[124:39] amount of motivated reasoning so that
[124:41] when they like somebody a lot they will
[124:44] find the similarities there. They will
[124:48] really come to think that what really
[124:50] matters is that we love Japanese cinema
[124:53] and that we you know that we share the
[124:56] same politics. Whereas for another
[124:57] couple, uh, you know what, we have
[124:59] different politics, but that doesn't
[125:01] really matter to us.
[125:02] >> Does anyone say that nowadays?
[125:03] >> No, people still do. I mean, look, we
[125:05] what you see in the political matching
[125:07] data is that the odds that people ofo,
[125:11] you know, diametrically opposed
[125:13] preferences, the odds they're going to
[125:14] get together in the first place are
[125:15] very, very low. But among the mismatches
[125:19] that do exist, it actually doesn't
[125:21] predict satisfaction all that much. And
[125:23] I think this is why because you just
[125:25] compartmentalize it. If we match, it's
[125:27] important. If we don't match, oh, who
[125:30] cares? Does anybody care about that?
[125:31] Right? So much motivated reasoning. So,
[125:35] this is why if what I wanted to do was
[125:39] take two people who had never met and
[125:41] assess everything I could about them and
[125:43] then figure out whether they were going
[125:45] to be a match or not, ba based on
[125:47] whether they were similar, I really was
[125:50] probably going to be no better than a
[125:51] coin flip at figuring out whether or not
[125:54] they were going to click. That's actual
[125:56] similarity. I take things that are true
[125:58] about you without the ability for you to
[126:01] engage in motivated reasoning and I say,
[126:03] "Okay, you're an 83% match on all the
[126:07] things I could assess. You two should
[126:09] like each other." When we've done
[126:10] studies like that, you you basically get
[126:13] a coin flip every time. Well, this is
[126:15] why the apps seem totally useless
[126:17] because if you were just pair up, well,
[126:19] you want this and you want this, I want
[126:20] that, too, and I want that, too. You're
[126:22] telling me that it's as good as chance.
[126:24] It's as good as chance. And look, if
[126:26] there's evidence for similarity on
[126:28] anything, it could be in the realm of
[126:31] like demographics,
[126:33] socioeconomic status kinds of things. I
[126:36] I've seen like unpublished data, but
[126:39] promising, but even then, those effects
[126:41] are so small. So, I'm, you know, we're
[126:43] going from a 50/50 coin flip to like
[126:46] 5347. These are small effects across the
[126:49] board because we get all of this
[126:52] motivational latitude. When we really
[126:54] like somebody, we find the things we
[126:56] have in common. We focus on those. We
[126:59] convince ourselves those are the most
[127:00] important things in the world. And the
[127:02] thing is, who am I to criticize them
[127:03] because the people in the happiest
[127:05] relationships, that's what they're
[127:06] doing. They're exhibiting those kinds of
[127:09] biases. And it's like stupid human
[127:12] tricks, but it like kind of works.
[127:14] >> You want to hear something really scary?
[127:16] >> Yeah. Uh, you probably know this
[127:17] already, but I was shocked. Uh, let's
[127:19] just say someone I know who would know
[127:22] um told me that the biggest dating app
[127:27] in the world by an enormous margin is
[127:30] >> it's not Tinder,
[127:31] >> Instagram.
[127:33] >> Oh,
[127:34] >> and this was actually very much in
[127:37] parallel
[127:38] >> to the the algorithm favoring
[127:42] communication by direct message. People
[127:45] will say like social media isn't social
[127:47] anymore. It's not about like seeing what
[127:48] people are doing. The real dynamics, the
[127:52] real time spent, and you'll notice how
[127:55] you get rewarded and what gets served up
[127:57] in the algorithm. Rewarded meaning like
[127:59] what what posts do better than others.
[128:02] >> If there's a strong correlate to
[128:04] communication about that through direct
[128:06] message, it's a dating app that's kind
[128:09] of cloaked for many people as a social
[128:12] media app. But of course, I use it to
[128:13] teach neuroscience, right? And and other
[128:15] things. And this will be on Instagram.
[128:17] So, I mean, I'm a big fan of of
[128:19] Instagram and other social media
[128:20] platforms for teaching and learning. And
[128:21] I say that sincerely, but the majority
[128:24] of the time spent now is not scrolling.
[128:28] It's it's getting to communications that
[128:32] move to real world and then feed back
[128:35] >> Yeah.
[128:35] >> to social media. So, I found that um
[128:37] interesting. So, I'm imagining a
[128:39] question uh because you study questions
[128:42] people ask them on dates. And we used to
[128:43] be able to say,
[128:44] >> if you were on a deserted island,
[128:47] >> who would you want to be there with?
[128:48] Like, who's the one person that you
[128:49] could stand being with or perhaps even
[128:51] really enjoy being with, assuming you
[128:54] have all the resources?
[128:55] >> Now, I think the question should be,
[128:57] >> who's the one person that would get you
[128:59] to not engage with anyone else in in the
[129:02] world? In other words, set down what you
[129:04] called, and I've never heard this
[129:06] before, the derivation of alternatives.
[129:09] >> This is an interesting term. So, in some
[129:11] ways, like committed partnership is
[129:14] about setting aside the idea that there
[129:16] might be somebody better for us.
[129:18] >> And I would argue, again, I have strong
[129:22] positive feelings towards Instagram. Um,
[129:25] I really do. Uh, it's a a fun and great
[129:28] platform when used in, you know,
[129:29] moderation. Yeah. But it's the opposite
[129:32] of the deserted island. And a former
[129:34] guest on this podcast who happens to be
[129:35] a divorce lawyer, um, James Ston, has
[129:38] talked about the fact that many, many,
[129:39] many of the divorces that he um,
[129:42] >> litigates, no, that he that he's
[129:45] involved in. Yeah. That he helps resolve
[129:47] uh, win for his clients started with uh,
[129:51] a
[129:52] >> innocuous communication on his starts
[129:55] with a like. starts with a like, starts
[129:57] with a conversation, starts with a ends
[129:59] up in the corner of a grievance or a or
[130:01] a a commonality that's sensed and then
[130:04] the derivation of alternatives emerges
[130:07] and eventually the relationship
[130:08] dissolves.
[130:09] >> We think about how people handle
[130:10] alternative partners. If you're in a
[130:12] purportedly monogous relationship, this
[130:14] is a challenge that relationships are
[130:16] going to face and
[130:19] I sort of see these like twin streams
[130:21] happening at the same time. So
[130:25] what you see in general is that for
[130:28] people who are in relationships and
[130:30] especially if they are happy in that
[130:32] relationship,
[130:34] any alternative partner that you can
[130:36] throw at them,
[130:38] they will tend to think that that
[130:40] alternative partner is pretty weak
[130:43] sauce. They think that person is less
[130:46] desirable than any other metric you
[130:48] might want to come up with for how
[130:50] desirable that person actually is.
[130:52] That's what we mean by deriggation of
[130:53] alternatives. It's like they're coming
[130:55] in up here, but because I'm partnered
[130:58] with you and I'm happy with you, I see
[130:59] them as less desirable than they
[131:01] actually are. Side note, that's why this
[131:04] one of the reasons why the marketplace
[131:06] metaphor starts to break down because
[131:09] people actually start to become bad
[131:11] barometers of what is quote unquote
[131:13] good. You stop seeing this alternative's
[131:16] actual value because you're so happy
[131:18] with the person that you have. Okay. So,
[131:21] this is a good thing and this is a real
[131:23] defense mechanism that people have.
[131:25] >> Is it a defense mechanism or I mean, but
[131:28] it's protective of healthy monogous
[131:31] relationship.
[131:31] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean it in the
[131:33] best Yeah. You know what? That's so
[131:35] funny because in our jargon we say
[131:37] defense mechanism. I mean that in the
[131:39] best possible mechanism.
[131:40] >> Yeah. Protective mechanism. Right. Yeah.
[131:42] You're defending the relationship.
[131:43] That's so funny. I'd like forgotten.
[131:45] >> We've had a few too many uh
[131:46] psychologist. Right. Of course. that has
[131:49] a negative connotation for some people,
[131:50] not for me. Okay? So, it's a protective
[131:52] mechanism, but at the same time, people
[131:55] also do this thing that you might call
[131:58] like playing with fire, but it's more
[132:00] like, you know, playing with what really
[132:02] seems to be a harmless book of matches.
[132:05] And I just I'm just messaging these
[132:07] people. Well, what's the big deal? This
[132:08] isn't going to go anywhere. Uh I'm just,
[132:11] you know, we're we're we're chatting a
[132:14] little bit. This isn't going to go
[132:15] anywhere. And things escalate. Sorry to
[132:17] interrupt, but um and you know, one of
[132:20] uh
[132:21] >> our former guests on this podcast who's
[132:22] immensely popular in the dating
[132:25] relationships and romance sphere is
[132:26] Esther Prell, and I don't want to put
[132:28] words in her mouth, but I think the
[132:30] perception about some of her messaging,
[132:32] whether accurate or not, is that there
[132:35] can be some value to, you know, in in
[132:37] her first book, I think, and I haven't
[132:39] read it, but um the the excerpt that was
[132:42] uh relayed to me was this notion like,
[132:44] oh, like someone isn't feeling as much
[132:46] chemistry in a relationship. So, like
[132:47] the woman, this wouldn't happen nowadays
[132:49] most likely, but goes to a bar and like
[132:51] flirts a bit and then like some some
[132:53] sense of of um sexual confidence is
[132:56] restored and then her husband is then
[132:58] attracted to her differently again. And
[133:00] you know, I've heard the more crude
[133:01] phrase, doesn't matter where you get
[133:02] your appetite as long as you eat at
[133:04] home. This is more of the 1950s60s
[133:06] variety. By the way, none of these
[133:08] statements come from me, although my
[133:10] mouth is saying them. These are things
[133:11] that you hear out there, right?
[133:13] >> Yeah.
[133:14] directly uh in opposition to what you're
[133:17] saying, which is not to say that what
[133:19] you're saying is wrong. I just think
[133:21] that there was a there was about a 20 or
[133:23] 30 year period there where people kind
[133:26] of assumed that monogamy could thrive.
[133:28] >> Yeah.
[133:29] >> Despite the inputs and monogamy could
[133:32] thrive perhaps even better if people
[133:34] acknowledge this aspect of self that is
[133:37] still attracted other people. They talk
[133:38] about it. what you're talking about is
[133:40] really a more of a protective cloak
[133:42] around the commitment. I do sense people
[133:45] are veering back toward that what you're
[133:48] describing. You know how I think about
[133:49] it is is the protective cloak
[133:52] um that that's sort of there as a
[133:54] baseline but then signals will get
[133:57] through some sometimes sometimes cuz
[133:59] you're messing around on Instagram but
[134:01] sometimes because you went to the bar
[134:03] with your friends and there was this
[134:05] cute guy who was chatting you up and the
[134:08] evidence there too I interpret I think
[134:11] the way a stair would interpret it and
[134:13] and what you see in the data also
[134:16] suggests something like a protect ive
[134:18] mechanism again it's playing with fire
[134:21] but if you look in studies where they
[134:23] ask people have a sexual fantasy about
[134:26] your partner now how much sexual desire
[134:28] do you feel for your partner it has gone
[134:30] up great that's pretty straightforward
[134:33] now please have a sexual fantasy about I
[134:36] don't know whoever's in second place
[134:39] that's not your partner
[134:41] then you start having sexual feelings
[134:43] for that person and you start having
[134:46] sexual feelings for your partner at the
[134:47] same time. So, it's exactly the metaphor
[134:50] that you're describing that when we feel
[134:53] a sense of attraction, it can rebound
[134:55] onto our partner. And by the way, it
[134:57] doesn't happen in the reverse. Okay. So,
[134:59] the partner, your current partner,
[135:02] again, for most people in happy
[135:03] relationships, holds a special position,
[135:06] you might say, where even when there is
[135:09] a little bit of a threat, and I've
[135:10] noticed somebody, it it rebounds
[135:13] somewhat. I don't advise that people go
[135:15] out and do this. You're saying it
[135:18] rebounds like it's a it's a fuel for the
[135:20] relationship the way that Esther and
[135:22] other people have talked about that's a
[135:23] real thing.
[135:23] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I mean it
[135:26] recent studies I can point to one or
[135:28] two. They're all like within the last
[135:29] few years.
[135:30] >> This is going to be very uncomfortable
[135:32] for some people to hear that their
[135:34] partner may come home immensely
[135:36] attracted to them because they had some
[135:37] sort of interaction during the day of
[135:39] either being attracted to someone or
[135:42] receiving signals of attractiveness.
[135:43] Right. Where I am a thousand% with with
[135:46] Estair is that the danger, the problem
[135:49] is not that your partner was sexually
[135:51] attracted to somebody else. The problem
[135:54] is usually in the escalation. It's yeah,
[135:57] but now are they like repeatedly hanging
[135:59] out with them and having like a
[136:00] conversations that they feel secretive
[136:02] about or that you know if if it's you
[136:04] that you feel secretive about? Those are
[136:07] the warning signs because then what will
[136:09] start to happen is that the protective
[136:11] layer that people typically put around
[136:12] their partners, it will start to erode
[136:15] and that's when people are at a greater
[136:17] risk of infidelity. It's usually a
[136:20] process like that. The simple fact that
[136:23] we can be attracted to other people that
[136:25] is not a problem for the average
[136:27] relationship. It's the repeated follow
[136:30] through on that attraction that becomes
[136:32] a problem. And that's something that
[136:33] evolved in recent years that there used
[136:35] to be far more transient interactions
[136:38] that would never resurface again. You
[136:40] sit next to someone on a plane, you'd
[136:41] have a conversation. Uh there might be
[136:43] attraction, there might not be, but you
[136:45] develop some degree of intimacy. Some
[136:46] people would disclose a lot on planes
[136:49] and then you never hear or talk to them
[136:51] again. Nowadays, there's almost always
[136:53] an opportunity for people to follow up
[136:55] and connect with people. That's what
[136:57] James Ston is referring to. Yeah. when
[136:59] he talks about social media being a um
[137:02] an uh borrowing other person's language
[137:05] here an attack vector, you know, on a
[137:08] relationship and maybe that is a good
[137:09] reason for people who are in committed
[137:11] relationships to just get off of social
[137:13] media period. But it's also a context
[137:15] where people spend quote unquote spend
[137:18] time with people for other reasons.
[137:20] >> Yeah, it's tricky. Uh if if I I don't
[137:24] recommend using that sort of process to
[137:26] bolster your relationship. I guess if
[137:28] you're going to do it, you know, try to
[137:29] do it by watching somebody. Um, yeah.
[137:32] Who's uh Yeah. figure out if you're a
[137:36] man who's with a woman, just ask her
[137:38] like what actor does she have the hots
[137:40] for and like be kind enough to watch a
[137:42] movie featuring him. Like maybe that's
[137:44] that's a way to make this work.
[137:46] >> Or the reverse. Yeah, sure.
[137:48] >> Some of the um what appear to be the
[137:50] strongest and happiest couples that I
[137:52] know, I know very little about their
[137:54] dynamics period.
[137:56] >> Yeah. which is kind of an interesting
[137:57] thing in its own right, but some of the
[137:59] people that are in that set seem to have
[138:02] a pretty uh relaxed
[138:04] >> rapport around, oh yeah, uh so and so
[138:08] referring to their spouse really likes
[138:09] that actor or actress. Like it's like
[138:11] it's just kind of a thing that they
[138:12] understand, but it's over there,
[138:14] >> right? It's it's at a distance. Yeah.
[138:17] It's not um it's not like a looming
[138:19] threat.
[138:20] >> It's very different if it's about
[138:21] somebody that you both like know and
[138:23] spend time with. It's much more
[138:26] threatening in those cases. And and I
[138:28] think that also is part of why that
[138:30] deraggation process happens is because
[138:33] that threat feels very uncomfortable.
[138:36] Like even if it's your attraction, like
[138:39] you kind of want to downplay it because
[138:42] the thought of what would it mean if I'm
[138:45] like with the wrong person or like what
[138:47] would happen if this thing spiraled out
[138:49] of control, it it's upsetting for most
[138:51] people. I mean, we take all this time to
[138:54] build a relationship up to be this thing
[138:58] that we really value that's a central
[139:00] part of our lives. The thought that like
[139:03] it could disappear at a moment's notice
[139:05] because of of a a mistake that we would
[139:07] make, it it can be threatening to most
[139:10] people. E even if we're imagining
[139:12] ourselves
[139:13] engaging in the actions that would bring
[139:15] things to an end.
[139:17] I heard a really scary story that may or
[139:20] may not be informative.
[139:22] >> I think it is and maybe you can help me
[139:25] understand it. Anytime someone starts a
[139:26] story with I have a friend, it gets a a
[139:29] little weird, but based on an
[139:31] observation I had a long time ago
[139:33] >> where I was going to a gym and I had a
[139:37] tr truly just platonic friendship with
[139:39] this woman. uh she would go to the gym
[139:40] too. Back then, not a lot of women
[139:42] worked out in gyms if I'm honest. Like
[139:43] like it was like not a lot of women
[139:45] lifted weights. It was like something
[139:46] that was kind of reserved for guys or
[139:47] for female bodybuilders, but she wasn't
[139:49] a bodybuilder, but she she liked lifting
[139:51] weights and super fit. She's a super
[139:53] accomplished athlete now.
[139:55] >> She um one day when we were leaving, she
[139:58] was like really upset. I was like,
[140:00] "What's up?" And she's like, "All these
[140:03] guys kept coming up to me." And I'm
[140:04] like, "Well, that's happening all the
[140:06] time." you know, she's like, "No, they
[140:08] were all really unattractive."
[140:11] And I said, "Okay, well, you're good at
[140:14] dealing with you." Like, she was very
[140:15] skilled. She's very beautiful then and
[140:17] now, and so very skilled at like saying,
[140:20] "Thanks, but no thanks."
[140:22] >> And then she said something that was
[140:23] absolutely like shocking to me that I've
[140:26] shared with other female friends and
[140:28] some men and they always go, "No way."
[140:30] And she said, "I feel like I have to go
[140:34] like flirt with a really attractive guy
[140:36] now."
[140:37] >> Wow.
[140:37] >> And it was clear that despite being
[140:40] incredibly attractive, incredibly
[140:41] accomplished
[140:43] and s athlete,
[140:45] >> was questioning her own value, this is
[140:49] very evo evolutionary biology, because
[140:51] the guys that were approaching her were
[140:53] in her mind very quote unquote low
[140:56] value, unattractive. Ah,
[140:57] >> it it like got to her, you know. Of
[140:59] course, my interpretation was, "Okay,
[141:01] guys, the next time a really attractive
[141:03] woman walks up to you and seems like
[141:05] she's chatting you up,
[141:06] >> you don't know that it's actually about
[141:08] you, you know, you know, like just know
[141:10] that it may not be about you." Like,
[141:12] like note to self. And what's wild is
[141:15] that years later I observed and talked
[141:19] to someone in a basically same dynamic,
[141:22] >> but she's married and she said, "Yeah,
[141:25] if a bunch of people hit people always
[141:27] hit on this this other woman, too."
[141:28] She's like, "If they do that,
[141:31] >> I sort of feel like I have to go kind of
[141:33] um get a clear perception again of
[141:35] whether or not I could be with an
[141:37] attractive guy." And now granted, she's
[141:39] married to a super successful, what
[141:42] anyone, male or female, would describe
[141:44] as super good-look guy,
[141:46] >> and they have a super stable family. And
[141:47] I thought to myself,
[141:49] >> "Oh my god." And I don't know that this
[141:51] is unique to women. I don't know. But
[141:53] it's kind of weird if you think about
[141:55] it. Now, it could be their unique
[141:57] insecurity, but it's like if data start
[141:59] coming in,
[142:01] >> let's flip it. date. If a lot of really
[142:03] attractive people of the opposite sex
[142:05] start talking to you, whoever's
[142:07] listening to this
[142:08] >> that you perhaps start to wonder if
[142:11] something
[142:12] >> important is going on there. There's
[142:14] information there. I just would like you
[142:15] to reflect on this. I've been perplexed
[142:17] by it for a long time. In some sense, it
[142:19] makes total sense,
[142:20] >> but as a scientist, I've learned, yeah,
[142:22] but
[142:23] >> just like like what's really going on
[142:25] here? I think the part of the story
[142:28] that's the most headscratching is that
[142:31] they're in relationships. So shouldn't
[142:34] they
[142:35] >> in the second case?
[142:35] >> Yeah. In the second case. So shouldn't
[142:38] they be getting the feedback
[142:40] that's positive on a regular basis?
[142:43] Anyway, let's for the sake of argument
[142:45] just assume that she was. So she was
[142:48] getting positive feedback at home and
[142:50] yet the experience of having less
[142:53] appealing men come up to her led her to
[142:56] feel like I need to do something to
[142:57] reaffirm my
[142:58] >> I think it was a question am I losing it
[143:00] was the was kind of the language that
[143:01] came up am I losing it whatever it was
[143:04] >> one of the reasons that scientifically I
[143:07] am out here like questioning the
[143:10] usefulness of the made value construct
[143:13] is because I know that people of quote
[143:15] unquote low value can have absolutely
[143:17] fantastic relationships and people of
[143:19] quote unquote high value can have
[143:21] absolutely terrible relationship.
[143:23] >> I observed that many many times. Sure.
[143:25] >> There you go. So that happens all the
[143:28] time.
[143:29] I think one of the strongest uh most uh
[143:33] like resonant things that made value
[143:36] does for us or the way that we
[143:37] experience it most acutely is indeed in
[143:41] the attention we get from strangers and
[143:43] or the junior high type scenarios that
[143:46] we talked about. So that we do have a
[143:50] level of attractiveness and it changes
[143:52] as we age. There is a consensus out
[143:55] there about how desirable we are. And
[143:58] that consensus is not going to stay
[144:00] exactly where it is. It's going to
[144:01] shift. And you might be in a
[144:02] relationship and be very happy with the
[144:04] person who unambiguously
[144:07] thinks you're a 10. And yet still
[144:09] wonder, what does everybody else think?
[144:11] Like do they think I'm a seven? Do they
[144:13] think I'm a four? What has happened to
[144:15] me? So I totally get that. That
[144:18] experience of how am I coming across to
[144:21] the world? Is it less than I thought it
[144:23] was? And that the only great information
[144:26] that you have is how strangers respond
[144:28] to you. It's sort of a funny way of
[144:31] flipping all of this stuff around
[144:33] because again, as a relationships
[144:35] researcher, my bias is always your
[144:39] husband thinks you're a 10. You think
[144:41] he's a 10. You won the lottery. Like
[144:43] that's it. You did it. But I
[144:46] acknowledge, yeah, there can be cases
[144:48] where we still wonder about what
[144:51] strangers think of us and it might
[144:53] matter to our sense of selfworth and
[144:55] sense of who we are. So, so I'm not
[144:57] going to judge it, but it is a
[144:59] fascinating flip of the way I typically
[145:01] think about these things.
[145:02] >> It makes me wonder whether that our um
[145:06] >> notions of self and this goes back to
[145:07] the what we were talking about before
[145:08] the Esther Prell thing and
[145:10] attractiveness that sort of boomerangs
[145:11] back into the relationship. something
[145:13] that's going to be uncomfortable for a
[145:14] lot of people to to hear, but at at some
[145:18] level all of it makes me wonder whether
[145:20] um there's a healthy
[145:21] compartmentalization
[145:23] >> that
[145:25] >> we could adopt as as a society. Which is
[145:28] not to say like anyone can be attracted
[145:30] to anyone and therefore commitment isn't
[145:32] real.
[145:33] >> Nor is it saying like okay when you're
[145:34] in a committed relationship it's it's a
[145:36] complete black box. Right. Right.
[145:38] Because there is this thing called the
[145:40] internet and there's this thing called
[145:41] the human psyche and you study it and
[145:43] around these issues. But maybe it's if
[145:46] people understood that those are two
[145:47] different things.
[145:49] >> Yeah.
[145:49] >> Sometimes we refer to it like as the
[145:51] shiny object,
[145:52] >> but that that's a an aspect of self or
[145:55] it's an aspect of of wanting that's not
[145:58] it's not not real. It's real, but that
[146:03] maybe there's a way to compartmentalize
[146:05] it so that it's has the potential to be
[146:07] toxic to relationship. Yeah.
[146:08] >> But acknowledging that it's real, that
[146:10] it's part of our wiring
[146:13] >> might diffuse some of its power.
[146:15] >> Like I said, some of these couples that
[146:16] are like, "Oh, yeah." Like, what's the
[146:18] the phrase couples have where they're
[146:19] like, "Oh, you get a it's like a hall
[146:21] pass."
[146:21] >> Oh, yeah.
[146:22] >> Which is never going to happen, right?
[146:23] She's like, you know, so and so, you
[146:25] know, my wife gets a hall my I get a
[146:27] hall pass with cuz basically it's never
[146:28] going to happen, right? So, it's not
[146:30] really a hall pass. It's a it's a it's a
[146:32] hall pass that uh exists in this
[146:34] alternate universe where um the other
[146:36] person could actually sleep with
[146:38] someone.
[146:39] >> Be careful with the hall notion because
[146:41] I don't know where that could lead. I'm
[146:42] not suggesting
[146:44] >> not a protocol I suggest. Not a protocol
[146:46] I suggest.
[146:48] >> But um it's kind of interesting because
[146:50] uh the parallel that comes to mind is
[146:53] you know if you're in Los Angeles long
[146:54] enough you get to know some people who
[146:56] are actors. Yeah. And from time to time,
[146:58] you'll run into somebody, male or
[147:00] female, who is who was a spectacular
[147:02] actor, had an amazing run on a comedy
[147:05] series or movies, and they're no longer
[147:08] working. And it is a
[147:11] >> biodal distribution. People who are
[147:14] happy and content and focusing on their
[147:15] life and can see that was the younger,
[147:18] more attractive,
[147:21] >> working,
[147:22] funny, sexy, whatever. And this is men
[147:27] and women versus the like tortured
[147:31] I'm not getting work, the work is not as
[147:34] good as it used to be. I mean there it's
[147:36] like and I've seen this with people who
[147:37] had uh fame young for other reasons in
[147:40] sports and things like that and they are
[147:42] crushed.
[147:43] >> And so what you want to say is like just
[147:46] realize that you have this awesome
[147:49] aspect of self that doesn't live in you
[147:51] right now anymore, but it's still you.
[147:53] Like you got that.
[147:54] >> Yeah. You know, I think there's a
[147:56] similarity here. Like if people just be
[147:57] like, I've got everything I need and I'm
[148:00] good because yeah, that other stuff
[148:01] exists and I feel good about it. Not
[148:03] like I'm gonna pretend it doesn't exist.
[148:04] Seems like they could be a very
[148:05] functional way to move through life for
[148:07] people who have this insecurity. I
[148:10] totally agree. And in fact, I'll even go
[148:12] a step further, which is to say, I try.
[148:16] I don't always succeed, but I try to
[148:18] think this way about relationships that
[148:21] have come and gone, too. Because I think
[148:25] there's a real tendency I mean I was
[148:28] going to say in our culture but it might
[148:30] be a lot of cultures to see like past
[148:34] relationships that have ended and I'll
[148:36] even put divorces in this category to
[148:38] look back and say I failed. And I think
[148:42] people reinforce this even
[148:43] unintentionally. You know you you go
[148:46] through a breakup a dating breakup and
[148:48] people say I'm so sorry. I know what
[148:50] that's like. come over and have some ice
[148:52] cream. You go through a divorce and
[148:54] people say, "Well, what happened?"
[148:56] Because they're trying to make sure that
[148:58] it doesn't happen to them because
[149:00] they're interpreting it as a failure.
[149:03] And boy, I think if we give each other a
[149:05] little bit of grace and see it all as,
[149:08] yeah, that was a thing that happened. It
[149:10] was real. It mattered in that moment.
[149:14] Things happened along the way. It it it
[149:16] didn't work out. I changed. You changed.
[149:18] like being able to accept that like all
[149:21] of those things are real and have or had
[149:25] value. You know, I'd love to try to
[149:28] encourage people to do that. I know like
[149:30] there's so many people out there right
[149:31] now who are like, "Yeah, but my ex is a
[149:33] dick." And I I'm with you. I totally get
[149:37] that. And to the extent that there's any
[149:40] ability to hold these two thoughts in
[149:42] mind simultaneously, I think it's good.
[149:45] >> My girlfriend and I have a rule. We
[149:46] don't have many rules. One of the rules
[149:48] is we don't talk negatively about anyone
[149:50] else that we've ever been with.
[149:52] >> We we
[149:54] were very comfortable with the fact that
[149:55] we've had previous relationships because
[149:57] early on we realize that like in the end
[150:00] like that's all about our choices. So
[150:02] it's kind of a crazy argument. Um and uh
[150:06] and she said something beautiful. She
[150:07] said like I'm grateful to all the good
[150:09] and bad things that you've had to
[150:11] experience regardless of you know and I
[150:13] said the same to her because the
[150:15] relationship is great and we bring that
[150:17] >> and I do think it was built on the
[150:19] trials and tribulations and great things
[150:21] you know now I'm careful to not ask too
[150:23] many questions and she's careful to ask
[150:25] not ask too many we we actually have um
[150:27] uh selective uh ignorance around around
[150:30] certain we just like I don't care like I
[150:33] genuinely don't
[150:34] >> go down certain lines of inquiry and she
[150:36] doesn't either. And I think it's great.
[150:38] >> I think it's great. I think it's uh it
[150:40] sets up like a you're the we're here
[150:42] now. This is time move from now forward
[150:44] and where it goes we determine that. But
[150:47] but histories are real
[150:48] >> and I have always admired I have a few
[150:50] friends that um paired up
[150:53] >> very early and they went through all
[150:54] these developmental milestones together,
[150:56] first jobs, some even graduate college
[150:59] as couples, kids, you know, all this
[151:01] stuff. And there's something really
[151:03] beautiful about people that you you have
[151:06] a long developmental trajectory to big
[151:09] milestones that they reach together.
[151:10] Nowadays, people are pairing up later.
[151:12] They're getting divorced and remarrying.
[151:14] It's harder to build a common narrative,
[151:16] >> right?
[151:16] >> Is there any data about common narrative
[151:20] good or bad like we went through a lot
[151:23] can be building as well. Is time
[151:25] together a factor? Like when you control
[151:28] for everything else, is duration of
[151:30] relationship
[151:31] an indicator of sort of quality and
[151:35] satisfaction of relationship?
[151:36] >> So if we're looking strictly at
[151:39] relationship duration,
[151:42] honestly, on average, it tends to be a
[151:46] bad sign. In other words, wait a second.
[151:49] Staying together is bad.
[151:50] >> Yeah. No, no, it just means that like
[151:52] that over time people were the happiest
[151:55] early on in their relationship than they
[151:58] are today. Right. It actually kind of a
[152:01] bummer. Um
[152:02] >> can you just break up and get back
[152:03] together a bunch?
[152:03] >> Yeah. Right. Okay.
[152:04] >> We don't study that. We should um that
[152:07] might have some problems volunteering.
[152:09] >> Yeah. But let me say this. the the
[152:11] narrative,
[152:13] right? The idea that we experienced a
[152:16] lot, that we grew, that we faced all
[152:18] these obstacles, that is huge. So, it's
[152:21] so so literal time is not the best
[152:25] metric to capture, I think, the essence
[152:28] of what you're getting at. It's a sense
[152:30] that like we were in this together and
[152:31] that we had a shared story. This is also
[152:34] why breakups are so hard because not
[152:38] only are you often losing a source of
[152:41] support, perhaps for men it might be
[152:43] more likely to be their only source of
[152:45] support. Not only um do you have to face
[152:49] the possibility of getting back out
[152:51] there, but you're also losing the
[152:54] continuity with yourself. you're losing
[152:57] the stories and the narratives that
[152:59] you've built with this other person and
[153:01] all of those memories and all of those
[153:03] components.
[153:04] >> Well, I think that's why it can feel
[153:06] like a failure because there's this
[153:09] understandable and I think very
[153:10] desirable wish that the
[153:13] >> it's like a novel. It's going to have a
[153:14] beginning, a middle, and an end
[153:16] >> and the end is death.
[153:18] >> Like we're going to till death do us
[153:19] part. That is written into the script,
[153:21] right? And so I think if it ends early,
[153:23] I think a lot of people don't know how
[153:25] to integrate it into their life story.
[153:27] >> Yeah.
[153:28] >> The evolutionary biology part, which
[153:30] seems very real to me,
[153:31] >> is that all we have is time and energy.
[153:35] Yeah.
[153:35] >> And when we invest,
[153:38] >> time is running. There's no doover,
[153:40] right?
[153:41] >> You know, there's no doover. So I think
[153:43] that people carry a lot of resent about
[153:45] the time lost.
[153:46] >> Yeah. and and the energy and the
[153:47] investments that you put into it. But
[153:49] and I think I think it's useful to think
[153:52] about those investments as being about
[153:54] like self and story
[153:58] and that to the extent that you can use
[154:02] it as an opportunity to like whether
[154:05] it's like reinvent or recreate or you
[154:07] know you preserve some of the parts of
[154:08] yourself from the prior relationship but
[154:10] maybe not all the prior parts of
[154:12] yourself. there are some things that
[154:13] you'd rather let go. To the extent that
[154:16] you can hold on to the good parts of the
[154:19] story, the parts that you want to
[154:21] remember, that you want to keep, it' be
[154:22] so painful when you're going through the
[154:24] breakup in the first place that I think
[154:26] a lot of times people just want to like
[154:27] take all of it, put it in a box, and get
[154:29] rid of it. Definitely throw away the
[154:31] photos at some point.
[154:32] >> Yeah. Yeah. Although, although now
[154:34] everything's, you know, in the cloud,
[154:36] it's very, very challenging.
[154:38] Hypothalamus versus forebrain. Does the
[154:41] good primitive stuff,
[154:43] >> meaning,
[154:44] >> yep,
[154:44] >> sexual attractiveness, outweigh the
[154:47] ability to think about how great someone
[154:49] is? Ideally, there's both.
[154:51] >> Yeah.
[154:51] >> But the good lover beats stated
[154:54] preferences model.
[154:56] >> Yeah.
[154:56] >> Is something that,
[154:57] >> okay,
[154:58] >> you've talked about before. In other
[155:00] words, is the real glue in a long-term
[155:04] relationship
[155:06] some form of physical intimacy that in
[155:09] or put differently, can we think and
[155:11] talk our way perhaps to ourselves?
[155:14] >> Yeah.
[155:15] >> Forward through a relationship that
[155:17] doesn't have that physical intimacy.
[155:19] Usually, you will see that things like
[155:21] sexual satisfaction or sexual desire for
[155:23] your partner are going to be pretty
[155:26] tightly related to how you feel about
[155:29] the relationship in general. It's an
[155:33] important component. I wouldn't say it's
[155:35] an essential component or even the
[155:38] central component for many people, but
[155:41] for other people it certainly can be.
[155:44] And I again I do believe in the church
[155:48] of Esther Pel which is that there are
[155:51] ways of recultivating
[155:53] sexual feelings about somebody that
[155:55] actually our sexual feelings about
[155:56] somebody. It's not like a switch where
[155:59] it's just on or it's off and we know
[156:01] just when we look at them that sometimes
[156:03] it's about the things we're talking
[156:05] about the time we spend together or the
[156:07] time that we spend apart and that that
[156:10] can be rekindling in various ways. So I
[156:12] think the key thing for me is not to
[156:16] engage in fatalism about the sexual
[156:21] desire component. That when like the
[156:23] when the passion fades in a
[156:26] relationship,
[156:27] that doesn't mean that it's gone
[156:29] forever. It might not be something that
[156:32] you feel like every day at 7:00 p.m.
[156:35] anymore. It might be the kind of thing
[156:38] that that comes to the four in certain
[156:40] circumstances or when you're not totally
[156:43] exhausted.
[156:44] I think that's okay. And a lot of
[156:46] relationships can absolutely thrive
[156:49] under those circumstances. And you can
[156:51] push it to extremes, too, where it's
[156:53] like, "My partner hasn't been sexually
[156:55] attracted to me in, you know, years and
[156:58] years." Like, that's going to be tough.
[157:00] And part of the reason that's tough is
[157:02] because you don't have the sexual
[157:03] intimacy. But also part of the reason
[157:04] it's tough is cuz it's making me feel
[157:06] terrible about myself. So these things
[157:09] all like cascade in various negative
[157:11] ways, but I think they can also be be
[157:14] helped in ways too that you know that
[157:16] engage some of these more, you know, the
[157:19] parts of our brains that at least we're
[157:20] more uh aware of and and have some
[157:23] agency over.
[157:25] >> So is it true that sexual attractiveness
[157:28] that rating the person's uh a person
[157:30] rating their partner as a quote unquote
[157:32] good lover is
[157:34] among the strongest predictors of how
[157:36] positively they feel about their partner
[157:39] because that's that I I really
[157:40] appreciate your answer, but I I want to
[157:42] make sure that if that's true, that
[157:44] comes comes through because what I'm
[157:46] hearing is yes, it can those feelings
[157:49] can uh wax and wayne and yes, life
[157:51] circumstances and raising kids and job
[157:53] and stress. Yes. Yes. And yes, I think
[157:56] uh everyone including me acknowledges
[157:57] that. But this idea that it's not
[158:01] important after a certain stage or that
[158:04] a really healthy romantic relationship
[158:06] can exist without that. What I'm hearing
[158:08] is the data
[158:10] >> point in the other direction.
[158:10] >> No, that is absolutely correct. the the
[158:13] subjective sense that and that's exactly
[158:15] the wording that we use the subjective
[158:18] sense that like this person that I am
[158:21] with or or this person that in that
[158:24] study we have people who are in
[158:25] relationships but we also have people
[158:27] who are reporting on like just folks
[158:29] that they're initially attracted to. But
[158:31] in both it actually doesn't really
[158:33] matter. In both cases, feeling like this
[158:36] person is a good lover or likely to be a
[158:39] good lover in the case of the attraction
[158:40] scenarios is a very very good sign for
[158:44] how positively you feel about the
[158:46] relationship in general and whether you
[158:48] want the relationship to continue it.
[158:51] But again, it's that it's that
[158:52] subjective sense and that's that's kind
[158:54] of where I'm getting to this component
[158:56] of like if if I start to feel like
[159:00] you're not a great lover, like that's
[159:02] going to rebound. So that then you don't
[159:04] feel desirable and it's going to sort of
[159:06] cascade in all of these negative ways.
[159:08] >> All seems to converge on it's an
[159:10] important feature of romantic
[159:11] relationships to cultivate protect from
[159:15] you know Yeah. And you describe some to
[159:17] me surprising um
[159:20] >> you know I I I think for some reason it
[159:22] it makes total sense and yet it's
[159:23] surprising that this kind of energy from
[159:25] the outside can
[159:27] >> provide positive support to the
[159:28] relationship. Um, but Esther said it,
[159:31] excuse me, has said it and others have
[159:33] said it. So,
[159:35] >> very interesting. Final question. Sounds
[159:37] like a game show. Final question. Um,
[159:40] >> billion dollar question.
[159:41] >> Your course on this topic and related
[159:43] topics is incredibly popular for obvious
[159:46] reasons. It's super interesting topic. I
[159:48] mean at at the end of the day like our
[159:50] species evolved through these dynamics
[159:52] you know it it wasn't all like you know
[159:55] club the the lion you know gather food
[159:58] make it was there was a lot of dynamics
[160:00] I always chuckle when people say like
[160:02] you know stress is a holdover from when
[160:04] we were being hunted by saber-tooth type
[160:07] no that's complete like nonsense it was
[160:10] also there for when your spouse went
[160:13] hunting for the day or gathering and you
[160:15] didn't know if they were going to come
[160:16] back or they came back after sundown
[160:17] when normally They're there at sundown
[160:18] and it's for when your baby was sick.
[160:19] Like this notion that like stress was
[160:21] only about pation. Like so it's just so
[160:24] stupid. I'd like to uh have words with
[160:26] whoever came up with that. It's so dumb.
[160:28] It makes no it's not true.
[160:30] >> What are the questions that students are
[160:33] asking most often nowadays? Because I
[160:36] realize that as a, you know, 50-year-old
[160:38] male, uh, I suffer from a number of
[160:40] different delusions about relationships
[160:43] as it is for people in their 20s.
[160:47] uh 30s now. Um and maybe for everybody
[160:52] because we're all in our own experience.
[160:54] But I think even though the college
[160:56] classroom is not a perfect sample by any
[160:58] stretch presumably there a lot of
[161:00] different people in there.
[161:01] >> Yeah.
[161:02] >> Men, women, right? Some are most are
[161:05] probably straight, some are gay on
[161:06] average 2%. Like you're going to get a
[161:08] lot of questions. What are the big
[161:09] questions that that people seem to want
[161:11] answered that
[161:14] you're just hearing over and over again
[161:16] that are both in the direction of like
[161:19] this is a challenge but also like what's
[161:21] going right out there? Is anything going
[161:23] right?
[161:23] >> I think most of the questions are about
[161:27] like like there is often an assumption
[161:29] that like
[161:31] >> yeah but these days
[161:34] it's so screwed up like that's what
[161:36] they're saying.
[161:36] >> Yeah. like the I mean you just have this
[161:39] undercurrent. It's almost like and I
[161:41] worry about this sometimes that when I
[161:43] teach the science on these topics
[161:46] there's a general sense of okay but that
[161:48] this is science from the before times
[161:50] like what like today
[161:53] when the the apps have have controlled
[161:56] everything and like nobody goes out
[161:58] anymore like what are we supposed to do
[162:02] and sometimes I fall back on the well
[162:07] look like these these groups and things
[162:09] like we were talking about these clubs.
[162:11] They're still out there. You can still
[162:12] get out there and meet people.
[162:14] >> Activities.
[162:14] >> Yeah. Activities like through these
[162:16] avenues. They tend to work pretty well.
[162:19] And at the same time, I have to
[162:21] acknowledge that the generations are
[162:23] going to change and these folks
[162:26] experiences will be different than the
[162:29] experiences that my generation had. So I
[162:33] think in many ways this ends up being
[162:35] the challenge to like to convey the
[162:38] science to folks but also do it in a way
[162:40] that shows that you're being responsive
[162:42] and aware of the fact that any
[162:44] generation feels like but things have
[162:46] changed now and sometimes it takes a
[162:48] while to know like what has really
[162:50] changed. I do think that these students
[162:53] go out less often. I think they drink
[162:55] less often. I think they are they aren't
[162:58] spending time socializing in the same
[163:00] way and they're interfacing more with
[163:01] technology that's probably helping some
[163:04] people and it's probably really making
[163:06] it hard for some other people and so um
[163:09] you know I try to like live the example
[163:12] of hey like I spent time hanging out
[163:14] with people in groups and it was hard
[163:16] and I got rejected and you know my high
[163:18] school girlfriend dumped me but I ended
[163:20] up doing okay and um I hope that other
[163:24] people can like resonate with that
[163:26] message in my glasses.
[163:27] >> Love it. And I'm also hearing um perhaps
[163:31] don't just sign up for something, but be
[163:33] the person who organizes it.
[163:34] >> Yeah. Yeah. I love this. I love this.
[163:36] >> Like you can throw a picnic or a party
[163:39] and uh
[163:40] >> when I was a graduate student at Davis,
[163:42] uh I often didn't make it cuz I was in
[163:44] lab, but um every Friday there was a
[163:47] pickup beach volleyball game.
[163:49] >> Oh, that's fantastic. And then people
[163:50] would go to uh there was a Thai
[163:53] restaurant that was that was also a bar.
[163:56] >> That night sometimes ended the next
[163:58] morning. There was a tattoo shop right
[164:00] across the street that closed called
[164:01] American Graffiti.
[164:02] >> Oh yeah.
[164:03] >> Yeah. That some people got tattoos.
[164:06] Do not recommend and definitely don't
[164:08] get tattooed drunk. Probably don't even
[164:10] get Do what you want. But um but but it
[164:13] was every Friday and there was only one
[164:15] rule which is that you had to at least
[164:18] attempt to do the kind of like bump set
[164:22] approach to beach volleyball. You
[164:23] couldn't just hit it across
[164:25] >> and it didn't matter how bad you were,
[164:28] you know,
[164:29] >> you had to do the three
[164:30] >> and then everyone would go Thai food.
[164:32] >> Some people would have
[164:34] >> drinks if they drank. Somebody would
[164:35] have a lot of drinks they definitely
[164:36] drank.
[164:37] >> It's just a really cool thing. Anyone
[164:39] could come.
[164:39] >> Yeah. Things like that happened a lot
[164:42] and it took like zero planning. It was
[164:44] an email that basically just went out
[164:46] and no one person was in charge. It was
[164:48] just kind of in the collective. Yeah.
[164:50] >> They did uh like cooking competition
[164:52] things where
[164:54] >> you'd meet at someone's house and
[164:55] everyone would have to bring like a
[164:57] particular dish and then everyone would
[164:58] try them. And I had no time in graduate
[165:01] school. I was working all the time. I
[165:02] would make time for these things
[165:03] occasionally and they were a lot of fun.
[165:05] Like these things are super easy to do.
[165:07] Yeah,
[165:07] >> you don't have to have any real athletic
[165:09] ability or cooking ability, trust me.
[165:11] Um, it I just feel like there's so much
[165:14] opportunity for that, but the barrier
[165:17] must be really there for people if
[165:19] they're not doing these things cuz I
[165:21] think it was just reflexive.
[165:22] >> Technology
[165:24] has a pull.
[165:26] >> Um, and we can say it's the phones. Um,
[165:30] but we could also say that it's whatever
[165:32] is on your TV. I mean, there's lots of
[165:34] reasons these days for people to stay in
[165:37] that just weren't there 20 to 30 years
[165:40] ago. I'd hope that the message would
[165:43] resonate like you know gang like like
[165:46] these whether it's the entertainment
[165:49] companies or the apps they're they're
[165:51] trying to keep you away from real
[165:54] socialization. Young people, don't you
[165:56] like rebelling and stuff? Rebel against
[165:58] this, you know. Exactly. Like form these
[166:01] groups. go out and meet people again in
[166:03] person. I think it's coming back.
[166:06] >> I I really do. I I think the pand I
[166:08] think it's like it was like a long
[166:10] pandemic hangover where we we just kind
[166:13] of forgot this part of our social
[166:16] architecture, but but it's coming back.
[166:18] It it didn't go anywhere. We're still
[166:20] social creatures and we also have these
[166:23] great frontal loes. And even if you
[166:24] don't feel like going out and
[166:26] interacting with people, you can kind of
[166:28] nudge yourself to do it. Um, and I I
[166:30] think uh I think that's pretty
[166:32] fantastic. Thank you so much for the
[166:34] work you do. It's very brave. It's very
[166:37] brave because it runs right up against
[166:39] some long-standing theories of which I,
[166:42] you know, I I still think very highly of
[166:44] of a good fraction of the evolutionary
[166:46] biology and psychology literature. I now
[166:49] have to filter it through these new
[166:51] findings. Um, but you've created your
[166:54] own new field basically. uh which is of
[166:57] course why your book which we'll provide
[166:59] a link to um and your work is is so
[167:02] popular and and it I love the optimism
[167:04] that it shines into every interaction.
[167:06] I'm sure people picked up on that that
[167:08] you're not a doom and gloom guy, you're
[167:10] a solutions guy. Really appreciate your
[167:13] time here. Um many people will thank you
[167:16] both those in relationship. you learn
[167:18] some things to, you know, armor your
[167:20] relationship, understand your
[167:22] relationship better yourself, and uh and
[167:24] for those who are who are seeking
[167:26] partners or who are just observing the
[167:28] world around them and are content where
[167:29] they're at, um they're going to benefit.
[167:31] So, thank you so much. Really appreciate
[167:33] you.
[167:33] >> Thank you so much for having me.
[167:36] >> Thank you for joining me for today's
[167:37] discussion with Dr. Paul Eastwick. To
[167:39] learn more about his work and to find a
[167:41] link to his book, Bonded by Evolution:
[167:43] The New Science of Love and Connection,
[167:45] please see the links in the show notes
[167:47] caption. If you're learning from andor
[167:49] enjoying this podcast, please subscribe
[167:50] to our YouTube channel. That's a
[167:52] terrific zerocost way to support us. In
[167:54] addition, please follow the podcast by
[167:56] clicking the follow button on both
[167:58] Spotify and Apple. And on both Spotify
[168:00] and Apple, you can leave us up to a
[168:01] five-star review. And you can now leave
[168:04] us comments at both Spotify and Apple.
[168:06] Please also check out the sponsors
[168:07] mentioned at the beginning and
[168:08] throughout today's episode. That's the
[168:10] best way to support this podcast. If you
[168:13] have questions for me or comments about
[168:14] the podcast or guests or topics that
[168:16] you'd like me to consider for the
[168:17] Huberman Lab podcast, please put those
[168:19] in the comment section on YouTube. I do
[168:21] read all the comments. For those of you
[168:23] that haven't heard, I have a new book
[168:25] coming out. It's my very first book.
[168:27] It's entitled Protocols: An Operating
[168:29] Manual for the Human Body. This is a
[168:31] book that I've been working on for more
[168:32] than five years and that's based on more
[168:34] than 30 years of research and
[168:36] experience. And it covers protocols for
[168:38] everything from sleep to exercise to
[168:41] stress control protocols related to
[168:43] focus and motivation. And of course, I
[168:45] provide the scientific substantiation
[168:48] for the protocols that are included. The
[168:50] book is now available by pre-sale at
[168:52] protocolsbook.com.
[168:54] There you can find links to various
[168:56] vendors. You can pick the one that you
[168:57] like best. Again, the book is called
[168:59] Protocols, an operating manual for the
[169:01] human body. And if you're not already
[169:03] following me on social media, I am
[169:05] Huberman Lab on all social media
[169:07] platforms. So that's Instagram, X,
[169:09] Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And on
[169:12] all those platforms, I discuss science
[169:13] and science related tools, some of which
[169:15] overlaps with the content of the
[169:16] Huberman Lab podcast, but much of which
[169:18] is distinct from the information on the
[169:20] Huberman Lab podcast. Again, it's
[169:22] Huberman Lab on all social media
[169:24] platforms. And if you haven't already
[169:25] subscribed to our neural network
[169:27] newsletter, the neural network
[169:28] newsletter is a zerocost monthly
[169:30] newsletter that includes podcast
[169:32] summaries as well as what we call
[169:33] protocols in the form of 1 to three-page
[169:35] PDFs that cover everything from how to
[169:38] optimize your sleep, how to optimize
[169:39] dopamine, deliberate cold exposure. We
[169:41] have a foundational fitness protocol
[169:43] that covers cardiovascular training and
[169:45] resistance training. All of that is
[169:47] available completely zero cost. You
[169:49] simply go to hubmanlab.com, go to the
[169:51] menu tab in the top right corner, scroll
[169:53] down to newsletter, and enter your
[169:54] email. And I should emphasize that we do
[169:56] not share your email with anybody. Thank
[169:58] you once again for joining me for
[170:00] today's discussion with Dr. Paul
[170:01] Eastwick. And last, but certainly not
[170:04] least, thank you for your interest in
[170:06] science.