Season 9 Episode 14 science of dating

00:00:00 - 00:05:03

The Dateable podcast is an insider's look into modern dating that the Huffington post calls one of the top ten podcast about love and sex. On each episode, we'll talk to real daters about. From sex parties to sex droughts, date fails a diaper fetishes and first moves to first loves. I'm your host Yue Xu, former dating coach turned dating sociologists. You also hear from my co host and producer Julie Krafchick as we explored this crazy dateable world.

the dateable podcast is an Insider's look into modern dating that the Huffington Post calls one of the top 10 podcasts about love and sex on each episode will talk to real daters about everything from sex birth defects droughts date fails to diaper fetishes and first moves to First loves I'm your host you issue former dating coach turned dating sociologists you also hear from my co host and producer Julie craft long as we explore this crazy dateable world hey everyone welcome to another episode of datable a show all about modern dating off and we did we make decisions and those decisions are usually informed by what we think is our brain but usually there is so much more that affects how we make decisions who we choose to go on dates with how we feel about them there's just this whole science to it and we have an expert to talk about that whole thing you never think about it you just think that's the way it works right we just assumed That this is just our own intelligence feeding us disinformation where it's the way you are, you know, I was born with it. It's you know, it's my personality. So our guest today, her name is Logan is 31 years old. She's lived in San Francisco for nine years originally from South Florida and currently in a monogamous relationships. She's here to talk about what's called a night this word. I always have a hard time saying it behavioral economics. It's like such a tongue twister for me basically the signs of how and why we make decisions and how this applies a dating and relationships. What is this? What does behavioral economics? Why should we care? That was a great introduction? Thank you so much for having me. The idea behind behavioral economics is that there's this field of Economics, which you're probably familiar with which assumes that everyone's rational. It thinks that people make a cost-benefit analysis before making decisions. And then there's the field of psychology that thinks about how our brains work and what's going into our decision-making and kind of how we're wired job. And how I'm different from you and behavioral economics combined those two, so it's basically saying people make decisions but actually in these irrational ways, but we make decisions in the same irrational always so our brains are often clouded by these things called cognitive biases, but the same ones appear over and over and if we understand what those cognitive bias, he's our then we could help make better decisions so I can tell you about a really famous example say you were looking at Mike's I could show you this chart of organ donation rates across Europe and you would see that some have an organ donation rate of around ninety nine or 98% and other countries have an organ donation rate of around one or two or 3% And if I said to you, why are some countries I and some countries low like what are some of the things that you might guess people want to donate in some places and not others and that they are taught morally that it's that it's better if you donate your organs or it's a religious thing if you donate you have a better afterlife or maybe like friends and fam. We have donated their organs. They think it's something they should do. Yeah, those are great guesses. So usually when I show this graph two people, they'll say things like, oh some of those countries are religious and some are in or maybe In some cultures value organ donations and in others, they think it's weird. But actually when you look at the graph, you can see that countries that are really similar. So like they actually have really different organ donation rates. And the point of this is that the reason why summer a high and some are really low is that in some countries when you go to the DMV and you sign up for a driver's license, it says check the box if you don't want to be an organ donor and in other countries, it says check the box. If you do want to be an organ donor and in either way people don't check the box and they just become what the default is. What's so fascinating about this example is organ donation rates matter a lot. It's about how may lives are saved how long it takes to get the organ but it's being decided by the way. The Forum is written and the lesson that we get from that is a lot of our decisions are just made by what's the default So In some cultures Is the default is to be an organ donor in other countries the default is to not be an organ donor and because of something called the path of least resistance. We just don't check the box. It was so fascinating as when people are leaving the DMV and you say to them. Why did you sign up to be an organ donor? They'll make up a reason they'll say oh, you know somebody in my family was affected by this and received an organ and they'll they'll rationalize they'll give you an explanation for why they'll never say because the form was opt out and if you say to somebody why didn't you know, they'll say oh it's creepy or this and that they won't say it's because the form was opt-in. We need all based on these crazy different rates that that's really what's going on here. So how does this apply to dating? So that's just one example of how behavioral economics works and there's a few lessons. I want you to get from that one is a default really matter too is that there's this thing called path of least resistance. We resist making hard decisions. We just go with whatever's there and then three is we don't really understand what's behind the decision off. We're making and we explain it in a different way cuz we think we're rational.

00:05:03 - 00:10:05

Oh, yeah, we think we're rational and we think we're in control of our decisions. So the way that this relates to dating think about the way the apps are created and all the default that are built into the so I used to lead a behavioral economics team at Google. So what we would do is we would take these principles from Academia and we would apply them to products at Google so we would say things like how do we get users page to continue through a sign up flow or how do you get Google employees to drink more water things like that? Right? And now I'm applying them to dating as a dating coach and through a book that I'm writing that applies behavioral economics to dating and one example that I often give around the apps is that the apps make a lot of assumptions that I actually think are wrong. Okay. So one of those assumptions is the apps assumed that you know, what you want when you're signing up for a nap. It'll say What's your height maximum? What's your height? Minimum? What religion do you want? Do you care if they're a smoker or not? Is this a deal-breaker? Is this a preference? There's a whole onboarding flow people fill it out pretty quickly cuz they're like I want to get to the dates. I want to get to the dates. What the hell action relies on is the idea that you know what you want. But when we don't think that's true, I remember I had a friend that met her boyfriend and she said that if she had met him on a dating app, they would never have yeah. I was a lovely person here that all the time because what is the difference between 5:10 and 5:11? I'm not a 10% Apparently. I know I want someone 510-6059. This is Mike a few things going on there. So one is that it's not just that the dating apps think that we know what we want and we know that that's not true. We also think we know what we want people have these lists and they're like, he must love dogs and he must be like this part of me is like, okay if you're single and you've been dating for a long time, maybe actually your list isn't really what you want. And I talked to so many people with similar what you just said who are like, I would have swiped left on my husband and I wouldn't have even seen my husband because he would have been excluded totally tested this because I had a big singles party in January and I had so many couples that match there and I later talked to them and said, Do you have ever even seen each other in the app and one of the common things was no because of height that was a common thing for ya know because of age and that was a common thing for men interesting. This has talked about the story my book, but I actually slept on my boyfriend before we started dating because I saw him on Tinder and I knew him we had gone to college together and I was like, oh kind of looks like a bro. He's not really smiling and I just assumed all of these things about him. Yeah, but in reality when I met him, he was a completely different person. So that's an interesting example of how one flaw of the dating apps is that they assume you know what you want, but people don't know what they want and that our preferences are very arbitrary and they're very affected by the context in which we see them. So another example is if I said to you what do you like more an apple or a banana? What would you say banana apple? Okay. Do you need to meeting we have an answer right? So you said Apple's a banana banana? You said Apple but we know this from experiments that if I actually showed you a banana a really really beautiful Apple suck. Kind of gross Apple. You're much more likely to choose the Apple. Cuz what your brain does is it compares the two apples? It says this one looks really good and he's come you want more beautiful apple. And this is something called asymmetric dominance. It's basically like our brains prefer to make decisions by comparing similar things. So interesting, so you think that in a vacuum, you would choose an apple or banana. It actually is affected by a set of what I show you that is so oh my gosh, this is just goes into my friend who's Indian does very well in Iceland. We thought it was because he's so exotic. It's just because she is the best-looking Indian in Iceland. There's probably lots of them, but he just horribly in San Francisco because there's just so many of them to compare them to do. He's always swiping in Iceland. That's hilarious. I guess. That's what I'll be curious of. How does that principle apply dating and relationship. So let me give you a more official example, please. Let me give you how to place a dating. So an experiment that I think Dan are wrong. Iran is that he said two people. Would you rather go to Paris or Rome? Okay, people have their own responses. You know, some people have been some people haven't been whatever it is and he sees in let's say it's like fifty for each so then he says two people would you rather go to Paris with free breakfast on your trip Rome with free breakfast on your trip or ROM without free breakfast on your trip. Suddenly. Everybody wants wrong with free breakfast interest rate. So how this applies to dating is that for your profile picture? You could have a picture of you with someone who looks like you but a slightly less than looking and then you look better than you look better and this is funny because I have a good friend who looks similar to me and it was her 30th birthday and I just posted a bunch of pictures of us over the years wage Instagram and I was like, damn she looks like me but his a little bit hotter much worse than his photos because of that. It was like you with someone like Asian for example, like you would have make that comparison. Yeah, I am. Yeah, so just to underline the principal is our brains like to make decisions by comparing similar things.

00:10:05 - 00:15:01

So if you take something that's like you but slightly worse you look better. So if your fridge looks like you starts asking you to post and she's read Logan's bug be really offended if any of my agent groups friends wants to take them with me so bad. I mean cuz I wonder if it works differently with Asian people like I wonder if like an untrained I would think you looked more similar than you actually do you would expect that would be an experiment. It's just like, okay give us another example, this is Jackson and I love this. Okay, what's another human brain is so dumb. I really like talking about the dating app. So I'm going to I forget the exact wording but it's basically like whatever we measure is what matters so I don't know if you let you guys do for a living normally other than do this podcast, but if you work at a company that has Metro wage What happens when there's metrics? Is that whatever you make the metric about people start caring about? Yes. So there's a really interesting example. I think this is from an old social psych test where they say to people when they're basically track figure out in what environment are people more productive when there's artificial lights or when there's natural lights, right? So they start measuring people's productivity and the two different environments and what they find out is that it actually doesn't matter which type of lighting when you are watching people work. They work harder. So it kind of like the conclusion is if you measure people's productivity, then people's productivity goes up or how that would work in a tech example is if you say I work at YouTube and we're going to measure number of subscribers, then you're telling yourself that number of subscribers matter more and you're going to work towards this right? If you tell yourself of that number of minutes of eyeballs watch matters, if they're measuring that that's what you care about and then suddenly you act in a different way. So how that relates to dating is that the dating apps can only measure things That are easy to measure so things that are easy to measure are your height where you went to school like the symmetry of your face, right? That's what a profile picture is your job right now your zip code and it's not often that stuff's neutral and that in the back of our heads. We're like, well, it would be great if they could measure kindness and humor and adventurousness, but they're not able to but you're also keeping that in mind what happens is jobs to think that that stuff's really important. So Christian Rudder is the guy who founded Okay Cupid and he used to run the Okay Cupid blog he tries and he rotated quisim and I interviewed him and one of the most interesting things he says is that they did an analysis of OkCupid. They looked at women who were evaluating men who were either five 9 or 5:10. Now, how much more do you think a guy needs to make per year? So additional income who's a guy who's 5-9? What does he have to make more per year to be seen as equally attractive as a guy who's five ten just like 10,000. I was to save fifty of us off. Well guess he's been updating apps longer. The answer is $40,000. Damn $40,000 per year. And that's not just in San Francisco with like crazy what people are seeing so, of course if you went into a bar and a guy was five nine, you wouldn't be like you're forty thousand dollars less value here like ten but because the dating apps are measuring height of a sudden we were comparing across hype and hype becomes that much more important. No wonder these guys lie about their height and life is good at lying about their salaries like that or I gotta make an extra forty kids here. It's so crazy. I find myself like I don't think I'm someone that like dwells on height and I do find myself like looking at that every profile dating apps. Yes, because it's one of the liquid sword. It's like if Amazon was showing you a camera and it was like, these are the five things that make cameras different you're going to measure those Hornets. Like I don't actually know what like what what a pig. So means you're going to start measuring its pixels because my brains want to make these comparisons. Yeah, we had the best we want to optimize. Yeah, and I've been this is a little bit of a tangent but I've been talking to so many women lately who are getting their eggs and who are like, I don't want to be evaluated based on my age because I don't feel like I'm that biological age and they're like, I'm thirty-five and men men basically are like, I'll date anyone who's thirty four and under so they like them about their age cuz they're like, well me at 35 with frozen eggs is different than a thirty-five-year-old without frozen eggs. And anyway, it's basically a form of superficiality just because these apps are like, well, here are the things I can give you a call. If I were to design a dating app had access to like all these different types of things and it involved a I like then things that I would show you would not be somebody's company and roll or height. It would be a bunch of other factors that are actually wrong it to compatibility, but they just show you the things that are easy to show you and then because of these cognitive biases we think that what they measure is are the things that matter my question then goes back to this argument job. Almost like standardized testing.

00:15:01 - 00:20:02

Like I say T's, right. There are a lot of biases in those standardized test. There's cultural biases ethnic biases. There's no fast way for colleges to really measure your qualifications and sort of a standardized score and I kind of feel the same way with dating apps for them to actually work the way they're supposed to work there has to be peace like standard qualities that we're looking for. So how would life let's say a new dating app get around unconscious. But yeah, it's a totally fair point and I love the SAT analogy. I would say I would think more about what I would tell my client sources what I would tell the dating apps. So what I would tell my clients or anything is listening who's trying to use the apps is be a little bit broader and what you're setting your settings to be right because think about the two things that I just told you one is Absalom that we know what we want but we don't and the other is whatever they measure feels like it matters, but those actually aren't the things that matter. So when you're signing up for a dating app be a little bit looser with age be a little bit looser with height be a little less judgmental about where people well School because even though it's tempting to try to turn, you know this flood into a trickle in order to have fewer people to date what you actually should do is have an experimental mindset. Yeah, so I ought to tell people date like a scientist and how does assigned to see they have hypotheses and they tested so maybe someones hypothesis is I'm not attracted to men under five ten. Okay. Go on some dates with guys are under 5:10 a.m. And tell me if that's true or somebody else will say I'm not attracted to engineer's I don't really like the way their brains were going to date with some engineer and tell me if that's true. What I want you to do is understand that the dating apps are doing the best. They can wage limit ations of the technology. And therefore the onus is on you to actually test if these hypotheses you have are true and I feel like this happens to me all the time where people say, you know, I'm dating this guy but he's really different than anyone has ever dated. Yeah. Oh my God, you're going to marry him, right? Yeah husband's all the temperature free rental. Yes. Okay, so we did an episode called. Are we asking too much a tender Witch Is Dead? The same thing as like we can't expect these apps to find love for our lives. That's still our job. But what about this idea of paradox of choice? Yeah, when you brought in your parameters, you just have way too many people to look at and then we're then unable to make decisions then too. Yeah, how does behavioral economics? Yeah. Yeah, Paradox of choice is absolutely a key. If I were going to give you a Venn diagram of Behavioral economics and dating Paradox of choice would be in the middle. So what I say to people is basically you need to create limitations for yourself. So there's an optical illusion where when you see an image and it's blurry your brake feels in the Gap to make it seem more beautiful. So I don't know to make it seem more beautiful. So I don't know if you remember this but in the nineties there was this big thing called Glamour Shots. Oh, yeah. Oh, I have some I have some mm so I can look back at Glamour Shots. They're pretty blurry. Yeah that's taking advantage of this optical illusion of When there's less information our brains fill in the Gap to make it seem more beautiful it even happens if you have like a mediocre photo birth And you use a black and white filter doesn't it? Suddenly becomes going to say the battery could leak the dating app changed everyone to be black and white or they yeah the very first photo to remove bias on just I mean, I think there's probably some of it has to do with like racial bias and all that but also some of the stuff maybe that you're saying too that's so interesting. I wonder if I wonder if they even know why I mean, I'm sure they did a test and like you look better and I wonder if they even know that it's because of this right for a posting. Yeah. That's right why I bring this up is basically I talked to people about this 1008. So it's like okay you're going on a date you're at a bar. You're sitting across from the person. You see all their flaws, you know, maybe you see something in their teeth or they look a little older than their photo. They didn't hold the door for you. Whatever it is, right or aware of the flaws the real life person. Then you go to the bathroom and you're swiping on hinder and you see what's essentially a blurry image of a person and be shiny object just a few. It's just a few Pig. Jurors, and they say things like I like music and that's a blurry image and you fill in the Gap and you say oh they like music. I like music too. I bet we like the same solvent you're in the bathroom falling in love with your soulmate and then you go and reject the person you're across room and then the same thing keeps happening right to say to people is like understand optical illusion and understand that you'll just perpetually be swiping to find the next person eventually. You have to commit eventually have to say this flawed human being this a real live person in front of me. Let me just try to make it work with them. Right? No one's perfect and you're never going to find that perfect. And I think that's part of the Paradox of choice is like the more options we have the harder it is to make decisions. So you need to take control of your life and you need to say eventually I'm going to pick a person and try to make it off with them. I mean, I've heard men say men more than women, but like it's like even if they're not getting any matches on a dating app just because they see all the women. Yeah, they feel like they can get all the way down. They know that they're out there and they feel like they have all these options.

00:20:02 - 00:25:03

Although none of them have matched back with them and like suddenly you're being compared or whoever's on the date to this list of women that have never even indicated that they had any interest in them whatsoever. Well, I think psychologically what feeds into that is that all these photos are of people looking into the camera. So in some ways they're looking at you and happy happy and attractive so it feel it kind of mimics the experience of walking into a room and everyone's looking at you and then you have your pick of the litter. Everyone's maintaining eye contact them. There's nothing you all the best qualities about themselves feel like music and yoga and Mark that real person looks like shit. So what about the offer end of things when people say I found the one I'm making a decision this is it I I feel like this is definitely it and then maybe it ends up not being it but meets into that too. Sure right about this my boss. Is like dating else give us a skewed perception of reality because if you walked into a bar, you would never be like one hundred people in this bar and to me but the dating apps make you feel like you're at the center of the universe and another key difference is that if you were in a bar and you walked up to someone you're likely to be rejected, right? So you're often getting rejected and then when somebody says yeah singles in a date with you you feel gratitude towards them. You're like great somebody say, yes, but because of the double opt-in structure of dating apps where you only see the people who swiped right on you. Yeah, you actually are not getting the rejection that you're Jack setting which I think makes you feel less grateful for the dates you get that's a great point is like some rejection in ghosting or people like stopped responding but I really have watched people do this where they swipe right on a bunch of people. They only get a few matches. They don't think oh I bet those people swipes left on me. They think oh they stopped using nap, right? They have a story and then you're filling in and I actually think people are it makes us more rude and last name. People because we are not getting the rejection maybe taking out to the show The Rejection know that person did see you and they said no there should be like a red color and green column and show all the people rejected you just so you're more grateful for the green. I totally agree though, cuz like I think people just will fill in the story with something that makes them feel positive. Absolutely and I think that is a good transition to the question that you just asked me. So are you familiar with the concept of cognitive dissonance not totally. Yeah, please leave a comment of dissonance is when your brain is holding two conflicting thoughts at the same time and our brains don't like to do that. So we actually do a lot of work to try to avoid the feeling of cognitive dissonance and there's tons of experiments that show that our brains basically we'll do a lot of work to come up with a consistent story. So there's one example where this researcher named Leon festinger. He asked people to do this really mindless tasks take a bolt and screw it off. To the floor like over and over again for an hour and for some people at the end of the hour, he paid them $20 and for some people at the end of the hour, they were paid $1. So when you ask the P, why did you do this task? The people who are paid $20. It makes sense. You did a boring task got paid $20. I think these were college students. I did it for the money for the people who got paid $1 it doesn't it? It's it's a conflict to say I did this extremely boring stupid test for $1. So they suddenly say, oh it was so meditative. It was a really interesting record styling in that so they're coming up with a story. It hurts your brain to have two conflicting God so they come up with a story to make those things consistent. So this is a topic that I think is so interesting because I think one of the main issues with dating today is that people are having trouble making decisions about what I say to them is like once you commit your brain will kind of take over and do the work for you. So think about a friend who had a boyfriend or girlfriend who they had some issues with and then they get engaged. Suddenly you don't hear about those issues anymore. Right? The person has basically said yes, this person is like constantly late but yes, we're getting married. So I'm suddenly going to come up with a story in my head that says I don't really care about that anymore. And what it is is that once we commit to something our brains do the work for us. So for example, if you buy a dress that has a 30 day return policy over the thirty days, you might be like should I or should I not keep the dress and you do a pro consulate versus if you buy a dress final sale, you're like, this is my dress and you just don't go through the promo, and actually you enjoy the dress more when you buy it final sale because you haven't racked your break dancing. Should I keep it or not right with dating what ends up happening is like once you make the commitment once you see it as final sale brain will help you feel better about the decision. You have to commit to get to that point and people that I see that I work with they're just having such a hard time getting to that point and they spend like two or three or four or five years doing the pro-con list. Yeah, by the time they've been through five years of that that con list is dead. Loud in their head. It's really hard for them to feel positive about the decision.

00:25:03 - 00:30:00

We've got notion should we just all do arranged marriages when it may be easier if you're going to go off. That'll do I it I think you'd be surprised how many people ask me to set them up and arranged marriages. I feel like I know people I can think of one guy my head where I'm like, he would just be so much happier in an arranged marriage like he is not doing a good job for himself. And in the span of human history. This is very new like we haven't been picking our own partners are very long and who's to say that we're good at picking our own partner. I mean, there are studies of the range that people are happier higher success rate. Yeah, that's a better word than happier. We don't know that but that I think is to your point Logan is like they've kind of like accepted. This is what I got. The research says that page marriages overtake love marriages. So not arranged marriages around the four year mark, which is super interesting and one of the reasons for that is that if you look at the research of Helen. Who's a biological Anthropologist yet? You know her she says that our brains are in lust like our brains are on the rug of love for about four years. So we fall out of lust around the three four year mark, which is one of the reasons why I arranged marriages take over. It's really complicated to look at the experiments on this because it's not like we can have a double blind experiment where we say you go to arranged marriages. There's tons of cultural reasons. Why most people divorce is in common, but yeah when you were in an arranged marriage you say I am committed to making this work and when you're in a love marriage you sort of say I'll stay in this until I think I could be happier elsewhere. I am a peaceful life. Yeah. It's a final say right. That's a great name for a little sail do return. I have a question. I'd like a reverse situation. What if you're like with someone and it's almost too easy that you don't value it. Is there a reason why your brain is kind of saying like I want to be with someone that kind of makes me work for it a little more. Let's take a quick break for a sec so off. Talk about changing your dating default guys, maybe a time to do that with your grooming products to instead of sticking with whatever you grabbed off the drugstore shelf or the stuff you've been using since you were a kid try Blackwood from n a line of Premium hair and skin care products full of natural Botanicals. That means blackwood's not just better for you. It actually repairs and protects your skin and hair while you cleanse and we've got a 25% off deal just for you dateable listeners go to Blackwood for men, and use the code dateable again, that's Blackwood for men, and use the code off for 25% off now back to the show. Is there a reason why your brain is kind of saying like I want to be with someone that kind of makes me work for it a little more so there is a principle on my page, called the Ikea effect that says the more that we work for something the more we value it. Okay. That's why if you put together your Ikea furniture you feel like it's worth more than if you just bought that I took Piece of furniture cuz you're like I remember I was looking at the instructions and I lost the nail and I was freaking out but then I found it in. My neighbor came over and was initially technically work for Ikea wage definitely telling this thing. Well, the Ikea fact applies the dating and relationships because the more effort you put in the more you value it. So something that I saved people all the time is that we're in this age of Romanticism where people think oh, I have a soul mate and my soulmate will understand me intuitively and relationships won't be work and if it feels like work I'm doing it wrong and I'm like no. No, but if you if it feels like work you're doing it right and that's a huge thing. So so I say to people like not only should you be putting in work because relationships take investment, but you'll value it more when you put the word wage instead of red flag of a relationship feels too easy. I think it depends I think if you're in the honeymoon phase you're on the drug of love, you know, the person seems to have no flaws, but I would say like if you're in, Georgia, Three or four and you're never fighting and it seems really easy. Like are you actually just suppressing your emotions? Like why are you not fighting like is are you not telling the truth? I just had a friend who broke up with his longtime friend and he's like maybe we would have stayed together if we fought more right like you just don't you got your point that you just don't care. Yeah. Yeah, like if you're a fighting like what's going on because I just don't feel like two people are necessarily so incredible right feel like they're a little bit in denial. I agree any time people say they never fight. It's it's a problem. Yeah, and I forgot my boyfriend's mom is a PhD therapist and I talked to her about this once and she was like when couples come back and say they never fight I say do you ever have sex was like passion? Those are like try that the same education coin and I don't think that you know, we never fight is like something to aspire to it's a one-word fight. They see shame in it as a negative. If we said more argument or Krista claim and it's a little different. Yeah, but I think like the worst thing is indifference right so I can log I definitely have that. Yeah, exactly.

00:30:00 - 00:35:01

So I think that's why we place value. He's else's what he says. The opposite of love is not hate. It's different exactly. Yeah got to a point that you don't give a shit off like like not even worth the effort of fighting one of the most interesting things I've heard about fighting is I are you fans of the garments? Do you know that John and Julie, Yeah, a big relationship scientist. So Dave done tons of research on couples and they've found that sixty 9% of problems are Perpetual. So it's not like couples will have a fight and eventually come to a conclusion. Like I like to go to the airport early you like to get to the airport late and there's one of them wins. It's like know throughout your entire relationship. You're going to be fighting about lateness and that's totally fine. How you handle it. Yeah. It's how you handle it's accepting influence, but it's not about one person winning its life. We have now solved the latest thing. It's like no you're always going to have a thing about that and you can have a really happy successful relationship over decades and never resolved the lateness. I feel like when I heard that I just took a sigh of relief Because I was like, oh this isn't a problem to solve. I actually have that problem. I'm perpetually late and I've always had really I've never noticed for know. She really my ex-boyfriend's have always had a problem with it happened up until now so I think all the ex-boyfriends have made me feel guilt and shame in my lateness, which maybe want to do it even more to spite them. Okay, and like oh, okay, you're gonna make me feel like crap jobs to do it even more but I think what my current boyfriend did was so interesting if he really wants me to be on time. He's not going to do shit. Like tell me to show up at 7:30 when the reservations really at 8:30 or whatever like he says a meeting up with a friend and he would really like it and we're on time like he puts it on someone else. Hey, and he you know, he would say it would make it would make him very happy and it was showing respect if we showed up on time and that made me feel like okay. I'm going to show up on time. So it's it's interesting how you deal with a conflict but you're right. I'm never going to be not late. It's just part of who I am I trying Be better but it's how people deal with that conflict. Yeah, I love that story because you're not going to change. The person shouldn't try to change you. Neither of you feel good. It sounds like you're exhibiting protest behavior in the past month. You're not protest the third object. You're not going to protest the friend who you don't want to let down so that's very clever psychological boyfriend's part when I was at the gottman's training. I think it's called the science the faith and science of love. I stood up and I gave the example of I like to be at the airport a certain time my boyfriend doesn't and what do we do and their advice was just go to the airport separately. I loved that metaphor like friends all the time internet with me. It's acceptance as opposed to trying to change. Yeah. Yeah, and then you're just both like feeling anxious about it in different ways. So what are some decisions that were making in our dating lives that that are just totally wrong totally irrational but everyone's making these decisions we're coming to these conclusions. So one of the areas that I've done the most off Make research on is breakups. I'm really fascinated by break-ups and I last year in March. I put on Facebook. I'm researching breakups and decision-making. If you are considering breaking up with somebody give me a call and people from around the world people. I hadn't seen in many years people. I've never met contacted me and I had these fascinating conversations with people who are basically like should I or should I not break up with my partner? Okay, and I feel like in the area of breakups are just so much irrational behavior and I can talk you through some of the comedies. Yeah else here. So this is biased because the people who reached out to me, they often knew like a high really have to get out of this relationship. I kind of want you Logan to like tell me that that's okay. Right? So these are people who had been in bad relationships or watch so there is a guy off and he called me and he said I've been dating my girlfriend for 2 and 1/2 years the first six months were great. The last two years have been bad. What should I do? One of the things I said is there's this idea in Behavior like a dog Exit economics in general called sunk cost fallacy or another way of saying that is throwing good money after bad. You can imagine at a tech company you start working on a project really not going. Well, the users are not interested in it. And eventually you should just call it and say right here but people are like but we've already spent six months on it. So let's keep going. Yeah that happens all the time really interesting. You say I've already spent two and half years. I should keep going. So what I said to him was imagine that this is a TV show season one was great and season two through five were really bad. Should you watch season 6 or should the TV show off? I love that when he hurt and I wonder what I used to think. Well, maybe Orange is the New Black cuz it's just one where like the final season. I was like, I'm just not interested. I'm going to start something else and it really helped him seem like I just want to keep going. So I've already invested time. This isn't working interest everything. I told him was from other research. I'd done I found that actually in the first six months of a relationship people sort of wear a mask and a dog The 6-month Mark is when they start becoming themselves.

00:35:01 - 00:40:14

So actually what he had called, but good six months was they had both been pretending that they were different people. Another thing. I told him was a key principle of economic. So the theory that was actually like the foundational paper between the two fathers of Behavioral economics is called loss aversion and that's the idea that we experienced loss very deeply. So this kind of gets a little complicated but it's if you lost $20 in order to make up for the pain that you felt you would have to gain $40. So experienced loss intensely and there's tons of examples for this for example, if you owned a pair of jeans that didn't fit that well it would be hard for you to get rid of them. But you would never buy that pair of jeans right like once you own it you just it's hard for you to get rid of it. So that will mean feeling of loss a virgin makes it hard for us to break up with somebody because all we focus on is what it will feel like during the break up and letting them go but we don't think about like kind of what will come after. Words, I can totally see that what I say to my dating coaching clients is like you're at the bottom of a mountain. All you see is like the hill that you have to climb to get through this painful break-up, but you don't see like the other relationship that's on the other side of right cuz it's not visible to know another thing. I think that's fascinating is like kind of another side of this. I'm sure there's some explanation of like when you've broken up with someone you've experienced that loss and then all of a sudden you're only remembering the good things about them and you have like selective memory of putting them on a pedestal. Like how does that play into your behavioral economics? Yeah. I think there is a study that covers that is one thing that I have that I have read is basically one way to get over a breakup is to do journaling where you specifically right about the negative things. Yeah, and that kind of goes along with what you're saying. So let's say like once we go through a break-up we have these Rose Colored Glasses about our memories a way to override that by doing journaling where you say what are 10 times at this person made me feel not good enough or what are dead. Times when like I didn't feel like we were connected and what I do with my break up coaching clients is before they go through The Break-Up. I have them write a letter about why they're doing it so that when they go through that stage saves a real long letter to say this is why or they also in addition will call a friend and say this is why I'm breaking up with this person. When I am missing the person or experiencing loss aversion or I'm not over the hump reminds me of what's going on. Yeah, cuz I've definitely experienced that before especially like if you're not like dating someone that makes you as excited or at least the vision that you had of that person and I think like end up like deal size in them. I think that's totally true. It's our brains just play tricks on us all the time. That's sort of what I'm talking about and you really have to do things in advance like writing that list so that in that moment of passion ality or what we might call like a hot State you can kind of go back to a rational state by by setting these things up and that applies to the gold standard get One That Got Away the one that wish you could have been with them. It's all in our memories of people. It's not actually reality people that break up and get back together then break up get back together cuz you're like in that location thinking about like how good a good time and then in reality had something I just met with this guy who'd been dating his girlfriend for seven years. He's basically do I stay or do I go and they had taken a small break and during the break he had dated this other girl for three months off. It's just not fair to compare months 3-year the new grounds a year seven with your girlfriend. Like those are not the same like you didn't even really get to know her and it was still super exciting and like her body was new and personality was doing her friends were new but I think the average person would just be like, oh, let me choose between these two human beings. Like that's not fair. That's not Apples to Apples no apples at all. And it's the other way to life. You just broke up with someone you go out with someone new and they don't know you as well and they don't like understand how you operate like you automatically like compare the two of them. That's also not fair. Yeah. I think that's a really good example wage. To your original breakup example at what point do you just call it though? I mean even to your tech company example, if you had a feedback bad years you through in all this money and what point do you say I'm giving up and not throwing any more money or do you say let's just try different ways of making this work same applies to relationships. We always get this question. When are you when have you tried hard enough? And when did you just call it and say this Thursday? We're just not meant to be. Yeah, this is one of my number one favorite questions to research and I've been thinking about it for a long time. So one of my mentors is Esther perel who I'm sure a lot of yeah, really familiar with and whenever I bring this to her she was in her typical Socratic fashion answers back with questions and says things like who are you in the relationship? What have you brought to the relationship? What have you tried? Have you told your partner what you needed. So, it seems like her way of thinking about this is before you should call it. You should really think like what else could you do to make it work and is the issue you or is the issue your relationship? Yep. It's just really happens as we get older is that if you're thirty seven and you've had a series of failed 3-month relationships the common denominator and those relationships is you so instead of saying well this person had this long this person was moving to Toronto and this person used bad grammar.

00:40:14 - 00:45:01

Maybe you can say like actually how can I show up differently? Who so I think it's a really hard question and there's no blanket answer but before you decide to leave and before you villainize the person and think about all their problems, you should really say like what else could I do to fix this relationship right now could I show up differently and then if you've done all that then it's kind of hits that point. It's kind of like the tech product example is like you optimize it and you try to make it work and if you just hit that point that you've pulled all the leftovers and it's just not working. That's when you got a shutdown house right? Maybe you're not saying it is you should leave when you can truly and honestly say to yourself and to your friends like I did everything I could yeah and my hunch is some people have a tendency to leave way before that happens Thursday. And those I mean, we don't have to get into attachment Styles. This might be like people who are did a whole episode about it like avoid an attached and then you might have people who leave way after they should have left and those people would think about like why am I sticking around? What is it in me that you know believes? I can't find something. That's a better fit for me. Right? So I think people could maybe self identify which of those categories they fit into thoughts. So in that sense there really is no sweet spot for a break up either leave a little early or you leave a little later. Oh, I think there are also people who probably leave at the at the right time, but those people probably aren't calling me back. That's the bar very woke and I think it's a skill. I think that there are people who say to me things like if I weren't working with you I would have left six months from now, but because I understand myself and my needs and I have tried to do everything. I can I feel confident that I can leave now and what they feel is that they've gained six months it also probably depends on their own like personal development. It's like self-awareness like own like emotions to really I really like to be practical like I like to live close to the ground giving people practical advice but there's no blanket answer for should you should you go what they're are or series of questions. You could ask yourself to understand how they given this a fair shot. Is there something in our values as completely in Conflict, you know, does this person want to move to Portland and I need to stay here year. Yeah just to really think through like what's behind this decision? And is it about us and the space between us which is what a relationship is. Where is this an issue with me? And is it something that I should be dealing with or else? I'm going to be replaced this pattern for a really long time. Is there an example with this behavior? Let's say you feel like you met the love of your life and there was some external reason that things did not work out and you've kind of kept this person as an idea now that you compare other people too and all of that like how do you kind of work through that understanding that a lot of that is like the behavioral economics that you pointed to earlier carrying books and all of that wage. Let's take a quick break because I want you to check in with yourself. How have you been these days? I know sometimes I get so wrapped up in life. That's why I am so grateful. I found better help where I can get online counseling with professional credible and compassionate therapists in a safe and private online environment. I make it a habit to talk to my therapist frequently because you know what? Sometimes I just want to talk things out burger Health Counselors specialize in depression relationships trauma and many other areas with 3,000 us licensed professionals across all 50 states. They make it easier than ever to find help and it doesn't need to be expensive. Like what I used to think therapy would be they even offer financial assistance if needed now for dateable listeners only you get 10% off your first month with a code dateable get started today by going to better help.com simply fill out a questionnaire to assess your needs and get matched with a suitable counselor. Again, that's better help.com and use the code off. t e a b l e for 10% off your first month now back to the show feel like you met the love of your life and there was some external reason that things did not work out and you've kind of kept this person as an ideal that you compare other people too and all of that like how do you kind of work through that understanding that a lot of that is like the behavioral economics that you pointed to earlier carrying books and all of that yeah so actually that kind of goes back to what I was saying about cognitive dissonance okay so let me let me try to connect these points so people often say to me should I play hard-to-get and when they asked that I could just hear in their voice that they wash the same know playing hard-to-get is silly why would you ever be with somebody who wants you to play hard-to-get be yourself don't wear a mask all the stuff what I say to them is unfortunately what behavioral economics would tell you she is playing hard-to-get has a purpose because of think about the cognitive dissonance right so if you are very available and it's easy for somebody to see you that's one thing but now imagine a scenario in which you're very difficult to see and yep Just has to put a lot of work into seeing you.

00:45:01 - 00:50:12

Yep. So remember cognitive dissonance is our brain doesn't like to have conflicting thoughts. So what our brain will do in that situation and it'll say I'm putting a lot of effort into seeing this person. I must really like them. So it'll come up with a sorta justify it that ends up with that person thinking that they like you more. So I think what we could apply to that example is we is the person might say that person in a foreign play hard-to-get played hard to get because I couldn't get them and therefore I want them more but one of them I want them is I couldn't have them saying that that's really going to help you get over the person but just understanding one of the reasons I like them is purely the fact that I couldn't have them. That's really interesting. Yeah respective. Yeah. So I guess like with all these like activities, like first of all, are there certain patterns that some people have and others don't do some people see this more logically like in that last example, like I understand the reason I really want them is cuz I can't have them. Like, how does that song? It's pretty complicated. So basically to the question of does everyone have the same ones. These are mostly universal. So these studies in the field of Behavioral economics have been replicated all over the world. And a lot of these things are just walk in nature. So there's a few that are cultural but really they're pretty Universal. So that's one thing. Another question to field is does knowing about these cognitive biases help. You avoid them right? Some people will say no, but I believe in a lot of other people in the field. Yes, because what you can basically do is say I'm about to make a decision. This thing is biasing me. Therefore I will make it in a different way Daniel, and who's one of the two fathers behavioral economics that I talked about he calls his system one and system to thinking so system one is like the automatic mode and system to a thoughtful. So what you can do is move from system 1/2 system to buy sort of recognizing an interesting. So this is kind of a weird example, but let's say you were buying a camera that was $999 or another camera. That was like $1,020, right? So they're only $21 in difference, but your brain dead. I think the $991 is much cheaper. That's why every retailer. Does that pricing in that moment? You're saying? Okay. It's a $21 difference for two different cameras. That's pretty small in the scheme of thing. I'm not going to allow myself to be tricked by the 999. Right? So that's a way that knowing about the difference is going to change it. But there's a big idea in the field of Behavioral economics that says awareness does not equal action. Right? So one of the common examples here is they put up calorie signs and a lot of restaurants in New York and it shouldn't affect what people bought Because by the time you walk into a Dunkin Donuts. You don't care the whole box and cream is 770 calorie. I will literally watch out of a salad place the other day cuz I saw the calorie count. I'm like I came here to eat something healthy and it's like eight hundred calories. So yeah, I think there's I mean there's some place where it makes a difference but what they see overall is that just knowing something doesn't change the OK behaves if you really wanted that salad you would have gone any I guess if you went into a salad place you're going in with a healthy. Conscience right that's true. Cuz then you have a conflicting view but it will bring you to a Dunkin Donuts. You're like I already knew that her sure. I didn't hear the calorie. Yeah, actually, I think we were saying makes complete sense like by the time they were deciding to make an unhealthy choice of Dunkin Donuts. You don't care about the calories. But if you were going into a solid place to make a healthy decision and you saw all those you might be like well, why am I here any right? I'm like, I can go to Dunkin Donuts. Yeah, you're off some guilty pleasure salmon salad. But so with this idea that kind of awareness or information doesn't lead to action the way that the field of Behavioral economics thinks about it. Okay. Well, what does lead to action and the things that lead to action are changing the environment so that kind of leads back to my first point about the organ donation Raven organ donation rate was because the Forum is designed a certain way people take a certain action. Yeah. So what that would mean for somebody who wants to eat healthy, is that a restaurant that serves sandwiches should make the default salads because if a game Default is salads people keep eat the salad. So the way to change behavior is by changing the default one thing it's active about all the time is I don't believe in the idea of the spark. I think the spark is overrated. I think as long as leading people, I think people have this really false notion of what a first date should feel like so what I'd say to a lot of my clients is make your default going on two dates make it so that you walk into the dates saying I will go on a second date unless something crazy happens as opposed to I will only go in a second nature allows me suddenly your default is is two dates and so many people open up on the second date or maybe they open up on the third day. Lots of people some of my favorite people in the world are bad at First Impressions. There's a burn human being so you have just created a default change your environment in the way you date that is really going to affect how you make the decision of should I go on the second day? I love that that is such a good example. I mean, I was thinking too like dating apps like you said earlier like you're if you want to widen your prospects, it's like let me expand my age. Usually expand my location like just keep that as the default but I think like the example you just used is like in not as like literal example, that's really interesting what you gave is exactly right? So it's saying the environment the app is an environment.

00:50:12 - 00:55:11

Yep. I'm using quotes. The app is a quote unquote environment and you can shift your behavior by shifting your environment changing your app preferences to broader categories knowing that actually you probably don't know what you want is a really good way of going on different types of dates. So what are some other ways cuz I love that first one that you gave to like what are some other ways that people can kind of change their environments. So I have this whole rant that I love to go on about critic culture. So my thought on is that we live in a culture that's really obsessed with ratings and reviews and you know, you were in an Uber and how many stars did you give it? And you're in an Airbnb and what that does is it trains are brand to look for negative things. So cuz that's all Yelp reviews are and nothing for everything. So if you're familiar with the research on gratitude journals, the reason why gratitude journals work is that if at night you have to write down five good things that happened to you during the day that you're grateful for all day. You're looking for things to be grateful dead. So maybe in your gratitude Journal, you're right Bart only came every 19 minutes and I got there right as it arrived and I didn't miss Bart actually never understood the origin of the fact that you're walking throughout the whole day. I thought it was more just to like be thankful of what you had not what you didn't want like, I think that's true. But the reason why it works is that you are training your brain to look for driving. So if I said to you look around and tell me all the things in the room that are green right now your filtering for green and similarly with the Gratitude Journal your filtering for things that are good. I love that cuz I think in the past I've had trouble with them or size cuz I'm like, I feel like the stuff I'm writing down today so mundane, but I think if you looked at a big picture of like how it's helping you overall, maybe there's like a different impact. Oh, yeah and my boyfriend and I have a game. Thing that we came up with the called the good news rule, which is that when something bad happens, we know that we would talk about it a lot. But when something good happens, we rarely give it the same amount of airtime. Yeah. So the good news is when something good happens. You actually have to talk about it and appreciate it and give it as much space as you would give the negative interesting. So when you apply kind of the science behind the Gratitude journal to dating I feel like people are going on dates and looking for the negatives. So they're going on the data and they're saying he wore socks with sandals. He was he I offered to pay and he said yes and I feel like they're like collecting stories for Sunday brunch with their friends and their training their brains to look for the negative. No wonder they're like, I can't find someone great. So for my dating clients, and now my friends I have them text me five good things immediately after the date can be so simple. They can be he looked really happy and alive when he told a story about his little brother or you know, she did Teach for America and I really respect that really they can log Super detailed, but I'm helping them train their brains to go into the date looking for different things and that's changing the environment to have a different experience that if you can't think of any that may be really with the wrong that's happened where I'm like, oh my God, it was made him into your account and this must have been brought that they still do that exercise. Like I read it and I'm like, okay, there's no way they're going out that again. I bet they still had a better time on the date than if they've done that. Yes. I love goes into like what I said before that your brain is in evidence Seeker. It's not the truth Seeker. So whatever Theory you're trying to support your brain will automatically see those things along really well said so with that idea. What about this? Scenario Logan we've had a lot of people come to us and say I haven't had much relationship experience relationships last two to three months if you've been off on that and they don't amount to a serious relationship now, they find themselves in their mid-to-late thirties. They want to start a family and they're starting to see this pattern that they can't keep a relationship they become so in their head Become so much about them. What am I doing wrong? How can I change myself and they become so negative about themselves. What do people do at this point? What advice would you give them? What advice do you give I actually feel like I kind of went through this myself at one point. It was a little different but it was like it was like when tender first came out and I was going on all these dates and like they never really went past like date three or four and I started to think like, is there something wrong with me and I think that there is a point that you are the common denominator, but also like you can't just look focus on the negative to the point you just said or that's counterproductive also cuz you're not going away anywhere. So I think what I started to look at is like how do I show up in relationships and other parts of my life too? Like I am a really good friend like I am a really good sister. I am a really good daughter like what are those things that I bring to a relationship and that helped get confidence to actually like show up that way when I was dating for me. I feel like for a lot of these experiences it goes wage. Deeper than their dating lives so a stems from their childhood a stems from yes experiences that they've collected and I tell them to go to therapy cuz I think there's just a lot more to uncover their but I think that's what it is.

00:55:11 - 01:00:06

It's like the experience that you collected but like can you look at like a culture to that like if it's let's say you're in your twenties and you were just like never dating cuz you were focused on school. Like do you have to hold on to the fact that you're unable to have a relationship because you just weren't necessarily focused on it at that point like almost feel like finding that evidence is just holding you back. I really like all the advice that you gave and it's it's a little bit stumping me because I feel like the more common thing that I've heard from the people I work with is they come to me breaking up with people at the 3-month Mark, but they don't think anything's wrong with them and I feel like a lot of the work I try to do with them is just say like hey, this is a pattern of yours. If you keep doing it, where will you end up you'll keep being these three months relationships and I try to get to them to that point that you were talking about where they then take responsibility. It's a home. Other question of what are they do once they're really taking responsibility for it and they are experiencing guess from of self-hatred. Yeah, I think therapy is absolutely a great thing for them to do at that point figure out like, who are they? Who do they want to be? What are some childhood patterns that they might be reliving and one thing that I say to a lot of my clients is is your apartment clean. Like do you show up to things on time? Are you reliable? Do you like yourself? Right and I feel like just getting to the point where you sort of stopped making apologies for your behavior. And you actually just start like being better that really helps them and say like let's say it was a heterosexual man. I would be like feel like you're somebody's husband and you just haven't met your wife yet and like be that person right and body that and it's I don't want your situation is hard cuz people are already being hard on them, but it's sort of like rise to the occasion to find your partner and if there's something about your own behavior that you feel embarrassed by maybe like start start adjusting that like start changing that thing about you that you don't know. Can see what happens but I really feel like therapy would help a lot of people in those situations and I just know I've benefited so much from therapy people in my life have to yeah. I mean I a hundred percent impro therapy, but I think there's a balance to of like taking responsibility. But then also being like I am a work-in-progress I'm constantly changing and like not kind of holding onto these like limited beliefs of how you were ten years ago. Like I hear a lot of men that are like so stuck that they've never had a relationship and it's like almost who cares about that like weapons focus on the present. Like I think it's good to acknowledge like why you didn't but also don't get so fixated. It's hindering your progress in the future. Yeah, I think everything you said about that makes total sense. And you're right like we have these identities of ourselves that we reinforce right and these limiting beliefs and we can overcome them and I if that person with my client, I would say to them like, hey different stages of relationship have different reps like going to the gym so you have a lot of first eight reps, but you don't have a lot of like 6-month reps. You need to get there. But yep. Like the people you're talking about are having trouble getting there. Yeah, and I think just helping them understand like what's preventing them from getting their how are they showing up on dates? You know, are they being realistic with their expectations? Are they even like presenting themselves? Like are they being Mindful and open what types of stories are they telling like put they go on a sample date with a friend of a friend like just kind of figuring out like what's preventing them really showing their their highest self on a date totally want to take this conversation back to data and decision sure. I like this concept of deal breakers because I used to really believe in them. And now I don't know. How do you feel about deal-breakers? Yeah. I've thought a lot about deal-breakers and I feel like there are a few categories. I think that there are red flags deal breakers and pet peeves. So red flags would be think we all probably know but red flags are things that come up early in a relationship with some point a relationship that are a sign of something that's bad. So a red flag would be if you go on a date and some of these talking dog Her ex and she says he was terrible or breakup was one hundred percent his fault. I was a perfect angel right like that person is failing to take responsibility for some element of a breakup breakups are always Shades of Grey 2 people, right? That would be a red flag where you'd say. Hm. I don't know what I think about that person's emotional intelligence. That's a red flag for me. A deal-breaker is a reason why you can't be together and it's actual legitimate lie a reason so I giving me a little before you love your job you live in San Francisco. The your family's here are the other person is from Portland. They want to move back to Portland. You just want to live in different cities that feels like it's your brakes. Were you want to raise your kids different religions, you know, like what about smoking, right? Okay. So it's a very common deal-breaker. I think smoking is a deal-breaker what I have seen the most is people who confuse pet peeves for deal breakers and I say this people all the time so I had a friend who we had just met and she was like, you know, I'm so open as long as he's dead. Mouth breather and you could just tell this was her she thought it was so funny and I was like, I just don't think it's that funny because that's a pet.

01:00:06 - 01:05:06

Peeve a white your relationship success is not going to change on whether or not he breathes out of his mouth or his nose, but you've created this story that it like matters so much. And so I think I have an acronym that I can't remember what time I have it basically means like stop confusing pet peeves for life or Breakers and I really want people to go through an exercise of identifying their deal breakers and saying are they deal breakers or not? And I think a shortcut could just be like is this something that we could overcome is this a value is this going to affect our lives long-term or is this just something that's like kind of annoying that doesn't really matter that would argue like someone living in San Francisco to Portland might not be a deal-breaker. Like could that be something that you got over that? That's kind of annoying like is that something that you could eventually work through? I mean, I guess like that. What is that? Like, I think that's fair push wax. What I would say is like if you live in San Francisco and you kind of sort of like it and the person. In Portland and wants to move back to Portland. Maybe you can be flexible and you can move and it's not your number one city, but it's fine. I think it would be a deal-breaker at the point at which neither of you after constant conversation is willing to change your mind got it and poker one. I just feel like for a lot of people in this day and age like if you smoke means something about how you feel about health. Yeah, it affects like the smell the kissing booth. Yeah. I just feel like my boyfriend for example is like super Health Focus. He works on the Google help team. He would not date a smoker. I think that's rightly a deal-breaker. I guess. I feel like I always thought that was a deal-breaker and my ex is a smoker and I didn't really care. Yeah. It kind of just like was like you didn't it's not ideal. I would say like, yes, he's a smoker but I wasn't like this is grounds to like not continue to see. I love that point because let's say it this way smoking is a deal-breaker for some people like my boyfriend and you thought it was a deal-breaker, but it was actually maybe a yeah. Yeah. So this goes back to what I was saying obtaining sized dog. A scientist so the scientist would have an hypothesis. I don't want to date a smoker at some point. They might date a smoker and say oh it's an actual. It doesn't actually matter and I think the issue becomes when people have too long of a liquid deal breakers, which are mostly just pet peeves and they are locking themselves from dating a series of people that would actually be a great fit because they're just so in their own heads and I think the older we get the more kind of set in our ways we are yeah and that list of deal breakers grows and the thing I hear all the time is I've waited this long to find someone he or she better be perfect and what I want to say and I often do say is you've waited this long be a little bit more flexible right there. She recovering you realize that no one's perfect 2, right and I think that's a really hard tension for people as they're getting older. That's a good point too, like outside of obvious like abuse or off major ones like illegal stuff. Yeah, like anything like that. We're not going to put in this category but anything else that's kind of fair game. It's a lot of it's just personal and like your own values. It's hard to say like, this is Addie log. Anchor this isn't but then to your point like how much does mouth-breathing really impact your life, right? Especially if everything if the person treats you so well and you feel hilarious and Brilliant and beautiful and desire presents like who cares? I think that people are like coming up with these issues before they've experienced a human being and they're sort of missing the bigger picture right? I think this is something that dating apps are missing as well because wage very absolute. Are you a smoker do you want kids? Do you want marriage? But these decisions are on on the Spectrum right decisions have changed throughout the years and I used to think a deal-breaker was if a guy said he was he didn't want kids. I even know if I want a kids but I thought that was a deal-breaker until recently. I've noticed that the various men I've dated even if they said they don't want kids now some have said I'm open to it later or or I may be open to it. That's not a deal-breaker to me. I think what's a deal-breaker is when they're so absolute in their decision. There's close-minded to other options. I agree with that cuz I feel the exact same way. Exits like I'm not there yet, but maybe if I am I don't want to be closed off of that opportunity potentially any others on your your deal breaker list, Julie. I don't really have many deal breakers to be completely honest. I think like for me trying to think if I have any deal breakers Logan, what about you and you know, there's on your list. I feel like mine have just gotten more flexible your money back to some of the stuff. We said like how I feel I feel really flexible about I really don't care what the person's job is as long as they love the job. I just feel like I've gotten more flexible because I realize that those things checking off those things. I don't really equate to like a person that I love or or feel compatible with I think mine are more like I don't enjoy myself in their presence. Yeah. I don't find myself laughing. So you feel around them. Those could be workers. I think a deal-breaker too is like been through this before they tell me they don't want a serious relationship and I'm looking for a serious relationship. So it's kind of like the Portland San Francisco example, even though it's dead. Right, like what we want doesn't like really everything you're saying I completely agree with that basically does the conflict prevent us from having a successful relationship or not.

01:05:06 - 01:10:01

But my hunch is a lot of things that people think are deal breakers. Do we affect the relationship and that's why I've done a lot of trash talking about apps during this conversation, but I'm actually a really big fan of hinge young and something that hinges done and I used to I loved him I feel so enthusiastic about is that they've understood that a lot of people's deal breakers were too harsh and they basically have two settings. Is this a deal-breaker? Yeah. So if you're a Muslim man and you need to find a Muslim woman, they give you the opportunity to say religion is a deal-breaker. But but most people around things like do you drink do you smoke height? They say it's a preference? Yeah, and they show you people who are outside your preference. Yeah, when I've spoken to the data science team at hinge, they have tons of research that those people are often very happy with people who are doing their preferences and had change only had the deal breakers. I think they never would have seen that person. I love that and I'm also Pro hinge cuz that's where I met my dog. So I love what I love about it though is like that it does go beyond just The Superficial. Yeah, and I think it goes also a little deeper than just like what you were saying you age like I want a relationship. I want kids like it goes a little beyond that. So I grilled their CEO with all my issues with dating apps. I felt very satisfied with his responses. Really. I just feel like they cared like I was I feel like they just really are an alternative to Tinder. Obviously, they self-select for people who are a little bit more down the relationship line, but I love their tagline designed to be deleted and I just need like right now clients my friends. Everyone's having the most success with hinge because she's just seems to be self-selecting for people who are trying to have a relationship totally sting and back to your original statement of we don't really know what we want which I completely agree with is there someone out there who does know what we want like someone in our family or a friend. Is that possible this event last week and there was a dog Fascinating woman there named Rachel Greenwald and she wrote a book about how to find a husband after thirty-five using what she learned at Harvard Business School and she said that's really interesting thing about like after a breakup. You could say to your friends. What do you think happened kind of have their perspective on relationships and this kind of goes back to what I was saying before which is our brains are in lust they're on the drug of love for the first three to four years. So actually we're not the best decision makers for ourselves. Yeah. We're sort of blinded by this crazy feeling of love as a drug that will eventually fade which is why I like when people make decisions about who to marry during that period and then a few years later they kind of regret it. It's like well, maybe they weren't in the best decision making mentality at the time. So I do feel like talking to our friends and family about our relationship, especially somebody who we trust. Yeah, that's and I think we should censor and kind of self select the people who are in that category. It's not every one of your family members don't make it a topic at Thanksgiving but birth You know, I do think that our friends and family could tell us like hey, I've noticed that you tend to really prioritize dating high powered men, but then then they never have time for you. But you always complain about it. Maybe that's actually not what you want and quality time is your love language and like this isn't working for you and I think it also it has to do with what type of friendship you had because you have to create a space where your friend not safe enough to tell you that yeah punish them for it and that's on you because you have to be open to that feedback. So I've definitely got down this route before and I don't think I'll do it again by delivering my opinion about someone's relationship and I think I agree with you. I do think you can see a different perspective cuz you don't have that emotion. However, you could also argue that you're not in it with them like you don't see things all the time. Like you're only seeing one type of lens. Like, how can you kind of make that full decision? How would you kind of respond to that? Yeah. I've thought about this a lot. And actually there's a podcast called Love umentary dead. No sort of this crime made Bagley and he's really awesome. And I was on that podcast and I kind of posed this question to him and I loved his answer. So he is married and he was talking about how he has a friend whose dog that he goes to for relationship advice. Basically the friend puts the relationship first as opposed to putting Nate first. So when Nate goes to him for advice, he'll say actually dude. I think that you're wrong here. I think your wife is cracked to feel like, you know, you're being a little short-sighted or this and that because he's putting the relationship before the friend a friend and Nate doesn't go to like ten different people but he has one person who he trusts me that he knows will put the relationship first and help him. See the bigger picture. Yeah. That is so opposite of what I always think cuz I always think what's in my friends best interest in making you happy. Yeah doing all this for years, but you're right. I mean she could also be short-sighted. You know what she's contributing. So actually another one of my mentors is this guy Eli Finkel. He's in Northwestern Professor. He wrote this book called the all-or-nothing marriage and he came up with this really wage. Eating study that's done across like thousands of people and it's called the marriage hack.

01:10:01 - 01:15:02

Basically what it is is he had a couples over a series of a year every few months. They would look back and say like a person who is involved the experiment would look back and say what was the biggest fight that we had over the last period of months and they would have to journal about the fight from the perspective of the third party and not doing this for seven minutes three times a year. So that's 21 minutes actually helped the satisfaction of that marriage from not going down. So relationship satisfaction tends to decline a time but people who participate in this experiment in the one in which they had to adopt a third-party perspective. They actually did not experience a decline in relationship satisfaction. There's something about looking at a relationship from a third-party long as you say like, okay, like I see what's going on here. Okay. Well, we can literally talk to you all night. That's what is so fascinating. But in a matter of time, I think we should do some takeaways what I'm Tom Away from this conversation is it's not so much like we really need to understand our decision-making because that's great and all but then we're not all behavioral scientist in economics. Economist's Iowa dentist sizing the other day and I thought oh my gosh, what if in a world where we all know why we make decisions in dating that nobody complains about dating anymore because there's absolutely nothing to complain about there's no conflicts. There's no guesswork or just communicating so well with each other and then I thought that would be a really boring world because then this really important topic that occupies like ninety percent of our brunch, you know life is no longer there. So I thought it's not so much about really making the right decisions, but it's about experimenting and dating and that's what makes it so exciting and I love what you said Logan with dating a scientist. Yeah have a theory and then try to dispel that theory and try different ways of dating and see what really works and what excites you and what creates different emotions in you cuz I thought That is where we ultimately should be not so much figuring out this whole thing cuz nobody has air it out, but it's more just about being open-minded to experimenting with dating. Yeah, I think my biggest takeaway is like being conscious about your environment and I love this like are quote environment cuz some of them aren't physical environment and also like can you change the narrative? Can you take a look at another perspective? I love the example you gave of like can you pinpoint five great things about this person and like try to see it that way and then I think that will also help you frame like and things aren't the right situations for you. Also our brains are so powerful. I think just by changing a perspective a little bit. Yep. It'll change our outcome and I think what you were saying with changing the default of how you date just having two dates. I mean, I think that's just that should be our take away right there and we should give everyone at least two dates or even two drinks as we've heard from other people on dates that only like have one drink and then. So it's like you're there already. Let's make the most of the night that we have together. And I think ultimately the main takeaway of this conversation is we don't know what we want. There's nobody there who can really gauge Julie, you know exactly what you want. This is what you should be looking for. Nobody knows so with that in mind then we date with that kind of perspective. You're a clean slate every time you go on a date. You're just trying to figure out what makes you feel good. And what doesn't I think to add to that too. It's like you don't know what you want because it's a moving Target like what you wanted yesterday might not be what you want today and what you want in a year and two years. It's kind of like adapting and just like understanding yourself understanding behavioral economics as much as you can or just like the way your mind works and then just I think you just have to go through it. Right? It's like you gotta learn em, you gotta adjust experiment like date like a scientist and all of that I guess Logan. I know you live and breathe this stuff. Is there anything that you want to add as like a take away from this know your conversation Church? I mean that was so fulfilling and satisfying just to hear my thoughts re Express through your folder and it makes me feel like I'm on the right track with my work and what's and if everyone could just be a bit more humble in their search and kind of say like, you know what I'm open to the world to surprise me. Yeah, and anyone who tells you that they know exactly what they want. Don't believe them and yeah, maybe we can just kind of close on the birth date like a scientist. Whatever your hypotheses are go out and test them love it question of the day. Yeah, let's do a question of the day. Okay, this comes from Dennis. I've been dating this woman for about a year and she's everything I want on paper pretty intelligent caring etc. Etc. I've been content but she's looking to get married soon. But overall she makes me happy but the spark isn't as strong as other people I've dated in the past. However, she's someone that I could start a family with which is important to me. Should I just go all-in or hold out for someone that gives me all the fears already know what Logan's going to say the spark is bulshit. This is her too. I answered. Yeah, sorry, you keep the world showman.

01:15:02 - 01:20:07

So I would definitely want to know more about this person off and how old's he is and whether or not this is a pattern of his the first thing that stuck out to me from his question was she's really good on paper who says I'm sure you hear this all the time, but this is one of my pet peeves and that's what I call resume dating. Yeah dating for the person's kind of bio data versus how they make you feel. Yeah, so he addressed this a little bit. He said, you know, I feel happy around her, but I would really want to know them. Or like what side of you does she bring out how do you feel around her? You know, who are you in her presence all of those things and I would try to make the decision based on that. I think he said he was content. I don't know whether he meant that as opposed to like content versus, you know, super enthused but I think actually content is pretty good when he thinks about the spark. Is he comparing her after a certain number of years of dating to maybe a really great day that he had and kind of going back to what I said earlier. I think the spark is overrated for a few reasons one is the spark often Fades many couples of sorry with a spark get divorced. I think that Disney song has this idea of our accounts are accepted via the meat cute. I think that's a rated and just kind of going back to the point about the three to four year mark lust Fades. I wouldn't optimize the thing that feeds so I think if what he means to say is I have felt happier. In other people's presence. I have more enjoyed myself in other people's presents that's real, but I wouldn't break up with this person based on this so-called birth. Work because I think this work is over eight. Everything you said is very good for his like we need to give a little more info about like their relationship. I think the only side where it feels like he's definitely second-guessing this allows zero point earlier. It's like just go all in and commit and then see if that makes you happy or maybe like that. I know it's a tough one because then on the other side like if you are having so many doubts that's not fair either to this person to you even like all of that. So can maybe think of the five Great Things the five things that are making you question it and really just like start to thaw it out with therapist or trusted friend put the relationship first or whoever that may be I think the a huge mistake a lot of us make more dating is that we think that there's someone better next month whether it's an X Y por the next person you meet instead of thinking that we need to hold out for a better person. How can we make the current relationship better? And I think that's a better Foundation to build upon so long. Set of thinking about the next person think about what's that next stage in a relationship that looks best. What is the ideal world of that relationship and work towards that I'm mixed on this like I get that like working to the relationship and all of that. I would maybe have him question like why he entered this relationship in the first place. Like did he go here because he was like feeling low and didn't feel like there were a lot of options and this was the best option or was he so gung-ho about this woman to begin with and kind of like some of this just time has set in like what were those motivations more because on one side, like we talked about it's like continue to work in build something but there's also a time that you do need to know when to Let It Go like thinking that you're kind of in like second-best with this woman is not really fair to her. Anyway, either. I really like that point and I think it's a common strategy that they use in couples therapy where one of the first questions they'll ask is described to me how you met and how you fell in love right people. Just remembering and birth I think that experience of I saw him across the room we made eyes he walked toward me it kind of helps people reconnect with those good stages and that can help people assess the situation this this is a hard one and maybe for our next conversation we can talk about maximizers versus satisfy service, but I think what might be going on with him is that he might be a maximizer who's saying? Oh, I wonder if there's something else out there and I need to test every possible example before I know when in reality like that's just not really a possibility with dating and a certain point as we said earlier you kind of just have to choose and commit so maybe are engaged to him is to give it a little bit more and then see no break up Dennis. We don't know you just break up with her move on to someone better know give it your all but then also be realistic of when to throw in the towel too. I think yeah, I agree with all that cool great. This was fascinating. I knew this would be a very fascinating conversation now, I'm thinking all the decisions I've made about my love life last month. Nurse or so. So Logan if people want to get a hold of you or get some coaching from you, how can they find you? So my website is Logan aerie.com. So it's g a n u r y. Com and I know Instagram is cool these days when I post a lot on Facebook. So people can follow me on Facebook. I post a lot of updates there. And then I also am sending out newsletters with updates on my book. Oh, yeah, and you can find my newsletter link on my website or book set to come out and what's it called? So the publishing World game is kind of slow.

01:20:07 - 01:23:31

So I am handing in my book this fall and then it'll actually come out around Valentine's Day 2021. I don't have a book title yet. No, I kind of I mean even from this conversation, I feel like date like a scientist. I guess I am so there's all these things where like the book title has to be hopeful and my I have an amazing publisher at Simon & Schuster who I feel like when she hears the right title Shack. It so we don't have an exact title yet, but you don't want to call it final sale. I mean that's the toss-up of this episode answer. So bored a like a scientist very hopeful title final sale sticker leave it bitches. Okay, that's the key to happiness. That is neither happiness final sale. Yeah, I return policies are making us miserable. No return home. Thank you so much. Yeah, it says so much fun. Thank you Logan. And for anybody who wants to be a guest on our show talk about data. We love the this idea of how are decisions are informed science plays into everything and why we make the decisions that we we do and why we do the things that we do or anyone may have like a crazy decision that changed their home like life and love trajectory. We love to hear from you. What about dating experiment? So we want to hear from you as well. I know there's so many people who've done their own dating experiments. I like to know what were the results of that song. Like a scientist like a scientist do it do it. Okay. We're going to wrap this up stay dateable. In summation in this episode we talked about social experiments, but there are also some ways you can experiment with the way you look and that's why we're here to talk to Jeff from Blackwood from June which is a line of Premium Men's Grooming products made in Japan Jeff. What are some ways that Blackwood for men can help men prep for an awesome date. Well, what we're going to do is we're going to get you out of the door in long time whenever you use our products their multifunctional. So while you're washing your face with a face wash going to help to repair your skin and it's going to make it less red less than flamed less blemishes while you're washing and it affects or later and the same goes for your hair when you're using our products of shampoo or conditioner. It's going to make your hair not only clean that I help come out smelling great that night while you're out on the town and smelling great is also a key factor in being successful on a date. I gotta say Blackwood for men products smell amazing. Yes, if you want to experiment with us try something new change your default. We have a special 25% disk. Count just for a dateable listeners, you just go to our website like what for men.com and use the code dateable. Thanks. Jeff want to continue the conversation first follow us on Instagram Facebook page with the handle at dateable podcast tag as in any post with a hashtag stay dateable and trust us. We look at all those posts then head over to our website dateable podcast, there. You'll find out all the episodes as well as articles videos and our coaching service with vetted industry experts. You can also find our premium y Series where we dissect analyze and offer solutions to some of the most common dating back and rubs. We're also downloadable for free on Spotify Apple podcast Google Play Over cast Stitcher radio and other podcasts platforms. Your feedback is valuable to us. So don't forget to leave us a review and most importantly remember to stay dateable.