I read your response to "Confused" (the woman dating a guy so needy he wanted her to ditch all her friends and spend every minute with him). I suggest you tell her it'll never work out and she should date someone else.
--Advice From 60-Something Male
Telling people what to do is necessary in certain situations, like when it's a more successful battle strategy than "You do you!": dispatching the troops to engage in the military version of interpretive dance.
However, in general, direct advice -- "Do this!" or "Do that!" -- tends to backfire big-time, revving up a state psychologist Jack Brehm calls "psychological reactance." "Reactance" describes our fear-driven freakout -- our reaction -- when we perceive a threat to our freedom to do as we choose. We go on the defensive -- rebel against being controlled-- typically by doing whatever we were doing...only longer, stronger, and louder.
Understanding this is why I'm an advice columnist who specializes in NOT giving advice. I use hedgy-wedgy language like "you might" and "you could" that leaves big wide-open spaces for personal choice. Accordingly, instead of telling this woman, "Dump Mr. Needypants pronto!" I offered reasons the two MIGHT be a bad match. I also identified potential stumbling blocks -- like being a "My needs last!" habitual "pleaser" -- and suggested practical steps she could take to kick them out of the way.
My ultimate goal is helping people help themselves: giving them the psychological and behavioral chops they need to render me unnecessary! I typically retell the story they've told me in ways I hope will help them gain perspective -- that is, understand what they're going through and why. I then lay out a set of tools -- ways they might tweak their thinking and behavior -- in hopes of empowering them to dig themselves out.
Basically, my column is the advice version of that well-worn fish saying -- uh, as I like to rewrite it: Give a woman a fish and she'll have dinner. Teach a woman to fish and she'll have dinner for a lifetime...OR -- let's be honest -- because my column and I are big on realism: She'll order her fish dinner in a Paris bistro, poring over photos of a fabulous Chanel fly-casting suit and sketching out her plot to rob the Louvre to pay for it.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
February 24, 2022I'm a 29-year-old guy with a "keep it casual" relationship history, but I can't stop thinking about this new girl at work. Beyond not wanting her to date anyone else, I don't want someone to hurt her or make her sad. No other woman has ever made me feel this way. How do I know whether this is lust or the beginnings of falling in love?
--Confused
It's easy to believe you're "in love" when you're really just in lust. To be fair, lust is a form of love...if you broaden the field to stuff like "I love, love, LOVE your boobs in that inappropriately tight sweater."
In other words, lust is animal attraction, so the "inner beauty" that's elemental to loving somebody is immaterial. I know this firsthand, having repeatedly been the target of interspecies sex predators, large and small. A giant male goat chased me across my friend's parents' farm, trying to mount me -- while my friends looked on laughing.
A previous perv was six inches high and green: a friend's lorikeet (a kind of parrot). He ran after me on his little bird feet all around the friend's apartment, squawking the oh-so-sensual pickup line, "Otto, bird! Otto, bird!" I bolted into the bathroom, slammed the door, and refused to come out till he was behind bars. #beaktoo
Complicating the detangling of "love or lust?" is another important question: "Love or infatuation?" Falling in love is not love. It's infatuation -- an intense, usually lust-fueled obsession with our idea of who a person is: a projection of our hopes and romantic fantasies that often has little relationship to who they really are. That said, the sheer strength and intoxicating nature of infatuation -- like being blind drunk on romantic possibility instead of Jim Beam -- often leads to premature feelings of "We're perfect for each other!"
People tend to believe the more they learn about a new person they're into, the more into them they'll be -- a la "to know them is to love them." However, psychologist Michael I. Norton finds that when we have the hots for someone we barely know, we're prone to read ambiguity -- foggy, partial information about them -- as signs the person is like us. These (perceived!) similarities amp up our "liking" for them -- at first.
However, as time goes by, we can't help but notice all the dissimilarities poking up, which leads us to like them less and less -- a la "To know them is to loathe them." In other words, rushing into a relationship of any permanence is the stuff dreams are made of -- if you've always dreamed of being financially and emotionally incinerated in a grotesquely ugly divorce.
"Buyer beware" in love is best exercised in two ways: The first is "buyer be seriously slow." Consider putting the person you're dating on secret probation for a year (or more). This will give you time to not just see the best in them but give it much-needed company: glimpses of the worst.
Second, explore whether your compatibility with a person is surface -- "I love sushi! She loves sushi!" -- or sustainably deep. The ideal tool for assessing this is the best definition of love I've ever read, and by "best," I mean the most practically useful. It's by Ayn Rand. (And no, I'm not one of the glassy-eyed worshippers of everything she ever said or wrote, but she nailed it on this.)
"Love is a response to values," writes Rand. "It is with a person's sense of life that one falls in love -- with that essential sum, that fundamental stand or way of facing existence, which is the essence of a personality. One falls in love with the embodiment of the values that formed a person's character, which are reflected in his widest goals or smallest gestures. ... It is one's own sense of life that acts as the selector," identifying one's own core values in the other person.
Using this "values model" to determine compatibility requires some preliminary work: figuring out your own values, meaning the principles you care most about -- the guiding standards for the sort of person you want to be. If you're in the "gotta get started on that" stage, recognizing what isn't love -- those love fakers, lust and infatuation -- should help you avoid sliding into the committed relationship nightmare zone.
Ultimately, love is nautical: It's both the ship that launched a thousand sappy cliches and, more vitally, a lifeboat. In lifeboat form, it gets romantic partners through the worst of times, major and, um, somewhat less major -- like when your bae spends your entire date night searching Hulu for a movie to watch. Love is dropping your phone in the goldfish bowl to keep yourself from whispering, "Hey, Siri, where's the legal line between murder and involuntary manslaughter?"
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
At a dinner, a woman asked how my husband and I met. He says he spotted me in the campus dining hall, deliberately bumped me and spilled my drink on my tray, and used getting me a refill to ask me out. This never happened. (We met in class, and he asked me out.) What does it mean that he has such faulty recall about the entire origin of our marriage?
--Disturbed
There is such a thing as "total recall," and it's what automakers rush to do after they sell a car that is not only self-driving but self-destructing: dropping parts like breadcrumbs as it tools down the highway.
What total recall is not is a feature of the human mind -- despite the widely believed myth that memory is a form of mental videotape: faithfully preserving our experiences for playback. Ideal as this would be for spouses with prosecutorial tendencies, our minds are, in fact, hotbeds of fragmented, distorted, partial recall.
We create this mess ourselves, simply by remembering -- and remembering again. "Using one's memory shapes one's memory," explains psychologist Robert Bjork. Basically, the more we tell a story, the more we believe it -- along with all the embellishments (aka big fat lies) we added to funny it up and otherwise impress (so social situations feel less like reenactments of being picked last for dodgeball).
And when I say "we," I mean me. When I lived in Manhattan, I'd brag about my response to a street-corner flasher: "Looks like a penis -- only smaller." I'm now pretty sure this never happened. I did see an escaped trouser snake or, uh, five on the subway. (New Yorkers think of this as "Tuesday.") That was probably my sourdough starter for the cleverbrag I trotted out endlessly at parties -- till I was snidely informed that my "original" circa mid-'90s line appeared in the 1978 movie "Bloodbrothers."
Consider that your husband's memory might not be the only one that's been, um, redecorated. Also consider (see my cleverbrag above) that we tend to "remember" events in self-serving ways. Any guy can ask a girl out after class, but in your husband's version, he goes on a mini-quest to get a date with you. Not exactly the stuff Sir Lancelot was made of, but modern men must make do with the heroics available to them: "I won her love -- after a bloody battle with a cafeteria tray and a glass of 2% milk."
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
I hang with friends about twice weekly and also like my alone time. The guy I'm seeing not only wants to be together constantly but seems to need that. He's upset and anxious on nights I'm not with him. The first time I said I couldn't get together, he was annoyed. He now complains I'm "dependent on" my friends, meaning unhealthily. He claims a great relationship is two people who are always together (a la "you complete me"). I don't want to hurt him, but I won't give up my friends or myself for a relationship, and I don't know how to tell him.
--Conflicted
Dating sites work very hard to be inclusive in the type-of-partner options they list -- "man seeking woman," "man seeking man," and even "man seeking genderbeige" -- yet they omit a checkbox for "man seeking hostage."
That appears to be the model for your man's ideal relationship (as an adult who gets "upset and anxious" on nights his boo's away). Though he paints his longing for nonstop togetherness as the height of romance, his "You complete me!" is not so much a romantic declaration as an accidental disclosure of extreme neediness. It also makes him a poor match for any woman whose relationship goals are best summed up as: togetherness, yes; conjoined, no.
As a woman, you're likely on the high end of the spectrum of a personality trait called "agreeableness." On a positive note, this plays out in being "kind, considerate, likable, cooperative, (and) helpful," reports psychologist William Graziano. On a less positive note, it often leads to prioritizing these lovely behaviors over one's own needs.
A personality trait is not a behavioral mandate. You can shift out of auto-"pleaser" mode by pre-planning to assert yourself -- "Here's what I need!" -- and then doing it, no matter how uncomfortable it feels at first. The more you do it, the more natural (and even rewarding!) it'll feel -- till your default position becomes standing up for yourself instead of rolling over for everybody else.
Guesstimate how much weekly togetherness and apartness works for you, and make it clear to men you date -- starting by informing your current guy that your social world will continue to extend beyond being his human binky. In short, the sort of relationship that works for you is one in which you're bonded but not zip-tied.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
February 10, 2022I'm a divorced guy in my 40s using dating apps. I'm keenly aware of what I do and don't want in a woman and make it clear in my profile. For example, I write, "If you're in a weird co-dependent relationship with a five-pound dog," we are not a match. A friend looked at my profile and was all, "Man, you have to delete that." I see no problem with what I've written. Who's right?
--Constructive Honesty
Admittedly, when people advise women, "Find a man who's like a dog!" they mean like a big loyal-to-the-death black Lab, not a purse-sized poodledoodle that spends a quarter of its life getting foofed up at Monsieur Marcel, the doggie hairdresser.
Of course, because a woman has a tiny ridiculous dog doesn't mean she's rife with psychological shortcomings. Including that bit in your profile -- and especially as you worded it -- says a few things about you, none of them lady-magnetizing. And sure, you wrote, "IF you are..." (in some sort of unhealthy relationship with your micro dog). However, even women who are emotionally together (and maybe even dog-free) are likely to swipe left or knock your profile into the little trash can icon.
Most problematically, this remark and other similarly cutting ones in your profile suggest you're an angry guy: a big flashing skull-'n'-crossbones "STEER CLEAR!" for women. "Anger-prone individuals are volatile and frequently dangerous" -- to the point of violence, evolutionary social psychologist Andrew Galperin and his colleagues explain. Women, on average, are smaller, physically weaker, and thus more physically vulnerable than men, which is likely why they err on the side of overperceiving signs that a guy might be a Mr. Angry. In fact, per the Galperin team's research: "A single instance of angry behavior" in "new acquaintances" is enough to provoke this keepaway motive -- even when their anger seems justified by the situation at hand!
Your sneering about behavior being "weird" and "co-dependent" is another red flag -- suggesting you view life through puke-colored glasses and are quick to think the worst of total strangers. That's Bigotry 101: using one infobit about an individual to leap to all sorts of ugly assumptions about them. It's toxic, irrational, and unfair -- and, if it's your go-to thinking, perhaps something to work on changing, lest you pay an unintended price (both in an ugly-first view of others and in others seeing you as a person to block, delete, and/or avoid).
By the way, "co-dependent" is an insulting term that's in need of either retirement or scientific validation. It's generally understood to describe two individuals in a persistent dysfunctional dance. The "enabling" individual temporarily eases the suffering of the other person (or pet!) -- in ways that, in the long term, are harmful to both. "Co-dependence" was flung on the public by self-help authors -- without any scientific basis: no evidence for the long lists of its supposed symptoms. It's now promiscuously applied to shame people -- to the point where showing none of the supposed symptoms gets used as proof of one's co-dependence!
That said, you're wise to try to proactively shoo off women who are wrong for you, as it could keep you from wasting your time and theirs on the phone (or worse, on a happy hour date that flies by like a week of medieval torture). However, there's a way to tell the wrong women, "Yoohoo, move on!" without coming off scolding or demeaning (and in turn throwing out the babes with the bathwater).
Probably the best constructive yoohoo is subtle fact-stating, like mentioning you're an atheist to discourage interest from those on Team God. Similarly, in the "who am I?" portion on a dating app, a 40-something, Johnny Depp-alicious hottie of a guy posted, "Living a plant-based life," suggesting he doesn't just eat vegan; it's major in his identity. If, like me, you are committed to "steak-based living," you know to give a big sad pass to Mr. Pirates of the Cauliflower-ribbean.
It's tempting to try to escape the emotional toddlers by announcing you're seeking someone "psychologically healthy" or "emotionally solid." Probably pretty useless. Those who have an unhealthy relationship with their dog -- or their mom, crystal meth, or tennis -- are often the last to know or admit it.
Ultimately, you might simply accept that you'll likely end up on a date or two with women you'd do anything to avoid. Keep first dates casual -- like meeting for coffee for an hour -- and your disasters will at least be Hobbesian: nasty, brutish, and short. Finally, I must say -- while typing this with my tiny, "My Little Pony"-like Chinese crested curled up asleep in my lap: Five pounds of dog may elicit laughs -- till it's cleanup time and you need a single sheet of Kleenex instead of a backhoe.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
February 3, 2022I thought I was happily married. Recently, I found a cherry Chapstick in my husband's coat pocket -- a kind he'd never buy. He claimed he randomly grabbed it at the drugstore checkout. Last week, he said he'd be visiting his mother at the nursing home, but I later learned he never showed. I asked him about it, and he said work ran over. Additionally, our sex life has picked up, and he's been extra thoughtful lately. Doesn't all of this, put together, scream that he's cheating? How do I confront him?
--Nightmares
You don't expect marrying the man of your dreams to turn your actual dream content into all-night notifications of impending disaster: dozens of inch-high coal miners in tiny hardhats and goggles scaling you and repeatedly jabbing you with cupcake toothpicks topped with little red flags.
Are you right to pile these infobits into the verdict your husband's cheating? Maybe -- but maybe not. Evolutionary psychologist Martie Haselton explains that we evolved to be protectively wrong: to err on the safe side, meaning make the least evolutionarily costly error. Suspecting cheating where none actually exists is less genetically costly than shrugging off signs that seem to point to it -- and then possibly losing your man and/or having him funnel his resources away from your kids to those he'd make with some hussypants he's seeing on the side.
Confronting your husband -- accusing him of cheating -- is a risky tactic. If he is cheating, he's likely to deny it. If he isn't, your accusation could destroy your relationship. A possibly less risky tactic is evoking his empathy: telling him that, collectively, these infobits triggered fears of losing him. The subject becomes your seeking reassurance (which, P.S., may or may not be truth-backed). If he has been straying, he might be inspired to reevaluate and stop. Might.
Over the next few months, observe your husband's behavior -- including that which suggests he loves you and is faithful. Your observations are likely to be inconclusive (compared with finding him in bed with somebody), but if you amass enough information over time, it should begin to point you to some sort of understanding.
I personally make peace with the freakouts of life that way; for example, a new mole that (apologies to Judy Blume) seemed to scream: "Are You There, Alkon? It's Me, Malignant Melanoma." One dermatologist visit later: "Hello, drama queen. I'd like to introduce you to your spider bite."
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
Do men even read online dating profiles? Mine says I'm a "sober divorced writer." Inevitably, guys message me: "What do you do? Ever been married? Wanna go for a drink?" Um, hello? I'm flattered I apparently get picked on looks alone, but even men who aren't into hookups do this.
--Mystified
There's a case to be made for a guy being a rushed or generally careless reader and sliding right past "sober divorced writer." However, men are likely to blow past an even more standout description, such as: "I enjoy fine dining, walks on the beach, and dismembering my date and feeding bits of him to the squirrels."
Though men seem more likely to hit on hot women on their pictures alone, they probably do this even when women are, shall we say, lukewarm or even room temperature. Because birth control used to be "Cross your legs, honey!" women evolved to be "the choosier sex," wary about getting it on with a man until they vet him for his willingness and ability to "provide" for any resulting kids. Because men don't get pregnant, it's evolutionarily optimal for them -- best for passing on Ye Old Genes -- to have vastly lower standards. (Vastly. Like: "So...she has a pulse?")
This sex difference makes a strong showing on dating apps. Computational social scientist Taha Yasseri, with three students, analyzed piles of data from online dating studies. "Men are much less selective in who they communicate with," they report. In fact, it's "optimal for men to use the 'shotgun method'": blasting out "likes" like buckshot from some backwoods Cletus' hunting rifle. The strategy is not finding a really great match (true love with a woman much like them -- or a man if they're gay) but messaging "a large number of people, irrespective of their potentially low fit" and hoping some of them bite.
Basically, many men on dating apps are like 2-year-olds. They only look at the pictures. Take it super slowly with any guy you meet via app, meaning keep him on secret probation until you see ample evidence you might be well-matched (and that "Conor" is not long for "Con"). If you're awakened one lazy Saturday morning by the man in your bed, the part of your body he's most interested in should not be your thumb -- which he got a little clumsy with while trying to unlock your banking app.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
January 27, 2022My husband died of a heart attack at age 75. On his phone, I saw several unsettling texts from younger women, alluding to improper liaisons and asking for money. We often helped needy families, but I'm suspecting these women tempted and took advantage of a kind, caring old man, or maybe he turned dirty old man (looking for something more exciting than his wife). Before his death, he started viewing pornography online and seemed not quite himself. Could this apparent change in personality point to dementia? Finding these texts has turned my grieving upside down. I'm often angry with him for possibly cheating on me. I'm not sure how to put this to rest in my mind.
--Perplexed Widow
Sadly, elderly men are often easy prey for young scamstresses. These women sexually tempt or even just flatter an old man out of his money -- all, "You remind me of that dude from 'Star Wars'!" -- making him think of himself as a young, hot Harrison Ford (when the "dude" he actually resembles is Yoda).
I'm so sorry -- both about the death of your husband and the apparent death of what you believed about him and your marriage. But I'm hoping my frank exploration of what you do and don't know will help you make your way to peace of mind.
First, it is possible your husband's apparent behavioral changes were due to dementia. Dementia is not technically a disease but an umbrella term for "a decline in mental ability severe enough to interfere with daily life" (per the Alzheimer's Association). Symptoms include personality changes, memory issues, and impaired reasoning. "Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia, accounting for 60 to 80% of dementia cases."
My friend Stef Willen wrote movingly in her McSweeney's column about the tragic thief of self that is dementia, explaining, "For most of my life, my days with my grandmother had been spent hiking, identifying birds and having beers in a small-town Colorado bars. ... I'd always thought she'd die of a swift heart attack, but death snuck in the back door and did a real hit and miss job. None of us even noticed until the essential parts of her began to go missing."
Her grandma's doctor explained to Stef that her grandma's neurons weren't communicating. Some were dead, and some weren't firing in the correct pattern. As Stef put it: "Apparently, who we are is an electrochemical reaction, and my grandmother had blown her circuits."
Dementia messes with the functioning of the brain's "prefrontal cortex" (PFC), the section just behind your forehead. If you think of your body as a factory and your behavior as the workers, the PFC is the executive boardroom of you: in charge of planning, prioritizing, remembering, reasoning, and "inhibitory control" (professor-ese for resisting temptation). That last one, when the PFC's cells are in healthy working order, keeps us from just giving in to whatever impulse -- sexual, gluttonous, violent, or just rude -- flies into our head.
But let's back up a sec. You don't know whether your husband had dementia, as he was never diagnosed. Sure, you've pulled together disturbing fragments of information, and they're pointing you toward a conclusion. But you can't know whether your conclusion is correct -- though I'm guessing you strongly suspect it is, because that's how our minds evolved to work.
Uncertainty -- ambiguous situations, partially answered questions, and other forms of mental untidiness -- fill us with anxiety and dread. This makes evolutionary sense -- survival sense -- because wanting these uncomfortable feelings gone motivates us to try to get answers and information. Knowledge we acquire (of possible lurking harms) really is power: power to take meaningful steps to protect ourselves.
However, our brain has a feature (that's also a bug!): a psychological mechanism in the left hemisphere -- named "the interpreter" by cognitive neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga -- that works like mental grout. When we're wading through ambiguities or spot inconsistencies in our behavior (or others'), the interpreter creates stories to fill in the blanks: stories that make us feel comforted, consistent, and smart. Conveniently, no sooner does our mind spin some explanatory yarn than it turns right around and believes it, as if it were cold, hard fact.
Since you can never know the full story, it's pointless to torment yourself by rerunning painful bits of information and guessing. However, you could find comfort by using that crafty bugger, the interpreter, to your advantage. Shift over to the story you do know -- the happy, loving times you two shared for decades -- and focus on that. If you're gonna go in for torment, make it a healthier class of it -- like hot yoga (aka the commercialization of hot flashes paired with stretches easily accomplished by anyone who finds a wizard to turn them into a wire twist-tie).
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
January 20, 2022Lately, women's magazines keep mentioning "sociopaths." What is a sociopath? From what I've read, it seems like both my exes were sociopaths. How do I avoid attracting others?
--Wary Woman
When a guy asks you on a date, it would be great if you could check him out on LinkedIn and be all, "Oh, look...endorsements for embezzlement, insurance fraud, and identity theft!"
Set aside everything you've read about sociopaths, much of which is probably wrong. Sociopathy and its nasty sibling, psychopathy, are manifestations of "antisocial personality disorder": a relentless pattern of exploitative behavior involving a disregard for the rights of others and a lack of guilt upon violating them. However, sociopathy and psychopathy differ in meaningful ways, though they are often written about as if they are interchangeable -- in the media and (ugh!) even by researchers.
In short, sociopathy is "fire," and psychopathy is "ice." Psychopaths -- the icy ones -- are coldly calculating manipulators who fake caring about others but are incapable of forming any emotional attachments. (Think lurking plotters lying in wait.) Sociopaths are the fiery ones: impulsive, hot-headed, and boastful; easily enraged -- even to the point of violent outbursts -- making them more likely to end up in the slammer. Sociopaths sometimes form one-on-one emotional attachments, but these are typically pretty toxic.
Psychopaths are born, not made, meaning psychopathy is genetic and present from birth, reports forensic psychologist Scott A. Johnson. Sociopathy, on the other hand, is environmentally driven: typically resulting from harsh, abusive, indulgent, and/or neglectful parenting. There's "no known effective treatment" for either psychopathy or sociopathy. However, a psychopath "easily cons treatment staff" to get a positive progress report, while sociopaths tend to act out angrily and get cut from treatment programs.
You can't avoid attracting sociopaths, but because they're impulsive, explosive, and braggy, they can only hide their true nature for so long. You can be speedier at ejecting them from your life (along with other human nightmares) if you aren't too quick to be "all in." When you start dating someone, take a wait-and-see approach -- over, say, three or even six months -- and pay special attention to his behavior when he seems unaware he's being observed. See whether a guy actually is your Mr. McDreamy, rather than sliding into the temptation to simply believe that -- making yourself prone to ignore behavior that suggests he has a big scoop of hummus where his conscience is supposed to be.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
I'm a 22-year-old woman. I'm bothered my best guy friend's shift in priorities. We talked about meeting up, and when I asked about his schedule, he said it depends on the schedules of women he's meeting for dates. I found this really rude, especially because I always have the decency to prioritize my friends over any random romantic prospect.
--Angry
Apparently, the lyrics of the Carole King classic, "You've Got a Friend," should've included disclaimers throughout; for example: "You just call out my name, And you know, wherever I am, I'll come running" ("though there may be a several-day wait if there's a really good opportunity for my penis").
The actual problem here is not the apparent shift in the guy's priorities but how they now differ sharply from yours -- leading to an imbalance in what you put into the friendship versus what you're getting out of it. "Equity theory," developed in the 1960s by behavioral psychologist J. Stacy Adams (and originally applied to business relationships), suggests this sort of "inequity" leads to "dissatisfaction and low morale."
Recent research on equity theory confirms that we evaluate our friendships (and other relationships) based on how fair they are. We look for reciprocity: a level of mutualness in how much we and our friend are each investing in the friendship. When we perceive a friend is giving much less than we are, we get miffy and are motivated to put them on notice or give them the boot.
The guy isn't wrong to have more mating-focused priorities. However, you might decide it's too painful to remain friends with him. Telling him how you feel might inspire him to change his behavior (or hide it better) -- my bet...for a few days or a week. Another option would be to make peace with the sort of friend he's able to be -- which could be a temporary thing while he's on the hunt -- and spend more time with friends who share your priorities.
There are friends who -- upon getting your faint, staticky phone call for help from the Alaskan tundra -- will drop everything, hop five planes, rent a team of sled dogs, and come rescue you...and then there are friends who will get on with dropping their pants on some chick's floor, telling themselves you'll probably get through to somebody else before your phone dies and you follow its lead. ("Testes before besties!")
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
I'm a 43-year-old woman in my second marriage with a man who's also on his second marriage. We are both determined to make this marriage our last! We have a scheduled date night. We make sure sex happens weekly. I'd like to know whether there are other things we can do to keep from walking down the aisle a third time.
--Hopeful
In some marriages, somebody could lose consciousness and it wouldn't be all that noticeable.
Date nights are good for keeping the marital jets firing, as is having sex weekly, but regular dates and sextivities don't change how being married is like subscribing to Netflick. No, my copyeditor isn't day-drinking, and yes, I mean "flick." Netflick would have only one movie, and you and your partner would be forced to watch it every night of your life together...until one or both of you shrivel up and die of boredom or start dialing jackals with law licenses (aka divorce lawyers).
What can help is making your married life more like single people's lives -- uh, in ways that don't remodel your vows into something more along the lines of suggestions. In a New York Times op-ed, social historian Stephanie Coontz explains, "Single people generally have wider social networks than married couples, who tend to withdraw into their coupledom." Though marriage "can provide a bounty of emotional, practical and financial support ... finding the right mate is no substitute for having friends and other interests."
Disappointingly, Coontz trots out a view widely (and uncritically) accepted among researchers: "On average, married people report higher well-being than singles." And sure, there are studies that conclude this. However, social psychologist Bella DePaulo points out rather glaring flaws in some of the research making this claim. For example, she observes that even respected developmental psychologist E. Mavis Hetherington couldn't see her faulty reasoning in concluding: "Happily married couples are healthier, happier, wealthier, and sexier than are singles." The problem? Hetherington is comparing a subset of married people -- HAPPILY MARRIED people (as opposed to ALL married people) -- with ALL single people. I put this in perspective in a 2013 column: "Yes, shockingly, happily married people are happier than clinically depressed single people."
In fact, people who are unhappily single -- who feel "distress" about being single -- tend to be those who'd previously been married (and especially those newly divorced or widowed), notes Coontz. About the single-'n'-miserableness of the newly divorced or widowed, you might think, "Duh...they're lonely or grieving!" Some or many might be. But I think Coontz is onto something in advising married people to "cultivate the skills of successful singlehood." (Conversely, "people who are successful as singles" -- meaning socially connected and relatively content with their lives -- "are especially likely to end up in happy marriages, in large part because of the personal and social resources they developed before marrying.")
Coontz suggests you bring other people into your marriage -- though not like they did in the '70s at those suburban parties with all the couples dropping their keys into a bowl. She's talking about friendships with people beyond your spouse, and ideally, not just one or two others but a whole group. Research (by evolutionary social psychologist Stephanie Brown, among others) consistently finds being socially connected increases individuals' personal well-being and is even associated with better physical health. Likewise, "maintaining social networks ... after marriage" can also "enhance and even revitalize your marriage," writes Coontz.
As for how you two could put this into practice, you might start by making some date nights double-date nights. This might seem like a bad idea -- a date-night romance- and intimacy-killer. However, Coontz describes a date-night experiment in which researchers "assigned some couples to spend time by themselves and have deeply personal conversations," while others were set up with a couple they'd never met "and told to initiate similar conversations." Afterward, all of the couples "reported greater satisfaction with their relationship," but only those who'd been on the double date reported feeling more "romantic passion" for each other!
Because it seems "the more" really is the (maritally) merrier, you and your husband could also host regular dinner parties, cocktail hours, brunches, and/or game nights. However, it's also important that you each maintain individual interests, activities, and friendships. Ironically, regularly spending less time together -- as well as following wise advice from Coontz to each maintain your ability to be self-reliant -- should help you avoid going your separate ways. It's great if your relationship starts to remind you of an iconic one in a classic movie -- but not if the movie is "Cast Away," starring Tom Hanks and a volleyball he draws a face on so he won't be all alone on a desert island.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
January 6, 2022My boyfriend asked me for nude photos of myself. I reluctantly sent him one. I feel very uncomfortable about sending it, and I don't want to send more -- though sending naked pics now seems very common. Am I paranoid?
--Online Privacy Fan
Unfortunately, "online privacy" is one of the more absurdo oxymorons -- a contradiction in terms on the level of "planned spontaneity," "working vacation," and my favorite: "civil war." (The warring factions yell "Thank you!" and "No, thank you!" across the trenches until more people pass out on one side than the other.)
Digital-world technology has made our lives vastly easier, more efficient, and more fun, but it can also cost us big-time -- on a scale previously unseen and even unimaginable throughout human history. Back in the Middle Ages, no one had to worry about some brainy malcontent hacking their "cloud" and releasing all their nudie shots to the Global Village. At worst, one other person might come upon a lone sketch of them in a state of undress or maybe a few slutty etchings.
In other words, you are far from unreasonable to say no to sending any further nudiepix, and it would not be unreasonable to ask your boyfriend to delete the one you sent him (explaining your privacy concerns). That said, he might find that request unreasonable, vis-a-vis how common it is for people to sext those they're dating -- or (when those people are guys) show random strangers on the internet their erect willy.
If he does find it unreasonable, you might feel bad saying no. Women, much more than men, tend to be on the high end of the spectrum of the personality trait "agreeableness" (first identified in the 1930s by psychologists Gordon Allport and Henry Odbert). High agreeableness manifests in a "pleaser" personality: being kind, empathetic, cooperative, and driven to have positive interactions with others (often to one's own detriment).
Understanding that you might have a predisposition to say yes can help you stand up for yourself. At first, announcing your boundaries -- saying no -- will likely feel bad. Be prepared to override that feeling and act in your best interest. Sure, many people share all sorts of naked 'n' crazy without having it exposed to the universe, but there's always that possibility. At a work retreat, your co-workers should not try to bond with you with: "Don't you find the Cool Whip requires too much cleanup?"
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
I'm a guy in my early 20s. I love my older brother and look up to him. But starting in high school, girls flocked to him, and he was crowned prom king, though I'm objectively more attractive. Recently, a girl I really liked and became friends with started dating him after I introduced them at a party. Neither knew about my feelings for her because I never told them, but I now feel resentful and envious of my brother.
--Bitter
Ideally, if a woman is asked to guess your "spirit animal," her answer won't be, "Hamster lying cold and dead in the corner of his cage?"
Your "I feel resentful" is a bit entitled snowflake, since you never did anything to let this woman know you were interested. In short: Good things come to those who ask. (Full disclosure: often, though not always.)
As for your envy, research by evolutionary psychologist Bram Buunk overturns the bad name this emotion has long gotten. Envy is actually adaptive -- functional -- and its function appears to be making us go: "Whoa! He's way ahead of me! Gotta put on my lady-chasing track shoes!" Envy is only a destructive emotion when people experiencing it engage in "malicious envy": trying to sabotage those doing better than they are rather than trying to up their own game and outdo them fair and square.
In the future, when you want a woman, don't silently watch as she wanders off into another guy's arms. Say something! As I noted, it won't always end well when you hit on a woman, but possibly getting rejected is the cost of possibly having dates, sex, and love.
That said, there's a way to repurpose bummerino brush-offs into "small wins": organizational psychologist Karl Weick's term for small positive outcomes experienced while failing to solve a big (or even massive) problem. An example of how that might play out in your head: "Okay, that girl I hit on at the bar was nasty, but yesterday, I would've spent all night just staring at her. Today, I grew a pair and approached her. Yay, me!"
Though this is admittedly the slow, emotionally grubby approach, you should find it much more effective than your current MO: waiting for a woman you're into to read your mind and have herself shot out of a cannon through your open window and into your love pit/bed.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
I got a boob job two years ago. My best friend, seeing the results, wanted one, too. When she realized she couldn't afford it, she started making snide comments about women who get them. Recently, a guy was hitting on me at a party, and she started flirting with him and asked, "Do you think I need a boob job?" and told him I'd gotten one. I was shocked. I'd like to say something to her, but she's the louder part of my friend group, and I'm unsure how.
--Disturbed
Self-defense for men is karate or maybe Krav Maga. For women, it's ducking mean remarks.
Many people have a romanticized view of women as the sweet, ever-nurturing "better angels of our nature." That's a major myth, but it continues to have traction due to the nature of female rivalry, which is much like slow-acting poison gas. (It's often hard for a woman to recognize she's been dosed...till she's writhing on the floor like a goldfish sucking in its last desperate breaths.)
While from boyhood on, guys tend to relish competition and are openly aggressive (like when one socks another in the jaw), psychologist Anne Campbell describes female aggression as "indirect" and "covert" (sneaky and hidden). She believes women evolved to compete this way to avoid physical harm that might have damaged their ability to have or care for children.
Common sneaky ladywar tactics include weaponizing a group of women against a targeted woman by spreading nasty gossip about her and rallying the coven to ostracize her. In the presence of a man or men, one woman will try to undermine another woman's mate value by revealing her supposed hussyhood or trashing her looks -- as you experienced.
Men tend to prefer natural breasts (though their eyes go boi-oi-oing! at the big, pert fakeuns). Your "best friend," spotting that a guy seemed into you, performed the vital public service of informing him your bodacious boobs are, in fact, siliconey islands.
Why would she do this? Well, unbeknownst to you, you violated an unspoken rule of female society by amping up your appeal to men via Boob Fairy, M.D.: openly competing with other women. It's the "openly" part that's the problem. Psychologist Joyce Benenson explains that, in contrast with "the constant male struggle to figure out who is better, faster, smarter, or otherwise more skilled," girls and women enforce "equality" among themselves and resent and punish women who stand out.
"Should a girl appear superior, even accidentally," she is guilty of a crime against the rest and "faces social exclusion." This carries through to adulthood, with the thinking (summed up by Benenson): "Nice women don't try to outdo their female peers."
Of course, women do compete. But, Benenson notes -- per interviews with hundreds of women by various researchers -- women deny they compete with one another, even to themselves. This subconscious self-deception -- "a woman's honest belief that she never competes with other females" -- allows her to do just that without any pangs of conscience getting in her way.
That's one reason why confronting this woman about what she did might be problematic. Additionally, research by evolutionary psychologists Tania Reynolds and Jaime Palmer-Hague suggests your standing up for yourself -- telling this woman her behavior was out of line -- could be portrayed by her (to other women in your circle) as your victimizing her! Thus putting a big stain on your reputation!
Compared with "traditional forms of gossip" (the sort readily perceived as catty and mean), women's disclosures of a friend's hurting their feelings (kindness "violations") get a pass, Reynolds and Palmer-Hague observe. They are "relatively trusted and approved," suggesting women have "a social blind spot" to a tool used to trash the reputation of other women. Reynolds explained to me via email: Basically, if a female friend says about another woman, "'You wouldn't guess how mean Mary was to me the other day,' you're less likely to recognize this friend's disclosure as gossip."
In their research, disclosures like this "effectively tarnished ... social opportunities" of the women they were made about. "Participants evaluated women who treated their friends poorly as immoral," avoided having them as friends, and wanted to "warn others about their bad character."
You might decide to say something anyway: gently tell this woman you prefer to keep news of your boob job unbroadcast. Note that even this approach could be turned into ammunition against you through a "victimhood" story she might tell.
Consider whether you have the social and emotional capital to bear the potential costs -- while factoring in the psychological cost of just sucking it up and saying nothing. Ultimately, though many women are nothing but supportive of other women, it's wise to remain mindful that, well, behind every beautiful woman is a crowd of other women looking to push her into a shed and padlock the door.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
December 23, 2021I'm good friends with an ex. She's a great person, but we just don't work romantically. For two years, I've been seeing a woman I love and want a future with. She initially said she was fine with my friendship with my ex. Two months ago, she said she was uncomfortable with it and it might even be a deal breaker. How is it fair for her to decide this now?
--Don't Wanna Dump A Friend
There are a number of things absent from straight men's friendships with other men -- namely how two dudes boozing it up together on the couch never leads to anyone's bra being yanked off and flung onto the ceiling fan.
Two years ago, your girlfriend did say she was okay with your friendship with your ex. So, your feeling like you've been played is understandable -- but probably driven the (very common!) tendency to overestimate our ability to engage in reliable "affective forecasting." "Affect" is researcher-ese for emotion, and affective forecasting involves predicting how some future event will make us feel. Research by psychologists Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson suggests we're pretty bad at foreseeing what we'll ultimately want and how happy or unhappy it will make us down the road.
Our guesses about how we'll eventually feel are colored by our circumstances and preferences at the time we're making a prediction. For example, before your girlfriend was very attached to you, she might've believed your friendship with your ex was (and would keep being) no biggie. As her love for you grew, the stakes of losing you loomed large in a way they didn't back in the cool light of "Mmmkay, let's see where things go with Mr. (Possibly) Right."
Tell her you want to understand her feelings -- and do something few people do when they have a goal of their own in mind: Listen fully and open-mindedly (as opposed to giving the appearance of listening while mentally cataloging all the fantastic points you'll make). Hearing her fears could help you empathize with her -- which should make her feel understood. Explain why she has nothing to worry about (uh, assuming that's the case). You might also actively reassure her: regularly do stuff to show how much you love her. Ultimately, however, you might have a big ugly choice to make if you can't get your girlfriend to stop seeing your friendship with your ex as something along the lines of Wile E. Coyote getting the night watchman gig at KFC.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
I'm a female college freshman. I was always told that college was the ideal place to find a partner. Disappointingly, there are many more women than men in my year. I want to date a guy and get to know him before having sex, but most of the women seem to hook up right away. I worry that I can't compete with them, as I'm not comfortable with that trend of behavior.
--Old-Fashioned
Your body is your temple! Unfortunately, much of your female competition on campus sees theirs that way, too -- only their temple's Angkor Wat, where there's a dude outside admitting the crowds with a clicker.
Colleges have become degree-granting hookup-aterias. There are a number of reasons for this, but you point to a biggie in your email: Over the past 40 years, there's been a growing imbalance of women to men on campus. At the end of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students -- "an all-time high" -- to men's 40.5% (per The Wall Street Journal). That's almost three women for every two men...on average. Some campuses have an even worse guy-girl gap.
Though we're all walking around with pocket supercomputers (which women can use to click their way to home delivery of reliable birth control), our psychology is still tuned for an ancestral world. For ancestral men, hooking up was evolutionarily optimal in a way it was not for our prehistoric lady ancestors. (Guys only get pregnant from sex in creepy sci-fi movies.) The ancestral Adonis with all the notches in his spear handle would likely have left more surviving descendants to pass on his genes.
Sexual "economics" work like the monetary kind. An oversupply of women to men gives men the upper hand: transforming the mating "market" into one where men's evolved preferences rule. In short, women respond to the campus man famine (or more technically, the biased "sex ratio") "by offering sex without requiring high levels of commitment," explain evolutionary social psychologists Justin Moss and Jon Maner.
Assuming you continue to give hooking up the thumbs down, you might shop for potential partners off-campus (at events or via dating sites), where male-female ratios are less imbalanced. This should keep you from needing to make certain sacrifices to compete for men -- like offering really great sex and throwing in a kidney.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
December 16, 2021I love my boyfriend. We've been together two years. Recently, however, we've been experiencing conflict over the issue of children. He wants kids; I don't. I've always felt strongly about this, and he said he was fine with this when we started dating. But he's been bringing up the subject of kids a lot lately (I suspect because he's thinking about popping the question). The discussions have grown fraught -- to the point where he was in tears at the end of an argument. I eventually said I could be open to kids because I love him and don't want to lose him. But can this be healthy for us long-term?
--Conflicted
Though many things in life come with the opportunity to push the "back" button, once you have a kid, you have a kid. You can't just drop 'em off at the fire station if they turn out to be precociously criminal -- already hot-wiring cars at age 7.
Deciding whether to have kids is a very recent state of affairs, coinciding with the development and availability of reliable birth control (starting in the late 1950s with the Lippes Loop IUD). For most of human history, unless a woman spent her fertile years all alone on one of those New Yorker cartoon desert islands, there was a good chance she'd have not just a child but the beginnings of a litter.
There's a widespread (and mistaken!) assumption that a woman who gives birth will immediately and unconditionally bond with her baby, explains anthropologist and primatologist Sarah Hrdy. Probably because of this, many people seem to believe the only thing stopping any woman from wanting a child is having yet to bring one into existence.
In fact, neither humans nor other mammals "automatically nurture each baby born," Hrdy observes. Clinical psychologist Idun Roseth and her colleagues, reviewing research on mother-infant bonding issues, report: "Most mothers find that feelings of affection come within a week from birth. However, some mothers are still struggling with this after many months. ... A small percentage may even have hostile feelings towards their infant."
In other words, the public has an overly rosy, sentimental -- and scientifically incorrect -- view of what's often referred to as the "maternal instinct." There is no such thing -- and the term "instinct" is the problem. The actual scientific definition of an instinct is an innate behavior ("factory-installed" -- present at birth rather than learned afterward) that members of a species perform automatically. An example is a baby's crying -- alerting everybody in earshot, "YO! I HAVE UNMET NEEDS!" (Nobody has to send their baby to crying school. It automatically wails its little head off when it's wet, scared, cold, or wants a sip o' nippy.)
In contrast with automatic instinctual behavior, there's behavior that's learned as well as behavior that is only sometimes triggered in some members of a species. Accordingly, the misnamed "maternal instinct" would be better termed a maternal impulse or motivation.
The impulse to nurture one's infant is just one motivation that may arise in a woman. Hrdy has long emphasized that ambivalence and even rejection of an infant are other impulses a new mother may feel. (Unfortunately, the myth of instantly falling in love with one's infant is so pervasive and strong that women who don't experience this tend to feel there's something wrong with them.) In reality, "maternal commitment" tends to emerge "piecemeal," Hrdy explains, and is "chronically sensitive to external cues."
By "external cues," she means a woman's current context -- such as whether she's unable to adequately feed and protect her infant. War, famine, postpartum depression, or even a new partner who doesn't want another man's child are contexts that may even trigger infanticide: a horrifying maternal impulse but a maternal impulse just the same. Thankfully, this impulse is relatively rare in our society, and many women (and men!) report "falling in love" with a child they never planned to have.
Maybe...possibly...you'd become one of those "in-love" women and be wildly happy you'd had children. However, in your email, you repeatedly made it clear that you don't want kids. You are only considering it because you love this man and don't want to lose him -- which is quite different from wanting children.
You might ask friends who are parents to an infant and other young kids to let you spend a long weekend with them. Admittedly, this isn't the same as parenting your own kids, but it might give you a sense of whether you're actually up for the job -- or whether you're like me. Personally, though I have great respect for devoted, loving parents, if I were in charge of a thing that screams like it's being eaten alive by a zombie, it would take about 20 minutes before there was grain alcohol in my coffee -- and in someone's sippy cup.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
December 9, 2021I'm a woman in my 20s seeking a boyfriend. On the first date, I like to have a few drinks and, if the guy and I hit it off, have sex to see whether we have physical chemistry. Lately, I've had a string of great first dates -- flowing conversation, emotional rapport, and what seemed to be long-term potential -- yet they all ghosted me after sex. Are men still living in the Victorian Age?
--Confused
The wait to have sex with you mirrors the mandatory waiting period to buy a plastic squirt gun.
That said, you aren't wrong to want to figure out up front whether there's sexual chemistry. As for just how "up front" to do that, there's reason to slow your roll -- even if it means you get involved with a few guys who turn out to be sexual duds.
Because a woman can get pregnant from a single ill-advised naked romp, women evolved to be the "choosier" sex -- to take a "hmm, we'll see..." approach: stand back and assess a man's potential to "provide" and willingness to commit before dropping their panties (and everything else) on his bedroom floor.
Men co-evolved to expect female choosiness and to need to prove themselves over time to women of high mate value: women who can hold out for just the right guy. In short, men tend to value (and stick around for) what's hard to, uh, grope.
Women are also more likely to succumb to a sort of alcohol-induced blindness, which psychiatrist Andy Thomson, in an email to evolutionary psychologist David Buss, called the "Prosecco perception bias," after the Italian sparkling wine. Buss, who included this in his book, "When Men Behave Badly," explains that women have less of the alcohol-detoxifying enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase. (That's why women get more rapidly drunk than men, even when they throw back less alcohol per pound of body weight.) "Because alcohol stimulates bonding endorphins, women are more likely to misread interactions with men" when tipsy, Buss explains, and "overestimate the likelihood of an emotional bond and a long-term relationship."
Sure, there are blissful long-term relationships that started out with no-strings-attached sex. However, because you're a woman hoping to find a boyfriend, having sex on the first date is a risky strategy. There's a way to get a guy to stick around after sex, and it's to wait to have it till he's got feelings for you -- though, admittedly, zip-tying him to your headboard works, too.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
I'm a straight guy using dating apps. What's with the constant flaking guy friends and I experience from women we're meeting for first dates? One woman on Hinge texted me to confirm 30 minutes before we were meeting at a bar but never showed and stopped responding to my texts. The next day, she complained that her phone had died. Another girl on Bumble agreed to have drinks, but when I texted her the day of, she unmatched. This extreme rudeness only happens with women I meet on dating apps, not those I meet in person, like at a friend's party. Any idea why?
--Disturbed
There are valid reasons to be a no-show for a date with no explanation, for example, the experience so many of us have of being abducted by aliens who don't have a charger that fits our phone.
This rudeness you're experiencing -- all these women treating you like a disposable object instead of a person with feelings -- isn't caused by app use, per se. The problem, as I explain in "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," is that we are now "living in societies too big for our brains": vast, transient "strangerhoods."
We didn't evolve to be around strangers and aren't psychologically equipped to live in a world filled with them because the psychology still powering our thinking (and behavior) today is adapted for small ancestral hunter-gatherer societies. Ancestral humans might've been stuck with pretty much the same 25 people for much of their lives (per estimates by anthropologists Robert L. Kelly and Irven DeVore) and might've have had a larger surrounding society of perhaps 100 to 150 people.
In the tiny ancestral world, the need to preserve one's reputation was a psychological police force that kept even rotten people from acting their rotten worst. (This is still a factor today in small towns where everybody knows everybody.) In contrast, strangers "meeting" in the virtual world -- on apps that are basically eBay for dates -- have no shared social context, so...bye-bye fear of reputational ruin!
In other words, when connecting via an app, it's probably a good idea to expect unreliability. You might even bring a book to read in case a woman ends up running a little late -- uh, intends to leave you sitting there at the bar until you decompose.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
December 2, 2021I'm a divorced guy in my 40s. I was at a bar with friends and went over to talk with a woman I found really attractive. Though she wasn't the friendliest, I asked to take her to dinner. She said she'd think about it and then asked for my Instagram. Several days later, I texted her, and she agreed to go out. We've since had a few dates, but I'm bothered that she wouldn't go out with me until she'd scoured my social media. What does that suggest about her?
--Offended
You don't expect much from a woman who's "known" you all of 20 minutes: just blind trust that you'll do the gentleman thing of opening the passenger-side door for her -- as opposed to the psychopathic gentleman thing of stuffing her in your trunk.
Of course, the latter could happen if two gay men were dating, but there's good reason women -- more than men -- would opt for a "buyer beware" versus a "buyer be guessin'" approach. "Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death," observes personal security expert Gavin de Becker in "The Gift of Fear."
Even the stringbeaniest man can probably whup the average woman. Men have 15 to 20 times more testosterone than women, explain endocrinology researcher David J. Handelsman, M.D., and his colleagues. Higher "T" is associated with increased "muscle mass and strength" and "bone size and strength."
This means that even the power broads of the female athletic world are ill-prepared for any battle of the sexes. Take women's tennis rock stars Venus and Serena Williams. In 1998, when they were ranked fifth and 20th respectively, each got trounced by 203rd-ranked male tennis player Karsten Braasch -- whose "prep" for these matches was playing a round of golf and throwing back a couple of beers.
Beyond physical safety concerns, there's one half of the species that pees on little plastic sticks after sex to see whether they're about to make another human being -- one which, on average, will cost $233,610 to raise until age 17. (College, grad school, and multiple stints in rehab priced separately.)
This difference in male and female reproductive physiology led to the evolution of differences in male and female sexual psychology -- namely in their general level of sexual selectivity. It's in men's evolutionary interest to have sex with a slew of women -- and the hotter the better, because the features we find beautiful (youth, clear skin, and an hourglass figure) reflect health and fertility. (In a pinch, a woman with a pulse will do.)
An ancestral man could cut and run after sex -- leaving it to the Miss Neanderbrow he hooked up with to feed and care for any resulting fruit of the womb -- and still have a pretty good chance of passing on his genes. In contrast, ancestral women who didn't just stumble off to do it in the bushes with every Clooneyesque club toter likely left more surviving children to pass on their genes (carrying their psychology of choosiness).
Women's emotions push them to act in their evolutionary best interest. Women fear getting involved with men who will be unwilling and/or unable to pick up the tab if sex leads to, um, the creation of small mammals who will run up big bills at the orthodontist. In other words, it benefits a woman to scope a new man out and decide whether the ideal time to go to dinner with him might be the first Tuesday in never.
We're psychologically unprepared for the "evolutionarily novel" experience of vetting a stranger we meet in a bar, because our psychological operating system is adapted for an ancestral hunter-gatherer world: small, consistent communities of perhaps 25 to 100 people in which "intel" on a person was readily available through the grapevine. What's a modern, stranger-encountering woman to do? Well, this one apparently hoped to get some clues about you from your social media: probably from the sort of stuff you post, your follows and followers, and how you engage in the comments.
What does this woman's precautionary approach say about her? Well, probably that she isn't so desperate for a man or a free dinner that she'll take risks with her safety and go out with any Joe Bar Tab who offers to treat her to a meal. This isn't to say she's found a foolproof vetting method. Though social media is a new thing, it's rife with a well-worn evolved tool: deception -- used to defeat the precautionary strategies of the opposite sex. This typically leads not to rape or death but the sinking feeling of being had -- when, say, visits from the guy who posted pics of himself "flying private" always coincide with rolls of toilet paper going missing.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
I had this amazing chemistry with a guy I met at a wedding. Then he casually dropped that he's in a new relationship of about six months. A mutual friend told me the guy isn't too happy with the woman and feels he's "settling." The guy's been texting me in what seems to be a purely friendly way. Still, if I were his girlfriend, I'd be pretty upset.
--Confused About His Intentions
Say your car skids off the road in North Nowhere and you wake up trapped in the driver's seat with zero bars on your phone. You'd probably trade your house, your car, and your favorite grandma for some emergency eats in the glove box -- even the remains of a granola bar that looks to have been purchased just before the Lewis & Clark expedition.
Well, humans seem to have evolved to be romantic doomsday preppers: ready for any sudden famine in the partner department. At the moment, you seem to fall into the category of "backup mate" for this guy, though maybe just because he's inconveniently still attached to somebody else.
Evolutionary psychologists Joshua Duntley and David Buss find that both men and women cultivate backup mates -- "approximately three," on average -- whom we can use to rapidly replace our current long-term mate in case they die, dump us, or cheat, or their mate value takes a dive. Maintaining a romantic plan B cuts the time costs of having to start from scratch -- which could be the difference between, say, a man passing on his genes and passing on what could've been into an old tube sock.
As disturbing (and, perhaps, dirtbaggy) as this partner reserve stock business might seem, Duntley and Buss report that even people in happy relationships seem motivated -- often subconsciously -- to maintain backup mates. (Not being quite aware of one's own motives keeps away the guilt that would likely accompany consciously collecting potential relief pitchers.)
This guy you met might be figuring out whether to give notice in his current relationship, or, if that'll be in the pipeline, figuring out how. Consider the potential risks of texting with him: getting emotionally entwined with someone who might remain unavailable and suggesting you need to take whatever romantic scraps you're given. If you prefer to opt out of these risks, you could tell him you hope to hear from him again but that you're a woman with standards: "Call me when you've lost weight -- 125 pounds of excess girlfriend."
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
I really like the girl I'm dating, except for one thing. On every date, she asks me to take photos of her for Instagram. Afterward, she consults me repeatedly on which will "get the most likes." I'm starting to get really annoyed, and I find it cuts into my enjoyment of our time together. She even did this on my birthday!
--Irritated
Psychologist Erich Fromm wrote, "Mature love says: 'I need you because I love you.'" He died in 1980, 30-some years before Instagram-infused love: "I need you, love, because my telescoping selfie stick won't fit in my cute purse."
This girl's far from alone in turning every occasion short of stints on the toilet into a photo op. Social media (and Instagram especially) transformed fishing for compliments into a business model. #admirationvampires
Some young women -- especially 20-somethings with a still-murky sense of identity -- might feel they don't exist in any meaningful way if they don't post pix and videos of themselves to score likes and gain followers. #KeepingUpWithTheInstadashians
There's also the lure of easy money for those who can rack up an audience: potentially making big "influencer" bucks just by showing up to events in some pop-up shop's dress and striking a bunch of poses they copied off Beyonce.
Chances are you went on Tinder or Hinge or whatever in hopes of landing a girlfriend, not unpaid work as a photographer. Saying yes to taking this girl's pic the first time -- before you realized it would be an every-date thing -- probably seemed like a one-off request and thus not a big deal. But now you're annoyed that you're constantly being pressed into photo slavehood. Even your birthday got co-opted into a #MeMeMeMe #takemypicture celebration of her personal "brand."
The problem is not that she's asking but that you keep going along with photographing her. There's a way out of this -- and a way to get women to respect you instead of seeing you as a chump they can use and eventually lose -- and it's assertiveness.
Social psychologist Daniel Ames and his colleagues define assertiveness as "the degree to which someone stands up" for their own needs and interests "when they are faced with someone else who does not want the same outcomes."
Assertiveness allows you to be in charge of your life instead of becoming the tool of anyone who wants to use you: basically living like an insect that gets batted around by a cat. People who default to a passive approach -- just doing whatever's asked of them, no matter how they dread it -- often have a deep fear of rejection. They act on the mistaken belief that "the way to be accepted and appreciated by others is to give and give," explains clinical psychologist Randy Paterson.
This isn't to say you should live like an accountant, calculating to the penny or the calorie whether the give and take between you and another person is exactly 50/50 at all times. What matters is your motivation: giving to a woman because it feels good to make her happy or, say, safer (like if you install burglar-frustrating thingies on her windows).
That's healthy giving -- in contrast with emotionally indentured Boy Scout-hood: fulfilling the terms of a contract that exists only in your head, in which you re-sod a woman's lawn, rotate her tires, and/or become her pro bono "palace photographer" so she won't kick you to the curb.
This "chore-bribe your way to love 'n' sex" model tends to work about as well as my attempt, as a lonely, picked-on little kid, to geek my way into having friends. In second grade, two girls approached me, worksheets in hand, and said they'd be my friend if I did their math homework during recess. I got to work with my thick No. 2 pencil. Maybe 10 minutes later, I finished -- and they immediately succumbed to childhood amnesia. Neither girl even spoke to me again -- all the way through the end of 12th grade.
The willingness to assert yourself is a reflection of self-respect: the belief that you have value and have a right to be treated as if you and your needs matter. But say your current level of self-respect is on the low side. You can still act like a person with strong self-respect: Explain what you want -- in this case, to retire from fashion photography and post-date photo selection.
Be prepared. It's possible she'll ditch you for expressing the inconvenient need to quit as her Instagram documentarian. But if your needs and feelings are of little interest to her, maybe you can view getting yourself dumped by her not as a tragedy but as a point of pride: the first day of the rest of your living with self-respect. Carpe diem! (By way of carpe scrotum!)
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
I recently met this guy, and we've spent the entire past week together. Unfortunately, he's moving across the country -- tomorrow. He asked whether I'd be open to dating after he moved. I panicked and said no -- I'm really not looking for long-distance -- but now that he's leaving, I'm sad, and I'm worried I've made a mistake. Help!
--Confused
Obstacles to love are like situational steroids. We long for what's out of reach -- and all the more romantic if reaching it takes crossing the desert on a camel or $553 with a layover in Boise.
The perception that something is in short supply or soon will be (say, because it's about to move across the country) makes it seem more valuable to us. Psychologist Robert Cialdini calls this the "scarcity principle" and explains that the possibility we could lose access to something (or someone) jacks us into a motivational state: Go! Chase it! Don't let it get away!
The scarcity principle is the psychological scheming behind ads like: "Today only!" and "Only one sofa at this price!" The looming scarcity (or "scarcity") shuts down your Department of Reasoning, basically turning you into a dog chasing a couch-shaped squirrel. Only after you buy the thing and get it home (P.S. "no returns!") do you notice an important fact: It will fit perfectly in your living room...if you take a sledgehammer to part of a wall and -- "surprise!" -- extend one end into your neighbor's apartment.
Recognizing how scarcity primes us to see through loss-prevention-colored glasses, do your best to set aside "Eek! He's leaving!" and objectively assess what you two have. In short, is he (and how you are together) so extraordinary -- so near-impossible to find locally -- that the thousands of dollars in travel costs and other trade-offs of long-distance might be worth it? If so, just tell him you'd like to try long-distance and see how it goes.
Should you decide your feelings were more about the circumstances than the guy, well, you're not alone. Impossible love brings out the drama queeny 14-year-old in many of us. Imagine if Romeo and Juliet's parents, instead of forbidding their love, were all, "Hey, you crazy kids...have fun at the movies!" The play would've become a hate story for the ages -- after things between them inevitably got kinda meh and Juliet walked in on Romeo in bed with her BFF and her lady-in-waiting.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
I really appreciate my boyfriend, except for one thing: his constantly posting photos and videos that include me on his Facebook or Instagram. I'm a pretty private person, and I told him I don't like having my life and our life together posted online. He grudgingly agreed to stop posting things about me, but he thinks I'm being unreasonable and "paranoid."
--Discreet
"Online privacy" is a quaint fiction. The reality: Any info about you, from your sexts to your Social Security number, is probably stealable by any basement nosepicker with an IQ over 125.
That said, it's understandable you'd try to retain whatever shreds of yours you can -- like by engaging in the "impression management" sociologist Erving Goffman observed we all do face to face: tailoring the "self" we present and revealing more or fewer "regions" of ourselves, depending on the particular audience.
There's probably no person these days who can't be "canceled" -- out of a job, any ability to keep earning a living, and/or their social world -- by some photo, video, or quote from them that's cast in a bad light by an internet mob.
Take the San Diego Gas & Electric worker photographed driving with his hand hanging out of his truck window in what was claimed on social media to be a "white supremacy" hand signal. (The OK sign is said to make the initials W.P. for "White Power.") The man -- who is Mexican American! -- insisted he was doing nothing of the sort, but the utility fired him anyway. "To lose your dream job for playing with your fingers, that's a hard pill to swallow," he told NBC 7 San Diego.
Your boyfriend might never agree with your approach to online privacy. However, he might understand it -- and gain a deeper understanding into who you are -- if you evoke his empathy. Instead of simply telling him you "don't like" to appear in social media posts, go into detail about your fears and discomfort at allowing an unselect audience a window into your life.
It's awful enough when we violate our own privacy -- like by accidentally sexting Grandma and then rushing over in hopes of deleting it before she remembers where she left her phone. There's really no hope of privacy crime scene cleanup when your audience is "everyone on the planet but three Namibian guys whose goats keep chewing through their cable."
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
November 4, 2021During quarantine, my boyfriend started spending two or three hours a night playing video games. Not only do I think this is unhealthy (since video games apparently lead to violence and psychological problems), but I think gaming has become a coping mechanism/escape tool for him. How can I get him to stop?
--Annoyed
Claiming gaming causes violence is like claiming white wine causes stabbings. (Give somebody a sip of Chardonnay and before you know it, they'll be dealing meth and then arrested, convicted, and shanking somebody in prison.)
There's been a lot of "moral panic" over video gaming. A moral panic is a mass overreaction to some behavior, art form, or group of people, driven by the fear that it poses a threat to society's values and the social order. Examples include rock lyrics said to be corrupting teenagers and the belief in the 1980s that satanic cults were running nursery schools. About the latter, Margaret Talbot explained in The New York Times Magazine that day care worker/"Devil-worshippers" were supposedly "raping and sodomizing children, practicing ritual sacrifice, shedding their clothes, drinking blood and eating feces, all unnoticed by parents, neighbors and the authorities."
It's easy to succumb to a moral panic. Though we like to see ourselves as careful, rational thinkers, when we're afraid, we engage in reasoning that's better described as "emotioning." This makes us prone to believe "if it bleeds, it leads" news stories that report "research says" video games are addictive, lead to social isolation, and cause those who play them to become violent or more violent.
These media reports aren't lies per se, but the product of reporters understandably unable to parse scientific methodology -- usually because they were reporting on celebrities or City Hall until, like, Tuesday, when they got assigned to the science beat. They have no chops to critically analyze studies that, for example, claim video gaming turns normal teens into violent teens: like, if you let a kid play shoot-em-up games, he's supposedly more likely to take to a campus bell tower with an AR-15.
Reporters inexperienced in covering science typically chronicle the findings of just one (possibly flawed) study -- without reviewing the body of research on gaming (dozens or even hundreds of studies). If they did this, they would see "the emerging picture from the research literature," summed up by psychologist Pete Etchells, who studies the psychological and behavioral effects of playing video games: "Video games don't appear to have a meaningful impact on aggressive behaviour, and certainly aren't the root cause of mass acts of societal violence."
So, what about studies that claim otherwise? Experimental psychologists Andrew Przybylski and Amy Orben explain that this research is largely "riddled with methodological errors" -- errors so major they change the conclusion of a study. (And whaddaya know, the error-driven conclusion is typically the newsmeaty "Lock up your kid's Nintendo, lady, or you're gonna be putting your house up for bail.")
That said, you aren't wrong that video games can be a "coping mechanism": thinking and/or behavior we deploy to manage stressful situations and painful emotions. Coping mechanisms themselves -- whether going for a run, taking a bath, or engaging in a couple hours of Mortal Kombat -- are not bad.
On the other hand, if your boyfriend is at risk of losing his job because he can't stop gaming or burglarizes the neighbors to buy a bunch of new games, well, that reflects what Przybylski and Orben call "problematic gaming." However, they explain that this afflicts only a "small subset" of gamers, and it's likely driven by underlying problems such as anxiety and depression. In other words, problematic gaming is a symptom, not the problem itself.
By the way, contrary to the tired '80s/'90s stereotype of video games played by an isolated loser in the basement, online gaming connects gamers around the globe. Gamers make friends and are part of a community. (Best of all, in the virtual world, nobody's breathing on anybody, so gamers' friendships are immune to lockdowns.) And though there's a widespread assumption that gaming causes social awkwardness, it often opens up a social world for the sort of person who'd rather RVSP to be put to death than go make small talk face to face at a party.
Now, maybe you are so anti-video game that your relationship just won't fly anymore. But consider whether it's actually your boyfriend's gaming that's bothering you -- or whether you're longing for more attention than he's been giving you. If it's the latter, chances are the answer is not just time spent but quality time: being really present and affectionate when you're together. Tell him what you need, and see whether he's up for providing it. It's understandably upsetting to have serious competition for your boyfriend's attention -- whether it's from another woman or the 26 druids he has to gun down before dinner.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
October 28, 2021A close friend and I spend a lot of time discussing her issues with her boyfriend. I'm always there for her, even late at night when she's upset about something. However, when I bring up someone I'm interested in, she'll cut me off or say she just can't listen to me talk about the guy. Is it petty to feel hurt and to expect more from her?
--Disturbed
There are friends you can count on -- and friends you can count on to fake their own kidnapping the moment you are the slightest bit in need.
This sort of "friend" can be hard to identify because we want to believe their friendship is based on more than seeing us as an easy mark. This isn't to say we lack the psychological tools to identify and deal appropriately with users posing as friends. As humans began living in groups, we evolved to have a social "loss prevention team" -- the psychological version of the squad department stores have to catch crafty shoppers who get nine months pregnant in a matter of minutes, uh, with 26 designer dresses.
Our minds are tuned for "cheater detection," to notice sneaky nonreciprocators -- people who intentionally take more than they give -- explain evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby. The police force of our cheater detection system is our emotions: anger and resentment and other gloom-eristic feelings that rise up when we're giving and giving and being shafted by somebody who's all take.
That said, friendship isn't always 50/50, and it's important to identify when a good friend is temporarily unable to act like one because they're going through a rough patch. Unless that's the case here, your emotions are telling you the balance of give and take between you is just not right.
Now, maybe she's just a selfish taker and things will never be right. Then again, you could explain that you feel shorted and give her a chance to right the balance. Even good people sometimes act like crap people. As I see it, one job of a real friend is to put us on notice when we're falling short. This gives us the chance to make the requisite sacrifices to be a good friend to them -- like by dragging our emotional immaturity out back and slaughtering it like a goat on a stone altar (uh, the condo patio).
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
I'm having this undefined thing with this great woman I see just about nightly. She ended a toxic relationship seven months ago, and I'm still recovering from a terrible breakup. We're great friends, crack each other up, are extremely honest with each other, and have great sex. Should we try to label this? I worry this free love/no-strings-attached approach can't last.
--Troubled
Zoos have cages so the lions don't wander through suburbia, snacking on children and labradoodles.
Commitment serves a similar boundary-establishing function, though out of the worry that one's partner will sneak over to the hot neighbor's for a nooner, not lunch on them with a side of purse dog. Also, once two people spell out that they're a "we," the parameters of decision-making expand accordingly: "What works for us?" instead of "What's best for me?"
But sometimes, people still licking their wounds from their last relationship have the close-to-perfect next partner show up inopportunely early. They could push that person away with "I'm not ready now," which could turn out to be "goodbye forever." Or...maybe they could have a "not-quite-sure-what-this-is" thing until they feel ready for a relationship again.
There's a challenge to this loosey-goosey approach, and it's how disturbed we humans are by uncertainty: a lack of information about what might happen. The murky unknown revs up feelbad emotions like anxiety and dread over our inability to narrow down the various ways things could go toiletward.
Different people have varying levels of what psychologist Mark H. Freeston and his colleagues describe as "intolerance of uncertainty." To decrease yours (and the angsty feelings that come with), spell out what you can -- a likely worst-case scenario: for example, a woman you've grown attached to tires of you and takes to Tinder like a duck to those little goldfish crackers. Painful, yes. But, as you've shown, survivable -- if temporarily deadly to the ego.
Understanding this should help you avoid any temptation to rush things -- possibly blowing up the relationship in an attempt to relieve the tension of uncertainty. To help yourself stay on the straight and ambiguous, keep in mind that this uncertainty-alleviating impulse is the business model for horror movies. Without it, they'd be horrifying bores that fizzle out at the three-minute mark -- when the teens hear unearthly growls coming from the basement of the abandoned house and one says to the rest: "Yeah, whatevs. Let's just stay here upstairs playing strip chess."
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
October 21, 2021I'm a guy, and a female friend asked me to objectively rate her looks on a scale of 1 to 10. She has a very high opinion of her looks, but she insisted she wanted the truth, so I told her I'd put her at a 5.5 or 6. Afterward, she sent me a text about boundaries and said she's cutting me out of her life -- for being honest like she asked me to!
--Burned
If there were a class in "how to be a heterosexual man," lesson one would be how to answer a woman's questions about her appearance. She'll insist you give an honest answer to the classic gotcha question: "Do I look fat in this dress?" Always lie. Well, unless you are held at gunpoint or threatened with disemboweling with a steak knife or rusty pliers. In which case, also lie.
Admittedly, this advice is at odds with the black-and-white notions of honesty and deception drilled into us from an early age: Honesty, good! Lying, evil! If we lie, terrible things will happen to us -- such as cancer of the nose (as seen in that lie-arrhea-prone puppet, Pinocchio) or pants that spontaneously explode into flame.
"For centuries, philosophers and ethicists have railed against deception," note business school professors and researchers Joseph Gaspar and Maurice Schweitzer. The belief that deception is always evil and harmful was preached by the Christian bishop St. Augustine, "who claimed that 'every lie is a sin.'" Philosopher Immanuel Kant "argued that 'The greatest violation . . . is lying.'" These beliefs are baked into our culture and "permeate modern thinking."
Gaspar and Schweitzer define deception as "the transmission of information that intentionally misleads others." That sounds pretty awful. However, they suggest, "Think about what you should do when your grandmother asks if you enjoyed her meatloaf" or "your friend asks if you enjoyed her wedding reception." In situations like these, lying "might be the exactly right thing to do" (tempting as it might be to tell your friend you wish you'd been given a choice: attending the reception or or being repeatedly electrocuted via a car battery attached to your nipples).
These feelings-preserving falsehoods are "prosocial lies." "Prosocial" is psych professor-ese for "intended to help other people." Prosocial lies mislead but also benefit the person we're lying to, explain Gaspar and Schweitzer. It's basically benevolent deception: deception in service of kindness and even respect. For example, when a friend fails to show up at your party, "they might (respectfully) cite an illness" instead of admitting that they stayed home to binge-watch season seven of "Bosch."
Reflecting on the merits of prosocial lying, they argue that "deception has been unfairly disparaged" because "scholars have conflated deception with the pursuit of self-interest." Schweitzer, in "Friend & Foe" (co-authored with fellow B-school professor Adam Galinsky), advocates that the truth be judiciously told -- or withheld. The bottom line: "Is it ethical to tell prosocial lies? Our answer is yes. And we'd even take this claim a step further." Instead of telling our kids never to lie, "we should teach them the guiding principle of benevolence" and advise them to make "careful -- and deliberate -- choices when they face a conflict between telling the truth and being kind."
"For tasks that really matter for future success, honesty may be the best route to take," advise Schweitzer and Galinsky. For example, taking a junior colleague aside and being gently but painfully honest -- telling them how their performance fell short -- can be prosocial, helping them in the long run by alerting them to corrections they need to make. "But when a task really doesn't make much difference -- like your grandmother's meatloaf -- prosocial lies can be just the right thing."
The same goes for situations that no amount of honesty can change. Take your friend asking you where she lands on the 1-to-10 hotitude scale. She probably believed she was seeking an honest review, and it's reasonable that you took her at her word. However, she was probably fishing not for the truth but for reassurance that she's pretty.
Judicious honesty is the right amount of honesty at the right time. For a personal example, I'm pretty slim, but there is no pair of skinny jeans in which I do not look like a redhead stuffed into a sausage casing. There's a time to gently hint that I might put a pair of skinny jeans out to pasture, and it's not moments after I strut into a party all Alkonwursty but in the cold light of several days afterward. You'll be doing your sworn job as my friend, looking after my interests, but in a way that allows me to enjoy myself at the party instead of hiding under a parked car with the cat till it's over.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
October 14, 2021I'm a woman in my early 20s. The guy I'm dating brought me to meet his friends. His male friends were warm and friendly. The women were awful. One deliberately kept saying my name wrong (it's not exactly exotic), and two others glared at my miniskirt. Another said something about how low-cut my top was. She made it sound like a compliment, but it was a mean dig. How can these women be so nasty when they don't even know me? How do I diffuse situations like these?
--Upset
Nothing like women celebrating other women: "Way to go, girl! Showing everything but your areolas."
When a man has a beef with another man, he'll be direct about it: hurl insults at the guy's face and maybe try to renovate his jaw with a barstool. Women fight sneaky-dirty with other women, using covert tactics, explains psychologist Anne Campbell. These include mobilizing a group of women to ostracize a woman, talking trash to men about her looks and how "loose" she is, and offering "compliments" that are actually nasty digs. Give a woman's confidence a beatdown and she might dim her shine (cover her miniskirt with a shawl and wipe that sexy red lipstick off on her sleeve).
Psychologist Tracy Vaillancourt separated female research participants into random groups. She compared one group's reactions to a 20-something woman walking into a classroom dressed "conservatively" (in a loosely fitting shirt and khaki slacks) with the other group's reactions to the same woman dressed "provocatively" (in a very short skirt and a tight, low-cut shirt). Dressed conservatively, she was "barely noticed by the participants." When she entered in skin-baring sexywear, almost all the women "aggressed against her." They rolled their eyes at her, gave her "once-overs," and shot her "death stares." After she left, many laughed at her, ridiculed her appearance, and/or suggested she was a man-hopping sleaze.
You're a target for the she-hyenas whenever you wear sexy clothing and makeup (like an intense smoky eye with winged eyeliner). Decide whether you have the emotional strength and social capital to bear the glares and backbiting, or whether you need to, say, stock up on some floor-length prairie dresses. This isn't to say you should immediately assume the worst of all women. However, understanding what you can expect from some might help you stand tall in the face of an attack -- remembering that it's about them, not about you, when they imply that your bedroom's visitors log rivals Ellis Island's.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
I'm a guy in my 30s. Before COVID, I used Tinder to hook up with different women a few times a week. I don't recognize myself anymore. Yesterday, I was on a date, and the girl was really hot and wanted to go back to my place to have sex. I was weirdly turned off by the idea and called her an Uber home. This isn't like me, but it keeps happening. Why am I suddenly like this?
--Worried
If we hadn't gotten vaccines, we might've seen a whole new category of lingerie, a la Victoria's Crotchless Hazmat Suit.
Our body's immune system protects us by mobilizing warrior cells to fight off invaders like bacteria, parasites, and viruses that cause infectious diseases. However, war is costly -- whether between nations or inside us. Psychologist Mark Schaller notes that our body's effort to surround and kill "pathogenic intruders" sucks up calories needed for important bodily functions. It can also be "temporarily debilitating" due to "fever, fatigue, and other physiological consequences of an aggressive immunological response." (You sometimes have to boil the village alive to save the village.)
To avoid these costs, we need to avoid being exposed to disease in the first place. Helping us do that is the job of our "behavioral immune system." This is Schaller's term for a suite of psychological mechanisms that function as our early warning system, helping us identify signs of pathogens in our social environment and motivating us to feel, think, and behave in ways that keep us from getting invaded by the buggers.
For example, social psychology grad student James B. Moran and his adviser, social psychologist Damian Murray, find that reminding research participants of the looming threat of infectious disease puts a damper on the appeal of casual sex and their inclination to have it down the road.
Chances are this response explains your own psychological and behavioral shift: stud-turned-monk of COVID-19. There's no clock on exactly when you'll be back to your sexual-Wild West self. Should you get nostalgic, keep in mind that you can still dip into some elements of the hookuppy old days, such as "the walk of shame" -- though, these days, that's what we call it when you get yelled at by the old lady down the street for taking out the trash unmasked.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.