I'm in love with my married female co-worker. I'm married and have no intention of leaving my wife, and I doubt she'd leave her husband, even if she shared my feelings. I love how caring and kind my co-worker is -- how she understands that you show love through action. I do this by often giving my wife romantic cards and by cleaning the house and doing the dishes every night after I get home from work and school. Feeling my wife wasn't reciprocating, I started fantasizing about being in a relationship with my co-worker, who also feels unappreciated by her spouse. My feelings for her have become overwhelming, and I feel a pressing need to tell her. I understand that this could make work very awkward. Best-case scenario, she's flattered. Is it selfish to want to unburden myself?

--Boiling Point

Confessing your crush to your married co-worker is like arranging a transfer to her -- of your 26-pound tumor: "His name is Fred. He enjoys fine wine, banned preservatives, and cigarette smoke. I hope you're very happy together!"

Your desire to tell isn't noble or wonderful. In fact, it's pretty much the psychological cousin of an intense need to pee. To get why that is, it helps to understand, as evolutionary psychologists John Tooby and Leda Cosmides explain, that the emotions driving our behavior today motivate us to behave in ways that would have given our ancestors the best shot at surviving, mating, and passing on their genes. Unfortunately, solutions for recurring challenges in the ancestral environment aren't always a perfect fit for the modern office environment.

Consider our basic biological needs -- like for food, water, and sex. When we feel the urge to satisfy these -- like when we're hungry or hungry for a co-worker -- our emotions kick into gear, pushing us into a motivated state, a state of tension. That's an uncomfortable state to be in, so we look for the quickest, easiest way out -- like "To hell with my job and my marriage!" -- which conflates a powerful evolved urge with a wise modern course of action.

Understanding this need to reduce emotional tension should help you realize that what's driving your obsession is more mechanical than magical. But there's another problem. Our motivational system comes up a little short in the brakes department. We have a "GO!" system to push us to do things, but we lack a comparable "STOP, YOU IDIOT!" system.

This makes inhibiting a feeling (and whatever course of action it's pushing you toward) terribly hard and uncomfortable work. And as social psychologists Daniel Wegner and James J. Gross have independently pointed out, doing this on a continuing basis can have damaging effects on your physical health. Trying to quash some recurring thought also tends to backfire, making you think the unwanted thought more than if you hadn't tried to stop. For example, in Wegner's research, subjects told, "Try not to think of a white bear," failed every time. Wegner suspects the mind sweeps around to see that we aren't thinking of the thing -- which means we're thinking of the thing in the process. (Argh, huh?)

Considering all of this, when you're looking to keep yourself from doing something, it helps to take the approach Aikido practitioners use. When a powerful blow is coming at them, instead of meeting it head on and taking the full force of it, they divert it -- push it off in another direction. Following this principle, your goal shouldn't be stopping yourself from telling your co-worker but redirecting the energy you've been putting into your crush into your marriage.

Tell your wife you love her and discuss what might be missing in your marriage -- for each of you. However, don't do this by accusing her of failing to appreciate you (which will lead to defensiveness, not inspiration to change). Instead, lead by example: Explain the ways you show your love for her (helping her connect the clean living room to the loving motivation behind it), and then tell her what would make you feel loved.

In case loving feelings have given way to hard feelings, there's good news from a relatively new area of psychology called "embodied cognition" -- the finding that taking action leads to corresponding feelings. So, it's possible that acting loving can resuscitate the love you once felt.

Getting back to your co-worker, it doesn't take much to lose yourself in fantasies about how great it would be with somebody new. However, marriage -- to any person -- is hard. Still, it has its perks, such as that wonderful ease that comes out of being with your spouse for a while -- allowing you to finally feel comfortable talking about what you really need in bed: "Are you there yet? Hurry! I gotta wake up early!"

My problem is that I'll go on one or two dates with a girl and then get the whole "I just wanna be friends." And they really mean that. They want me to do lunch and go shopping and talk on the phone about their guy problems. How can I nicely tell these girls, "I don't want to hurt your feelings, but no, I'm not going to be your friend -- and I especially don't want to hear about your new guy"? I guess the problem boils down to the fact that I don't want to make a woman mad.

--Frustrated

Over and over, you hear the same thing -- basically, "Sorry...we have to turn down your application for CEO, but we'd love to have you as our parking attendant."

By the way, your first problem is that you're wrong about what your problem is. It isn't how to TELL a woman you aren't up for the role of pet eunuch. It's how to BE the man holding her in his arms instead of the one holding her purse while she's exploring her options in the tampon section.

Consider what the ladies tend to want -- whether the ladies are hermit crabs or humans. Evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers' theory of "parental investment" explains that in species that provide continuing care for their young after they're born, females have evolved to go for "dominant" males. Dominance translates to being more able to "provide protection and material support" (through physical ability, as well as high social status).

However, the term "dominant" is a little...uh...unrefined. Women aren't looking to be dragged off into the sunset by some thug. Social psychologist Jerry M. Burger and one of his students, Mica Cosby, took a nuanced look at dominance and found that women overwhelmingly want a man who is "confident" and "assertive" as their ideal date or romantic partner. And though most also want a man who's "sensitive" and "easygoing," none -- NOT ONE -- of the 118 women they surveyed wanted a man who is "submissive."

Chances are, "submissive" is exactly how you're coming off. Your pleaserboy bottom line -- "I don't want to make a woman mad" -- suggests a hunger for women's approval and probably leads you to wilt like a man-daisy to avoid even the slightest conflict. Unfortunately, that won't get you out of the friend zone. What will is self-respect -- and the assertiveness that comes out of it: showing that you have opinions, needs, and preferences, and tough tostadas if a woman doesn't like them. This, of course, doesn't mean being rigidly uncompromising. However, when you do sacrifice your needs, it should be because you feel good about doing something nice -- not because you're dreaming of a day when your "Well, hellooo, gorgeous!" won't be followed by "Thanks! And I seriously appreciate your watching Senor Fluffyface while I'm on my date."

I'm a 40-something woman, living with my 50-something male partner. Our relationship is slightly open, in that every Tuesday, we each go out separately and "do whatever with whomever." I have lived up to my part of this, but I recently discovered that my partner has not. On Tuesdays, he stays home by himself. Beyond being irritated that he's effectively been lying, I feel weird being the only one doing the open relationship thing. How do I get him to live up to our agreement?

--Poly-Annoyed

There's no fun like mandated fun. What's next, holding him at gunpoint and demanding that he enjoy miniature golf?

Chances are, his lying and your feeling "weird" that things aren't all even-steven in the sexual snacking domain come out of the same place -- the evolution of cooperation and the sense of fairness that fostered it. Fairness comes down to how benefits or resources get divided between people -- whether in a balanced or imbalanced way. We evolved to get all freaked out about imbalances -- even when they're in our favor -- explain population biologist Sarah Brosnan and primatologist Frans de Waal. In fact, we are driven to equalize things "to our own detriment." But, don't get too misty-eyed about human moral nobility. They point out that it's in our self-interest to take the long view -- trying to avoid being perceived as unfair, which could kill the possibility of "continued cooperation" between ourselves and a partner.

Understanding the likely evolutionary psychology behind your feeling upset could help you focus on why your partner is saying (a silent) "nope!" to the sex buffet. My guess? He loves you and wants you to have what you need. And he doesn't want you to feel uncomfortable about going out and getting it -- even if the only taboo things he's doing in bed are allowing the dog on it and clipping his fingernails and letting them ricochet around the room.

I'm a 27-year-old guy, and I'm not very funny. I know women like a guy with a sense of humor, so I was interested in these "Flirt Cards" with funny messages that I saw on Kickstarter. You write your number on the back and give the card to a woman you'd like to meet. Good idea or bad for breaking the ice?

--Single Dude

Using a pre-printed card to hit on the ladies makes a powerful statement: "I'm looking for a kind woman to nurse me back to masculinity."

Asking a woman out isn't just a way to get a date; it's a form of display. Consider that women look for men to show courage. (The courage to unwrap a pack of cards doesn't count.) And mutely handing a woman some other guy's humor on a card is actually worse than using no humor at all -- save for extenuating circumstances, like if it were the Middle Ages and you'd had your tongue cut out for unseemly behavior with the earl's livestock (again).

Consider evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller's "mating mind" hypothesis -- the notion that "our minds evolved not just as survival machines, but as courtship machines." Miller explains that the mind acts as a "fitness indicator" -- a sort of advertising agency for a person's genetic quality (among other things). Humor is a reliable (hard-to-fake) sign of genetic quality -- reflecting high intelligence, creative problem-solving ability, and a lack of mutations that would handicap brain function.

But it isn't just any old humor that women find attractive. Any guy can memorize a joke. Accordingly, in a study of the pickup lines men use on women, psychologists Christopher Bale and Rory Morrison "distinguish wit (spontaneous jokes that fit the context exactly, are genuinely funny, and require intelligence) from mere humor (the pre-planned jokes and one-liners which ... do not demonstrate intelligence)."

Anthropologist Gil Greengross, who studies humor and laughter from an evolutionary perspective, suggests that even a guy who's lame at humor should at least take a run at being funny: "The risk of not even trying to make women laugh may result in losing a mating opportunity." I disagree -- though only in part. If you're unfunny, trying to force the funny is like bragging, "Hey! I'm low in social intelligence!"

However, you shouldn't let being unfunny stop you from hitting on a woman. What you can do is be spontaneously and courageously genuine. Just put yourself out there and say hello to her and acknowledge and even laugh at any awkwardness on your part. This isn't to say you should give up entirely on using pre-printed notes. Save them for special occasions -- those when your message to a woman is something like "Stay calm and put all the money in the bag."

My girlfriend's father is a famous actor, and I'm on my way up. I worry that if things go wrong in our relationship, he could put a big kibosh on my career. I guess because of this, I find myself putting up with more stuff than I might normally. I wonder whether our relationship will suffer because of my secret worries about her dad.

--Marked Man

There's doing the right thing, and then there's doing the right thing for the right reasons. Ideally, you refrain from shoplifting because it's wrong to steal, not because they show videos of shoplifters on the news sometimes and your nose always looks so big on security camera footage.

It turns out that there are two fundamental motivations for all life-forms -- from microbes to men. They are "approach" (going toward good, helpful, survival-promoting things) and "avoidance" (moving away from bad, dangerous, deadly things). Research by social psychologist Shelly Gable suggests that romantic relationships are happier when they're driven by approach rather than avoidance motives.

So, say your girlfriend asks that you put food-encrusted plates in the dishwasher instead of leaving them out for the archeologists to find. An approach motivation means doing as she asks because you're striving for a positive outcome -- like making her feel loved -- instead of trying to avoid a negative one, like having your fate in showbiz patterned after that first guy in a horror movie who gets curious about the weird growling in the basement.

The research suggests that you can happy up your relationship by reframing why you do things -- shifting to an "I just wanna make her happy" motivation. To do that, set aside your career fears and just try to be fair -- to both of you. The relationship may fizzle out. Even so, if you don't do anything horrible to Daddy's little girl, there'll be no reason for him to see to it that you look back on a lifetime of iconic roles -- like "White Guy With Umbrella" and "Bystander #5."

A year ago, the woman who pet-sits for me began inviting herself over for dinner. We started going out about three times a week. I always paid for dinner. She never introduced me to her friends, wouldn't let me pick her up at her apartment, and wouldn't let me touch her. Even a genial "thank you" touch on the arm got a grim response. Her reason: She didn't want a relationship. I kept hoping this would change. Recently, I went on Facebook and saw that she's been in a relationship with another man. Her response? "Well, I'm not sleeping with him, so I can see whomever I want." After a long, demoralizing year, I ended things. Did I do right by getting out?

--Not A Game Player

Having regular dinners with somebody doesn't mean you're dating. I have dinner with my TV several nights a week, but that doesn't mean I should get "Samsung forever!" tattooed on my special place.

Consciously or subconsciously, this woman deceived you into thinking a relationship was possible -- but she had help. Yours. To understand how you got tripped up, let's take a look at self-deception -- through an evolutionary lens. Evolutionary researchers William von Hippel and Robert Trivers describe self-deception as a "failure to tell the self the whole truth" by excluding the parts that go poorly with our goals and our preferred view of ourselves. We do this through "information-processing biases that give priority to welcome over unwelcome information" -- or, in plain English: What we ignore the hell out of can't hurt us.

Seems crazy, huh -- that we would have evolved to have a faulty view of reality? However, von Hippel and Trivers contend that the ability to self-deceive evolved to help us be better at deceiving others -- keeping us from giving off the cues we do when we know we're putting out a big fibby. As Trivers explains in "The Folly of Fools": "We hide reality from our conscious minds the better to hide it from onlookers."

Knowing that we do this can help us remember to ask the right questions -- the ego-gnawing kind -- and drag the facts upstairs to consciousness and give them a long look. Nice as it is to glimpse the proverbial "light at the end of the tunnel," it's wise to make sure it isn't just the one on the tip of the colonoscope.

I feel that my boyfriend brings out my best self: loving, sweet, productive. In my failed marriage, my ex seemed to bring out my worst self: unstable, selfish, lazy. It's almost as if I'm a different person with my boyfriend. But how different can I be?

--In A Better Place

Okay, so you sometimes daydreamed about your naked ex and the things you'd like to do to him -- like painting him all over with maple syrup and throwing him into a pit of starving fire ants.

To understand what's different with your current boyfriend, consider that the relationship is an environment -- one that influences your behavior just like a physical environment. (Alaska in January calls for a snowsuit, not a bikini and your rainbow unicorn water wings.)

There's a term for the sort of relationship dynamics that bring out your best self -- the "Michelangelo phenomenon" -- coined by social psychologist Caryl Rusbult and her colleagues. The name was inspired by the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo's belief that there's an ideal figure hidden within each block of stone and that it's the sculptor's job to chip away the pieces around it until it's revealed.

They find that in a relationship, two things foster your bringing out the best in each other. One is that your partner "affirms" your values -- meaning that your partner is aligned (enough) with what you care most about. (This doesn't mean they want exactly what you do; they just need to respect you for going for it.) Second, they engage in behaviors that encourage you to move toward your "ideal self." This might mean urging you to acquire new skills or, at a cocktail party, asking you about the dog-walking drone you invented while you're standing next to that trustafarian with the tech-funding hobby.

Rusbult and her colleagues observe that when individuals in a relationship improve and grow -- especially through their partner's encouragement -- it makes for a better relationship and happier partners. Conversely, when their partner is unhelpfully critical, controlling, and at odds with who they are and what they want, the relationship suffers, as do those in it. Ultimately, if you say "I barely recognize who I am with this person," it should be a good thing -- not one that leads to TV news clips of your bewildered neighbor: "We're all just shocked. She seemed so nice, so normal. I guess she just...snapped."