A gay male friend set me up on a date. The man was HORRIBLE. He spent the entire date talking about himself. Everything was a brag. He didn't ask one question about me. Now I'm wondering whether my "friend" knows me at all. Why would he set me up with someone so wrong for me?

--Seething Woman

The road to good intentions is sometimes paved with hell.

It's understandable you feel bad, considering your friend's idea of the guy you'd like was a mismatch on par with inviting the vegan neighbors over for a baby seal roast. However, there are probably a number of misperceptions at root here -- yours as well as his. We'll start with yours: We tend to believe our minds -- our emotions, desires, and intentions -- are more transparent and readable by others than they actually are. We also tend to believe others are better at reading our minds than they actually are.

To get a little perspective on this, consider the parallels this fix-up fail has with failures in gift-giving. I used to sneer at gift registries for weddings as cheat sheets for the lazy to buy presents for the greedy. Boy, was I ever off base. Research by business school professors Francesca Gino and Francis Flynn found that married people who'd received gifts they'd listed on their registry appreciated them more than the off-list gifts their guests slaved away finding or making. In fact, spouses they surveyed saw these registry gifts (which could take all of four minutes to pick, click, and ship) as more thoughtful and -- get this -- even more personal!

This is the exact opposite of what we gift-givers think will be the deal. "Gift givers expect unsolicited gifts will be considered more thoughtful and considerate by their intended recipients than is actually the case," explain Gino and Flynn.

Our refusing to buy from the registry -- feeling confident that off-list gifts we toil to buy or make will be more appreciated than the stuff our friends ask for -- reflects a failure in "perspective-taking." Psychologist Nicholas Epley explains perspective-taking as imagining another person's psychological point of view. It's basically the ability to put yourself in another person's shoes, to see the world from their perspective, to sense what they want and need.

In contrast, when we give our friends getting married some weird gargoyle-faced decanter (instead of the solar-powered garlic press they asked for), we're answering the question, "What would I want?" rather than, "What would they want?" (which they've helpfully laid out in a big online list).

Epley's research suggests our tendency to fail at perspective-taking comes out of mental shortcuts we are driven to take. The brain is energetically "expensive" to run, and just like those energy-saving refrigerators, it's engineered to avoid sucking up power unnecessarily -- like by keeping us from doing a lot of thinking when we can get away with just a little.

Accordingly, Epley finds that in perspective-taking, we're prone to come up with a quick and dirty guess about what another person wants and just run with it. But even in making this guess, our mental laziness tends to be pretty epic. We typically don't even start by considering what they might want. We start with what we'd want, make a few minor adjustments, and tell ourselves it's what they'd want. Helpfully, all of this goes on subconsciously; we don't step back from the tepid whirrings of our mind and realize that we're short-shrifting our friends.

We might catch our errors before we sent a friend off into the jaws of a helldate if we did the responsible thing and checked our mental work -- "Hmmm, is he really the sort of guy she'd want?" -- and then made any necessary adjustments. However, we aren't about to put our precious cognitive resources into adjusting judgments we've already settled on. So, Epley explains, "insufficient adjustment" -- a failure to look closely at our judgments of others' perspectives and make corrections -- is "the rule rather than the exception."

In other words, the sort of man your friend fixed you up with probably has less to do with how he appraises you than how mentally lazy we all evolved to be. It's generally wise to expect others to be pretty bad at figuring out what you want. Telling somebody what works for you can sometimes be helpful (if they don't just nod their head and give you what'd work for them).

Accordingly, you should prepared for fix-ups to be horror fests -- killing seasons for your psyche. However, you might just get lucky -- get matched with somebody great. So, consider whether getting fixed up might be worth it, despite the risk of evenings spent biting your lip to keep from blurting out: "Dude. The line isn't, 'If you love something, make its ears bleed.'"

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.

Why am I only attracted to unattainable guys? As soon as men express interest in me, I lose interest in them. How do I break this cycle?! 

--Frustrated

At the moment, the perfect love poem for you would come from a clerk at the court: "Roses are red, violets are blue; stay 500 feet away, or it's handcuffs for you!"

Chances are you're looking to win, not looking for love. Once you win -- once you've landed the guy you've been pursuing -- you're done. However, you probably tell yourself you're seeking romantic connection because, well, it's more appealing than admitting you're the human version of a dog chasing a dirty tennis ball. The point -- the excitement of it -- is the chasing, not the getting. (Dirty tennis balls don't taste like bacon.)

You're basically on an emotional crack bender. The big neurochemical player here is dopamine, a neurotransmitter, a messenger in chemical form that carries signals from brain cell to brain cell. Though it's often called the "pleasure chemical," that's wrong. Giving you a buzz is opioids' department. Getting you to the opioids is dopamine's job. Research by neuroscientist Kent Berridge suggests dopamine drives "wanting" (as in, craving) -- motivating you to pursue things that are "rewarding," like sex, drugs, and cake.

There are some nuances to this. Dopamine is the Beverly Hills brat of neurochemicals -- seriously snobby about rewards being new. In researcher-ese, it spikes at the prospect of "novel rewards": sex, drugs, and cake you haven't tried before. It also goes up big-time for "unpredictable rewards" -- those we aren't sure we can get -- which explains the allure of the seemingly aloof himbo. However, "predictable rewards," like the Grandma-pleaser -- the nice, stable fellow you can always count on -- read as a big "meh" in Dopamineville.

I'm guessing your love of the chase has a second job -- as convenient cover for repairs needed in your emotional wing. Get to work on your self-worth, self-acceptance, and any other self-(s) in need of shoring up. While you're an emotional work in progress, be honest with men you date that you have a tendency to disappear like cartoon ink. Eventually, however, your efforts should be transformative -- meaning the meme guiding your romantic life will no longer be "Look for a man who looks at you like my dog looks at the small print on the iTunes agreement."

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 have a challenging job I love, and lately, it's really cutting into my time with my boyfriend. I tell him how much I hate this, but he's been very understanding. Initially, this was great, but now I'm annoyed that he seems fine with seeing less of me. Is it ridiculous I'm upset he isn't acting more upset that I'm not around as much?

--Disturbed

Poets and lyricists often describe love as a medical issue: Love hurts! Love is blind! Love lies bleeding! It goes a little far, however, to give it a traumatic brain injury: Love is comatose.

But maybe that isn't what's going on for your boyfriend. Maybe you're just prone to suspect his love is waning. Research by evolutionary psychologists Martie Haselton and David Buss suggests humans evolved to be imperfect thinkers -- to have distorted perceptions when we have to make "judgments under uncertainty." These are guesses we make when we lack access to some or all of the facts.

Haselton and Buss explain that recurring mating and survival issues over human history have led us to make protective errors -- overperceiving or underperceiving elements in our physical and social environments. We err in our thinking in whichever way would be the least costly to us: overestimating or underestimating.

Because women are the babymakers of the species, it's a big costly error for a woman to believe a man will commit -- stick around and dad -- when he's really just a "sex it 'n' exit" cad. So, women err on side of "commitment underperception" -- underestimating men's level of commitment. Even if a man actually is committed, a woman's going all hurt feelz that he isn't might lead him to reassure her with increased shows of devotion: cuddling, romantic dinners, the (ethically sourced!) Hope Diamond Jr.

Consider whether there's any real evidence your boyfriend's love and commitment are waning or whether your emotions are playing evolutionary lap dog. When someone really loves you, they show it by making sacrifices for you -- like by supporting your need for unimpeded time and energy when the job you love gets more demanding than usual. Your boyfriend seems really accommodating, so let him know if what would really make you happy is a jealous, demanding manchild who sneaks out in the middle of the night with a big tub of Crisco and greases all the rungs on the ladder of success.

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 hooked up with a really good friend a few times. We both agreed to forget about it to preserve our friendship, but he's been really distant. I don't want to be the one to reach out and say something. How do I get things back to normal?

--Upset

Sure, they say a really good friend is someone who knows everything about you -- though, ideally, stopping short of how your sex face is a ringer for a pug having a seizure.

Chances are, this stretch of awkward silence between you has two interconnected causes: 1. "Eek, too much naked!" with somebody who isn't a romantic partner, and 2. The fog of uncertainty over what sort of relationship you and he now have.

Problem 1, "Eek, too much naked!" comes out of how, when you two "just friends" hooked up, you abruptly and unwittingly vaulted across the boundaries of friendship into romantic territory. Major features of a romantic relationship -- an intimate relationship -- are vulnerability and openness. We look to find someone we can trust with our most embarrassing flaws and deepest fears, along with other stuff we don't put out to the world with a bullhorn: "Hey, everybody on this bus, let's have a chat about what I like in bed!"

Sex tends to feel less like sexual overshare after the fact if it was preceded by some starter romance -- talking flirty, lite touchyfeely, making cartoon heart eyes at each other. This stuff signals a transition to a deeper relationship (or at least sincere hopes of one).

However, when we get naked without any romantic prep, our feeling weirded out -- overly exposed -- probably comes out of our evolved motivation to protect our reputation: our public image, the sort of person others perceive us to be. Back in the harsh, 7-Eleven- and Airbnb-free ancestral environment that shaped the psychology still driving us today, our social survival and, in turn, our physical survival were dependent on whether people believed we were a good person and somebody good to keep around.

Welcome to the origins of our longing for privacy -- to keep some info about ourselves out of the public eye (everyone we don't have intimate relationships with) and to manicure the info we do release. Social psychologist Mark Leary refers to this as "impression management." Others' evaluations of us affect how we're perceived and treated, so, Leary explains, we're driven to "behave in ways that will create certain impressions in others' eyes." Regrettably, it's difficult to keep up the role of steely image manager while naked and barking like a coked-up elephant seal.

Moving on to problem 2, the fog of uncertainty over what sort of relationship you and this guy now have, getting naked together is also a defining act of sorts -- or rather, a possibly redefining one. Before you two had sex, your relationship was clearly defined as a friendship. There's comfort in this sort of clarity. It's like a sign over a business. When we see "Laundromat," we know what to expect, and it isn't Thai takeout or stripper poles, watered-down $20 drinks, and loose glitter.

Right now, there's probably an uncomfortable question looming over the two of you: Does one want more of a relationship -- a romantic relationship -- than the other's up for providing? Psychologist Steven Pinker explains that people get uneasy when they've had one type of relationship with somebody -- say, a friendship -- and they aren't sure whether that person wants a different type of relationship. A changed relationship has changed terms and behaviors that go with it, and they need to know which set they're supposed adhere to.

And sure, you do say you both agreed to ditch the sex to preserve the friendship, but people say lots of things, because it's not like a dude in some control room somewhere gives us an electric shock whenever we tell a lie.

Ask yourself whether you might want more than a friendship. If so, figure out whether you want it enough (and whether it's possible enough) to risk making it too uncomfortable to remain friends -- which could happen.

If friendship is really all you want, you don't have to "reach out and say something." In general, guys don't want to talk about it; they just want life to go on. And there's your answer. Start asking this guy to do "just friends" things, like hanging out with you and other amigos. To stay on the clothed and narrow, schedule these outings at "just friends" times -- in unsexy bright daylight -- and in "just friends" locations: places you'd get arrested if you stripped down to "Yo...check out the wild birthmark that looks like Lawrence of Arabia crossing my labia on a camel!"

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.

Disturbingly, I've had two close female friends "ghost" me in five months. I've known each for 15 years. (They don't know each other, and one lives out of state.) I've tried repeatedly to contact each, asking "Did I do anything to hurt or offend you?" No response. I just want the truth so I can move on.

--Baffled

There comes a time when you wish someone would treat you with a little more kindness, like by screaming out all the reasons you deserve to be left for dead and have your face eaten off by raccoons.

Even more painful than being dumped by a friend is being dumped by a friend and having no idea why. Lingering questions we can't answer are mental weevils. Their fave food is our peace of mind, which they gnaw through at random moments. Psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik found that when we have unfinished business, the mind remains in a "state of tension" until we get closure.

Questions that are both unanswered and unanswerable eat away at us because of the way our memory is engineered. Psychologist Robert Bjork explains that we encode information into memory by first taking it in, then taking a break from it, and later going back and retrieving it. Each "retrieval" is a "learning event," burnishing the info more deeply into memory. So, each time you pull up this unanswerable question, "Why did these friends ditch me?" you move it a seat or two closer to the front row of your consciousness.

To shove it back to the crappier seats, consider the apparent function of nagging questions: pushing us to figure things out. (We can't learn from our mistakes unless we know what they were.) Though "Why did they ditch me?" will likely remain a mystery, there are constructive questions you can answer, like, "Am I generally a good friend? Are there ways I fell short?"

Also consider whether you have shared values. We like to believe this is the basis of our friendships. However, I love the finding by psychologist Mitja Back that we tend to form friendships through "mere proximity" -- like being next-door neighbors -- though we'll congratulate ourselves for "choosing" so wisely...well, until we find out who they voted for.

Another way to cut the spin cycle is imagining a plausible reason each disappeared on you (like clashing values) and accepting it as THE reason. Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus finds that recalling an event we were told about but didn't actually experience can implant it in memory, turning it into an experience we swear we had. So, the more you reflect on the plausible reason, the more it might pass for the actual one.

Finally, you could try to make peace with the mystery. When "Why did they ditch me?" swings around, have a stock answer at the ready: "Hey, self, remember I've decided to accept that I just can't know, and I'm good with that." Comforting as it would be to finally get answers, sometimes the kindest thing you can do for yourself is not only give up hope but crush it, burn it in a trash can, and then flush its ashes down the toilet.

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.

Why are men okay with living in gross conditions? The guy I started dating is a sweetheart, but his place is absolutely disgusting (including the kitchen and bathroom). He doesn't even notice it. Why do women seem to have a higher standard for cleanliness than men?

--Dismayed

Some men do wait a while to clean the bathroom -- like until they go from needing a bottle of Mr. Clean to needing a bottle of Mr. Arson.

Science suggests you're right in observing that men, generally speaking, are less disturbed by gross living conditions. Study after study finds higher "disgust sensitivity" in women, meaning women tend to be more icked out by signs of pathogens -- bacteria and microorganisms -- and indications of possible infection or disease.

Evolutionary psychologist Diana Fleischman explains that women have faced recurring issues over evolutionary history that may have led to "heightened pathogen disgust sensitivity." These include women's temporary declines in immunity during the menstrual cycle and pregnancy. "Women also must protect children and infants who are vulnerable (to) disease." Additionally, women are "uniquely able" to pass infections on to their offspring during pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding.

Let the guy know you're a woman with needs: clean sheets and towels, a clean bathroom and kitchen, and general housekeeping at his place. Suggest options (rather than telling him what to do): He could clean the place himself; however, hiring a cleaning service (especially for the first go-round) might be a good idea. Professionals have vastly higher standards for cleanliness, while he seems to be waiting for a sign to scour the place -- like the crud on the coffee table growling at him when he sets down his beer.

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.