Speaker 1: Pushkin, Where did you learn the dues and don'ts of
Speaker 1: dating from your high school friends, an older sibling, your mom.
Speaker 1: Many of us long for a happy romantic relationship, but
Speaker 1: we don't always get reliable advice about how to meet
Speaker 1: and bond with a potential life partner. You might have
Speaker 1: learned about the birds and the bees in biology class,
Speaker 1: but I bet you didn't get much instruction about how
Speaker 1: to navigate a first date or diffuse your first big
Speaker 1: narrative fight. If we're being honest, a lot of our
Speaker 1: relationship advice comes from Taylor Swift songs and the research
Speaker 1: material my expert guest in this episode focus on a
Speaker 1: lot rom com movies, but.
Speaker 2: We'll probably talk about like initiating relationships but also maintaining them.
Speaker 3: We'll just like cover the whole gamut.
Speaker 4: Kind of yeah, Okay, Okay, great, all right.
Speaker 1: Eli Finkel of Northwestern University and Paul Eastwick from UC
Speaker 1: Davis are both world renowned relationship experts. They've recently launched
Speaker 1: a podcast called Love Factually, which explores what rom comms
Speaker 1: get right and wrong about how humans really find love.
Speaker 1: Eli and Paul turned to films like Clueless, La La
Speaker 1: Land and When Harry met Sally to compare their plots
Speaker 1: to the actual scientific research on love. Their goal is
Speaker 1: to figure out the facts from the fiction. So, in
Speaker 1: honor of Valentine's Day, I just had to include Eli
Speaker 1: and Paul in this episode in our how to season,
Speaker 1: which we are calling how to Learn.
Speaker 4: From a rom Com Movie.
Speaker 1: Now I know Eli and Paul's academic credentials are top notch,
Speaker 1: what are they really experts on rom cam movies? There's
Speaker 1: only one way to find out. So, having found out
Speaker 1: that you all were both into this stuff, my producer
Speaker 1: decided to make an impromptu quiz surprise rom com quiz,
Speaker 1: Who nice best quiz? Most famous quotes? Oh wow, So
Speaker 1: I'm going to read you a rom com or rom
Speaker 1: drum quote, and I just want to see if you
Speaker 1: know which movie it's from.
Speaker 3: Should we buzz in?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Should we compete to see who gets it first?
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's see.
Speaker 1: Okay, number one, I'm just a girl stitch in front
Speaker 1: of a boy nodding hill.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, I'm the puzzer. Doesn't even count.
Speaker 3: What about the buzzer? Oh? I am playing the rest
Speaker 3: of this game under protest?
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, Well, I think we got one for Paul
Speaker 1: that because we didn't finish it, I'll give the whole quote.
Speaker 1: It was, I'm just a girl standing in front of
Speaker 1: a boy asking him to love her. You know, I
Speaker 1: do want to give context for that quote since you also.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a lovely scene. I mean not nodding Hill right.
Speaker 5: A lot of people will remember this. It's something between
Speaker 5: a drama and a calm in the rom category. It's
Speaker 5: a rom drama com. I guess she's famous American actress
Speaker 5: and she's in love with someone like everyday English guy
Speaker 5: and there's you know, some consternation about whether she's out
Speaker 5: of his league and so forth, and at the end
Speaker 5: you get this really vulnerable open moment where she shows
Speaker 5: back up at his door, and you know, it's not
Speaker 5: really a story about her being out of his league
Speaker 5: or what their status is in the broader world. It's
Speaker 5: she's a vulnerable person just like the rest of us,
Speaker 5: and she's in love with him and it's just hopeful
Speaker 5: that he returns the love. And it's beautiful, of course,
Speaker 5: because she's Julia Roberts and that's kind of awesome.
Speaker 1: Okay, moving on to number two, and I guess we'll
Speaker 1: use Paul rules where you just jump in and say
Speaker 1: it if you know it as quickly.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: Number two.
Speaker 1: Number two, you see how picky I am about my
Speaker 1: shoes and they only go on my feet.
Speaker 3: We did this one, Paul. This is ten things I
Speaker 3: hate about you? Right? No, this is clueless.
Speaker 4: Ding ding ding, Yes, clueless.
Speaker 1: Okay, sorry, okay, moving on, moving on, moving on. Number three.
Speaker 1: Love means never having to say you're sorry.
Speaker 3: Oh am, I not remembering what this is from Originally,
Speaker 3: I have to be honest, I don't think I've ever
Speaker 3: seen this.
Speaker 4: This is old school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is love story.
Speaker 4: Right yeah, ding ding ding very good, nice.
Speaker 2: Job, but I've actually I've actually never seen it. I'm here,
Speaker 2: I am admitting this.
Speaker 4: Okay, that'll be a new episode.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: Number four, nobody puts baby in a corner.
Speaker 5: All right, I'll take it. This is dirty dancing. It's
Speaker 5: a great one, a totally adorable movie. I carried the watermelon.
Speaker 5: All sorts of great moments in that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we're talking about rom coms and it seems
Speaker 1: kind of silly, but you all in this new podcast
Speaker 1: have really argued that we can learn something really.
Speaker 4: Important from rom coms. You like, explain why that is.
Speaker 5: Well, what we realized is that rom coms are fun,
Speaker 5: they're entertainment, and the dramas too, right, they're entertainment. And
Speaker 5: the fact is that these movies contain messages. They contain
Speaker 5: implicitly or explicitly, messages about how relationships work. And due
Speaker 5: to the fact that films are so influential, we can
Speaker 5: think of them as messages that are injected into the
Speaker 5: cultural psyche. And some of these messages are accurate. That is,
Speaker 5: some of these messages when we consider them, we say, like,
Speaker 5: is that true? Is that an accurate way of thinking
Speaker 5: about how relationships actually work? Most people in the world
Speaker 5: don't realize there's a field called relationship science where people
Speaker 5: collect evidence on these things. So we thought it would
Speaker 5: be fun to fact check Hollywood and to say, these
Speaker 5: are the messages that the movies are are sending and
Speaker 5: to what degree through these messages actually align with the evidence.
Speaker 2: And I think too that sometimes it's really exciting when
Speaker 2: the movies are getting it wrong, because many times that's
Speaker 2: a great way to set up a contrast between something
Speaker 2: that feels very intuitive when you see it on screen.
Speaker 2: Often it's these tropes that we've seen many, many times,
Speaker 2: but it's kind of handy to be able to say,
Speaker 2: you know, we know from these kinds of studies that
Speaker 2: it doesn't actually work this way or it doesn't usually
Speaker 2: work this way. And there was something about the realization
Speaker 2: that we could do both point out what they're doing
Speaker 2: well but also point out what they're getting wrong that
Speaker 2: seemed pretty exciting.
Speaker 1: So I know there's some kinds of TV shows, like
Speaker 1: historically those shows like Survivor have had the like psychology
Speaker 1: consultants that come in, you know, and even some movies
Speaker 1: like Inside Out that franchise definitely has lots of famous
Speaker 1: psychologists that consult Do.
Speaker 4: You know if like rom comms and rom drums do.
Speaker 3: This, I'm not aware of it, Paul.
Speaker 5: I think there was one episode where we joked that
Speaker 5: like it almost seemed like they had a great advisor
Speaker 5: on set, and then both of us were jealous of
Speaker 5: that hypothetical job.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was. I think it was with
Speaker 3: her episode.
Speaker 2: Spike Jones, the writer director, really had these sharp insights
Speaker 2: about how people build intimacy, and well, what if you
Speaker 2: just made that person not have a body, couldn't you
Speaker 2: do it just as well? Just as seamlessly. But I
Speaker 2: don't think anybody is necessarily going to scientists for this.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of times they're generating these insights
Speaker 2: on their own.
Speaker 1: And talk to me about what we know about our
Speaker 1: own insights when it comes to love and romance. You know,
Speaker 1: if you had to guess kind of how much we're
Speaker 1: accurate versus how much we're inaccurate, you know, what would
Speaker 1: the finding show.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a fifty to fifty proposition. I think
Speaker 2: there are some times when people have really good insights
Speaker 2: and instincts when it comes to relationships. I think generally speaking,
Speaker 2: most people recognize that relationships require a certain amount of
Speaker 2: vulnerability and a certain amount of self disclosure and give
Speaker 2: and take. And that's going to be required to build
Speaker 2: a relationship in the first place, and it's going to
Speaker 2: be required to sustain closeness over time. So this is
Speaker 2: one area. And we see this in the films too.
Speaker 2: They do a pretty good job of making this clear. Right,
Speaker 2: whether you're talking about people initiating relationships with each other
Speaker 2: or you're talking about people maintaining a relationship, that is
Speaker 2: a message that comes through fairly well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean there's a bunch of movies that do
Speaker 5: this really effectively, And one of the movies that we
Speaker 5: had in season one is Before Sunrise, which is basically
Speaker 5: a movie that's about, again, your audience may be familiar
Speaker 5: with this, but two people we'll meet on a train
Speaker 5: on a url pass basically in Europe and spontaneously get
Speaker 5: up the train and then spend the evening together in Vienna,
Speaker 5: And basically it's a film about them walking around the
Speaker 5: city and talking to each other. And what the film
Speaker 5: captures beautifully, among other things, is this process through which
Speaker 5: people confide intimate information with each other. How we start
Speaker 5: as strangers and then I get to know a little
Speaker 5: bit about you, you get to know a little bit
Speaker 5: about me. And the beautiful thing about that movie in
Speaker 5: particular is that it puts that whole relationship initiation process,
Speaker 5: this process of getting to know each other, including really
Speaker 5: intimate information, in a turbocharger. And again, that's something that
Speaker 5: I think people do have decent instincts about this, and
Speaker 5: the films generally get right the process through which intimacy
Speaker 5: generally develops in relationships.
Speaker 1: And so let's dive into that franchise, because this actually
Speaker 1: is one of the kind of if you had to
Speaker 1: pick a few tips that you've learned from rom comms
Speaker 1: and rom doms that really get relationship science right. It
Speaker 1: seems like the Before Sunrise, Before Sunset franchise is one
Speaker 1: of those eli do you want to do a quick
Speaker 1: plot summary on Before Sunset?
Speaker 5: I love this movie. It's not something that we did
Speaker 5: in season one. We just did Before Sunrise in season one,
Speaker 5: but I did watch all three in advance of our episode,
Speaker 5: and in brief In the first movie, they get to
Speaker 5: know each other and they spend the night together and
Speaker 5: then they make this plan to meet up again, and
Speaker 5: that's basically where the first movie ends. Second movie and
Speaker 5: he Jesse played by Ethan Hawk, is on a book
Speaker 5: tour and he's on a book tour in Paris, and
Speaker 5: then while he's doing an event at a bookstore, Selene
Speaker 5: walks in, and what we discover is he had arrived
Speaker 5: six months later when he was supposed to and she
Speaker 5: couldn't because her grandmother had passed away, and so he
Speaker 5: had written a book about their experience, and now he's
Speaker 5: on this tour, and then the rest of that movie,
Speaker 5: now they're walking around a different European city and you know,
Speaker 5: I don't want to ruin the end. But the tension
Speaker 5: in the movie is that he has a flight back
Speaker 5: to the States that leaves that evening right before sunset
Speaker 5: is the second movie, and she keeps saying, you're about
Speaker 5: to miss your plane. You're about to miss your plane.
Speaker 5: And they're having these amazing conversations and these amazing settings.
Speaker 2: And reconsidering and revisiting many of their major life decisions
Speaker 2: in the process. And to watch again a process that
Speaker 2: when people are going to upend their lives, they usually
Speaker 2: take I don't know, a few months to do it.
Speaker 2: But now we're going to see that whole thing happen
Speaker 2: in a very compressed period of time. So it's in
Speaker 2: many ways the same conceit, but now we're seeing this
Speaker 2: whole different relationship process happening very very fast.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm trying to guess what the major correct
Speaker 1: relationship insight I'm supposed to take from this, right, you know,
Speaker 1: visit European cities with Ethan hawk, Like apend your life
Speaker 1: in twenty four hours.
Speaker 3: That's it. I mean, that would be a good one.
Speaker 5: Like if if you know it is an opportunity that's
Speaker 5: available to you, I'd recommend it, or Julie delp would
Speaker 5: be great too. I mean, that movie's tricky. This is
Speaker 5: again the second movie in the series, the Before Sunset film,
Speaker 5: and the reason why it's tricky is that has this
Speaker 5: really interesting moral complication is that he by this point
Speaker 5: has gotten married and has a son, and so when
Speaker 5: Paul talks about how these major like decisions are happening quickly,
Speaker 5: Jesse didn't realize that Selene was going to show up
Speaker 5: at this reading. He thought you was gone forever, and
Speaker 5: he built this alternative life, and then over a course
Speaker 5: of a few hours of walking around Paris has basically
Speaker 5: uprooted all of it now for a second time in
Speaker 5: a really different sort of way from the first movie,
Speaker 5: and the third movie engages with something different when they're
Speaker 5: now in their forties and have a family together, and
Speaker 5: all three of the films deal with those sorts of things.
Speaker 4: Okay, so what's the relationship insight here though?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So, I think if one is going to take a
Speaker 2: lesson from these movies, it's that any amount of intense
Speaker 2: self disclosure that you're going to get into with somebody
Speaker 2: is going to build a lot of intimacy and has
Speaker 2: the potential to build a connection. Although again, if you're
Speaker 2: in a relationship that you'd like to keep, then be
Speaker 2: careful who you're doing that with because it might seem like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're just like harmlessly getting to know each other, strolling
Speaker 2: around this gorgeous European city, and before you know it,
Speaker 2: you are now really questioning some of your life choices.
Speaker 2: There are a really fastudy by Art Aaron back in
Speaker 2: the nineties, often called the thirty six question Study. But
Speaker 2: what he does is he takes unacquainted pairs, gives them
Speaker 2: these questions would escalate in intensity, escalate in the degree
Speaker 2: to which they elicit intimacy and vulnerability. And what he
Speaker 2: shows with enormous effect sizes is you can get two
Speaker 2: people to really like each other if they go through
Speaker 2: this sixteen to ninety minute process. So again, that's great
Speaker 2: if you're looking to build a relationship. Those are good tips.
Speaker 2: You know, if you're not looking to build a new relationship,
Speaker 2: be really careful with how you do that.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I love about the Aaron
Speaker 1: study is that you forget that you can continue building
Speaker 1: that relationship with a long term partner. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think one of the reasons relationships kind of often fall
Speaker 1: into kind of boringness, is that we're not doing that vulnerability,
Speaker 1: that sort of morements of disclosure, They kind of fall
Speaker 1: by the wayside when you've been with somebody five years,
Speaker 1: ten years, twenty years. Do you think we can use
Speaker 1: that same kind of technique eli for kind of building
Speaker 1: current relationships.
Speaker 5: The brief answer is I think so, But the full
Speaker 5: answer is I don't think we know, because the question
Speaker 5: is why do people stop doing this as much? I
Speaker 5: share your premise people don't do this as much later on.
Speaker 5: One possibility is what you're suggesting that you know, they
Speaker 5: get distracted or they just don't prioritize it to the
Speaker 5: same degree. Another possibility is we know quite a bit
Speaker 5: about each other after twenty years, and so this idea
Speaker 5: that there's some like big well of discovery to start
Speaker 5: exploring makes it tricky. But nonetheless, there's always more to know,
Speaker 5: there's always more sort of new perspectives on things, or
Speaker 5: you know, going for example, to a thought provoking film
Speaker 5: and discussing that these options are always always always available
Speaker 5: to us. So I think it's a little bit in
Speaker 5: the column of it's easier to have big discovery before
Speaker 5: you really know each other, and also we get into
Speaker 5: ruts and sort of lazy habits and don't bother to
Speaker 5: try to rekindle some of these high intensity, high emotion
Speaker 5: sorts of experiences.
Speaker 1: I think another great thing that we learned from this
Speaker 1: study is the fact that that kind of self disclosure
Speaker 1: is actually positive. I think so many of us have
Speaker 1: the misconception that like kind of sharing our messiness might
Speaker 1: be yucky. But of course social scientists have talked about
Speaker 1: this beautiful mess effect, right, Paul, what's that effect?
Speaker 4: And Kin, how does it play out here?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So people often when they're trying to make an initial
Speaker 2: impression on somebody, they want that impression to be good.
Speaker 2: They want to come across perfectly, they want to self promote,
Speaker 2: and often those instincts are really misguided. What people really
Speaker 2: find appealing in those early moments is, like you put it,
Speaker 2: a little bit of messiness, a little bit of vulnerability.
Speaker 2: You know, old classic study, right, the person who's kind
Speaker 2: of a klutz ends up being more appealing than the
Speaker 2: person who's fully put together. And these are examples of
Speaker 2: how we can make ourselves open and seem approachable to
Speaker 2: another person, and it also makes us interesting. I mean,
Speaker 2: there actually isn't a lot that's very interesting about somebody
Speaker 2: who's fully put together. You know, it's not clear why
Speaker 2: they would be interested in us because they're fully put together.
Speaker 2: So having a little bit of vulnerability opens up an
Speaker 2: opportunity for more connection in a way that the movies
Speaker 2: often get right and sometimes we kind of miss when
Speaker 2: we get into resume exchange mode on dates. I got
Speaker 2: to come off as good as I can because I
Speaker 2: know there are all these other competitors out there, and
Speaker 2: I got to be the best.
Speaker 1: It's time for a quick break, but Paul Eli and
Speaker 1: I will be back soon.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: So that was first insight that we get from rom
Speaker 1: COM's positive insight that self disclosure often a good thing.
Speaker 1: Try to promote more of it. Now we're going to
Speaker 1: get to big tip number two, which comes from a
Speaker 1: classic rom Com one that I've seen, although very very
Speaker 1: long time ago. When Harry met Sally. Who wants to
Speaker 1: do the When Harry met Sally two second plot twist?
Speaker 3: Paul, here's the arc.
Speaker 2: When Harry met Sally, they first meet, they don't like
Speaker 2: each other very much. Five years past, they meet again,
Speaker 2: they don't like each other very much. Five years pass again,
Speaker 2: and now they kind of hit it off. They form
Speaker 2: this genuine friendship that goes on for a few years,
Speaker 2: and they go to each other as confidants. They try
Speaker 2: to set each other up on dates with some of
Speaker 2: their friends. It doesn't really work out, but it's a
Speaker 2: genuine friendship that we see for the majority of that movie.
Speaker 2: And of course, you know, there is the rom com
Speaker 2: trouble if they do get together at the end in
Speaker 2: a romantic way. Okay, But what this movie nails is
Speaker 2: what's often called the friends to lovers pathway, the idea
Speaker 2: that people are commonly good friends before they form a
Speaker 2: relationship with each other. And it's often underappreciated just how
Speaker 2: common that pathway is. Some re search by Danie Stinson
Speaker 2: and colleagues suggests that it's something on the order of
Speaker 2: seventy percent of relationships forms through that route. So that's
Speaker 2: reflected in the movie.
Speaker 1: Really well, I'm glad you explained what it was about,
Speaker 1: because I was like, does it have to do with
Speaker 1: the orgasms scene?
Speaker 4: That's all I remember from them?
Speaker 3: Is there any other scene in that movie?
Speaker 4: We're supposed to fake our orgasms, and we're supposed to
Speaker 4: not fake our orgasoms.
Speaker 1: So I think this idea that the arc of the
Speaker 1: relationship matters is really important.
Speaker 4: You know, what kind of advice do we get? Are there?
Speaker 1: Kind of obviously this sort of friends to partners arc
Speaker 1: is a pretty good one.
Speaker 4: Are there other good arcs that we should think about?
Speaker 5: Eli Sometimes when we're single and looking, it can feel like,
Speaker 5: how are we going to meet new people? You know,
Speaker 5: where are we going to go to try to meet
Speaker 5: new people? And luckily, now we can just swipe left
Speaker 5: and right. Well, luckily and unluckily you can do all
Speaker 5: that stuff. And one of the things that we I
Speaker 5: think underutilize is that that's not the way, at least historically,
Speaker 5: at least until very recently, that relationships have really begun,
Speaker 5: and to a significant degree, they still emerge from our
Speaker 5: existing social networks, from people that we already know.
Speaker 3: And Paul, you've studied this bit.
Speaker 5: But there's this like view that there's the one night
Speaker 5: stand or that we met and we've never met before
Speaker 5: and we started a relationship, and that is just a
Speaker 5: vast oversimplification of how relationship initiation works.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I think people often think that the way
Speaker 2: you start a relationship is you like arm yourself with
Speaker 2: some really good pickup lines, and you know who to approach,
Speaker 2: and you know, thirty minutes start to finish, I did it.
Speaker 2: I started a relationship. And it's just those skills. The
Speaker 2: ability to approach somebody and make them experience desire for
Speaker 2: you in minutes or even hours is a rare and
Speaker 2: rather unnecessary skill. Historically speaking, that wasn't how most people
Speaker 2: did it. You get to know people, some people grow
Speaker 2: on you, some people don't, but you're within these networks
Speaker 2: that shift and grow and change, and that's where most.
Speaker 3: Relationships come from. It's very easy to lose.
Speaker 2: Sight of that in the modern world of online dating,
Speaker 2: and I think online dating pushes us to think we
Speaker 2: need these skills that most of us historically have not
Speaker 2: really needed.
Speaker 1: So that's for people who are kind of starting out
Speaker 1: relationships and just sort of dating, the sort of arc
Speaker 1: kind of matters. It doesn't work the way we think,
Speaker 1: what can people who've been in relationships for a long
Speaker 1: time tape from the movie.
Speaker 2: I think in a lot of ongoing relationships, people develop
Speaker 2: these narratives about who we are as a couple, how
Speaker 2: we came to be this way, and these narratives are
Speaker 2: really important. I mean, having a coherent and positive narrative
Speaker 2: definitely predicts things like relationship satisfaction, right, how stable people's
Speaker 2: relationships are. And it's also important to keep in mind
Speaker 2: that relationships often change.
Speaker 3: With the seasons too.
Speaker 2: Somebody takes a new job, right, Maybe there are kids
Speaker 2: that come into the relationship.
Speaker 3: Somebody just comes by and like, lose them. I don't
Speaker 3: know how to show up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I drop off, Yes, hey.
Speaker 3: Go, I got this kid for you.
Speaker 2: But relationships go through these dramatic changes too, and I
Speaker 2: think it's very easy for people to remember and stay
Speaker 2: locked into their early narratives and patterns about who we are. Right,
Speaker 2: we are the fun couple, we are the couple that
Speaker 2: stays out late, and now we have a two year old.
Speaker 2: And does that make it feel like you're losing yourself,
Speaker 2: You're losing your identity for who you are as a couple.
Speaker 2: Or can you try to reinvent who you are as
Speaker 2: a couple to fit the new reality. These are also
Speaker 2: places where people have challenges and how they adapt to
Speaker 2: those circumstances can be really important.
Speaker 3: You know, we saw that in Lalla Land. Right.
Speaker 5: This is one of the things that I think was
Speaker 5: not obvious in La La Land, but was an interesting
Speaker 5: aspect which is so Sebastian played by the ever gorgeous
Speaker 5: Ryan Gosling, he is a very, very traditional jazz enthusiast.
Speaker 5: He's like, on this crusade to save traditional jazz. He
Speaker 5: then ends up in like a jazz fusion band and
Speaker 5: it's pretty popular, but because of how much he's always
Speaker 5: cared about traditional jazz, his girlfriend Mia played by the
Speaker 5: Oscar winning Emma Stone, can't really understand what he's doing.
Speaker 5: So even though now he's in this other band and
Speaker 5: he's kind of enjoying it, she's like, this isn't you
Speaker 5: and I don't get it, And so, you know, one
Speaker 5: of the interpretations of what happens in that film is
Speaker 5: that he changed, that his goals changed in ways that
Speaker 5: she didn't really track, and therefore she's supporting one of
Speaker 5: his goals that's no longer what his current goal is.
Speaker 5: And they're narrative about who each other is is no
Speaker 5: longer fitting the changed version of who they are now.
Speaker 4: And so any advice for how to kind of update
Speaker 4: those narratives and kind of understand I mean.
Speaker 2: A good relationships therapists, right, A good couples therapists will
Speaker 2: come in and will try to get people to unpack
Speaker 2: all of the unspoken assumptions that people have about why
Speaker 2: we're doing this thing and why it works best that
Speaker 2: we interact like this, and why it's best that we're
Speaker 2: pursuing these goals. So to unpack it all, put it
Speaker 2: on the table, and then identify, Look, these things seem
Speaker 2: to be conflicting with the new reality. What can we
Speaker 2: take away, what can we change, what can we alter
Speaker 2: in order to make these pieces fit again? So this
Speaker 2: is what couples therapists are really good at. But you
Speaker 2: don't have to have a couples therapists in order to
Speaker 2: be able to do some of that rearranging of the pieces.
Speaker 2: But it's not easy because we're often very defensive about
Speaker 2: you know, why we behave this way, or why we
Speaker 2: have this goal, or you know, but you had said this,
Speaker 2: and we hold people to things that they said years earlier,
Speaker 2: and so having some amount of humility and flexibility and
Speaker 2: the ability to reflect in this meta way about what
Speaker 2: exactly are we fighting about? Is it really about you know,
Speaker 2: you stayed out late, but I was expecting you to
Speaker 2: come home, or is it about these broader goals that
Speaker 2: we once had that kind of don't fit our current reality,
Speaker 2: and is there anything here that we can change to
Speaker 2: make this work better.
Speaker 1: Now we get to tip number three that rom comms
Speaker 1: get right, and this one is from a kind of
Speaker 1: oddball movie. I think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,
Speaker 1: which I saw many many years ago but totally don't remember,
Speaker 1: except they're like lying on some beach in Montalk or something.
Speaker 1: That's like the whole memory I have of this film.
Speaker 1: Who wants to do the thirty seconds on it?
Speaker 5: Well, I'm delighted that the main experience you have of
Speaker 5: this movie is failing to remember it, because that is
Speaker 5: of course what the movie is, right. They erase their
Speaker 5: memories of each other. This is Clementine and Joel. They
Speaker 5: release their they erase their memories of each other. And
Speaker 5: one of the messages that this movie gets to it
Speaker 5: is related to what we were talking about a little
Speaker 5: bit ago, which is that relationships are tied to a
Speaker 5: specific person. That is, it's not just that you know,
Speaker 5: if you find somebody who matches me on certain dimensions,
Speaker 5: we're going to get along. No, it's the sculpting and
Speaker 5: the building of relationships over time. That's what we mean
Speaker 5: when we talk about relationships as microcultures. And the reason
Speaker 5: why Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind gets this so
Speaker 5: right is that one of the characters has access to
Speaker 5: like weirdly intimate information about something that happened in somebody
Speaker 5: else's relationship and then tries to do the same thing
Speaker 5: and fails. So let me be specific about this. They're
Speaker 5: erasing Joel Barris's memory. He's the one played against type
Speaker 5: by Jim Carrey. He's trying to forget his memories of Clementine,
Speaker 5: who's played by Kate Winslet. But in this process of
Speaker 5: having a memories erased by the company named Lacuna Ink
Speaker 5: who does the memory eraser, one of the really creepy
Speaker 5: guys who works there now knows everything Joel did with
Speaker 5: Clementine to get him to like her so much, the
Speaker 5: things that he did that were just incredibly effective, including
Speaker 5: nicknames and including which gifts he gave her and when,
Speaker 5: and he knows that her memory has been erased too.
Speaker 5: That is, this creeper played by Elijah Wood knows that
Speaker 5: both of them have had their memories erased, so he
Speaker 5: tries to go and basically get Clementine doing the things
Speaker 5: that he knows full well she really dug when Joel
Speaker 5: did it, and they are colossal fails. And the lesson here,
Speaker 5: which I think is really crucial and illustrated perfectly in
Speaker 5: this movie, is that it's not a copy paste way
Speaker 5: to relationship success. It's not like you can say everything
Speaker 5: that I did with Alice was effective, and therefore I'm
Speaker 5: going to do the exact same things with you know, Janita,
Speaker 5: and that'll be effective. No, we have to track and
Speaker 5: tailor what it is we're doing to the like authentic
Speaker 5: growth of this particular relationship. It's not a story about
Speaker 5: finding people who do the things we like in general.
Speaker 5: It's finding people who adapt with us in ways that
Speaker 5: make our own little unique microculture effective rather than like venomous.
Speaker 2: Sometimes people use the term strategic or strategy when it
Speaker 2: comes to all aspects of relationships, whether it's initiating, whether
Speaker 2: it's maintaining relationships, like, oh, you've got to find the
Speaker 2: right strategies to make yourself appealing, to make part happy,
Speaker 2: et cetera. And I don't want to throw out that
Speaker 2: concept entirely, but I do think it is misleading for
Speaker 2: exactly this reason, because a strategy for most people implies,
Speaker 2: I'm going to learn how to do this skill, and
Speaker 2: then wherever I take this skill, it's going to be effective.
Speaker 2: And the lesson we get from Eternal Sunshine, and the
Speaker 2: lesson that we get from the science too, is that
Speaker 2: that's not really how it works. That what makes one
Speaker 2: person appeal to us is going to be totally different
Speaker 2: from the reasons that somebody else appeals to us. What's
Speaker 2: going to make this relationship satisfying and fulfilling. The things
Speaker 2: we're gonna do to make that happen are jointly co constructed.
Speaker 2: And if I try to take those ideas and copy
Speaker 2: paste them onto the next relationship, it's not really gonna work.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe you can sort of start with that
Speaker 2: and then alter it and try to make it work
Speaker 2: with this new person. But the idea that you can
Speaker 2: develop a set of strategies that's going to be universally
Speaker 2: effective across partners this is this is not a good
Speaker 2: way to think about it, and Sunshine seems to know this.
Speaker 1: I like this advice because it also seems like if
Speaker 1: you had some strategy that you kind of liked or
Speaker 1: maybe part of a relationship microculture that really resonated with you,
Speaker 1: and maybe a former partner wasn't that into it. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's never going to work again. You might
Speaker 1: find somebody else who kind of really gets that either
Speaker 1: your humor or your goofy is or whatever it has
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 4: So hang tight. Your Kate win Slant might be out
Speaker 4: there waiting for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: And people often have core things that they want a
Speaker 2: relationship to be built around, and I do think that's
Speaker 2: a useful way of thinking about like what your deal
Speaker 2: breakers might be or whether this relationship doesn't work for
Speaker 2: you that you really want to be able to connect
Speaker 2: with this person over X, y Z, and if you're
Speaker 2: having trouble making that happen, that could be something that
Speaker 2: you can't get past with this particular person.
Speaker 3: But my advice is often try not to go into
Speaker 3: it with very strong assumptions about what you need that
Speaker 3: person to do and assume that there's going to be
Speaker 3: some joint construction that's going to happen along the way.
Speaker 1: All right. So those were our positive tips from rom coms.
Speaker 1: So when we get back from the break, we're going
Speaker 1: to turn to what rom coms get wrong, Happiness Lab.
Speaker 4: We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So I'm curious as we start this section
Speaker 1: with your relationship science background, are you ever like, you know,
Speaker 1: in the middle of some new rom com and watching
Speaker 1: it and then just the characters do something and just
Speaker 1: from a scientific perspective.
Speaker 4: You're just like no, like, no, oh, you're both nodding.
Speaker 4: This seems like this comes up a lot from the
Speaker 4: nods I'm seeing.
Speaker 3: Eli, Yes, I do this.
Speaker 5: I kind of wish I didn't, right, Like, I there's
Speaker 5: sometimes that I want to watch something in the role
Speaker 5: of critic and sometimes I just want to like bask
Speaker 5: in the enjoyment of it. But yeah, it's hard to
Speaker 5: unknow the things that we know about what's effective and
Speaker 5: what's ineffective in general, as at least for me as
Speaker 5: I watch something on the screen.
Speaker 1: So let's get into some of the kind of misleading
Speaker 1: messages that we get from rom coms, starting with one
Speaker 1: that breaks my heart because it's one of my only
Speaker 1: favorite rom coms out there. Clueless. I like already like,
Speaker 1: don't believe this premise. I don't think share Horowitz can
Speaker 1: do anything wrong. But maybe it was the movie. It
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't Share herself.
Speaker 3: So you're right.
Speaker 1: For all the folks out there that don't know clueless,
Speaker 1: sad folks, you are go see it right now. Who
Speaker 1: wants to do the thirty thirty second on Clueless?
Speaker 4: Maybe I'll do it.
Speaker 3: I'll do it the product.
Speaker 4: Way Clueless is share Horowitz.
Speaker 1: Alicia Silverstone, very popular girl in high school, decides she's
Speaker 1: going to use her powers to like match everybody up together.
Speaker 1: I think she starts with a teacher, but then she
Speaker 1: takes her kind of slightly dumpy friend, kind.
Speaker 4: Of teen Britney Murphy.
Speaker 1: It hooks her up with somebody, but then the dumby
Speaker 1: friend tie I think, becomes even more popular. She realizes,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I've been using my powers poorly and
Speaker 1: realizes that this was an insight that she's heard from
Speaker 1: her stepbrother, amazingly cute looking Paul Rudd, and she figures out,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I'm in love with Paul Rudd, and
Speaker 1: then magic of rom com makes everything work out.
Speaker 3: I think the phrase is she's but crazy.
Speaker 1: Crazy, Yes, exactly, So how is this misleading us when
Speaker 1: it comes to the science of relationships?
Speaker 4: What is this movie getting wrong?
Speaker 5: Paul I'm happy for you to do it, but can
Speaker 5: we just acknowledge that we're just bad people and that
Speaker 5: really this movie has done nothing wrong and that everybody
Speaker 5: who loves this movie is one hundred percent correct.
Speaker 2: I completely endorse that statement, and Share is my personal hero.
Speaker 2: That being said, there is an important assumption that she articulates,
Speaker 2: which is that there are popular people and the unpopular people,
Speaker 2: and her goal is to turn Tie into one of
Speaker 2: the quote unquote popular girls so she can date one
Speaker 2: of the very few acceptable boys at this high school
Speaker 2: in SHARE's eyes. And in order for her to do
Speaker 2: her magical work, she has to do a couple of
Speaker 2: things related to messages that lead us astray. One is
Speaker 2: that she plays the game of desirability as a project.
Speaker 2: So you need to boost your attributes in various ways
Speaker 2: in order to make yourself appealing to other people. Right, So,
Speaker 2: when Tie comes in, we are to understand that she
Speaker 2: is not desirable and she must have things done to
Speaker 2: her to make her appealing and acceptable. Now, the movie
Speaker 2: actually knows that this is silly, because the reality is
Speaker 2: that she was always meant to be with skater boy Travis,
Speaker 2: and that could have happened in minute two of the movie.
Speaker 2: But we have to wait for a minute eighty eight
Speaker 2: and that's fine, and that's great. So the movie knows
Speaker 2: that this is an idea that leads us astray. But
Speaker 2: the second thing, and this is the one that is
Speaker 2: really tied to some of the complexities in the science,
Speaker 2: has to do with agreement about who is desirable and
Speaker 2: who is not.
Speaker 3: Because this movie is playing.
Speaker 2: With ideas that I think take for granted that there
Speaker 2: is a clear hierarchy of desirability, with popular people and
Speaker 2: middlingly popular people and unpopular people, and people must date
Speaker 2: within their sphere. The reality is that much of the
Speaker 2: time dating doesn't actually work this way, especially in environments
Speaker 2: where people are getting to know each other over time.
Speaker 5: I'd love to reinforce this. I mean, first, I just
Speaker 5: want to ask Paul, did you use the phrase boost
Speaker 5: your attributes? Yes, it seems like there was some subtle
Speaker 5: meaning there that. But I would love LORI, if you'll
Speaker 5: indulge me, to drive this home forcefully. What Paul is
Speaker 5: saying is that this widespread view that pretty much all
Speaker 5: of us seem to adopt, that you know, some people
Speaker 5: are tens and some people are threes. He's basically saying
Speaker 5: that's false, and to a significant degree, he's predicating that
Speaker 5: conclusion in the evidence. He's not saying that there's no
Speaker 5: individual differences at who's conventionally attractive, or that we wouldn't
Speaker 5: agree on that on first meeting. That's for sure true.
Speaker 5: But in terms of who's going to be a good
Speaker 5: relationship partner, almost all of that is driven by who
Speaker 5: is uniquely compatible with us, that is, with whom have
Speaker 5: we built an effective relationship, And almost none of that
Speaker 5: is figuring out that you're a seven and then making
Speaker 5: sure you don't date anybody who's like lower than a seven.
Speaker 5: And the reason why this is such a big deal
Speaker 5: is that it ends up being such a corrosive story
Speaker 5: in the broader marketplace of ideas that you might conclude
Speaker 5: that you're a three, and like, what a catastrophe that
Speaker 5: would be to walk through the world being like, I'm
Speaker 5: a three. I'm just not very datable. People aren't going
Speaker 5: to like me. There's a truer version of reality that
Speaker 5: you're at least an eight for someone, and you know,
Speaker 5: going out there and trying to make it work with
Speaker 5: various people that is totally available to you, and that
Speaker 5: is what I think is the messages that clueless ten
Speaker 5: things I hate about you. They're sending this message that
Speaker 5: there really is a hierarchy and who's objectively awesome to date,
Speaker 5: And there's a little bit of truth in that, but
Speaker 5: there's much more truth to the idea of building something
Speaker 5: compatible and being tens for each other.
Speaker 1: I think this is so important because it's one thing
Speaker 1: when this kind of idea of like your three and
Speaker 1: that's it kind of plays out in sort of nineties culture,
Speaker 1: like you know, you got to go out to the
Speaker 1: mall and get the new skater pants or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think there's a much more insidious version of
Speaker 1: it that exists now and sort of in cell culture
Speaker 1: and online, where people really have these categories and it's
Speaker 1: really fueling some incredibly nasty behavior.
Speaker 4: Paul, you're nodding a lot. Is this the kind of
Speaker 4: thing that you've sort of seen?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, And I worry about this too. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 2: this has been a journey for me over the last
Speaker 2: ten years because the idea that there are tens and
Speaker 2: there are threes goes to some pretty grim places online.
Speaker 2: If you look at things like the red pill ideologies
Speaker 2: or even worse. Black pill ideologygies. And it is not
Speaker 2: lost on me that the people who are talking about
Speaker 2: these ideologies are often talking about other aspects of the science.
Speaker 2: It's actually not usually relationship science that they're pointing towards.
Speaker 2: They're looking at some of the classics. Sometimes it's evolutionary
Speaker 2: inspired research on what people find attractive, And over the
Speaker 2: last ten years it's gone to some pretty depressing places.
Speaker 2: And this point is exactly the one where I want
Speaker 2: to jump up and down and be like, but you're
Speaker 2: misunderstanding the science. All of those studies showing the high
Speaker 2: agreement about who's attractive. We're done with photographs and people
Speaker 2: who are meeting each other for the first time. When
Speaker 2: you put people in situations where they're getting to know
Speaker 2: each other over time, consensus goes down, agreement goes down.
Speaker 2: Some people grow on you and some people don't, and
Speaker 2: this is how most people end up getting relationships. But
Speaker 2: if you're not in social networks that are morphing and
Speaker 2: changing and you're getting to know people over time, and
Speaker 2: you'll miss out on that whole process. And so I
Speaker 2: worry that there are all these forces in society today
Speaker 2: taking us in this terrible direction where the reality is
Speaker 2: much more hopeful as long as you are out there
Speaker 2: meeting people and not relying on your you know, your
Speaker 2: photograph on an online dating site to carry you through
Speaker 2: to a relationship.
Speaker 4: So that one seems pretty harmful.
Speaker 1: Now we get into bromcom rom dram relationship advice.
Speaker 4: It's pretty bad.
Speaker 1: And this one comes I think from five Hundred Days
Speaker 1: of Summer. And so, Eli, do you want to do
Speaker 1: my five hundred Days of Summer real quickly?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 5: So plot summary of five hundred Days of Summer. We
Speaker 5: meet Tom played by Gordon Levitt, Thomas something something, Okay,
Speaker 5: what's his name?
Speaker 3: Levit dde again? Do it again? Start over?
Speaker 5: We track Tom played by Joseph Gordon Levitt and his
Speaker 5: relationship with Summer played by Zoey Deschanel. And the movie
Speaker 5: plays with this idea that there are soulmates, right, And
Speaker 5: at first he's convinced that there are soulmates, and she's
Speaker 5: convinced that that's ridiculous, and she has a much more
Speaker 5: cynical view. By the end of the movie, I think
Speaker 5: you've more or less decided that there are soulmates. She's
Speaker 5: come to the view that there are soulmates. He's wavered
Speaker 5: a bit, but then at the very end it's like, no,
Speaker 5: the fates really did bring this to us.
Speaker 3: Now it's above the pay grade of a.
Speaker 5: Scientist, of any sort of relationship scientist or otherwise to
Speaker 5: say is the universe determined by fate? So let's set
Speaker 5: acide that issue to ask a more empirically tractable question,
Speaker 5: which is, what are the consequences of believing that people
Speaker 5: are either meant to be or not meant to be?
Speaker 5: And here, you know this will sound familiar to you, Laurie,
Speaker 5: because you'ren't familiar with Carol Dweck's work on incremental and
Speaker 5: entity beliefs and all those things. But there's a lot
Speaker 5: of work in the relationship space, some of it from
Speaker 5: my lab, that looks at this question of what is
Speaker 5: it like to believe that there are soulmates? And the
Speaker 5: answer is, if the relationship is going well, then believing
Speaker 5: that you know, we are meant to be in some
Speaker 5: cosmic sense is just fine. The problem really is if
Speaker 5: the relationship is going through a difficult time, which is
Speaker 5: basically the over under on that is, one hundred percent
Speaker 5: of relationships will eventually go through hard times. Once that happens,
Speaker 5: what is the story we tell ourselves about why we're
Speaker 5: going through hard times. If you don't really believe the
Speaker 5: soulmate story, then you talk about, well, we're going to
Speaker 5: try to work through this and figure it out. But
Speaker 5: if you do believe in the soulmate story, what you
Speaker 5: might be seeing is evidence that we weren't meant for
Speaker 5: each other anyway, And the conflict isn't really like, yeah,
Speaker 5: but we're going to learn and grow from working through
Speaker 5: this together. It's evidence that, wow, maybe we're not meant
Speaker 5: to be and therefore we are less forgiving, at greater
Speaker 5: risk for breakup and so forth. So it is risky
Speaker 5: to hold the sorts of beliefs that movies like Five
Speaker 5: Hundred Days of Summer inject into the cultural bloodstream, which
Speaker 5: is that really what you want to do is find
Speaker 5: your soulmate.
Speaker 1: I think it's also problematic just because it causes you
Speaker 1: to do something real bad when relationship troubles come up, right, which,
Speaker 1: as you say, oh, this is just a sign that
Speaker 1: everything's wrong. This is the kind of thing we see
Speaker 1: in the Happiness work a lot. Right, Someone experiences like
Speaker 1: a mild negative emotion and it's like oh, everything's wrong, right,
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be good vibes only. But I think
Speaker 1: when we kind of mistakenly assume that their relationships are
Speaker 1: good vibes only, then we just don't do the stuff
Speaker 1: that we need to do to fix relationships.
Speaker 2: The fixing part is really important because I think many
Speaker 2: times these caustic beliefs are somehow linked to and there's
Speaker 2: nothing I can do about it. So another kind of
Speaker 2: belief that comes up from time to time is this
Speaker 2: idea that men and women are fundamentally different. And look,
Speaker 2: you know, we see this in Before Sunrise. This is
Speaker 2: one of the fun things that they debate throughout that movie,
Speaker 2: and they're really interesting conversations. And the belief that men
Speaker 2: and women are very different are, at least in heterosexual
Speaker 2: mixed couples, those beliefs are linked to relationship difficulties. And
Speaker 2: part of the reason why is because eventually couples do
Speaker 2: encounter conflict, they do encounter differences of opinion, and if
Speaker 2: you are someone who believes that that is linked to
Speaker 2: something deep and essential about your gender, that often comes
Speaker 2: with the unfounded assumption that there's nothing we can do
Speaker 2: about it. So these ideas that like gender is essentialized
Speaker 2: that our behaviors are determined by gender. Right, there's no
Speaker 2: way to intervene and stop those things that could be
Speaker 2: sort of fun to chat about as you're getting to
Speaker 2: know people. But if you really carry those beliefs with
Speaker 2: you into a mixed gender relationship, that's another place where
Speaker 2: people are going to be headed for trouble.
Speaker 1: So, finally, since we are running out of time, which
Speaker 1: I knew what had happened, because you all are both
Speaker 1: so fun and so awesome, and this is why I
Speaker 1: love listening to love. Factually, the last movie that gives
Speaker 1: us some bad ideas about relationship is a very recent one.
Speaker 1: This is the movie Challengers. Paul, do you want to
Speaker 1: do it? Thirty seconds on Challengers?
Speaker 3: So in this movie is and Dea.
Speaker 2: Her character Tashi is interested in these two guys, Patrick
Speaker 2: and Art. And Patrick and Art have these very different
Speaker 2: depictions in the movie, but one thing it sets up
Speaker 2: very clearly is the distinction between the good dad in
Speaker 2: the character Art versus the cad right, the like hot
Speaker 2: but a little bit skeezy.
Speaker 3: Guy in this case played by Patrick.
Speaker 2: And This is a dichotomy that we commonly think is
Speaker 2: out there and explains differences between people that there are
Speaker 2: the people you sleep with and the people that you marry,
Speaker 2: And this again applies across gender as well.
Speaker 3: Right, So we have this stereotype.
Speaker 2: And this is a very misleading idea about people's interests
Speaker 2: and the abilities when it comes to short term and
Speaker 2: long term relationships, because the reality is that people's interest
Speaker 2: in having short term and long term relationship chips tends
Speaker 2: to be pretty weakly correlated. You can be into both,
Speaker 2: you can be into neither. But more importantly, somebody's attractiveness
Speaker 2: or appeal as a short term partner truly has nothing
Speaker 2: to do with their appeal as a long term partner.
Speaker 2: So just because somebody has had a lot of fun
Speaker 2: hookups in the past as zero implications for whether or
Speaker 2: not that person could be a good partner with you.
Speaker 2: And when people carry those assumptions around, boy do they
Speaker 2: make some nasty, unfortunate inferences.
Speaker 3: About other people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just becomes a sort of interesting self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1: It seems like if you're sort of carrying these beliefs
Speaker 1: and also might make you kind of feel nasty about
Speaker 1: your own history, depending on what it's like.
Speaker 3: Too, Right, right, why are you looking.
Speaker 1: At me now, So justice we're winding down. I mean,
Speaker 1: what seems tricky is that we both can't get these
Speaker 1: really good, scientifically based insights from rom coms and also
Speaker 1: some really terrible strategies too. What should we take away,
Speaker 1: like what's the sort of health warning that should go
Speaker 1: with romcom z Ela?
Speaker 3: Mostly, I just.
Speaker 5: Want people to enjoy the films, Like there's a cost
Speaker 5: to you know, being in your head all the time
Speaker 5: that said films send messages whether we know it or not,
Speaker 5: and we internalize these messages to a significant degree. And
Speaker 5: so I am delighted that we started the podcast. I
Speaker 5: think some idea that there might be like a fact
Speaker 5: check for this stuff that we can look up somewhere.
Speaker 5: I don't think that exists anywhere. So I would advise
Speaker 5: people enjoy the movies and then if you want to
Speaker 5: check out Love Factually.
Speaker 1: Yeah, seriously, you really should check out Love Factually. It's
Speaker 1: a great show and you can find it wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Plus, I was a guest on a
Speaker 1: recent episode which I'm going to drop in this feed
Speaker 1: on Valentine's Day as a special treat for you.
Speaker 4: But before we wrap up, let's go.
Speaker 1: Over Eli and Paul's rom com themed advice One More Time.
Speaker 4: Tip one.
Speaker 1: Learn from films like Before Sunset and build intimacy through
Speaker 1: self disclosure. You'll be surprised how much people will like
Speaker 1: you if you share something vulnerable. Tip two is from
Speaker 1: When Harry met Sally. Friends can become lovers, so don't
Speaker 1: overlook people you already know. The third tip comes from
Speaker 1: Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. Relationships are unique. What
Speaker 1: worked in one partnership might not work in another, so
Speaker 1: don't be tempted to think there's a single formula. Tip
Speaker 1: four is a cautionary tale from Clueless. Don't believe that
Speaker 1: high school myth that the sevens can never date the tens.
Speaker 1: Potential partners don't exist on some objective scale. Even the
Speaker 1: most conventionally beautiful person is a three to someone, and
Speaker 1: we're all a nine or ten to somebody else out there.
Speaker 1: Five hundred Days of Summer provides tip number five. Soulmates
Speaker 1: just don't exist. If you believe there's only one person
Speaker 1: for you, you might give up too quickly when your
Speaker 1: relationship inevitably.
Speaker 4: Hits a rough patch.
Speaker 1: And our final piece of advice comes from Challengers. What
Speaker 1: attracts you to a short term partner, things like looks fun,
Speaker 1: a thrill of danger that has little to do with
Speaker 1: the attributes that make for long term relationship happiness. If
Speaker 1: you enjoyed my conversation with Paul and Eli, stay tuned,
Speaker 1: as we'll be bringing you a whole episode of Love
Speaker 1: factually in this feed on February fourteenth. After that, our
Speaker 1: how To season will turn away from dating advice and
Speaker 1: back to the bigger questions, starting with the puzzle of
Speaker 1: how to lead the richest life possible. All that next
Speaker 1: time on the Happiness Lab with me Doctor Laurie Santos,