I met a guy, and he was very enthusiastic, calling and texting multiple times every day, almost obsessively. Soon after, I was having a really bad week: too much work, health issues with my parent...just really vulnerable. He said stuff like "I'd never leave you," "I'll never run away." Well, a couple of days later, he just vanished. I blocked him after two days of no contact, and I feel kind of bad. All my girlfriends think it was too harsh, but my guy friends think it was the right thing to do and said they block people all the time. Why the difference in opinion?
--Ghosted
Being in a relationship can have some costs, but ideally, they don't include hiring a private detective with a team of tracking dogs.
It actually isn't surprising that your male and female friends have differing reactions to your blocking the dude. Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen's research suggests that women are born empathizers in a way men are not -- meaning that from early childhood on, women are driven to notice and identify others' emotional states. They tend to be deeply affected by others' feelings and are emotionally triggered into a sort of fellow feeling (empathy). Men, on the other hand, tend to be "systemizers," driven from early childhood on to identify the "underlying rules" of the inanimate world, like those governing the operation of machines, abstractions (such as numbers), and objects (like a soaring baseball).
Of course, men aren't without empathy. But research consistently finds women higher in empathy than men. Law professor and evolutionary scientist Kingsley Browne observes in "Co-Ed Combat: The New Evidence That Women Shouldn't Fight the Nation's Wars" that women's "greater empathy may be responsible for the heightened guilt and anxiety that women feel about acting aggressively." Browne cites brain imaging research by neuroscientist Tania Singer that suggests men's empathy for a wrongdoer "may be more easily 'switched off,'" and observes that "men's diminished empathy for those who 'deserve' punishment probably increases their willingness to kill the enemy" in war.
The thing is biology is not destiny. Recognizing that you, as a woman, might have a propensity to be "nice" to people who don't deserve it can prompt you to recheck your decisions to go easy on somebody. Don't expect it to feel comfortable at first when you stand up for yourself; you're bucking countless centuries of evolved human female psychology. In time, however, acting empowered should start to feel right -- meaning you'll be all "Of course!" about blocking a guy who doesn't get that just disappearing is acceptable only for a tiny subgroup of beings: those whose workstation is a magician's top hat.
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 slept with a lot of really hot guys, but weirdly, the guys who end up being my long-term boyfriends are not the super hot ones. My current boyfriend is attractive but not even close in hotness to some of the guys I've had one-nighters with in the past. I've noticed this pattern in female friends' guys, too. Why is this a thing?
--Interested
There's a certain kind of man a woman looks to date exclusively...for three to five hours.
I often cite research from evolutionary psychology that finds that women across cultures prioritize finding a man who's a "provider." A man's appearance isn't unimportant, but context -- whether a woman's going for a long-term or short-term thing with a man -- is a factor in how much it matters. Not surprisingly, if a guy is a potential husband, a woman's more likely to make do with, say, a dad bod and a weak chin than if she sees him as a potential hookup -- a disposable himbo, a single-use Adonis.
A possible evolutionary explanation for this is the "sexy son hypothesis." Evolutionary psychologist David Buss explains that "by mating with an especially attractive man, a woman might be able to bear a son who is especially attractive to women in the next generation. Her son might have increased sexual access, produce more children, and hence might provide his mother with additional grandchildren."
There is support for this idea in research by biological anthropologist David Waynforth, which finds that ladies on the hookup track prefer men with more masculine facial features -- a la square-jawed superheroes. Hookup-minded women likewise favor more muscular men (according to research by social psychologist Michael J. Bernstein).
However, when a woman needs to make trade-offs between hunkaliciousness and character to land a long-term partner, it surely pays to relax a little on physical criteria: go for a really good man who's good enough in the looks department. "Good enough"? He doesn't have to be smokin' hot, but he can't be so uggo that you need to reassure him, "Not to worry! My sex drive will come back...um, when you're on the mantelpiece in an urn."
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.
Two weeks ago, I finally dumped my totally abusive jerk of a boyfriend. I do miss him, but I know I made the right decision. I came to see that he was cruel, manipulative, sociopathic, and toxic. However, I stupidly went on Facebook and saw that he already has a new girlfriend! I'm so pissed that I was replaced so quickly. I do not want him back, but I do want to make him suffer, basically to get revenge for all he put me through. My friend keeps telling me revenge is unhealthy and toxic and forgiveness is good for you and I need to forgive him. Is she right?
--Burned
Revenge looks so Clint Eastwood-cool in the movies -- less so when you get arrested for keying "micropenis!!!" into your ex's car, right under a street cam.
The desire for revenge is basically the urge to punish people who've harmed us or those close to us. It's widely believed to be a poisonous and maladaptive feeling that leads to poisonous and maladaptive behavior -- like forays into the dark web to seek out a highly recommended but affordably priced assassin.
In fact, evolutionary psychologist Michael McCullough explains in "Beyond Revenge" that the revenge motive seems to be "a built-in feature of human nature," a sort of psychological police force guarding our interests. It was likely vital to the evolution of human cooperation, which in turn led to essential human innovations such as flush toilets, open-heart surgery, and the Dorito.
Research that McCullough cites suggests the revenge motive has three functions: Deterring aspiring aggressors, deterring repeat aggressors, and punishing (and reforming) freeloading moochbags.
The thing is, revenge has a companion motivation, forgiveness, which McCullough describes as "an internal process of getting over your ill will for an offender." Interestingly, whether we forgive appears to be context-sensitive, meaning it usually isn't the particular crime so much as the particular criminal that matters. McCullough notes that the forgiveness motivation seems to switch on when there's a valuable relationship at stake -- a continuing relationship between the harmer and harm-ee.
In your situation, however, there's no ongoing relationship to motivate you to forgive the guy. And though forgiveness is correlated with mental health and even physical well-being, the assumption that forgiveness is always the best course of action is a little under-nuanced.
For example, McCullough writes that people with strong social support networks that encourage hostile responses to offenders can end up feeling "justified, comforted, and satisfied (by) their unforgiving stance" and "may not experience any negative emotional or physical consequences." On the other hand, he notes that "people who feel coerced to 'forgive and forget' may find their post-offense distress exacerbated."
To decide what's best for you, consider the reason you give for wanting revenge: because your ex was on to the next woman pronto after you dumped him. Also consider that you now identify him as a pretty terrible person and partner. Of course, the reality is, we all want to be wanted, sometimes even by people we really don't have any business wanting. But ask yourself something: In light of the sort of person you now see him to be, is it surprising in the least that he immediately latched onto his next victim?
Next, look at your life and calculate how much time and energy you're investing in thinking dark and nasty thoughts about him. Is keeping the hate fires burning for him benefiting you? Does it feel energizing (that is, rewarding), or does it feel a bit poisonous, psychologically and maybe even physically?
Sure, it's understandable that you'd long to do something -- take some action, even the score -- in response to feeling angry. However, if the reason for your anger is ultimately that you didn't look too closely at whom you were getting together with, maybe what's most productive for you now is deciding to let go of the past and working on being better at boyfriend vetting in the future. This starts with reviewing your last relationship from start to finish. Be intensely honest with yourself about all you overlooked about the guy and how you got used to his escalating levels of abuse as your continual "new normal."
By focusing on your part in this and how selective you need to be, you can shift into a sense of satisfaction that things will be different for you in the future. You should find this a welcome replacement for the head versus heart loop you've probably been stuck in: Your head says, "Move on." Your heart says, "Sure thing -- behind the wheel of heavy machinery when he has nowhere to go but el squasho!"
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.
September 10, 2019A guy I don't know well sent me a creepy Facebook message with pervy language. Next, he messaged me a bunch of tantra memes -- sex as a celebration, blah, blah, blah. It grossed me out. Why would a guy think he can be so blatantly sexual out of nowhere? What should you say to a guy who does this?
--Yuck
When a guy messaging you starts sounding like Rumi or some other ancient elder, it's usually for good reason -- like that he's short on hookup partners and the market's way behind in building realistic washable sex robots.
It would be instructive for men who do this to consider sex differences in the appeal of unsolicited genital selfies -- sent, for example, by strangers on dating sites. The Kinsey Institute's Justin Garcia reports that only 5% of women are aroused by unsolicted penis selfies; the vast majority are just grossed out by them.
As for the reception vagina selfies get, a Los Angeles woman sent 37 men on a dating site an unsolicited vagina pic (not hers, one she found on the internet). Three men replied with shirtless pix; seven sent messages about what they'd like to do to the pictured vagina; eight asked for more pix; nine sent penis selfies; and one sent a video that the woman told Metro UK included "a, um, happy ending."
The difference in men's and women's responses to "down there" selfies from strangers makes sense in light of how female emotions seem to have evolved to protect women from becoming single mothers -- getting knocked up and then ditched. Research by anthropologist John Marshall Townsend suggests that female emotions push women to look for signs of commitment from a man, even when they know they want nothing more than casual sex with him. This, in turn, probably leads many or most women to be put off by overt sex talk from a man -- before there seems to be an emotional connection.
Yet, perhaps due to what anthropologist Donald Symons calls the human tendency "to imagine that other minds are much like our own," many men whip out the sex talk and the zipperwurst pix for women they barely know. If a guy who does this is some Tinder rando, you can just block him. But when it's a male friend or other guy you'd rather not cut off entirely, you need to be straight with him -- like, "Dude, from now on, you gotta keep any messages totally platonic" -- and be straight with him again if he tries again. (I mean, come on...if you wanted gross unsolicited sexual comments, you'd wear a halter top and booty shorts to 7-Eleven.)
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.
My best friend just got dumped by her boyfriend, and she's totally devastated. I always thought he was a jerk, but I know saying that won't help her feel any better. I want to be there for her but don't know how. What's the best thing to say to somebody who's heartbroken?
--Lost
Assuming she isn't all "I wanna be alone!" you really just need to show up. You might even bring a little something: "I'm here, and I've got dinner. Very low-carb, too -- your ex's head on a spike."
The thing is, for many of us, watching somebody sob is uncomfortable along the lines of walking in on them having sex. We are clueless about what to say to the weeping person, and we often use that as reason to bolt or to not show up at all.
To be a better friend than that -- to stick around when the going gets sobby -- it helps to understand that sadness isn't some pointless emotional ailment. Like a tire jack, sadness has a function. In evolutionary terms, it's "adaptive," meaning that over evolutionary history, it helped solve some of humans' recurring survival and mating problems. Psychiatrist and evolutionary researcher Randolph Nesse points out in "Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry" that sadness slows us down and often leads us to ponder our choices, which can help us avoid putting our mistakes on endless repeat.
One way you might help your friend is by encouraging her to find meaning in what she went through -- that is, to learn from the experience so she can make better romantic choices in the future. However, it may be too early for that. So your immediate job could be pretty simple: You're an ear that hands her Kleenex and occasionally dispenses cheery thoughts, like the wish that a giant wandering reptile bites off his penis or a hit man dissolves him in lye in a motel bathtub. "Peace 'n' love, gurl!"
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.
September 3, 2019I'm a 27-year-old guy. I'm short, and honestly, I'm not that physically attractive. I am nice, funny, and on the fast track in my career. My friends say bluntly that the more money I make the more women will be interested in me. I'm sure that's true, but I'm interested in falling in love, not just finding a gold digger. Advice?
--Ambitious
It would be nice if there were an easy way to identify the gold diggers -- like if they showed up for dates carrying a giant golden shovel instead of a handbag they got on sale at Marshalls.
The thing is, a man's earning power has an effect on kind, loving, generous women, too, to the point that Captain America hunko Chris Evans would likely see a major dive in his sex appeal if he were more, um, Captain Coat Hanger -- earning just enough to sleep on a futon in his friend's walk-in closet.
Guys sneer that women are shallow and terrible for caring about how much money men have, while many men would be just fine with dating a starving artist -- a seriously hot starving artist, that is.
There's some history -- evolutionary history -- that explains the looks versus income difference in the sexes' mating priorities. Ancestral women could get stuck with some bigtime costs from having sex: possibly going around pregnant for 9 months (with all the fun of digging for edible roots in between hurling from morning sickness) and then having a kid to drag around and feed. Ancestral men, however, could choose to put way less into in the reproducing thing -- just dispensing with a teaspoonful of sperm and maybe a parting grunt or two.
Men, in turn, evolved to prioritize hotness when seeking mates -- features like youth and an hourglass figure that suggest a particular lady would be a healthy, fertile candidate for passing on their genes. And while partner-seeking ladies of course appreciate a nice view, biologists Guanlin Wang and John Speakman write that women evolved to be more "sensitive to resources that can be invested (in) themselves and their offspring" -- as in whether a particular dude could bring home the bison or whatever.
Wang, Speakman, and their colleagues explored the impact of "resources" -- that is, a person's economic status -- on their physical appeal to the opposite sex. They showed research participants in China, the U.S., the U.K., and Lithuania a stack of cards with images of silhouetted bodies of the opposite sex with varying levels of attractiveness and had them rank the images from most attractive to least attractive. (The researchers converted the rankings to a scale of 1 to 9.)
Next, the researchers randomly assigned salary numbers to the body pix. They brought participants back -- at least a week later -- and again had them rate the attractiveness of the figures, but this time given the salary paired with each bod.
Upon tabulating their results, they found a major sex difference in how "responsive" the attractiveness ratings were to an increase in salary. If a man's salary increases by a factor of 10 -- if his salary becomes 10 times greater -- he goes up about 2 points (1.92 on average) on their 1-to-9 attractiveness scale. So, for example, a salary of $50,000 x 10 -- $500,000 -- gets a guy 2 points higher in hotness.
Meanwhile, in bummerific news for female honchos, for a woman to achieve that two-point hottitude bump, her salary would need to be multiplied by 10,000. In other words, a woman making $50K would have to make $500 million to be hotter in a man's eyes. (No problem...right, ladies? Just get yourself promoted from legal secretary to international drug lord.)
The researchers note that because men are "largely insensitive to cues indicating resources" in women, women have to make themselves "physically more attractive" to improve their mating prospects. Men, however, "can offset poor physical attractiveness, or further enhance existing good looks, by demonstrating their large levels of resources."
This does draw the gold diggers, but again, a woman doesn't have to be a gold digger to be attracted to a man with money. To protect yourself from those who only care about the money, look for "inner beauty," or what everybody's grandpa calls "character." Get to know her friends and family. And get to know who she is over time and across situations.
There are clever sociopaths who keep up appearances even when tested, but over time, they tend to reveal their true selves in small ways. By weeding out the rotten apples, you make space for a woman who sincerely cares about you -- and can't help but find you attractive in the right light, such as the recessed spotlights on your Gulfstream jet.
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.
