Why You Keep Dating the Wrong People (7 Science-Backed Fixes)
DDr. Arthur Brooks
Mental HealthMarriage
Transcript
00:00:00Here are seven strategies, things to keep in mind that will make your dating life better.
00:00:06And once again, these are all scientifically validated.
00:00:08And if you are a serial member of the wrong dating club, I've got the wrong person again
00:00:15and again and again and again, especially if you're falling into one of the patterns
00:00:18that we talked about here, these seven strategies are really going to help a lot.
00:00:22Okay?
00:00:22Dating strategy number one, do the work and stop relying on somebody else's judgment.
00:00:30I mean, made choice copying is all about making somebody else do the work.
00:00:32But just in general, one of the worst dating strategies is caring what other people think
00:00:38about the person that you're dating.
00:00:39You know, if you're on a dating app, for example, you're looking at a dating profile and you're
00:00:43thinking, if I went out with this person, what would people think of me?
00:00:45That's pure social comparison.
00:00:47And that's a sort of laziness, but it's also a way to destroy joy in your life.
00:00:52Social comparison, after all, is, as they say, the thief of joy.
00:00:56That's attributed to lots and lots of people as a quote, even Theodore Roosevelt.
00:01:00But you know, it's true.
00:01:02When you consider a match, ask yourself, do I actually like this person?
00:01:07Not, what would my friends think about her?
00:01:10Or what will people think of me when I'm with her or him?
00:01:15Do the work and stop comparing.
00:01:18That's the first big lesson about what people do when they're actually dating in the right
00:01:24way with a higher likelihood of having a good relationship.
00:01:28Number two, if you are falling in love too quickly, you are emophilic, the way to solve
00:01:33that is by being aware of it.
00:01:36Like anything else, you know, the reason that I do my work in the science of happiness is
00:01:38because people get happier when they understand the science and change their habits on purpose,
00:01:43which you can do.
00:01:45And then, of course, best of all, when you teach it to other people.
00:01:48If you are, you have a tendency toward emophilia, you need to know that.
00:01:52So you can say, oh, I'm doing that thing again.
00:01:54I'm becoming unbelievably infatuated again.
00:01:57It's not a romantic thing.
00:01:59It creates tons of pain.
00:02:00It will cycle you through relationships that go too quickly.
00:02:03They become too intimate, too fast, where you wind up being heartbroken again and again
00:02:08and again, and maybe even a string of failed marriages, which is really hard for family
00:02:13life.
00:02:13It's really hard for getting on with your life.
00:02:15There's nothing beautiful about that, as a matter of fact, nothing fun about that at
00:02:20all.
00:02:21You're at high risk under these circumstances.
00:02:23And that means adopting some boundaries, actually putting some protocols in place on how quickly
00:02:28you're going to do this, how quickly you're going to do that.
00:02:31You actually have to pace yourself in a particular way.
00:02:34In the same way, by the way, if you knew that you have a tendency to drink too much at parties,
00:02:38that you're going to set up some rules for yourself.
00:02:40You know, I'm not going to drink at this party, or I'm going to have three glasses of water before
00:02:44I actually have a beer.
00:02:45You know, people have all sorts of rules that can keep them in check.
00:02:47You're in charge, not something having to do with your neurochemistry, but you have to
00:02:52know who you are and make some decisions.
00:02:55That's number two.
00:02:55Number three, expand your time horizon for your relationships.
00:03:00Now, this is an important one.
00:03:02When you think of bromance, what's the timeline over which you imagine it?
00:03:06Is it a week at the beach in Avisa?
00:03:10Is it a semester in college?
00:03:13Is it the rest of your life?
00:03:16Well, it turns out that the shorter it is, the greater risk that you are of choosing a bad
00:03:21partner.
00:03:21This is not a moral point that I'm making.
00:03:24This is a very well scientifically validated one.
00:03:28In 2018, psychologists were writing in the Journal of Sex Research.
00:03:33Well, that's on the nose, isn't it?
00:03:34And they compared adults mating timeframes with personalities of their mates.
00:03:39And the shorter the timeframe was for what they were looking for, the more likely they were
00:03:44to attract somebody with psychopathic or sadistic personality traits.
00:03:49You will magnetize yourself to that.
00:03:50Now, I'm going to tell you in a minute where to go to get those longer-term time horizons
00:03:56as opposed to the short-term time horizons.
00:03:57But the whole point is think to yourself about the time horizon that you envision.
00:04:01And here's the mistake that a lot of people make who are getting the wrong person over and
00:04:04over again.
00:04:05They have a long-term time horizon in their head, right?
00:04:08But they're putting themselves in a situation that looks like a short-term time horizon.
00:04:12Look, if you're meeting somebody in a bar in Ibiza and you're leaving in a week to go back
00:04:16to your home country, you might be thinking to yourself, I'm going to meet the love of my
00:04:20life.
00:04:21And then we're going to correspond with each other.
00:04:23And then we're going to visit each other over the next couple of years.
00:04:25And then, you know, he's going to come to the United States and marry me.
00:04:31And uh-uh, not likely going to happen.
00:04:34That's not how it works.
00:04:36He's in a short-term mating situation for a reason.
00:04:39So no matter what the time horizon is in your head, you have to actually make sure it's the
00:04:44same time horizon in your behavior and what you're saying.
00:04:48See what I mean?
00:04:49Number four, focus on things that aren't what dark triads are good at displaying.
00:04:55Now, what are dark triads really, really good at displaying?
00:04:58Physical attractiveness and status.
00:05:00That's what they're great at.
00:05:01They're great at that.
00:05:02That's why they have the- they're virtuosos at dating profiles.
00:05:05And that's the stuff that dating profiles are talking about.
00:05:08It's like they have the best photos and they look like they have the best jobs and they're
00:05:12getting in and out of a Ferrari or, you know, whatever happens to be.
00:05:16Don't look for that.
00:05:17Now, I don't have to tell you, you know perfectly that if you had to choose like a- what am I
00:05:22looking for in a long-term mate?
00:05:23What's the best- the best odds that this thing- I'm going to grow old with a person?
00:05:29Good teeth?
00:05:31Nah, that's not it.
00:05:32How about a desire for faithfulness and exhibited kindness?
00:05:38Those are better odds.
00:05:40It's what it comes down to.
00:05:41So the more that you're actually looking for what dark triads are good at, the more likely
00:05:45you are to get a dark triad.
00:05:46On the contrary, look for something and be clear that you're looking for traits that dark
00:05:52triads are really bad at, like faithfulness and kindness.
00:05:56Focus on the things that aren't looks and status.
00:06:00Okay, that's number four.
00:06:01Number five, go look in the right place.
00:06:04This is related to this idea of time spans here.
00:06:06Look in the right place.
00:06:07Really interesting research shows that you have the highest likelihood of getting somebody
00:06:13with light personality characteristics, not the dark ones, if you look in places like your
00:06:19house of worship, a library, a voluntary organization, a running club, stuff that's not overtly sexualized.
00:06:27Something that's more about meeting people as opposed to bodies is what it comes down to.
00:06:32You're most likely to meet a darker personality type in bars and in clubs and at beaches.
00:06:38I got nothing against bars and beaches.
00:06:40Bars and beaches exist for a reason.
00:06:42People can be very happy going to bars and sometimes I like going to beaches myself.
00:06:47But the whole point is, when you're trying to meet your mate, you're much, much more likely
00:06:52to meet somebody who has a longer term time horizon and therefore has lighter personality
00:06:56traits, more likely to give you a good relationship and break you out of a cycle of finding people
00:07:02with darker personality traits by meeting them in the places where they want to go so that
00:07:06they can meet their soulmate as well.
00:07:09That's what it comes down to.
00:07:11Now, what about online?
00:07:12I know you're thinking, you know, you have this question online.
00:07:14And the answer is that there are some apps that are more like bars and beaches, and there
00:07:18are some apps that are more like libraries and voluntary groups.
00:07:22You know what I'm talking about.
00:07:23Those that are actually loaded on values that are more characteristic of getting you on date
00:07:28sooner as opposed to lurking online longer, that are more, that have more ways for you
00:07:33actually to learn more about a person's values and values congruence.
00:07:37Those are the ones you actually want to look for is what it comes down to as opposed to the
00:07:42ones that have really short-term time horizons.
00:07:45And the good apps are actually getting better at being more like libraries or volunteer organizations
00:07:52and less like clubs and bars.
00:07:55All right.
00:07:56Number six.
00:07:57Here's a hard one.
00:07:58Stop looking for your ex.
00:08:00It's a really weird thing.
00:08:01What you find is that many people have this idealized memory of their first love.
00:08:08I've seen this again and again and again.
00:08:09And it's actually one of the reasons that there is a shocking statistic at a really high percentage
00:08:14of divorce proceedings that have a social media reference in them because somebody from the
00:08:20past reached out to them.
00:08:22Somebody from their past reached out to them because it's like, because their marriage isn't
00:08:25working or they're, or they're, they're, they're really dissatisfied with their mate.
00:08:29And they think, well, my first boyfriend or my first girlfriend or that girl, that boy
00:08:33that I met in college, they idealize it in a particular way.
00:08:36And they're looking for that relationship again.
00:08:38Many people will sort of imprint this idea of true love from earlier in their life.
00:08:43And they'll keep kind of looking for their ex again and again.
00:08:45And again, there's a reason you broke up.
00:08:46Maybe it just didn't work out, but maybe that person truly wasn't right for you.
00:08:50And if you're trying to replicate that and trying to get your ex over, not literally your ex,
00:08:54but somebody just like your ex, you're going to have the same problem again and again and again.
00:08:58I see this constantly.
00:09:00The same partner over and over and over again, who looks like a person that they felt like
00:09:04they truly loved.
00:09:05If this is you, what do you do?
00:09:07You're not a prisoner of that behavior.
00:09:09On the contrary, one of the things that I teach my students a lot is something called
00:09:12the OSS, the opposite signal strategy.
00:09:15And there's lots of ways where you get a signal and you do the opposite on purpose.
00:09:20And you will it.
00:09:21So, for example, if you're lonely and you're depressed, what you want to do is curl up on
00:09:26the couch with a, you know, a comfy blanket and a pint of Haagen-Dazs and watch Netflix
00:09:31by yourself and feel sorry for yourself.
00:09:33But that's the wrong thing to do.
00:09:34You have to engage in the opposite signal strategy of going out and riding your bike and calling
00:09:38friends and all the stuff that you don't want to do.
00:09:40Why?
00:09:40Because your brain is lying to you.
00:09:43Your executive centers are not working properly.
00:09:45You're impaired.
00:09:47And the same thing is true if you're, you know, look, you're a pathological pattern
00:09:51of looking for the wrong person over and over again.
00:09:53The opposite signal strategy is not him, not that on purpose.
00:09:59Go for the opposite of the thing that's actually not working for you.
00:10:01Even if you're like, I won't like that.
00:10:03Give it a try.
00:10:04That's all I can say.
00:10:05The opposite signal strategy is often a really good strategy.
00:10:08And last but not least is number seven, stop romanticizing doomed love.
00:10:14Hollywood doesn't care about you.
00:10:16Hollywood wants to sell tickets.
00:10:18Stories about people that in real life would never work out.
00:10:22And if they worked out for two weeks, they certainly wouldn't for two years or let alone
00:10:2520.
00:10:26And we need to stop romanticizing these star-crossed lovers all the time.
00:10:31But, and again, this is not just Hollywood.
00:10:33I mean, this is the oldest trope in country and Western songs and even, even, you know,
00:10:38romantic poetry.
00:10:40Here's a little poem for you.
00:10:41All right.
00:10:41I don't want anybody to say that they're not getting the arts in the show.
00:10:45You left me boundaries of pain, capacious as a sea, between eternity and time, your consciousness
00:10:53and me.
00:10:55That's Emily Dickinson, who's not a very happy person, by the way.
00:10:58And that's a beautiful poem.
00:10:59That's really nice writing.
00:11:00That's a horrible basis on which to base your relationship.
00:11:04That's not romantic at all.
00:11:05That's just sad, is what it comes down to.
00:11:08What you deserve is a person who's right for you, a relationship that's functional, that
00:11:14gets better over time.
00:11:15It doesn't mean it doesn't have problems.
00:11:17It doesn't mean you're the same.
00:11:18On the contrary, you're going to have lots and lots and lots of fights.
00:11:21But you're looking for the person with whom you can have a deep values compatibility and
00:11:26a deep kind of friendship, a companionate love with plenty of passion that will last you
00:11:32to the end of your days.
00:11:34And you're not going to get that if you keep dating the wrong person over and over again.