Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hey, doctor Laurie Santo's here here at the Happiness Lab.
Speaker 2: We spend a lot of time talking about the happiness
Speaker 2: benefits of being a fan, and it just so happens
Speaker 2: that another Pushkin podcast has gone deep into this topic.
Speaker 2: It's a show called Against the Rules, hosted by best
Speaker 2: selling author Michael Lewis. Michael Lewis is the brains behind
Speaker 2: books like Moneyball, The Big Shore, and Liar's Poker. This
Speaker 2: season of Against the Rules is all about sports fandom,
Speaker 2: but also sports gambling, which was legalized in the US
Speaker 2: just a few years ago. From a happiness perspective, this
Speaker 2: is a fascinating topic. Michael talks with gambling addicts, but
Speaker 2: also pro basketball stars, Vegas bookies, and even experts in
Speaker 2: casino design. I also get to make it appearance. I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed our conversation, So if you're a little bit curious,
Speaker 2: I urge you to check out Against the Rules and
Speaker 2: subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Welcome to February.
Speaker 2: It's a month of cold weather but warm hearts thanks
Speaker 2: to Valentine's Day. Love is in the air this time
Speaker 2: of year, so we're devoting two shows of our new
Speaker 2: how to season to the science of relationships, and we're
Speaker 2: kicking things off with dating. Many of us feel like
Speaker 2: we're getting dating all wrong. We chase the wrong people entirely,
Speaker 2: or we chase the right people in the wrong way.
Speaker 2: But what if we used science to find the ideal partner.
Speaker 2: That's what we'll be exploring today, how to date like
Speaker 2: a scientist, and we have the perfect expert to help
Speaker 2: us down those relationship lab codes. Logan Uri is the
Speaker 2: director of relationship science at the dating app Hinge. She's
Speaker 2: also the dating coach for the new Netflix show The
Speaker 2: Later Daters, and the author of an awesome book, How
Speaker 2: to Not Die Alone. With a CV like that, you
Speaker 2: might think Logan's been a dating with since high school,
Speaker 2: but you'd be wrong.
Speaker 3: I haven't always been great at finding love for myself,
Speaker 3: but I think the fact that I was unlucky in
Speaker 3: love for many years actually makes me better at what
Speaker 3: I do, because I think for people who met the
Speaker 3: love of their life in high school or were just
Speaker 3: so beautiful that people were falling all over them their
Speaker 3: whole lives, I think it's harder to relate to the
Speaker 3: experience that most people go through, which is that finding
Speaker 3: a partner is really challenging. There's a lot of rejection involved.
Speaker 3: It's just a difficult thing that many of us go through.
Speaker 3: And I feel like, even though now I've been happily
Speaker 3: married and with my partner for a long time, I'm
Speaker 3: really glad that I had those experiences so that I
Speaker 3: can relate to the average daters experience.
Speaker 2: Any dating was that you'd be willing to share for
Speaker 2: the show to give a sense of the fact that
Speaker 2: you had challenged it dating early on.
Speaker 3: The thing that comes to mind for me is this
Speaker 3: story that in my book I referred to as burning
Speaker 3: Man Brian definitely not his real name, not Brian. It
Speaker 3: really has to do with my anxious attachment. And so
Speaker 3: I had a trend when I was dating where if
Speaker 3: somebody rejected me, instead of saying, oh, we're not a
Speaker 3: fit or that person's not interested in me, I would say, oh, well,
Speaker 3: if they rejected me, they must be better than me,
Speaker 3: and I should try to convince them to be with me.
Speaker 3: So when I met this person at Burning Man and
Speaker 3: we had this pretty epic love affair, and then I
Speaker 3: came back and I was like, Okay, well, now we're
Speaker 3: both back in San Francisco. Of course, we're just going
Speaker 3: to start dating because we had so much fun at
Speaker 3: Burning Man, and he was not interested in that at all.
Speaker 3: And so instead of just understanding that not only was
Speaker 3: he not interested, but also not really a good fit
Speaker 3: for real life, I set out on this goal to
Speaker 3: convince him to be with me. And so the more
Speaker 3: he pulled away with his avoidant attachment style, the more
Speaker 3: I pursued him. And that was really my definition of love.
Speaker 3: And I just remember sitting on my friend's couch, crying,
Speaker 3: why won't he be with me? Why is he rejecting me?
Speaker 3: Why am I not good enough? And really trying to
Speaker 3: apply all these lessons from other aspects of my life,
Speaker 3: like getting my dream job or getting the apartment I wanted,
Speaker 3: And you just can't do that with love. It's not
Speaker 3: the kind of thing where more effort always tell someone Okay,
Speaker 3: well then I should be with you. And so I
Speaker 3: was lucky enough to about a year later, find my
Speaker 3: now husband, Scott, who coincidentally worked in your lab when
Speaker 3: he was in college. But yes, really learning the lessons
Speaker 3: of what a secure partner looks like and understanding that
Speaker 3: a lot of the traits that this Burning man Brian
Speaker 3: guy had were red flags, but instead I was just like,
Speaker 3: how can I convince him to be with me?
Speaker 2: It's always your this wonderful example, because I think when
Speaker 2: we see people who are experts on relationship were giving
Speaker 2: lots of relationship advice, you might assume that they were
Speaker 2: kind of born with those instincts. But you've argued that
Speaker 2: that's really not the case, that this is something we
Speaker 2: can learn.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, that's a big part of my work is this
Speaker 3: idea that we're born knowing how to love but not
Speaker 3: how to date, and that dating is really challenging. But
Speaker 3: the good news is it's a skill and you can
Speaker 3: learn it. And so dating as we know it pre
Speaker 3: apps really was invented around eighteen nineties, so this was
Speaker 3: really when women started working outside of the house and
Speaker 3: meeting people on their own. So before that, marriages really
Speaker 3: came about through a matchmaker or through you know, my
Speaker 3: dad and your dad decided that we live next door
Speaker 3: to each other, we should combine our parcels of land,
Speaker 3: or my dad gave your dad twelve camels for your
Speaker 3: hand in marriage, and things like that. And so nowadays,
Speaker 3: in the days of dating apps and really the individualistic
Speaker 3: culture that we're in, it's a huge burden on the
Speaker 3: person to figure out who they should be with. And
Speaker 3: so when people feel like, you know, Logan, this is
Speaker 3: probably weird to say, but I just wish I had
Speaker 3: an arranged marriage. I feel like my mom or someone
Speaker 3: else could decide better than me. I don't think that
Speaker 3: that's crazy at all. I think the fact that we
Speaker 3: as individuals need to make this really hard choice that's
Speaker 3: going to have a huge impact on our overall health, happiness,
Speaker 3: and life satisfaction is actually something that we should think about.
Speaker 3: And for anyone who's having a hard time with dating,
Speaker 3: I hear you. It is hard, but it's also a
Speaker 3: skill and you can get better at it.
Speaker 2: And one of the insights that you brought, which I
Speaker 2: love so much, is really resonates with this show, is
Speaker 2: that one of the kinds of things we can bring
Speaker 2: in is all the sites from behavioral science talk about
Speaker 2: how behavioral science can help us date better.
Speaker 3: I feel like there's just so much great work in
Speaker 3: two fields, the fields of relationship science, which is the
Speaker 3: study of how we love, and the field of behavioral science,
Speaker 3: the study of how we make decisions. And so through
Speaker 3: my work, I really like to combine the best insights
Speaker 3: from both of those fields and use them to help
Speaker 3: people make better decisions in love. And so if you
Speaker 3: actually break down getting into a relationship, it's a series
Speaker 3: of decisions. Am I ready to date? Who should I date?
Speaker 3: Should we become exclusive, should we move in together? Should
Speaker 3: we get married? And if you really understand behavioral science
Speaker 3: and the things that get in our way around making decisions,
Speaker 3: then you can actually overcome some of the blind spots
Speaker 3: holding you back from finding love.
Speaker 2: And in your book you've so nicely argued that we
Speaker 2: need to get over these blind spots if we really
Speaker 2: want to do better when it comes to dating. And
Speaker 2: one of the blind spots that you've brought up is
Speaker 2: our kind of urge to relationshop. What is relationshopping and
Speaker 2: how can we kind of deal with this challenge?
Speaker 3: So researchers talk about this idea of relationshipping, which is
Speaker 3: the process of getting into a romantic relationship. But in
Speaker 3: the last decade or so, they've noticed this concept of
Speaker 3: relation shopping, shopping for a partner as if you would
Speaker 3: shop for a good And why that doesn't really work
Speaker 3: is because there's this really interesting concept talking about experiential
Speaker 3: goods versus searchable goods. So searchable goods are things like
Speaker 3: a new camera or getting a new speaker, something like that,
Speaker 3: where you can say what size do I want, what
Speaker 3: price am I willing to pay? How good is the
Speaker 3: battery life, how quickly can it be here? And you
Speaker 3: can really break it down into its parts. Experiential goods
Speaker 3: are things like wine or movies where you and I
Speaker 3: might experience them completely differently, and it's not about what
Speaker 3: they are, it's about the feelings that they bring out
Speaker 3: in us. And so it's really important when people are
Speaker 3: dating to understand that people are experiential goods, they're not
Speaker 3: searchable goods. And so when people come into my dating
Speaker 3: coaching practice and they say, Okay, I know exactly what
Speaker 3: I want. I want a skinny five foot six Jewish redhead,
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, you're not buying a pair of headphones.
Speaker 3: You're searching for a life partner. And so it's much
Speaker 3: less about those resume traits. It's much less about what
Speaker 3: you just see if you know someone two dimensionally, and
Speaker 3: much more about the experience of being with them and
Speaker 3: what side of you they bring out.
Speaker 2: And I imagine that this kind of bias can get
Speaker 2: even more tripped up in the days of kind of
Speaker 2: dating apps and social media. You talk about how relationshopping
Speaker 2: can maybe get worse, or how it's even more of
Speaker 2: a challenge that we need to pay attention to if
Speaker 2: we're on apps like this.
Speaker 3: So for a long time, I've noticed this idea of
Speaker 3: people on social media really having this feeling of compare
Speaker 3: and despair. So we all know that on Instagram people
Speaker 3: post the highlight reels of their life. Look at my
Speaker 3: child and her adorable Halloween costume, even though she was
Speaker 3: shrieking before and afterwards. Or look at this amazing sunset
Speaker 3: walk on the beach of my vacation. Meanwhile, you and
Speaker 3: your boyfriend are about to break up. And so I
Speaker 3: think for many people there's a feeling of I'm not
Speaker 3: good enough. Everyone else has found love except me, and
Speaker 3: Instagram gives them that feeling. But I've also seen something
Speaker 3: in the last two years crop up on TikTok, which
Speaker 3: is this idea of date entertainment. So people go on
Speaker 3: these dates and they cannot wait to get home to say,
Speaker 3: ladies and gentlemen, I had the worst possible date. You'll
Speaker 3: never guess he showed up twenty minutes late. He smelled
Speaker 3: like this. He ordered all this food, then I had
Speaker 3: to pay for it, And so there's a feeling of
Speaker 3: I want to go viral. One of the easiest ways
Speaker 3: to go viral is to share a really negative story.
Speaker 3: And so what I'm often dealing with is singles who
Speaker 3: are so negative on dating because the content that they're
Speaker 3: consuming on TikTok is really telling them there's no one
Speaker 3: out there and dating sucks.
Speaker 2: And you could so see why this is a problem, right,
Speaker 2: because if your expectations are like, oh, this is going
Speaker 2: to go terrible, I imagine this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy
Speaker 2: when you actually go on a date, right, is that
Speaker 2: you kind of change all your priors about how bad
Speaker 2: people are, So you might the normal negativity bias we
Speaker 2: bring to everything might be getting even worse when you're
Speaker 2: going dates.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like a couple things could be happening, definitely,
Speaker 3: the negativity bias. Then there's also a lot of people
Speaker 3: who are just not dating at all. And so this
Speaker 3: is something that I've noticed even in the last few months,
Speaker 3: is this idea of I've quit dating, and that's just
Speaker 3: not a term that I really heard before this summer.
Speaker 3: So it used to be like, oh, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: focusing on my graduate degree or I'm moving, so I'm
Speaker 3: gonna like be more into dating when I get there.
Speaker 3: But now it's this binarya of I'm dating or I've
Speaker 3: quit dating. And I think that there's something harmful about that,
Speaker 3: where people really are having an identity as someone who's
Speaker 3: not dating instead of I'm someone who's open to connections
Speaker 3: even though maybe it's not their priority right now.
Speaker 2: And so another bias that you've talked about is what
Speaker 2: you've referred to as the Monet effect.
Speaker 1: What's the Monee effect?
Speaker 3: So the Monee effect is something that I named because
Speaker 3: I love the movie Clueless. And in the movie Clueless,
Speaker 3: who doesn't really yes, Oh it's amazing. In the movie Clueless,
Speaker 3: there's the popular girl named Cher, and Ty, who's the
Speaker 3: new girl, says, Hey, what do you think about our
Speaker 3: class made Amber? And Cher says, Oh, she's a full
Speaker 3: on Monet. It's like a painting. From far away, it's okay,
Speaker 3: but up close it's a big old mess. And so
Speaker 3: she's of course referring to the Impressionist painter Monet. And
Speaker 3: what happens is that when our brains lack information, they
Speaker 3: fill in the information in a positive way, hoping for
Speaker 3: a great outcome. And so this actually makes people seem
Speaker 3: more desirable than they are. So if somebody on Hinge
Speaker 3: says I love music, then in your brain you fill in, oh,
Speaker 3: I bet they must love the same music as me.
Speaker 3: And this is especially a problem when people pen pal
Speaker 3: talk to somebody on hinge for so long without meeting
Speaker 3: up with them, because even if when they meet up
Speaker 3: that person is fantastic, they're not going to match the
Speaker 3: fantasy of them that they created in their head. And
Speaker 3: so the point is to understand when you have less information,
Speaker 3: you fill in the gaps in an overly positive way.
Speaker 3: This creates a fantasy, and then it ultimately leads to
Speaker 3: disappointment that could have been avoided if you just met
Speaker 3: the person or talk to them on the phone sooner.
Speaker 1: It's time for a quick break. But when we return,
Speaker 1: logan will.
Speaker 2: Help us figure out how to avoid those problematic dating types,
Speaker 2: the romanticizer, the maximizer, or even the dreaded undatable. The
Speaker 2: happiness lab will be right back to date. Like a scientist,
Speaker 2: you got to start by being realistic, as that famous
Speaker 2: Bell curve might suggest, even in love, most things tend
Speaker 2: to be in the middle, and that means there probably
Speaker 2: isn't just one soule me for you on a planet
Speaker 2: of billions of people. Likewise, it's unlikely that you are
Speaker 2: the most awkward and unlovable person in existence. Dating expert
Speaker 2: logan Uri says a lot of people still fall for
Speaker 2: these false ideas, so much so that she uses a
Speaker 2: wee bit of adult language when she talks about it.
Speaker 3: So I've categorized people into the three dating tendencies, and
Speaker 3: if people are interested, they can take the quiz on
Speaker 3: my website. And what they all have in common is
Speaker 3: unrealistic expectation. So first one the romanticizer. They have unrealistic
Speaker 3: expectations of relationships. So if you're listening and you're the
Speaker 3: kind of person who says things like there's one person
Speaker 3: out there for everyone, I'm single because I just haven't
Speaker 3: met my soulmate yet, I really want the happily ever after,
Speaker 3: well guess what you might be a romanticizer. And the
Speaker 3: ideas behind romanticizers come from a lot of different places
Speaker 3: in pop culture. They come from Disney movies, they come
Speaker 3: from rom comms, they come from what we just talked
Speaker 3: about social media and these perfect images that we project.
Speaker 3: But the issue is with the romanticizer that they don't
Speaker 3: understand a few things. One is that the person who
Speaker 3: might make you happiest long term may not come in
Speaker 3: the physical package that you're expecting, and so if you
Speaker 3: are only expecting you know, your Prince Eric or your
Speaker 3: Prince Charming, then you might miss out on a lot
Speaker 3: of great potential partners. The other thing is that we
Speaker 3: know from psychologists Renee Franniuk that people fit into either
Speaker 3: a soulmate mindset or a work it out mindset. The
Speaker 3: soulmate mindset is the idea that if you find the
Speaker 3: right person, everything will work out. That's where relationship satisfaction
Speaker 3: comes from. Instead, the work and out mindset is the
Speaker 3: belief that relationship success derives from putting in work. And
Speaker 3: So for the romanticizers out there who say, I don't
Speaker 3: want to be on a dating app because that's not romantic.
Speaker 3: I want to go to a farmer's market and reach
Speaker 3: for the tomato the same time as my soulmate and
Speaker 3: fall happily ever after, what I like to say to
Speaker 3: them is that what's romantic is that you met someone
Speaker 3: and you want to commit to them, and you're going
Speaker 3: to build a relationship. Who cares how you met. If
Speaker 3: you're together for fifty years, the day you met is
Speaker 3: point zero zero five to five percent of the relationship.
Speaker 3: And so get over that we met story and just
Speaker 3: focus on meeting someone.
Speaker 2: You've also argued that we need to get over what
Speaker 2: you call the spark. In fact, I think you have
Speaker 2: a little bit of a strong motto about this. What's
Speaker 2: the spark and what's the big problem?
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't know your rules over there about cursing,
Speaker 3: so I'll just say my motto around this is this
Speaker 3: idea of fuck the spark. And this is truly something
Speaker 3: that when I was writing the book I felt passionate about.
Speaker 3: Since the book has come out, it's kind of taken
Speaker 3: on a life of its own, which I feel great about.
Speaker 3: And fuck the spark is the idea that people will
Speaker 3: go on a really good first date, the person will
Speaker 3: be a great fit with them, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: reasons why they get along. But then this person will
Speaker 3: say to me, I'm not going to see them again. Logan,
Speaker 3: I just didn't feel the spark. And so the spark
Speaker 3: has become this all encompassing word that means instant chemistry, fireworks, butterflies,
Speaker 3: and people are giving up on a lot of great
Speaker 3: potential partners because they didn't initially feel that. But the
Speaker 3: research shows that only eleven percent of couples say that
Speaker 3: they fell in love at first sight, and actually a
Speaker 3: lot of couples take time to get together. So the
Speaker 3: first myth of the spark is that if you don't
Speaker 3: feel it in the beginning, it's never going to grow.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely not true. Over time, people like each other
Speaker 3: more because of the mere exposure of fact, where when
Speaker 3: something's more familiar, we like it more. So, yes, the
Speaker 3: spark can grow over time. The second myth of the
Speaker 3: spark is that if you feel it, it's necessarily a
Speaker 3: good thing. That is also not true. I can tell
Speaker 3: you I often meet people where I'm like, wow, did
Speaker 3: we have a little flirty dynamic there? And then three
Speaker 3: of my friends say the same thing about that person,
Speaker 3: and we're like, Oh, it's not us, it's that person
Speaker 3: in particular. They're very sparky. They give that feeling to
Speaker 3: many people, and sometimes it can actually be a sign
Speaker 3: of something negative. It can be a sign of somebody
Speaker 3: avoidant who makes you feel excited because they keep pulling
Speaker 3: away and you don't know how they feel about you,
Speaker 3: and that actually causes anxiety that you misinterpret as butterflies.
Speaker 3: It can also be a sign of narcissism or some
Speaker 3: negative behavior. The third myth of the spark is that
Speaker 3: if you have a spark in the beginning, the relationship
Speaker 3: is viable. That's also not true. Many unhappily married or
Speaker 3: now divorced couples once started with the spark. So it's
Speaker 3: enough to get you into a relationship, but not enough
Speaker 3: to keep you there. And that's really why I promote
Speaker 3: this idea of fuck the spark, go after the slow burn.
Speaker 3: And I feel like I married a slow burn myself.
Speaker 3: Slow burn is someone who may not be the sparkist.
Speaker 3: They may not be the person that shines on every
Speaker 3: first date or is the center of attention at a party,
Speaker 3: but they're a deeply good person. They're reliable, they would
Speaker 3: be an incredible life partner. And so I really try
Speaker 3: to train people to, yes, the spark is fun, enjoy it,
Speaker 3: it's real, but don't cement your whole life and your
Speaker 3: long term relationship about it, and really give these slow
Speaker 3: burn people a chance.
Speaker 2: You argue that there's a second tendency we can fall
Speaker 2: into in that some people themselves often fall into, which
Speaker 2: is being a maximizer.
Speaker 1: What's a maximizer.
Speaker 3: Yes, So the second of the three dating tendencies is
Speaker 3: the maximizer. And living in Silicon Valley and having a
Speaker 3: lot of clients who are in the New York area,
Speaker 3: I feel like I coach a ton of maximizers. And
Speaker 3: so the story with the maximizer is that they have
Speaker 3: unrealistic expectations of their partner, and they're the kind of
Speaker 3: person who says, I can research my way into finding
Speaker 3: the perfect person. And so for them, if they want
Speaker 3: to find a really good vacuum, they're going to read
Speaker 3: fifty reviews on it and then feel like, yep, I
Speaker 3: analyze all of this, I can find the perfect vacuum.
Speaker 3: And then they think that they can do that with dating.
Speaker 3: But it's impossible in dating to date every possible person.
Speaker 3: And as we talked about with searchable versus experiential goods,
Speaker 3: it's just not the same thing. And so maximizers really
Speaker 3: struggle because they feel like, Okay, I've dated some great people.
Speaker 3: Now I just want to combine the best traits of
Speaker 3: all of them and find that person. And they always
Speaker 3: feel like I need to keep searching because then I'll
Speaker 3: find somebody else out there. And what ends up happening
Speaker 3: is that a lot of maximizers keep rejecting people or
Speaker 3: not accepting someone who might be great, and then at
Speaker 3: a certain age they look back and they say, Wow,
Speaker 3: I wish that I had married one of the great
Speaker 3: people I had met before.
Speaker 2: So what's the solution to not kind of falling prey
Speaker 2: to maximizing. Is there another good strategy we should use?
Speaker 3: Yes, So there's an excellent framework by the cognitive psychologist
Speaker 3: Herbert Simon who talks about maximizers and satisficers. And so
Speaker 3: we just talked about maximizers, but a satisficer, which is
Speaker 3: the portmanteau of satisfy and suffice. They have standard, but
Speaker 3: they're not overly concerned about finding something else out there.
Speaker 3: And so when I say to satisfies to people, they
Speaker 3: often hear a different s word, which is settle, and
Speaker 3: they get really defensive about this loogan. Everyone else found
Speaker 3: their love story. Why do you want me to settle?
Speaker 3: But satisficing is not about settling. It's about having a standard,
Speaker 3: which can be very high, and then when you meet
Speaker 3: someone who satisfies that standard, then you say, great, I'm
Speaker 3: going to build a relationship with them. I'm going to
Speaker 3: build a life with them instead of doing what maximizers do,
Speaker 3: which is fine, that amazing person, and then say, wow,
Speaker 3: well if they exist, what else might exist. And what
Speaker 3: people get wrong is that they think maximizers make better decisions,
Speaker 3: but that's not what we've found. We found that maximizers
Speaker 3: make good decisions and then feel bad about them. Satisfiers
Speaker 3: also make good decisions, but then they feel good about them,
Speaker 3: and so what's more important being right or being happy?
Speaker 2: It also seems like this act of feeling good about
Speaker 2: your decision means you're going to do the work all
Speaker 2: long term relationships are going to need right where you're
Speaker 2: kind of investing in your partner a little bit more
Speaker 2: over time, you know, kind of working it through. If
Speaker 2: you're a maximizer and you quickly go to like, oh,
Speaker 2: I must have made the wrong decision because there's this
Speaker 2: perfect person out there, so if you mess up in
Speaker 2: this tiny way, you must not be that person. It
Speaker 2: seems like ultimately, satisfiers are doing something that really helps
Speaker 2: them invest in the relationship long term too.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I think, you know, since doing the research
Speaker 3: for my book and learning about this, I've really tried
Speaker 3: to become a satisfy store in a lot more aspects
Speaker 3: of my life. So, for example, when I needed to
Speaker 3: buy a car during the pandemic, I understood that I
Speaker 3: wanted something used, I wanted a hybrid. I had a
Speaker 3: certain price in mind, and I went to two dealerships
Speaker 3: and when I found the car that I wanted, I
Speaker 3: just bought it and I felt great about it. Ever since,
Speaker 3: I think that there's a world where I had maximized
Speaker 3: that decision and I had spent much longer researching and
Speaker 3: either wound up with the same car or a different car,
Speaker 3: which I felt worse about. And so I truly think
Speaker 3: that this is a huge thing that people can do
Speaker 3: to feel happier in their lives, is to understand that
Speaker 3: you can set standards and satisfy them. You don't need
Speaker 3: to always wonder what else is out there, because that's
Speaker 3: the nagging question in your head that actually robs the
Speaker 3: joy from your life.
Speaker 2: And so that's the problem of being too much of
Speaker 2: a maximizer. A final issue that you've brought up, which
Speaker 2: actually is one that I resonated with a lot when
Speaker 2: I think back to my old dating life. Is kind
Speaker 2: of a belief that we have in ourselves that can
Speaker 2: leave us astray. It's this idea that we are undatable.
Speaker 2: And you had a really interesting incident recently with a
Speaker 2: newsletter where you saw just how prevalent this bias was.
Speaker 1: Tell me about it.
Speaker 3: Yes. So the third tendency that I've identified is called
Speaker 3: the hesitator, and this is someone who has unrealistic expectations
Speaker 3: of themselves. So if you're listening and you're not even
Speaker 3: dating at all, and you're single and you might want
Speaker 3: to be in a relationship, then you are a hesitator.
Speaker 3: And so a hesitator is someone who feels like, I'm
Speaker 3: just not ready to be out there. I'll be ready
Speaker 3: when I lose ten pounds, when I have a more
Speaker 3: impressive job, when I clean up my apartment. There's always
Speaker 3: a future state where you will be lovable, not lovable
Speaker 3: right now. And what's so sad is that hesitators really
Speaker 3: miss out on a few things. They underestimate the opportunity
Speaker 3: cost of not dating, which is you don't get better
Speaker 3: at dating and you don't figure out who you want
Speaker 3: to be with.
Speaker 2: And you also had an incident recently where I think
Speaker 2: you saw how prevalent this one type of this hesitator
Speaker 2: strategy is.
Speaker 3: Yes. So I was working with a coaching client and
Speaker 3: they mentioned this idea of feeling undtable. They felt like
Speaker 3: there was something fundamentally wrong with them that meant that
Speaker 3: they weren't lovable and that they couldn't go out there
Speaker 3: and date because somebody would reject them. And it really
Speaker 3: stuck with me. So I wrote to my weekly newsletter
Speaker 3: and I said, do you feel like you're undtable? Right
Speaker 3: back to me with some of the reasons why you
Speaker 3: might feel this way, And out of every newsletter that
Speaker 3: I've ever sin so over two hundred and fifty newsletters,
Speaker 3: this one got the most responses because people just felt
Speaker 3: so seen by it, and they wrote back and they
Speaker 3: said things like, I'm undtable because I have an STI
Speaker 3: I'm undtable because I've never been in a romantic relationship before,
Speaker 3: because I've been in too many romantic relationships. I'm undatable
Speaker 3: because I have chronic health issues. I'm undtable because I
Speaker 3: had cancer in my twenties and I don't know how
Speaker 3: to talk about it, and just so many emails coming
Speaker 3: from a really deep place where people felt like there
Speaker 3: was something fundamentally wrong with them that meant that no
Speaker 3: one would ever love them. And then I put together
Speaker 3: some future newsletters that talked about how actually it's our vulnerability,
Speaker 3: it's our flaws that make us feel human and that
Speaker 3: other people can relate to. And I told the story
Speaker 3: of a good friend of mine who is a former alcoholic,
Speaker 3: and he used to not date because he didn't want
Speaker 3: to have to talk about why he was ordering juice
Speaker 3: instead of a drink, and he was really afraid of it.
Speaker 3: But at a certain point he just said, you know what,
Speaker 3: I'm actually really proud of my sobriety and I'm just
Speaker 3: going to talk about it from a place of strength.
Speaker 3: And so he really owned his narrative of Hey, I
Speaker 3: used to struggle with this, here's when I hit rock bottom.
Speaker 3: Now I actually have taken control of my life. I've
Speaker 3: been sober for seven years. And sometimes he would talk
Speaker 3: about it on dates and girls didn't like it. But
Speaker 3: at a certain point he talked to someone and she
Speaker 3: was like, oh, I also have a bunch of issues.
Speaker 3: You have baggage I have baggage. Our baggage matches and
Speaker 3: it made her much more comfortable. And now they are
Speaker 3: happily together. They own a house, they have a dog,
Speaker 3: they have two kids, and it really is the story
Speaker 3: of somebody who was willing to be vulnerable to share
Speaker 3: the thing that they thought made them undateable, and that
Speaker 3: actually made them easier to connect with and it led
Speaker 3: to an amazing relationship.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of the psychological bias known as the
Speaker 2: beautiful mess effect, right that we think that our vulnerabilities
Speaker 2: are going to be awkward, everybody can see them as
Speaker 2: red flags or make us undatable, But in fact our
Speaker 2: messes are in some sense beautiful to other people like
Speaker 2: and it winds up in some weird way making us
Speaker 2: more attractive rather than less.
Speaker 3: I haven't heard that term before, but I really like
Speaker 3: it because I feel like Brene Brown has been putting
Speaker 3: out this message for a long time. Your vulnerability is
Speaker 3: what attracts people to you. The thing that makes you
Speaker 3: think you're unlovable is actually making you very lovable. Who
Speaker 3: doesn't love a beautiful mess?
Speaker 2: A beautiful mess can make a beautiful partner. But when
Speaker 2: we get back from the break Logan will share her
Speaker 2: cautionary tale of how pursuing a guy based on his
Speaker 2: looks and vibe almost caused her to miss out on
Speaker 2: mister Wright. The Happiness Lab will return in a moment.
Speaker 2: Dating expert logan URI's book is called How to Not
Speaker 2: Die Alone, and that sums up the focus of her work.
Speaker 2: She wants us to find not just a casual hookup,
Speaker 2: but a committed relationship. The problem is that we often
Speaker 2: confuse a great one night stand for the perfect life partner.
Speaker 2: It's an error that Logan herself experienced firsthand.
Speaker 3: Okay, yes, let's talk about birdingman Bryan. And so he
Speaker 3: really was this prom date archetype. And what is a
Speaker 3: prom date. It's somebody who you're attracted to, somebody who's fun,
Speaker 3: somebody who you want to dance the night with, take
Speaker 3: pictures with, maybe you know, kiss at the end of
Speaker 3: the night. And so he really fulfilled that for me
Speaker 3: where I was very attracted to him. Was I thinking
Speaker 3: about what he would be like as a life partner. No,
Speaker 3: a life partner is the kind of person who's reliable.
Speaker 3: You can make hard decisions with them. You know that
Speaker 3: they will pick up your kid from the dentist and
Speaker 3: you're nodding to get a text five minutes before saying, oh,
Speaker 3: I totally forgot, can you do it? And So what
Speaker 3: I found is that when you're younger and you have crushes,
Speaker 3: it's totally fine to be interested in the prom date.
Speaker 3: I think that for the early years of our dating history,
Speaker 3: that's absolutely fine. But the mistake that people make is
Speaker 3: that they don't switch to the life partner mentality soon enough.
Speaker 3: And so that's like when I'm talking to women who
Speaker 3: are in their early forties and they're talking about dating
Speaker 3: a guy who lives in a basement with no windows
Speaker 3: and isn't ready for kids yet, I'm just like, well,
Speaker 3: you want kids, so I think you really need to
Speaker 3: start finding somebody who shares those values.
Speaker 2: But you found a way to shift out of that
Speaker 2: with your current husband, Scott, my former research assistant. So,
Speaker 2: how is Scott like a better life partner? How did
Speaker 2: you get you away from sort of prom date model.
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I really love the story that I have
Speaker 3: with Scott because I feel like it's something that can
Speaker 3: help be inspirational to other people because it's not the
Speaker 3: traditional love story where we just met day one, love
Speaker 3: at first sight and then have been happily ever after
Speaker 3: ever since. So we actually first met in college many
Speaker 3: years ago, and I just remember this because he added
Speaker 3: me on Facebook at the time, which of course was
Speaker 3: probably a little bit of flirtation. But I don't remember
Speaker 3: meeting him in college after that. And then seven years later,
Speaker 3: we were both working at Google and we had lunch
Speaker 3: together and we kind of hit it off, but nothing
Speaker 3: came out of it. And I even saw him on
Speaker 3: Tinder that summer and I swiped left because I was like, ah,
Speaker 3: he looks like a bro wearing a backwards hat. I
Speaker 3: just wasn't interested at all. But then I wanted to
Speaker 3: learn this statistical programming language R, which I'm sure you
Speaker 3: and your students use all the time. And Scott had
Speaker 3: just dropped out of a PhD program where he used
Speaker 3: R all the time, so he started tutoring me in R.
Speaker 3: So this was all happening while I was pursuing burning
Speaker 3: Man Bryant, and so I just wrote Scott off. I
Speaker 3: was like, he doesn't seem to like to travel, he's
Speaker 3: dismissive of people who go to Bernie Man. And I
Speaker 3: was really focused on this, you know, prom date crush
Speaker 3: of Bernie Man Brian. But I ended up seeing a
Speaker 3: dating coach myself, and that's something that was so critical
Speaker 3: for me because I was just sitting there saying, why
Speaker 3: am I repeating the same habits over and over again?
Speaker 3: Why am I chasing these guys who don't want me?
Speaker 3: And through that exercise, we really thought about how I
Speaker 3: wanted my future partner to make me feel, and it
Speaker 3: was things like appreciate it, desired, smart, funny and Bernieman
Speaker 3: Brian didn't make me feel any of those things. He
Speaker 3: made me feel insecure, self conscious, anxious, not good enough.
Speaker 3: But I reflected on the fact that this guy at
Speaker 3: work that was teaching me are did make me feel
Speaker 3: those things, and so it was seeing things through a
Speaker 3: new light, understanding actually how great relationships make you feel,
Speaker 3: which was different from what I'd thought it was before.
Speaker 3: That really helped me shift my attention to this guy
Speaker 3: at work, kind of convince him to ask me on
Speaker 3: a date, and then the rest is history.
Speaker 1: Yay yay.
Speaker 2: And that was in part because you are using relationship
Speaker 2: science to figure out what really mattered. Right in the
Speaker 2: case of Scott, you were kind of paying attention to
Speaker 2: the stuff that matters more But what I want to
Speaker 2: focus on now is like, what are some strategies that
Speaker 2: our listeners can use if they want to start dating
Speaker 2: in a happier, more evidence based way. Starting with this
Speaker 2: idea that no matter how you meet the person in
Speaker 2: the beginning, you should really get together in real life.
Speaker 1: Why is that so important?
Speaker 3: Yes, So we talked with this idea of pen paling
Speaker 3: and how people spend way too long talking before they
Speaker 3: meet up in person and they think, oh, well, I
Speaker 3: need to find out all this information and see if
Speaker 3: we have chemistry over text, and that's just misinformed. At Hinge,
Speaker 3: we actually found that the sweet spot is transitioning from
Speaker 3: the app to the date after three days, and so
Speaker 3: really you don't need a ton of information before you
Speaker 3: talk on the phone or do a FaceTime, and instead
Speaker 3: it's about meeting up in person and seeing what the
Speaker 3: chemistry is so that you avoid that monet effect of
Speaker 3: assuming all these qualities about the person that aren't there
Speaker 3: and then ultimately being disappointed.
Speaker 2: And so I see why that could be really valuable.
Speaker 2: But my guess this is that one of the reasons
Speaker 2: people are pen paling is that like.
Speaker 1: They're a little scared, right, there's something like friction.
Speaker 2: About getting together in real life, and so any great
Speaker 2: tips for that first in real life date. Maybe what
Speaker 2: are some conversation tips that you might share.
Speaker 3: Sure, So one of the conversation tips that I'm a
Speaker 3: big fan of is this idea of in mediaures, which
Speaker 3: is a Latin term that really means when you're watching
Speaker 3: a play and it starts in the middle of the action.
Speaker 3: And so far too often on first dates people are
Speaker 3: just in the shallow end of the pool. They're doing
Speaker 3: all the small talk, Oh, how did you get here,
Speaker 3: where do you live, when did you move to the city,
Speaker 3: what did you study in school? How many siblings you have?
Speaker 3: Stuff that is so boring that you've probably said a
Speaker 3: million times, and you're not really having an experience with somebody.
Speaker 3: So I love the idea of walking into a date
Speaker 3: and saying, I was listening to the most interesting episode
Speaker 3: of the Happiness Lab on my way here, and you'll
Speaker 3: never guess about this term that I learned about our
Speaker 3: psychological immune system. And then the person's like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: let's talk about that interesting thing. You can always backtrack
Speaker 3: later and ask about school and siblings and things like that,
Speaker 3: but just understanding that you're going to have such a
Speaker 3: better time if you have a real conversation about real things,
Speaker 3: and that the small talk can just lead to burnout
Speaker 3: because you feel like you're just repeating yourself over and
Speaker 3: over again. So that's one tip, is to start in
Speaker 3: the middle of things. And then another mistake that I
Speaker 3: see people making on first dates is they're so focused
Speaker 3: on being interesting that they talk a lot about themselves.
Speaker 3: But it's much more important to be interested, and so
Speaker 3: often the best conversationalists are the people who really just
Speaker 3: ask questions because they make the other person feel so interesting,
Speaker 3: and then that person likes being around them.
Speaker 2: You've also described one technique we can use to do
Speaker 2: that better, what you call shift and support.
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
Speaker 3: So a lot of times when people are having a
Speaker 3: conversation and they mean well, somebody mentions something like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm going to Lake Tahoe this summer, and then the
Speaker 3: person wants to add on to that and they say, oh,
Speaker 3: I've been to Lake Tahoe. Here's what happened on my trip,
Speaker 3: And so they feel like they're contributing to the conversation,
Speaker 3: but with they're really doing is shifting the focus back
Speaker 3: to themselves. What actually makes people feel really good is
Speaker 3: when you give a support response where you help them
Speaker 3: go deeper. So you say, wow, how did you choose
Speaker 3: like Tahoe? Have you ever been there before? What are
Speaker 3: you most excited about it? And that's really what a
Speaker 3: great journalist does, a great interviewer, a great conversationalist is
Speaker 3: they're asking questions that help you go deeper into your
Speaker 3: life experience, and that ends up making you feel really
Speaker 3: heard and seen and important, and that helps separate a
Speaker 3: great conversationalist from the rest.
Speaker 2: And so that was tip number one. We need to
Speaker 2: get together in real life. We need to go deeper
Speaker 2: when we do get together in real life. Your tip
Speaker 2: number two is that we need to shift our dating
Speaker 2: mindset from the evaluative to the experiential.
Speaker 3: So often when I either hear from my clients about
Speaker 3: their dates, or even just being next to a couple
Speaker 3: on a first date in a restaurant or a coffee shop,
Speaker 3: you can just really tell that people are in this
Speaker 3: evaluative mindset, almost as if they are interviewing somebody for
Speaker 3: a job or they themselves are on a job interview.
Speaker 3: So the evaluative mind set is that you have a
Speaker 3: mental checklist in your head where you say things like
Speaker 3: are they good enough for me? Do they have a
Speaker 3: good enough job? Do they seem to like their family enough?
Speaker 3: And it's almost like they're going through checking all these
Speaker 3: boxes seeing if that person fulfills their open role, their
Speaker 3: job description. Instead, I really want people to shift to
Speaker 3: the experiential mindset, where you're present in the moment, where
Speaker 3: you're really paying attention to how this person makes you feel,
Speaker 3: what side of you they bring out, because it doesn't
Speaker 3: really matter what the person is like on paper. There
Speaker 3: are people out there that have the perfect resume, the
Speaker 3: perfect biodata, but when you're with them, you don't feel
Speaker 3: good around them. And that's something that I teach my
Speaker 3: clients all the time is that I know you are
Speaker 3: really excited about that girl, but when you've gone out
Speaker 3: with her, every time, you come home feeling worse about yourself.
Speaker 3: So who cares that she had the perfect profile? Who
Speaker 3: cares that you always thought you would marry a lawyer?
Speaker 3: This girl isn't it? And that actually leads to my
Speaker 3: next tip, which is about the post state eight. So
Speaker 3: the post eight eight is a series of questions that
Speaker 3: I came up with for my client who is really
Speaker 3: struggling with this where she just could not let go
Speaker 3: of this mindset of a valuative dating. And so she
Speaker 3: had these a questions which I can tell you, and
Speaker 3: she would save them on her phone and on the uber.
Speaker 3: During her walk home from the date, she had to
Speaker 3: ask herself these questions, and the questions are things like
Speaker 3: what side of me did they bring out? How did
Speaker 3: my body feel during the date? Stiff, relax, or something
Speaker 3: in between. Do I feel more energized or de energized
Speaker 3: than I did before the date? Is there something about
Speaker 3: them that I'm curious about? Did they make me laugh?
Speaker 3: Did I feel heard? Did I feel attractive in their presence?
Speaker 3: And did I feel captivated, bored or something in between?
Speaker 3: And the research behind this is the same reason why
Speaker 3: gratitude journals work. So we use gratitude journals because if
Speaker 3: you know at the end of the day you have
Speaker 3: to write down three things that you feel grateful for,
Speaker 3: throughout the day, you're looking for those things and that's
Speaker 3: how the post date eight works as well. If you
Speaker 3: have to answer after the date, did they make me laugh?
Speaker 3: Did I feel heard? You're going to pay attention to
Speaker 3: that during the date and so this really is a
Speaker 3: technique that my clients use to really focus on their
Speaker 3: experience of being with the person, and that helps them
Speaker 3: a say no faster to dates that don't make them
Speaker 3: feel good about themselves, but also be say yes to
Speaker 3: those slow burn people where they think, yes, it wasn't
Speaker 3: the sparkiest person, but actually did feel really attractive in
Speaker 3: their presence. It actually brought out a very intellectual side
Speaker 3: of me that I love to explore, and so train
Speaker 3: your brain to look for the stuff that matters.
Speaker 2: And in a way, this is like part of a
Speaker 2: broader idea, which is like we should sort of like
Speaker 2: treat ourselves like a scientist on a date rather than
Speaker 2: kind of like a lawyer across examiner. We're kind of
Speaker 2: really trying to pay attention to the data as we
Speaker 2: go through.
Speaker 3: Yes, I've never put that thought together, but I do
Speaker 3: often like to say date like a scientist. And the
Speaker 3: reason why I'm so passionate about that is because what
Speaker 3: scientists do, of course, is they have a hypothesis and
Speaker 3: they test it and they're willing to be proven wrong.
Speaker 3: Far too often in dating, people have a hypothesis and
Speaker 3: they assume it's correct, and they never test it. So
Speaker 3: I've literally worked with people who say I need someone
Speaker 3: who has a graduate degree, but when I really talk
Speaker 3: to them, it's more that they need somebody who's intellectually
Speaker 3: curious versus having this specific form of an advanced degree.
Speaker 3: So then the way to test it is, can you
Speaker 3: go out with this guy who you know didn't even
Speaker 3: graduate college but actually is super smart, is self taught?
Speaker 3: Is reading a book a week? And does that give
Speaker 3: you the same feeling? And so I do that with
Speaker 3: people with height too, and they assume I need a
Speaker 3: really tall person or I need someone with this background.
Speaker 3: And so I love the idea of dating like a
Speaker 3: scientist because it's really a way of saying, my so
Speaker 3: called type may not be the person who makes me
Speaker 3: happiest long term, and it's a way to figure that out.
Speaker 2: And so tip number four is one that I really
Speaker 2: like and resonates with other things we've talked about in
Speaker 2: the Happiness Lab, which is that to have a better,
Speaker 2: happier date, you need to add a bit more play.
Speaker 1: Why is play so important for happier dates?
Speaker 3: Yes, I love this one too, because I would say
Speaker 3: I'm at a point in my life now being a
Speaker 3: new mom where I am getting to play a lot more,
Speaker 3: and I realized that it's just the highlight of my day.
Speaker 3: It's so cheesy and cliche, but when I feel stressed,
Speaker 3: just giving my daughter a bath and just really being
Speaker 3: present in the moment and being silly with her, that
Speaker 3: is so much more fun, and that is such a
Speaker 3: break from the rest of my very work oriented daily life.
Speaker 3: And so when people are on a date and they
Speaker 3: can bring a sense of play, it's really a sense
Speaker 3: of we're in a small world and we're creating something together.
Speaker 3: We're having a novel experience. We're showing vulnerable sides of ourselves.
Speaker 3: So if you're listening and you're somebody out there who
Speaker 3: struggles because you come across as too serious, how can
Speaker 3: you actually design a date that really brings out your
Speaker 3: silly or playful side. So if you're not a good
Speaker 3: ice skater, maybe you should be going ice skating right
Speaker 3: now and you can fall and make fun of yourself
Speaker 3: and it'll help emphasize that side of yourself. Or even
Speaker 3: I had somebody who I interviewed for my book who
Speaker 3: liked to go on dates where they ate dumplings and
Speaker 3: they would have soy sauce, stripping from and there was
Speaker 3: just something about taking yourself less seriously that really allowed
Speaker 3: two people to have fun, to connect, and to really
Speaker 3: create those novel experiences that are memorable and that we're
Speaker 3: all seeking.
Speaker 2: It also seems like this fits with your advice that
Speaker 2: we heard before the break about being a little bit
Speaker 2: more vulnerable, right if you get the soy sauce on
Speaker 2: your face, or you're flubbing, you know, your ice skating challenge,
Speaker 2: Like these are the kinds of things that could actually
Speaker 2: endear people to you rather than kind of make people
Speaker 2: question you.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I think that so many people out there, and
Speaker 3: I'm sure some part of me feels this way too,
Speaker 3: is like, the world will like me more if I
Speaker 3: seem perfect. The world will like me more if I
Speaker 3: weigh this certain amount that's conventionally attractive, if I always
Speaker 3: look perfectly put together, if I have this really fancy
Speaker 3: job title, and we just think that, oh, if we
Speaker 3: have this sense of achievement, if we really play into
Speaker 3: conventional levels of success, then people will like us. But actually,
Speaker 3: what most people like is somebody who makes them feel
Speaker 3: comfortable in their own skin, somebody who doesn't make them
Speaker 3: feel worse in comparison, and so really, how how can
Speaker 3: you foster that sense of this is who I am,
Speaker 3: warts and all, and I accept myself and I'm also
Speaker 3: willing to accept you, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: what is a relationship other than deciding I accept you
Speaker 3: for who you are, good and bad.
Speaker 2: And that is a nice transition to tip number five,
Speaker 2: which is that you might think you know what you want,
Speaker 2: but the research kind of shows that you're wrong, and
Speaker 2: therefore we might need to get a little bit better
Speaker 2: about our permissible pet peeves. What do you mean by
Speaker 2: permissible pet peeves?
Speaker 3: I really started thinking about this a few years ago
Speaker 3: when I met this woman who was like, Logan, I'm
Speaker 3: thirty six, I'm ready to find love. I'll go out
Speaker 3: with anyone who you recommend, unless he's a mouth breather.
Speaker 3: And I was like, what, what is even mouth breathing?
Speaker 3: And so I figured out what that was, but I
Speaker 3: just couldn't believe that she had decided that this idea
Speaker 3: of somebody who breathed through their mouth instead of their
Speaker 3: nose was a deal breaker, a reason why she definitely
Speaker 3: couldn't be with someone. And so that really led me
Speaker 3: to this idea of permissible pet peeves. So yes, a
Speaker 3: lot of us have pet peeves, something that annoys us,
Speaker 3: perhaps more than it annoys the average person. But of
Speaker 3: course it's not a fundamental incompatibility that means that she
Speaker 3: shouldn't be with this person long term. So she is
Speaker 3: confusing a permissible pet peeve for a deal breaker. And
Speaker 3: this has actually been pretty big in pop culture in
Speaker 3: the last year or so. People talk about this idea
Speaker 3: of the ick. So the ick is that you are
Speaker 3: on a date with someone, you're really into them, maybe
Speaker 3: you're thinking about going home with them, and then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden they go to pay for the bill
Speaker 3: and you hear shh, and that sound is the sound
Speaker 3: of a velcrow wallet opening up, and the person decides
Speaker 3: that velcrow wallet in the pocket of a thirty five
Speaker 3: year old man gives you the ick, and now you're
Speaker 3: going to run away. And I know these stories are
Speaker 3: funny and comedians are you know, getting a lot of
Speaker 3: sets out of this, but it's ridiculous. Who cares if
Speaker 3: somebody as a velcro wallet. Who cares if somebody wears
Speaker 3: socks with sandals. There's no way that that means that
Speaker 3: you can't be in a great long term relationship. We
Speaker 3: just know that those things are not correlated with long
Speaker 3: term relationship and success. So if you are somebody out
Speaker 3: there who has a lot of things like this, and
Speaker 3: I encourage you to make a list of all of
Speaker 3: your quote unquote deal breakers, the reason why you can't
Speaker 3: be with someone, and to move as many of them
Speaker 3: as possible into the permissible pet peeves category. And so
Speaker 3: if you have asthma and someone smokes, that's a real
Speaker 3: deal breaker. If you are Jewish and your partner is
Speaker 3: Christian and you both want to raise kids in your
Speaker 3: own religion, then yes, that's probably a deal breaker. But
Speaker 3: many of the things, including mouth breathing, are not deal breakers.
Speaker 2: And this gets to something else you've talked about, which
Speaker 2: is that we have to get over this idea of
Speaker 2: finding the type right that we might just be wrong
Speaker 2: about the kinds of things that really matter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that really goes back to my idea of
Speaker 3: date like a scientist. So so many people think I
Speaker 3: know exactly what I want, I just need to find them.
Speaker 3: That's a very common refrain with people that I work with.
Speaker 3: And so the problem there is they've decided, oh, well,
Speaker 3: I know my type and I need to find that person.
Speaker 3: And what they don't understand is that they've actually dated
Speaker 3: that type many times and it has worked out, and
Speaker 3: so maybe they're so called type is not actually the
Speaker 3: best fit for them long term. And so a lot
Speaker 3: of the work that I did myself that I do
Speaker 3: with my clients is helping them date like a scientist
Speaker 3: and see what type of person does make them happiest
Speaker 3: long term. So if you are the life of the
Speaker 3: party person and you think you are drawn to that too, well,
Speaker 3: guess what, it hasn't worked out for you so far.
Speaker 3: Maybe actually need someone who's a bit more of a
Speaker 3: homebody because they balance you out, they ground you, and
Speaker 3: they're not competing with you for space. And so often
Speaker 3: when people have been struggling with love for a while,
Speaker 3: I really like to investigate their so called type and
Speaker 3: encourage them to date like a scientist and see if
Speaker 3: there's another type that ends up making them happier long term.
Speaker 2: It also seems to me that people have these like
Speaker 2: kind of ideas of deal breakers that like, when you
Speaker 2: really kind of look at them carefully, maybe seem like shallow.
Speaker 2: Like I know on the internet right now, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of like no short guys kind of vibe and like,
Speaker 2: that's just the kind of thing that you're talking about.
Speaker 2: When it comes to this stuff that we might want
Speaker 2: to see, is this really a deal breaker?
Speaker 1: Might be more permissible than we think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so okay, going back to pet peeves, that is
Speaker 3: one of my pet peeves is when people are way
Speaker 3: too focused on height. And I can tell you as
Speaker 3: someone who is married to a short king, I highly
Speaker 3: recommend it. And what happens is that with dating apps
Speaker 3: you can set filters, for example height, So many women,
Speaker 3: when they're setting up their hinge profile, they just think,
Speaker 3: oh height, Yeah, it'd be great to be married to
Speaker 3: someone who's tall, So I'll set my height filter at
Speaker 3: six feet or higher. But what they don't understand is
Speaker 3: that in the United States only fourteen percent of men
Speaker 3: are six foot or higher, and so they are automatically
Speaker 3: filtering out eighty six percent of potential matches. Then they
Speaker 3: meet me at a party and they hold up their
Speaker 3: phone and they say, logan, where is he? Where's my husband?
Speaker 3: And it's like, yeah, well he's not even showing up
Speaker 3: because you filtered him out. So I think height is
Speaker 3: a great example of how people make superficial initial choices,
Speaker 3: and then they don't understand that they're actually preventing themselves
Speaker 3: from meeting great people. Whereas if that same woman were
Speaker 3: at a bar sitting across from a guy and had
Speaker 3: a fantastic conversation and then he stood up and he
Speaker 3: was fined nine, I don't think that she would be
Speaker 3: running for the hills. I think that she would understand
Speaker 3: that we, as we said, are experiential goods and if
Speaker 3: that guy made her feel good, who cares what the
Speaker 3: height is on his driver's license.
Speaker 2: And so you've been coaching so many people with dating,
Speaker 2: do you have those strong sense that kind of using
Speaker 2: these behavioral science strategies really helps people.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, so I think this idea of dating blind
Speaker 3: spots is really powerful. So we all have things that
Speaker 3: we think are holding us back, but it's possible that
Speaker 3: the things that are actually holding us back are things
Speaker 3: that we don't have access to at all. And so
Speaker 3: when I first work with a client, we spend the
Speaker 3: first session doing a audit of their relationship history, and
Speaker 3: we really even start at middle school or high school.
Speaker 3: So were you a late bloomer, were you a serial monogamous?
Speaker 3: Were you a South Asian man at a majority white school.
Speaker 3: How did all these stories really add up to how
Speaker 3: you feel about yourself and how you've dated? And so
Speaker 3: what I'm looking for in these conversations is patterns that
Speaker 3: these people keep making. So, for example, somebody who ignores
Speaker 3: red flags, why are they ignoring those red flags? What
Speaker 3: are they getting out of those relationships that are not
Speaker 3: a good fit? And what I really try to do
Speaker 3: is not give them the advice that all their friends
Speaker 3: give them, which is you're perfect. There's just nobody great
Speaker 3: out there like Leve. Will happen to you when it happens.
Speaker 3: And I actually like to say to them, Hey, you're
Speaker 3: making a series of strategic errors. I can help you
Speaker 3: identify what they are. I can give you a plan
Speaker 3: for how to overcome them. I can give you accountability
Speaker 3: so that you actually show up and make these changes,
Speaker 3: and then I'm going to celebrate your successes with you.
Speaker 2: I love that Logan is working so hard to help
Speaker 2: us overturn our relationship myths, and that she's bringing science to.
Speaker 1: Our search for love.
Speaker 2: We've covered a lot of ground, so let's quickly recap
Speaker 2: her top tips. Tip Number one, meet up in person
Speaker 2: if you've matched with a person on an app, try
Speaker 2: to get on a date as soon as you can,
Speaker 2: and on that date, ditch the small talk and get
Speaker 2: to know each other more deeply. Tip number two is
Speaker 2: to stop confusing a first date with a job interview.
Speaker 2: Don't rate yourspective partner's salary, career opportunities, and life goals.
Speaker 2: Those things aren't the important metrics you think. The third
Speaker 2: tip is what Logan calls the post day eight. Ask
Speaker 2: yourself her eight questions about how a date made you feel.
Speaker 2: If you're feeling relaxed and energized, that person's probably a keeper.
Speaker 2: Tip number four is to have fun and be goofy.
Speaker 2: You show off your best self when you're a little
Speaker 2: lighthearted and silly. And the final tip is to park
Speaker 2: those pet peeves. Don't write off a romantic partner just
Speaker 2: because they slurp their soup or laugh too loudly at
Speaker 2: the movies. Those are just insignificant poptholes and what could
Speaker 2: be a long, long road of lifetime love. As Valentine's
Speaker 2: Day draws closer, we'll be continuing are how to advice
Speaker 2: on relationships and will be joined by two psychologists who
Speaker 2: look for scientific clues to love In some unlikely research material,
Speaker 2: the plots of romcom movies.
Speaker 1: That's all.
Speaker 2: Next time on the Happiness Lab with me, Doctor Laurie Santos,