Transcript
00:00:00- Every romantic comedy ever made, practically,
00:00:02has the same premise.
00:00:03There's these two people who really like each other,
00:00:06but they're terrible for each other,
00:00:07they're not suitable for each other,
00:00:08but through a series of errors and misunderstandings,
00:00:11et cetera, et cetera, they suffer a lot,
00:00:14but then make it work, and they live happily ever after.
00:00:16I mean, that's kind of the whole premise.
00:00:18But that's actually a pretty dumb premise.
00:00:21Maybe you have found that you don't date the right person,
00:00:24that you date the wrong person,
00:00:25maybe over and over and over again.
00:00:27How come? What's going on?
00:00:29I'm all about complimentary.
00:00:30I love puzzle pieces that fit together in relationships.
00:00:34What I don't like are the ones
00:00:36where people are actually terrible for each other
00:00:38and trying to make something work
00:00:39that actually shouldn't work.
00:00:40What is today's episode?
00:00:42The three reasons you might be dating
00:00:44the wrong person over and over again,
00:00:45and the seven ways to stop doing that.
00:00:54Hi, friends. Welcome to Office Hours.
00:00:56I'm Arthur Brooks.
00:00:57This is a show about love and happiness,
00:01:00and I'm going to talk especially today about love,
00:01:02romantic love, and the problems in it.
00:01:05Now, this is a show that we run every single week
00:01:08about some of the biggest questions that people have ever asked me
00:01:11and how behavioral science and even some neuroscience
00:01:14can illuminate the answers to these questions.
00:01:16I hope you're finding it interesting and useful.
00:01:18For those of you who've been watching this show from the very beginning,
00:01:21thank you for staying with it.
00:01:22Thank you for sharing with other people.
00:01:24The whole idea is to lift other people up.
00:01:26I want to help equip you to become happiness professors, just like me,
00:01:30in your own way, in your own life, and sharing this show with other people is a good way to do that.
00:01:35So, I appreciate that an awful lot.
00:01:37If you like the show, please do let us know what it is that you like,
00:01:42or if there's something you don't like, let us know that as well.
00:01:44We really like the feedback. It's really important to us.
00:01:46So, do write in at officehours@arthurbrooks.com.
00:01:49That's the email for the show itself.
00:01:52And if you want more content like this, you can get it by subscribing to my newsletter.
00:01:57That's at my website, arthurbrooks.com/newsletter.
00:02:01And if you actually want to go a little bit deeper, we're actually running a series of retreats,
00:02:05and you can find out about in-person events,
00:02:08where you can be talking about these things with other people and indeed with me.
00:02:12So, go to retreats.arthurbrooks.com.
00:02:15As always, please like and subscribe and leave any comments that you've got,
00:02:19any place that you're watching or listening to this show.
00:02:23You're not broken.
00:02:25You're meaning-starved.
00:02:27I talk to people all the time who are, by any external measure, successful.
00:02:31They've built careers.
00:02:33They have families.
00:02:34They've checked the boxes.
00:02:35And yet, something feels off.
00:02:38Life feels thin.
00:02:40Like you're going through the motions.
00:02:42Like you're watching yourself from the outside.
00:02:44And here's what I want you to know.
00:02:46That feeling is not a personal failing.
00:02:49It's not ingratitude.
00:02:50It's not something wrong with you.
00:02:52It's a meaning problem.
00:02:55And it's an epidemic.
00:02:57The modern world is extraordinary at giving us comfort, achievement, and distraction.
00:03:02It's terrible at giving us meaning.
00:03:04And no amount of success will fix that.
00:03:07I've seen it in my research, and I've seen it in my own life.
00:03:11That's exactly what we work on at MEA, the Modern Elder Academy,
00:03:15in a program I've developed called The Meaning of Your Life.
00:03:19It's not a lecture.
00:03:20It's not a quick fix.
00:03:22It's several days of real work in a small group on the questions that actually matter.
00:03:28If what I'm describing sounds familiar, I hope you'll come take a look.
00:03:31I hope you'll come take a look.
00:03:32I hope you'll come take a look.
00:03:32I hope you'll come take a look.
00:03:33I hope you'll come take a look.
00:03:34I hope you'll come take a look.
00:03:34I hope you'll come take a look.
00:03:35I hope you'll come take a look.
00:03:36I hope you'll come take a look.
00:03:37I hope you'll come take a look.
00:03:37I hope you'll come take a look.
00:03:38I hope you'll come take a look.
00:03:39I hope you'll come take a look.
00:03:39Falling in Love and Staying in Love, that is the number one topic when I teach my class.
00:03:43To my graduate students at the Harvard Business School, I have a unit, a module in the class
00:03:47called Falling in Love and Staying in Love.
00:03:49And quite frankly, they would keep me on that topic the whole semester.
00:03:52It's utterly baffling.
00:03:53It's very mysterious.
00:03:54Such a complex thing.
00:03:55Seems so hard and yet so unbelievably important for most people so they can live a happy life.
00:04:02And it seems like it's getting harder in modern life, which indeed it is.
00:04:04And I've talked about that in all the episodes that I did about the meaning of life
00:04:09and the overuse of technology.
00:04:11I talked about how it's just, it's a difficult thing.
00:04:14I'm not going to complain about technology today about how the way that we disintermediate
00:04:18our relationships technologically, how bad that is for actually falling in love or making
00:04:23friends or anything.
00:04:24I've done that ad nauseum.
00:04:26I will do that in the future.
00:04:27Today, I want to talk about more eternal problems that people have.
00:04:30Some of the chronic issues that people have in finding the right person.
00:04:34Maybe you have found that you don't date the right person.
00:04:38That you date the wrong person.
00:04:39Maybe over and over and over again.
00:04:41How come?
00:04:42What's going on?
00:04:42Well, I'm going to give you some information that you can actually use.
00:04:45If I do my job, you're going to see yourself.
00:04:47You're going to be able to break out of patterns because I'm also going to give you a whole bunch
00:04:52of solutions.
00:04:53What is today's episode?
00:04:54The three reasons you might be dating the wrong person over and over again and the seven ways
00:04:59to stop doing that.
00:05:01It's a very practical episode.
00:05:03So do feedback.
00:05:04Let me know how you think about this topic.
00:05:05And do you want me to talk about this more on the show?
00:05:08I really find this interesting.
00:05:09And part of the reason is because I want you to find love if you haven't found it yet so
00:05:14that you can live a happier life.
00:05:16I'm a big fan of relationships that really work.
00:05:21Now let's begin with a little bit of data.
00:05:25According to the Pew Research Center, I quote their data all the time.
00:05:27This is really one of the very finest survey research sources that we have.
00:05:32When people are asked whether dating is hard, whether finding the right person is hard, people
00:05:39who are actively dating, 75% say, "Yeah, it's hard."
00:05:4275% of people who are dating saying, "This feels really hard," and most people say that dating
00:05:48is getting harder.
00:05:49Now, a lot of that is what I've talked about in the past, about the way that we misuse technology,
00:05:53how the complicated algorithms are not a substitute for the complex in-person relationships.
00:05:59One of the reasons that I'm working with some app makers to get people out on dates faster
00:06:04and staying less time in the apps themselves, because you need the complex information, not
00:06:10just some sort of algorithm telling you who your perfect date actually is.
00:06:13That just doesn't work.
00:06:15But if you're the kind of person who finds that you haven't just dated the wrong person,
00:06:21but that you're dating the wrong person over and over again, this is really an episode
00:06:25for you.
00:06:26So what does it mean for dating to be difficult?
00:06:31One problem that people often talk about is that they go on a lot of dates, but there's
00:06:34not very much attraction.
00:06:36That's kind of level one trouble.
00:06:40Higher than that is that they are attracted, but they're attracted to the wrong person and
00:06:44it leads to a lot of heartache.
00:06:46At the highest level is they're attracted to the wrong person and they can't get off that
00:06:50track.
00:06:51That's one of the reasons why it's called a movie Groundhog Day, where they keep going
00:06:53back and keep going back to somebody with the same kind of sets of traits.
00:06:58And they're in one ruined relationship after another.
00:07:01Now our culture doesn't help here.
00:07:03I mean, every romantic comedy ever made practically has the same premise.
00:07:08There's these two people who really like each other, but they're terrible for each other.
00:07:12They're not suitable for each other.
00:07:13But through a series of errors and misunderstandings, et cetera, et cetera, they suffer a lot, but
00:07:18then make it work and they live happily ever after.
00:07:21I mean, that's kind of the whole premise.
00:07:23But that's actually a pretty dumb premise.
00:07:26You know, the truth of the matter is that doesn't even have anything to do with real life.
00:07:30I've seen this over and over again.
00:07:31I've seen this because I've been in education for such a long time with young adults who want
00:07:35this.
00:07:36I've seen this, you know, that you shouldn't look at movies and say, oh, that's so romantic.
00:07:39The people who are truly terrible for each other and somehow make it work, that that's
00:07:43just such a beautiful story.
00:07:45Why can't I do that?
00:07:46That's the wrong way to live your life because that's completely at variance with the way that
00:07:51things actually go.
00:07:53Attraction to the wrong kind of person, generally speaking, leads to sadness and frustration.
00:07:57Now what am I not saying?
00:07:59I'm not talking about people who are attracted to each other, who are very different from each
00:08:03other.
00:08:04That's a different thing entirely.
00:08:05I mean, I, you know, when I was 24 years old, I met a girl who was a year older than
00:08:09me, who had never been to the United States, didn't speak a single word of English, I didn't
00:08:12speak a single word of her language, and that was a lot of difference there.
00:08:18We now have four grandchildren, and we made it work.
00:08:21But that wasn't because we were bad for each other.
00:08:24It just meant that we were really different from each other and had to figure out how we
00:08:27were really good for each other despite the differences.
00:08:30And the truth is, we were really good for each other.
00:08:32We were both single.
00:08:34Nobody was being unfaithful to another partner there, which is a horrible way to start a
00:08:40relationship.
00:08:41Generally speaking, we had the same values.
00:08:42We wanted the same long-term things.
00:08:44We wanted to be in a permanent relationship and love.
00:08:47We both, at some point, thought we wanted to get married.
00:08:51I knew that better than she did.
00:08:53I mean, she's from Barcelona and they're very modern people.
00:08:56That actually took a little bit of convincing on my part.
00:08:58We were ready for a long-term relationship.
00:09:00You know, so we were compatible in all sorts of ways.
00:09:03We were just really different.
00:09:04So I'm not talking about difference.
00:09:06And if you follow my work, you know that I'm all about complementarity.
00:09:10I love puzzle pieces that fit together in relationships because that kind of complementarity is the
00:09:16essence of what good relationships are.
00:09:18What I don't like are the ones where people are actually terrible for each other and trying
00:09:22to make something work that actually shouldn't work.
00:09:25Now, to be sure, if you date at all, you're going to make a mistake.
00:09:29I mean, not everybody, but almost everybody does make mistakes.
00:09:32And that's important because that's how you learn and grow.
00:09:34It's the same advice I give to people who are trying to start businesses.
00:09:37Look, it's not always going to work.
00:09:38On average, an entrepreneur has 3.8 failures before her or his first success.
00:09:44You learn and grow, actually, from your mistakes, to be sure.
00:09:46The problem with entrepreneurship is when somebody keeps making the same stupid errors
00:09:51over and over and over and over again, you've got to break them out of that cycle.
00:09:54And it's the same thing with the entrepreneurship of romantic relationships.
00:09:57That's the ultimate startup is how it works.
00:10:00And so you've got to make sure that you're actually learning and growing and not making
00:10:03the same mistake over and over again.
00:10:04Hence, the topic of today's conversation.
00:10:09Many, many people tell me that they feel like they're just attracted to the wrong type of person.
00:10:15And it turns out they probably are.
00:10:17There's a bunch of social science on this.
00:10:19And this is not an exhaustive list, but I'm going to give you the three big ways
00:10:24that people tend to be attracted to the wrong kind of person, which becomes a pathology, actually.
00:10:30And then I'm going to give you the seven ways to break out of that.
00:10:32So the seven ways are good, even if you don't fall into one of these categories,
00:10:36because there's going to be seven good pieces of advice for finding your soulmate.
00:10:40But these big three, you might really see yourself or some variant along these lines.
00:10:45And this is a ton of research behind it.
00:10:47As usual, I'm going to drop a lot of academic papers into the notes, which you can look at or not.
00:10:52Okay.
00:10:53Number one, the first big problem that people have is that they find themselves attracted
00:10:59over and over again to people who are already restricted.
00:11:02Now, what do I mean by restricted?
00:11:03That's just social science talk for they're already in a relationship.
00:11:07Some people find that they're most attracted to people who are already mated, not necessarily
00:11:12married, but dating somebody else.
00:11:14That is a phenomenon that social scientists call mate choice copying.
00:11:19See, we can take all the life out of everything, can't we?
00:11:22Mate choice copying means that you find somebody who's already in a relationship
00:11:27inexplicably more attractive to somebody who's not in a relationship.
00:11:30There's a ton of really interesting experiments that actually look at this.
00:11:33There's one 2009 study.
00:11:35This is from the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, which is a great journal.
00:11:41The title is "The Ability to Judge the Romantic Interest of Others."
00:11:45Good place to start.
00:11:46In that 2009 study, there was a group of single heterosexual undergraduate women,
00:11:53and they were shown a picture and a description of a young man,
00:11:56a moderately attractive young man.
00:11:59They were told different stories about him.
00:12:01And so they gave his background and his interests, et cetera, et cetera.
00:12:04Those were all the same for everybody.
00:12:05But for half, they told the woman that he was already in a relationship.
00:12:11He was mated.
00:12:12And the other one, they told him he was single.
00:12:14Well, it turns out that the women found the ones who were already in a relationship.
00:12:18Same guy, same picture, same life background.
00:12:21Four times as attractive.
00:12:23So these undergraduate women said, oh, he's already in a relationship?
00:12:27Interesting.
00:12:28Now, you might say to yourself, why would these women?
00:12:30And by the way, it works the same way with men.
00:12:32Why do they find people already in relationships so much more naturally attractive?
00:12:37All else held equal, which is what these experiments do.
00:12:40There's three basic reasons why people do this mate choice copying.
00:12:43Number one is just laziness.
00:12:46Somebody else is doing the work for you to make sure that that person is domesticable.
00:12:50That person is capable of carrying on a relationship.
00:12:54They're giving you the data that they're capable of doing so.
00:12:57And, you know, I mean, look, there's a lot of people out there.
00:12:59And most people watching me here have had experiences where somebody looks good and
00:13:04they're not because they're just not good to be around.
00:13:07Well, if somebody else says they are, maybe you should take that seriously.
00:13:11But that's laziness, isn't it?
00:13:13The second is envy.
00:13:14So mate choice copying is kind of an envious thing.
00:13:19That person has a relationship.
00:13:21I want that relationship.
00:13:23I'm going to see.
00:13:24I mean, I would certainly like to swipe that person's mate.
00:13:27And envy is super common.
00:13:29I mean, we're evolved to envy each other because we're a hierarchical species.
00:13:33We know who's on top and who's below.
00:13:35And if somebody has got a relationship and we don't, that's something that we want.
00:13:40And so that envy leads us to want a little bit of a mate swiping, I guess you'd call it.
00:13:46And last but not least, it's just basic social comparison.
00:13:48I want something that other people have because that's related to the envy part, I suppose.
00:13:53That's a mark of status, that somebody likes me.
00:13:58And so this is one of the reasons that, or these are reasons why we would engage in mate choice copying.
00:14:05Now, to begin with, that's a disaster because it usually ends poorly.
00:14:09And interestingly, even when it's successful, it will end poorly down the line.
00:14:15Why?
00:14:15Because your relationship will generally end like it started if it was built on taking somebody else's mate.
00:14:22People who are unfaithful to somebody else will, generally speaking, be unfaithful to you,
00:14:27is how that works.
00:14:28So infidelity is super high in relationships that started with infidelity.
00:14:32This is one of the reasons that mate choice copying is such a bad strategy for finding mates.
00:14:37And you have to deal with this interest that you have in people who are already mated.
00:14:42You might say that's karma, if you believe in karma.
00:14:45You know, you did that thing and that thing happens to you, to be sure.
00:14:48But it's also just whether you believe in karma or not, unbelievably unethical.
00:14:53You know, trying to go after somebody who's already mated, that's double crossing somebody, whether you know them or not.
00:14:58So it's a bad strategy from an ethical point of view.
00:15:02It's also a bad strategy from just an odds perspective of success.
00:15:06And that's one of the reasons that people will often say,
00:15:09"The big problem that I have is I only like men or I only like women who are already in relationships."
00:15:15And it always winds up becoming a disaster.
00:15:18That's why.
00:15:19So that's the first big pattern that we see.
00:15:21Are you a mate choice copier?
00:15:23Hold that thought.
00:15:24The second big pattern that we typically see in the data that comes up again and again and again
00:15:28in the psychology literature is people who are weirdly attracted to the people who are addicted
00:15:34or who abuse substances or have addictive behaviors.
00:15:39And a lot of that, according to most of the people who do work in this,
00:15:42most of the social psychologists who do work in this, is it has very much to do with somebody's childhood.
00:15:48That's the whole idea.
00:15:48Sort of the model of what it means to be an adult.
00:15:51There's one 2009 study for the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse.
00:15:56This is a quote.
00:15:58I'll just give you this quote.
00:15:59And the reason I'm going to read this to you is because this is the most academic sentence I've ever read.
00:16:04This is the problem with academic writing.
00:16:07"Non-alcoholic daughters of alcoholics were more than twice as likely to marry an alcoholic
00:16:12as non-alcoholic daughters of non-alcoholics."
00:16:16That's what it's like to read the academic literature.
00:16:18But you get the point.
00:16:19Among women in this study, if your father was an alcoholic, you're more than twice as likely to be
00:16:25attracted to alcoholics when it comes to parapod mating.
00:16:28What is a man in your view?
00:16:30It's dad.
00:16:31What did dad do?
00:16:31He drank too much.
00:16:32That's the whole sort of psychology that's actually behind that.
00:16:37But of course, that's horrible.
00:16:38I mean, a lot of people think that they can solve their partner's addictive behavior.
00:16:43Most people...
00:16:44That's an exercise in futility to a very large extent.
00:16:47It's a bad idea to get into a relationship with somebody who's compulsively using,
00:16:52craving, hiding, escalating, experiencing withdrawal.
00:16:56And here's the reason for that.
00:16:58I've done a lot of work in this area.
00:17:00An addiction is a relationship.
00:17:02And I got news for you.
00:17:03It's the most important relationship to an addict.
00:17:06If you have somebody who drinks alcoholically, the booze is number one.
00:17:10You're not number one.
00:17:11And trust me, you're going to figure that out real fast because you'll be betrayed for
00:17:15the alcohol, the drugs, the gambling, whatever it happens to be.
00:17:19It's like a love relationship.
00:17:20There's a very famous book by a writer named Carolyn Knapp, K-N-A-P-P, called Drinking:
00:17:27A Love Story.
00:17:28It's a great book.
00:17:29It's a memoir of her struggles with alcohol where it really felt like a
00:17:32love relationship because that's how addiction actually feels.
00:17:36The result of it is that if you're attracted to an addictive person,
00:17:39you're basically mate choice copying, but just with substances.
00:17:44That's a big problem.
00:17:45That's something you actually have to fix.
00:17:48Now, not just because it's usually a doomed relationship,
00:17:52but because a partner's uncontrolled abuse of substances,
00:17:57that leads almost inevitably to psychological, physical, and social trauma.
00:18:01And the rate of divorce is way, way, way higher.
00:18:04Now, interestingly, I've seen data that show that men are more likely to divorce alcoholic
00:18:10wives as opposed to wives divorcing alcoholic husbands.
00:18:13Women tend to hang around it a lot longer and they sustain a lot more
00:18:17psychological trauma as a result of it.
00:18:20Men are women.
00:18:21You're not going to like it.
00:18:22If you're attracted to somebody who's an addict, again and again and again and again,
00:18:26you need to fix that.
00:18:27So stay tuned.
00:18:28Okay, number three.
00:18:29The third big pattern that shows up in the literature is that you're attracted to somebody
00:18:36with a dangerous personality, with an antisocial personality.
00:18:39And you think to yourself, well, that's not possible.
00:18:42Why would I be attracted to bad people?
00:18:46Because people are attracted to bad people.
00:18:48And I'm going to explain exactly why.
00:18:50Now, if you've been following this show, you know where I'm going with this.
00:18:53I'm going toward the dark triad right now.
00:18:55I'm going to explain that here in a second.
00:18:56This is your first episode that you're watching.
00:18:58I'm going to explain what a dark triad is.
00:19:00But suffice it to say that long-term watchers of this show know that I talk an awful lot
00:19:04about people who have personality characteristics that are highly antisocial.
00:19:07Being attracted to somebody who's really quirky can be fine, can be okay, right?
00:19:12But the more neurotic somebody that actually is, the more likely it is that the relationship is
00:19:16going to end in tears.
00:19:18And the more that the person that you're attracted to actually has an antisocial personality,
00:19:22the more dangerous it actually gets.
00:19:24If you're like me, you've got to be drinking when you're in the gym.
00:19:27And you have to be drinking something clean without any calories
00:19:30that will actually give you your electrolytes and all the good stuff.
00:19:32For me, that's Element.
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00:19:35You probably knew that already.
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00:19:42that are found in a lot of popular electrolyte drinks and sports drinks.
00:19:46No sugar, no junk, just electrolytes that actually work.
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00:19:50I like it.
00:19:51It's science-backed.
00:19:52It's made for athletes, fasting, keto, or happiness scientists like me.
00:19:58Anyone who sweats.
00:19:59So, how do I use it?
00:20:00I use it in the morning, 4:45 in the morning.
00:20:03I don't like to drink anything with caffeine or anything that peps me up
00:20:06because I like to be real clear and I drink my caffeine later.
00:20:09Element is just the ticket that I need.
00:20:12Give it a try yourself.
00:20:13Right now, you can get a free sample pack with any purchase at Drink Element.
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00:20:25No questions asked, but you're going to like it.
00:20:27Okay, now I'm going to put a link right here to my episode on dark triads.
00:20:32When you're done with this one, go watch that one if you're interested in this topic.
00:20:35A dark triad is a personality constellation that's present in 7% of the population,
00:20:40according to Scott Barry Kaufman, the Columbia psychologist who does the best work on this
00:20:45subject.
00:20:45They're above average, the population average, in three different personality characteristics.
00:20:50Narcissism, it's all about me.
00:20:53Machiavellianism, I'm willing to hurt you to get what I want.
00:20:57And psychopathy, psychopathic traits, which is to say,
00:21:00I will hurt you and not feel any remorse or any empathy or very little of that.
00:21:05Okay, so just to be above average on those three traits puts you in 7% of the population.
00:21:10And this is really bad for relationships when you're with one of these people.
00:21:15By the way, these make horrible friends because they tend to betray you.
00:21:18These make horrible colleagues.
00:21:19They take credit for your work.
00:21:21They make the worst bosses because they'll just mistreat you.
00:21:25But above anything else is how terrible it is to be in a romantic relationship with dark triads.
00:21:31They cheat.
00:21:32They steal.
00:21:33They'll empty your bank account.
00:21:34They'll break your heart.
00:21:35They're overwhelmingly disloyal to you.
00:21:39They will betray you.
00:21:40They will cheat on you.
00:21:41That's what dark triads do.
00:21:44And yet, some people find that they're irresistibly attractive.
00:21:49Now, I know some of you are watching this going,
00:21:51"Wow, well, that's me.
00:21:52I keep getting attracted to jerks."
00:21:54Maybe it's not just a jerk.
00:21:57Maybe it's something beyond that.
00:21:58Let me explain why some people would find romantically irresistible somebody with these personality
00:22:05pathologies.
00:22:06And if you don't have this good for you, maybe you're shaking your head going, "How is it possible?"
00:22:10Boy, is it ever possible because we see it again and again and again.
00:22:13Dark triads in dating markets are very good at getting you to fall in love even though they're not
00:22:19falling in love.
00:22:20So you've seen my work on this perhaps, but there's a neurochemical cascade
00:22:26that happens in your brain when you're falling in love.
00:22:28You're going through a series of changes neurochemically
00:22:31that's bonding you to the other person.
00:22:33Dark triads are very good at looking like they're going through this cascade
00:22:37while you're really going through this cascade.
00:22:40Their whole objective, a dark triad, narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic,
00:22:44it's all about me.
00:22:45I get what I want.
00:22:47They want to use you.
00:22:48They're not interested in learning more about you to see if they're falling in love.
00:22:52That's the normal thing to do for healthy people.
00:22:54They just want you to fall in love so they can get what they want,
00:22:57which is maybe getting you into bed, getting into your bank account.
00:23:01It's something that they actually want from you, which is not a lifelong relationship.
00:23:07Here's where it gets really toxic.
00:23:09And here's where we actually see this happen again and again and again.
00:23:12Dark triads in the dating market are often matched up again and again with people,
00:23:17especially women, because this is where most of the research has been done.
00:23:21We don't know as much about this among men.
00:23:23Women who have a syndrome that's often referred to as hemophilia.
00:23:27That's E-M-O-P-H-I-L-I-A.
00:23:30So not hemophilia.
00:23:32It's not a blood disorder.
00:23:33It's hemophilia, which is the tendency to fall in love very quickly,
00:23:38sort of pathologically quickly.
00:23:40Now, is that you?
00:23:42There are lots of people watching me right now.
00:23:44It's like, yeah, I fall in love really fast.
00:23:45Like sometimes I feel like I fall in love after an hour or after, you know, two dates.
00:23:49You see this a lot.
00:23:50There is this.
00:23:51And again, it's not your fault.
00:23:52I mean, this is just something that some part of the population tends to do.
00:23:56Almost certainly that means they go through this neurochemical cascade of falling in love
00:24:00extremely quickly.
00:24:01They scream through the process.
00:24:04That's much faster than ordinary people.
00:24:07And it can be hard on you if that's you under the best of circumstances.
00:24:11Here's the problem.
00:24:13You will be attracted to and you will attract dark triads if you're emophilic.
00:24:18Why?
00:24:18Because they can spot you a mile away.
00:24:21They're very good at spotting people who fall in love really, really quickly.
00:24:24And then these are the ones who will glom on to you and say, oh, it's like you'll confess.
00:24:30I feel like I'm falling in love after one date.
00:24:32And they'll say, me too, because you're bait.
00:24:35It's irresistible because you're the kind of person that can take the greatest advantage of.
00:24:40There's a lot on this.
00:24:41I'm going to throw a few articles into the into the notes about this combination, both dark
00:24:46triads in the dating market, but the combination with dark triads and emophilics where the dark triad is
00:24:50going after short term mating and the emophilic actually wants a long term relationship, et cetera,
00:24:56et cetera.
00:24:56But suffice it to say that it's a complete disaster because it almost never works.
00:25:00The emophilia is, which sounds really romantic, it's not good.
00:25:05Under the best of circumstances, it generally speaking means that people will jump into relationships.
00:25:10These are Vegas weddings, right?
00:25:13And it leads to very indiscriminate romantic bonds that look like true love at the very beginning and
00:25:18turns out that are not multiple engagements, lots and lots of marriages.
00:25:22And when they involve the dark triad coming on the scene, which emophilics, once again,
00:25:26find irresistible.
00:25:28Why?
00:25:28Because they can make themselves out to look like fellow emophilics.
00:25:32Like, ah, I found my soulmate.
00:25:34We both fell in love in two hours.
00:25:37No, you just, uh, you just attracted the associate doth.
00:25:40And so a lot of people who date the, you know, antisocial personalities again and again and again and
00:25:45again are in this cycle.
00:25:47Maybe some of you are seeing yourself.
00:25:49Now, maybe you know that you're dating the wrong person over and over again.
00:25:53Why would you keep doing it, right?
00:25:56But part of it is because you might not know your way out.
00:25:58But part of it is a problem of cognitive dissonance.
00:26:02You know, cognitive dissonance for social psychologists is when you have two competing
00:26:06cognitions that they're in conflict with one another.
00:26:09And one of the cognitions is unbelievably pleasant.
00:26:12And it's in conflict with another cognition that is extremely unpleasant.
00:26:16Which one do you go with?
00:26:19Because you have to resolve it or you can't move forward.
00:26:21You have to decide one's right and one's wrong.
00:26:24And so you decide that the one that's pleasant is right.
00:26:26So let's say that you have, you know, I'm feeling incredible after this person.
00:26:30Cognition one.
00:26:33Cognition two.
00:26:34I've noticed that he keeps shoplifting, for example.
00:26:37I mean, it's like, this is a wonderful person in the love of my life.
00:26:40And this person is chronically doing illegal things that are really unethical and bad.
00:26:45And so how do you resolve that?
00:26:46You resolve that by disregarding the shoplifting.
00:26:51That's one of the reasons that even though you know somebody is not right for you, because the
00:26:54person's married, because the person's alcoholic, because the person is clearly trying to exploit
00:27:00you, that you will disregard that information because you're resolving your cognitive dissonance
00:27:04in a way that you like best.
00:27:08We have to stop doing that.
00:27:09So what do you do?
00:27:10Now, once again, even if you're not falling prey to these three things, but you're not
00:27:14finding any satisfaction in the people that you're dating.
00:27:18Here are seven strategies, things to keep in mind that will make your dating life better.
00:27:24And once again, these are all scientifically validated.
00:27:27And if you are a serial member of the wrong dating club, I've got the wrong person again
00:27:34and again and again and again, especially if you're falling into one of the patterns
00:27:36that we talked about here, these seven strategies are really going to help a lot.
00:27:40Okay. Dating strategy number one. Do the work and stop relying on somebody else's judgment.
00:27:48I mean, made choice copying is all about making somebody else do the work.
00:27:51But just in general, one of the worst dating strategies is caring what other people think
00:27:56about the person that you're dating. You know, if you're on a dating app, for example,
00:28:00you're looking at a dating profile and you're thinking, "If I went out with this person,
00:28:03what would people think of me?" That's pure social comparison.
00:28:06And that's a sort of laziness, but it's also a way to destroy joy in your life.
00:28:11Social comparison, after all, is, as they say, the thief of joy.
00:28:15That's attributed to lots and lots of people as a quote, even Theodore Roosevelt.
00:28:19But you know, it's true. When you consider a match, ask yourself,
00:28:24"Do I actually like this person?" Not, "What would my friends think about her?"
00:28:29or "What will people think of me when I'm with her or him?"
00:28:34Do the work and stop comparing. That's the first big lesson about what people do when they're
00:28:41actually dating in the right way with a higher likelihood of having a good relationship.
00:28:47Number two, if you are falling in love too quickly, you are emophilic,
00:28:51the way to solve that is by being aware of it. Like anything else, you know, the reason I do my work
00:28:56in the science of happiness is because people get happier when they understand the science
00:29:00and change their habits on purpose, which you can do.
00:29:03And then of course, best of all, when you teach it to other people.
00:29:07If you have a tendency toward emophilia, you need to know that. So you can say,
00:29:11"Oh, I'm doing that thing again. I'm becoming unbelievably infatuated again."
00:29:16It's not a romantic thing. It creates tons of pain. It will cycle you through relationships
00:29:21that go too quickly. They become too intimate, too fast, where you wind up being heartbroken again
00:29:26and again and again, and maybe even a string of failed marriages, which is really hard for family
00:29:31life. It's really hard for getting on with your life. There's nothing beautiful about that,
00:29:36as a matter of fact, nothing fun about that at all. You're at high risk under these circumstances.
00:29:42And that means adopting some boundaries, actually putting some protocols in place on how quickly you're
00:29:47going to do this, how quickly you're going to do that. You actually have to pace yourself in a
00:29:51particular way. In the same way, by the way, if you knew that you have a tendency to drink too much
00:29:56at parties, that you're going to set up some rules for yourself. You know, I'm not going to drink at
00:30:00this party, or I'm going to have three glasses of water before I actually have a beer. You know,
00:30:04people have all sorts of rules that can keep them in check. You're in charge, not something having
00:30:08to do with your neurochemistry, but you have to know who you are and make some decisions. That's number two.
00:30:14Number three, expand your time horizon for your relationships. Now, this is an important one.
00:30:20When you think of bromance, what's the timeline over which you imagine it?
00:30:25Is it a week at the beach in Ibiza? Is it a semester in college? Is it the rest of your life?
00:30:34Well, it turns out that the shorter it is, the greater risk that you are of choosing a bad partner.
00:30:40This is not a moral point that I'm making. This is a very well scientifically validated one. In 2018,
00:30:48psychologists were writing in the Journal of Sex Research. Well, that's on the nose, isn't it? And
00:30:53they compared adults mating timeframes with personalities of their mates. And the shorter
00:30:58the timeframe was for what they were looking for, the more likely they were to attract somebody with
00:31:04psychopathic or sadistic personality traits. You will magnetize yourself to that. Now, I'm going to tell
00:31:10you in a minute where to go to get those longer-term time horizons as opposed to the short-term time
00:31:15horizons. But the whole point is think to yourself about the time horizon that you envision. And here's
00:31:20the mistake that a lot of people make who are getting the wrong person over and over again. They have a
00:31:24long-term time horizon in their head, right? But they're putting themselves in a situation that looks
00:31:29like a short-term time horizon. Look, if you're meeting somebody in a bar in Ibiza and you're leaving
00:31:33in a week to go back to your home country, you might be thinking to yourself, I'm going to meet the love
00:31:38of my life. And then we're going to correspond with each other. And then we're going to visit each other
00:31:43over the next couple of years. And then, you know, he's going to come to the United States and marry me.
00:31:50And, uh-uh, not likely going to happen. That's not how it works. He's in a short-term mating situation
00:31:57for a reason. So no matter what the time horizon is in your head, you have to actually make sure it's
00:32:02the same time horizon in your behavior and what you're saying. See what I mean? Number four,
00:32:09focus on things that aren't what dark triads are good at displaying. Now, what are dark triads really,
00:32:15really good at displaying? Physical attractiveness and status. That's what they're great at. They're
00:32:20great at that. That's why they have their virtuosos at dating profiles. And that's the stuff that dating
00:32:25profiles are talking about. It's like they have the best photos and they look like they have the best
00:32:30jobs and they're getting in and out of a Ferrari or, you know, whatever happens to be. Don't look for
00:32:35that. Now, I don't have to tell you, you know perfectly that if you had to choose, okay, what am
00:32:41I looking for in a long-term mate? What's the best, the best odds that this thing, I'm going to grow old
00:32:46with a person? Good teeth? No, that's not it. How about a desire for faithfulness and exhibited kindness?
00:32:57Those are better odds. It's what it comes down to. So the more that you're actually looking for what
00:33:01dark triads are good at, the more likely you are to get a dark triad. On the contrary, look for
00:33:07something and be clear that you're looking for traits that dark triads are really bad at, like faithfulness
00:33:13and kindness. Focus on the things that aren't looks and status. Okay, that's number four. Number five,
00:33:21go look in the right place. This is related to this idea of time spans here. Look in the right place.
00:33:26Really interesting research shows that you have the highest likelihood of getting somebody with light
00:33:32personality characteristics, not the dark ones, if you look in places like your house of worship,
00:33:39a library, a voluntary organization, a running club, stuff that's not overtly sexualized. Something
00:33:46that's more about meeting people as opposed to bodies is what it comes down to. You're most likely to meet
00:33:52a darker personality type in bars and in clubs and at beaches. I got nothing against bars and beaches.
00:33:59Bars and beaches exist for a reason. People can be very happy going to bars and sometimes I like going
00:34:04to beaches myself. But the whole point is when you're trying to meet your mate, you're much,
00:34:09much more likely to meet somebody who has a longer term time horizon and therefore has lighter personality
00:34:15traits, more likely to give you a good relationship and break you out of a cycle of finding people with
00:34:20darker personality traits by meeting them in the places where they want to go so that they can meet
00:34:26their soulmate as well. That's what it comes down to. Now, what about online? I know you're thinking,
00:34:31you know, you have this question online and the answer is that there are some apps that are more
00:34:35like bars and beaches and there are some apps that are more like libraries and voluntary groups.
00:34:41You know what I'm talking about? Those that are actually loaded on values that are more characteristic
00:34:45of getting you out on dates sooner as opposed to lurking online longer, that are more, that have more
00:34:51ways for you actually to learn more about a person's values and values congruence.
00:34:56Those are the ones you actually want to look for is what it comes down to as opposed to the ones
00:35:00that have really short-term time horizons. And the good apps are actually getting better
00:35:06at being more like libraries or volunteer organizations and less like clubs and bars.
00:35:13All right. Number six. Here's a hard one. Stop looking for your ex. It's a really weird thing.
00:35:19What you find is that many people have this idealized memory of their first love. I've seen
00:35:27this again and again and again. And it's actually one of the reasons that there is a shocking statistic
00:35:31at the really high percentage of divorce proceedings that have a social media reference in them because
00:35:37somebody from the past reached out to them, somebody from their past reached out to them
00:35:42because their marriage isn't working or they're really dissatisfied with their mate. And they think,
00:35:48well, my first boyfriend or my first girlfriend or that girl, that boy that I met in college,
00:35:53they idealize it in a particular way. And they're looking for that relationship again.
00:35:57Many people will sort of imprint this idea of true love from earlier in their life,
00:36:01and they'll keep kind of looking for their ex again and again and again. There's a reason you broke up.
00:36:05Maybe it just didn't work out, but maybe that person truly wasn't right for you.
00:36:08And if you're trying to replicate that and trying to get your ex over, not literally your ex,
00:36:13but somebody just like your ex, you're going to have the same problem again and again and again.
00:36:16I see this constantly. The same partner over and over and over again, who looks like a person that
00:36:22they felt like they truly loved. If this is you, what do you do? You're not a prisoner of that behavior.
00:36:27On the contrary, one of the things that I teach my students a lot is something called the OSS,
00:36:31the opposite signal strategy. And there's lots of ways where you get a signal and you do the opposite
00:36:37on purpose and you will it. So for example, if you're lonely and you're depressed, what you want
00:36:44to do is curl up on the couch with a, you know, a comfy blanket and a pint of Haagen-Dazs and watch
00:36:49Netflix by yourself and feel sorry for yourself. But that's the wrong thing to do. You have to engage
00:36:53in the opposite signal strategy of going out and riding your bike and calling friends and
00:36:57all the stuff that you don't want to do. Why? Because your brain is lying to you. Your executive
00:37:02centers are not working properly. You're impaired. And the same thing is true if you're, you know,
00:37:07look, you're a pathological pattern of looking for the wrong person over and over again. The opposite
00:37:12signal strategy is not him, not that on purpose. Go for the opposite of the thing that's actually not
00:37:19working for you. Even if you're like, I won't like that, give it a try. That's all I can say. The opposite
00:37:24signal strategy is often a really good strategy. And last but not least is number seven. Stop
00:37:30romanticizing doomed love. Hollywood doesn't care about you. Hollywood wants to sell tickets,
00:37:36stories about people that in real life would never work out. And if they worked out for two weeks,
00:37:41they certainly wouldn't for two years or let alone 20. And we need to stop romanticizing these,
00:37:47these star-crossed lovers all the time. But, and again, this is not just Hollywood. I mean,
00:37:52this is the oldest trope in country and Western songs and even, even, you know, romantic poetry.
00:37:58Here's a little poem for you. All right. I don't want anybody to say that they're not getting the
00:38:01arts in the show. You left me boundaries of pain, capacious as the sea, between eternity and time,
00:38:10your consciousness and me. That's Emily Dickinson, who's not a very happy person, by the way. And
00:38:16that's a beautiful poem. That's really nice writing. That's a horrible basis on which to base your
00:38:21relationship. That's not romantic at all. That's just sad, is what it comes down to. What you deserve
00:38:28is a person who's right for you, a relationship that's functional, that gets better over time.
00:38:34It doesn't mean it doesn't have problems. It doesn't mean you're the same. On the contrary,
00:38:37you're going to have lots and lots and lots of fights. But this is, you're looking for the person
00:38:41with whom you can have a, a deep values compatibility and a deep kind of friendship,
00:38:47a companion at love with plenty of passion that will last you to the end of your days.
00:38:52And you're not going to get that if you keep dating the wrong person over and over again.
00:38:56I hope this helps. Do a couple of questions and we're done.
00:39:00Polly Chandler wrote into the show, "I'm loving the new book." Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,
00:39:04Polly. Here's the new book, by the way. The Meaning of Your Life.
00:39:07"My challenge is that I'm listening to it on my phone as an audible book. This might be in direct
00:39:12conflict with what I'm hearing about the impact of being on my phone. Even on my show, I talk about
00:39:17the phones. How do you reconcile a book that advocates for the numinous brain and yet is
00:39:22you have to get access to the content. I have to be on my phone." Okay. The problem with the screens
00:39:26is actually not what you're listening to, which could be like a CD or, or, you know, a cassette
00:39:31tape back from the old days. The auditory, auditory cortex of your brain is working. You're not working
00:39:36every part of your brain. You're not capturing your whole brain. The problem with, with, with phone use
00:39:41and scrolling is that it's, you know, it's the sound and it's what you're reading and it's what you're
00:39:47looking at, which is occupying the, a lot of the occipital lobe of your brain. Too much of your
00:39:51brain is involved and there's not enough of your brain to actually mind wander and to fill in gaps in
00:39:56the stories. Listening to something is perfectly fine. Just like reading a book is perfectly fine.
00:40:01That's a very natural and a very good thing to do. What I would recommend is no multitasking
00:40:06while you're listening to my book, Polly. So don't, you know, shop on Amazon while you're listening to my
00:40:10book or do two or three other things because then you're too occupied. So just, just listen
00:40:15while you're walking or maybe while you're sitting in your living room and, and, and that's fine.
00:40:19That's a good use of a device. And I'm not saying that just because it's my book.
00:40:23Second, this is from Lauren Prescott. Thanks Lauren, uh, for writing in at the, at the website.
00:40:28Is there room for fun, less serious activities and leisure, such as playing a sport, trying a recipe,
00:40:34hosting a dinner party. These aren't contemplative, but they seem productive a lot more than binge
00:40:39watching or scrolling. Boy, that's for sure. Now, when I did that, uh, episode on leisure,
00:40:43I'll put that in the links. I talked about the work of Joseph Pieper, the great 20th century
00:40:47philosopher who is an expert in leisure. He called it the basis of culture. And he said that great leisure,
00:40:53deep leisure has three components or it has three silos that you can be in. Number one is,
00:40:59is, is leisure based on deepening your metaphysical sense, your transcendence,
00:41:03maybe your spiritual life. Another is by learning something that they're not paying you to learn.
00:41:08And last but not least is deepening your love relationships. None of that rules out any of
00:41:13the stuff you've talked about, Lauren. The whole idea of playing a sport, learning about something,
00:41:18especially doing it with friends. Fantastic. Trying a recipe. This is a learning experience,
00:41:22hosting a dinner party. That's deepening relationships. That's great leisure. As far as
00:41:28Joseph Pieper is concerned, as far as I'm concerned as well. The whole point is actually doing one of those
00:41:33three things or something along those lines. Doing it something that's really generative to you as a
00:41:38person and to your soul, even though they're not paying you for it. That's really what
00:41:42leaders are all about. Well, we're at an end. Please let me know your thoughts at officehours@arthurbrooks.com.
00:41:49Like and subscribe. Hit the subscribe button on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, wherever you're,
00:41:54wherever you're getting this podcast. And leave a comment. I promise. I read them all. And follow me on,
00:41:59follow me on, on socials, on Instagram. I have a lot of content that's not appearing here or anyplace
00:42:04else. LinkedIn is also great. Other platforms. And do order The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose
00:42:08in an Age of Emptiness. That's my new book, which I'm on tour all the time. I hope I actually see you
00:42:13out on the road. But if not, I'll see you next week for the next edition of Office Hours. Thanks, everybody.
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