My boyfriend and I are in a long-distance relationship (for almost four years) that works very well, talking daily and seeing each other every two months. The problem is that it feels like he has much more love for me than I have for him. (He's totally head over heels and expresses this constantly.) I absolutely do love him, and I tell him frequently. But my love intensity just does not match his. Additionally, I should mention that I've tried to leave him in the past. I didn't think the relationship was serving me. He is married and technically unavailable. (He is working toward dissolving the marriage.) Also, he works hard but has no financial resources. I do want to stay in the relationship, but I'm not sure how to deal with the imbalance in expressiveness. I don't want to be inauthentic.
--Pressured
You're dating a man who not only is still married but needs to crowdfund his divorce.
Many women believe it's somehow nobler if they love a poor dude, telling themselves (and often the guy) that they don't really care about money. But as I often point out, because women are the ones who get pregnant, female emotions evolved to make women feel bad -- resentful, angry, screwed over -- when they get involved with men who are (for example!) still "married and technically unavailable" and have "no financial resources." Boyfriend: "Hey, honey...got ya a great birthday present, and you won't even be charged for it till your next credit card statement!"
And even if a woman is a staunch feminist, all "I don't care who the earner in the relationship is," the psychological operating system driving us right now is adapted for ancestral times and the problems that arose then. So it just keeps on keepin' on, pushing a woman to go for men who can "provide," even when she's on the birth controlliest birth control (like a copper IUD -- basically bioterrorism for sperm, backstopped by a Ukranian nightclub bouncer).
In other words, you are not getting the long end of the stick here, financially or commitment-wise, and evolution has programmed you to be nagged by feelbad emotions until you do something to change that. Your boyfriend, meanwhile, surely has some feelbad of his own. Because men coevolved with women, male psychology leads men to anticipate that female romantic partners who feel shorted on cash flow and/or commitment will soon be conducting their exit interview.
In light of this, your boyfriend's expressing love in the manner of a burst water main may be a form of "mate guarding," evolutionary psychologists' term for attempts to fend off mate poachers and keep one's partner in the relationship. Because we humans have an evolved motivation to reciprocate -- to give back what we get in equal measure -- it's possible that the more romantically expressive your boyfriend is, the more you're led to feel you're shorting him on what he seems to be owed.
But is the apparent emotional asymmetry here actually a problem? Many people do make the assumption that romantic partners' love should be 50-50 and that there's something wrong with the relationship when it isn't. However, what really matters is whether there's enough love on each side to keep the partners together -- especially in the face of any costs imposed by a partner or the relationship.
Accordingly, consider whether the long-distance aspect might be staving off feelings and conflict that could come out if you two were living together. Research repeatedly finds that women tend to resent male partners who aren't their equals or betters in job status and earnings. For example, a study by business school professor Alyson Byrne finds that a woman's having higher job status (and the money that comes with) often leads to marital instability and divorce. She and her colleague even find that women experience "status leakage," finding the status they've earned through their work diminished by virtue of their having a lower-status spouse.
As for you, you say you want to stay in the relationship, presumably because you love your boyfriend. However, it's also possible that your being in the relationship for a while -- almost four years -- is keeping you in the relationship. Consider what economists call the "sunk cost fallacy," the human tendency to keep investing in a project based on the time, energy, and/or resources we've already "sunk" into it. Of course, the rational approach is deciding to continue based on whether the investment will pay off sufficiently in the future.
Looking at your situation that way should help you make a decision. At the moment, as I see it, there's nothing standing between the two of you riding off into the sunset together...pulling a wagon carrying his current wife, their couples therapist, a divorce mediator, and several collection agents.
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.
June 20, 2019My boyfriend dumped me and moved out of our place. I'm on the lease and can't afford to break it, but it still feels like "our place," and that's making it hard to move on. My hippie friend said I should burn sage or light a candle and do a "letting go" meditation. Umm, okay. Can you please explain how rituals like this are bogus and unscientific so I can get her off my back?
--Annoyed
As I see it, lingering emotional distress like yours requires serious intervention -- like sacrificing a goat on the coffee table. (Possibly two, if one doesn't get 'er done.)
Just kidding about the goats -- but only because you'd have to hire crime scene cleaners afterward, which could get seriously pricey. Research by Harvard Business School's Michael I. Norton, among others, actually finds that rituals -- symbolic activities we do with some goal in mind -- seem to help us feel better: less negative, less anxious, and more in control. Amazingly, this is even true for ritual-doers who don't believe in the rituals -- who think they're idiotic, embarrassing, and pointless.
Annoyingly, researchers aren't quite sure why rituals have this effect on us. My guess is that we confuse the real with the symbolic. Research by cognitive neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga suggests our mind is a master spin doctor, creating stories about our behavior that make us look consistent, rational, and smart. And no sooner does it come up with those stories than it turns right around and believes them. In short, our mind is under the impression that we're not stupid -- that if we do something, we must have a good reason.
In other words, your friend is on to something -- and you might use this to get her onto another thing: a ladder in your living room. I suggest a painting ritual -- painting over your old life (in stylin' new hues, of course) to transform the house you shared with your ex into a colorful new home of your own.
Per the research on ritual, ceremony would be an essential part of this -- including explicitly calling what you're doing a "ritual" and saying a few words, the way you would at a funeral. Incorporate a ceremonial tearing-up of a photo of the two of you together, and have your friends chant, "Out, out, Steve! You are no longer welcome here!" Then have everybody accompany you to toss the pieces into the dumpster.
Admittedly, this ritual will probably seem seriously silly while you're doing it, but you can just choose to buy into it and have a good time. While you're at it, give your friend some props. She was on the right track in helping you rid your home of the Ghost of Boyfriend Past -- despite suggesting burning a small bunch of cooking herbs when it probably seemed nothing short of arson would do the job.
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 read in Bon Appetit about this woman who takes all her dates to Olive Garden to see whether they judge her when she pockets all the leftover breadsticks. Okay, whatever. But what I wanna see is whether somebody's a good person. What kind of dates do you suggest for determining a potential boyfriend's character and values?
--Concerned Woman
People often say you can discover a person's true character from how they treat the waiter. And sure, rudeness to a waiter is a red flag, but it isn't like we easily identify the sociopaths among us because they summon the server referee-style, by blowing a whistle.
It helps to consider the roots of good behavior -- moral behavior, that is: why people are good to other people. Evolutionary cognitive scientists Dan Sperber and Nicolas Baumard explain that "People may behave morally because they intrinsically value doing so -- a genuine moral reason -- or in order to gain the approval of others." But there's a complication: We all care about our reputation and doing things that put us in the best light, which is to say both the worst people and the best people behave better when they know they're being watched.
A person's true character will come out over time. But there's a way to speed up the dirtbag detection process: observe a person's behavior under harsh conditions. In other words, consider getting kidnapped and held hostage together by the Albanian mob -- or, if that's a little impractical for you, go camping or even just hike some challenging trail. When the chips are down (like if you get injured), that's when you see: Is he there for you, or is he the type to leave you to die in the wilderness? "I'd totally make a tourniquet for you, but this is a $400 Burberry shirt. Good luck!"
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.
June 11, 2019I'm a grown woman in the middle of a feud between two of my female friends. They're both complaining to me, and I'm just responding "uh-huh" to give them the hint that I don't want to be involved. Neither's catching on. How do I get out of the middle of this spat without either friend feeling like I'm being disloyal and without my blurting out, "This is ridiculous. Grow up, ladies!"
--Irritated
If only these two would do as a 60-year-old dude in the U.K. just did to dispute a ticket he got on his motorcycle -- invoked what The Telegraph called "the ancient right to trial by combat." Not surprisingly, local magistrates decided to stick him with a fine instead of accepting his proposal of a duel "to the death" with a motor vehicles clerk, using "samurai swords, Gurkha knives or heavy hammers."
Unfortunately, your female friends are unlikely to break out the Hello Kitty nunchucks to resolve their little squabble once and for all. It turns out there are some differences in how men and women generally deal with disagreements. Psychologist Joyce Benenson explains that women -- as the childbearers and primary childcarers of the species -- evolved to handle disputes in ways that minimize their risk of being physically harmed through retaliation. This has led to a female tendency toward covert aggression -- sneaky attacks that are often hard to identify as attacks, like sabotaging other women's status through gossip and social exclusion. Men, in contrast, tend to favor more straight-up forms of dispute resolution, from put-down fests to bar fights (with or without medieval weapons).
The thing is, an evolved tendency for a certain behavior (like indirectness) isn't a mandate that you behave accordingly. You can instead choose to be direct: Inform these two that you refuse to be the prize in this battle of theirs and thus refuse to hear another word about it from either of them. When they forget (aka see whether they can sneak in a rant to you about what a #$%& the other is), be straightforward in reminding them of your retirement as a giant ear. Being direct is sure to be uncomfortable the first few times, but as you increasingly make it a habit, you should find it far easier and certainly more effective than coming up with creative excuses every time the phone rings: "Sorry! Still haven't found my gavel. Talk soon!"
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.
A male friend says that a woman who wants a hookup can just blurt out "I wanna have sex with you!" to a man and have him take her up on that. However, he claims that a guy who says this to a woman is taking a big risk and is likely to just offend her and possibly get a drink thrown in his face. Is he right?
--Confused Dude
A guy's "I wanna have sex with you!" does work on women -- uh...in movies where the entire plotline is "A nurse gets in the elevator."
To be unappealingly frank, men, in a sexual pinch, have been known to get it on with items in their refrigerator. So, especially in guys' late teens and 20s, the bar for casual sex partners isn't set all that high -- as in, "Wow, girl, that's some pulse you have on you!"
Women, on the other hand, evolved to be the choosier sex. Female emotions push them to hold out for signs that a man would be willing and able to stick around and commit resources, should a screaming baby result from their naked romp in the back seat of the, um, thing prehistoric people dragged firewood around on.
These sex differences were reflected in recent research led by evolutionary psychologist Mons Bendixen on men's and women's signaling of sexual interest. Women tended to make themselves out to be more sexually interested in a particular man than they actually were. The researchers suspect this may be a strategy that allows women to hold men's attention for longer. This, in turn, gives a woman more time to assess a man or "strategically increase his hope of having a chance" with her (translation: keep the dude on the hook while milking his American Express card like it has a set of udders).
In contrast, the researchers found that men generally pretended to be far less interested in sex than they actually were -- presumably to avoid coming off as a man tramp or the sexual version of a starving Dickensian orphan. In other words, your friend is probably right: Honesty, as a sex-seeking tactic for a man, is only "the best policy" if the photo of his perfect match on a dating site is a tall container of lotion wearing an old tube sock as a scarf.
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.
June 4, 2019I'm a slim woman in my early 40s -- successful in my field -- and I am always in jeans, a vintage ripped t-shirt, and boots. I mean, ALWAYS. Granted, I have an extremely expensive handbag and perfectly highlighted blonde hair, and I always wear winged eyeliner. My friends say that going "underdressed" like this is disrespectful and inappropriate for (corporate-type) business meetings. Are they right, or is rocking your own thing no matter what a sign of confidence? (P.S. I'd kill myself before I'd wear a blazer.)
--Punk Rock Corporate
There's actually something to be said for a person who goes into an important business meeting dressed like one of their LinkedIn endorsements is "Aggressive Panhandling."
Sure, to a lot of people, it looks like career suicide in progress. However, research by Harvard Business School's Francesca Gino suggests that rebelling against norms for business attire can make you come off as higher status than people who dress all junior CEO.
Gino ran a number of experiments that led her to this conclusion, but my favorite is from a seminar on negotiations she taught at Harvard to two different groups of bigwigs in business, government and philanthropy. For each session, she dressed in the requisite "business boring" -- a dark blue Hugo Boss suit and a white silk blouse. But then, for her second session, she paired this outfit with a pair of red Converse high-tops. As she made her way to the classroom, a few fellow professors did give her the WTF-eye. However, seminar participants, surveyed after each session, guessed that she was higher in status and had a pricier consulting rate when she was wearing the red sneaks.
Gino explains that a person who is seen to be deliberately violating workplace wardrobe norms sends a message that they are so powerful that they can shrug off the potential costs of not following convention.
Anthropologists and zoologists call this a costly signal: a trait or behavior that's so wastefully extravagant and/or survival-threatening that only the highest-quality, most mojo-rific people or critters could afford to display it. This, in turn, suggests to observers (whether predators or predatory executives) that it's more likely to be legit -- and not false advertising.
So, it seems your dressing all hobo honcho could actually ramp up your status in others' eyes. And let's say someone suspects you're dressing this way because you've lost it on some level -- psychologically or financially. Gino writes in her book "Rebel Talent" that to signal status, it's critical that people believe an individual is "consciously choosing not to conform" and willing to assume the possible costs of that. Well, with that pricey handbag (plus the megabucks highlights and Instagram influencer winged eyeliner), you swat away any suspicions that your poorgeoisie-wear reflects actual impoverishment. Just don't be surprised if, post-meeting, as you're making a call on a bench outside the building, two kindly old ladies drop a Ziploc in your lap with socks, a granola bar, and directions to the nearest shelters.
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've long been a "Shallow Hal," attracted to women's youth and physical beauty and less concerned with integrity. Not surprisingly, I keep getting into relationships with women who aren't very good people. How can I stop being so superficial?
--Man With Eyes
It isn't wrong to initially be looks-driven: "Now, she's a woman I wanna have sex with!" -- as opposed to "Now, she's a woman I wanna debate on Jeremy Bentham's views on utilitarianism!"
Also, you should no more feel guilty for being drawn to young women than you would for having your taste buds be more "All aboard, baby!" for chocolate cake than for a "burger" made out of broccolini. This preference evolved to solve the "How do I pass on my genes?" problem for our male ancestors. (And no, the answer to that would not have been "Date grannies!")
However, it helps to understand what psychologist Daniel Kahneman has explained as our two thinking systems -- fast and slow. Our fast system is emotion-driven, rising up automatically, and is often home to toddler-like demands: "Gimme cake!" Our slow system, the home of rational thought, needs to be forced to do its job -- examining our impulses and assessing whether it's wise for us to run with them.
In other words, your problem comes from running with your initial impulse without putting it through the Department of Reasoning. Though it's natural to be led by your eyes, you need to implement a next step -- assessing the character of these foxerellas before you turn them into girlfriends. (This starts with generating standards so you can determine whether a woman meets or misses them.) In short, when you tell some babe, "Honey, everything looks good on you!" one would hope that you don't eventually learn whether "everything" includes a police-issued spit mask.
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.
