I'm a girl in my 20s. I recently started dating a guy I'm falling in love with. He invited me to a party to meet his friends, and I'm nervous. He's "objectively" more attractive than I am (6-foot-2, brawny, and incredibly handsome) and very successful. I'm attractive, but I see the looks women give him, and I can't help but feel his friends will question why he's interested in me. I'm thinking of backing out of the party, but maybe I should back out of dating him entirely, given the pressure.

--Freaking

The other guests are going to a party; as you see it, you're on trial, and they're the jury. The invite: "Drinks, tunes, and executing the borderline attractive girl at dawn."

Tell somebody you might end it with this guy because you're afraid his friends will be all "Eew, why's he with her?" and they're sure to scold you that you shouldn't care what other people think of you. They mean well, but this is ridiculous advice -- akin to telling you not to get hungry. We evolved to be people who care what other people think. That's built into our psychology, same as the urge that drives us to nab a burrito, which keeps us from passing out, dying, and being eaten by raccoons.

Successfully handling other people's appraisals of you starts with throwing out everything most of us believe about self-esteem. I explain in "Unf*ckology" that this "I like me!" state we've been told to strive for "makes little functional sense. Psychology researchers and therapists far and wide failed to ask the 'why?' question that evolutionary psychology demands: Why would it be evolutionarily advantageous for you to like yourself -- for you to sit around saying, 'I'm fabulous! Kiss the royal hand!'?"

What would've helped our ancestors survive and mate is other people liking them: respecting them, wanting to get it on with them, and sneaking them seconds on the bison frittatas. Accordingly, psychologist Mark Leary explains that we developed an internal monitoring system that tracks "the degree to which other people accept versus reject" us. Our resulting feelgood or feelbad (erroneously called "self-esteem") is actually part of a three-part process: 1. Our perception of what other people think of us, which leads to 2. Feelings in us (from happy to fearful), which motivate us to 3. Maintain our social position or try to repair it.

So, "self-esteem" is really "what other people think of us"-esteem -- a measurement of our social standing -- triggering emotions that drive us to preserve or fix it. In light of that, advice to "raise" your self-esteem makes no sense, because how you feel about yourself isn't the problem, and changing that fixes nothing. (It's like trying to feel better about your overheating car instead of putting water in the radiator.)

While being popular has many benefits, panicking at potentially being rejected made more sense when our survival in a harsh ancestral environment depended on our maintaining our social cred with a small, consistent band of people. We now live in vast cities teeming with strangers. If somebody in our social circle decides we've got adult cooties, we can pretty easily slide into a whole new social circle simply by hanging out at different bars.

So, your terror about meeting his friends -- "LIFE OR DEATH, GIRLIE!" -- is driven by psychology that's seriously outdated: mismatched with our modern environment. Recognizing this can help you put your yearning to be liked into a more modern perspective: Great when it happens but merely a major bummer, not a death sentence, if it doesn't.

Lowering the stakes like this should be helpful because pressure to excel could cause you to overfocus on your performance. This can lead to clutching anxiety that impairs your ability to perform ("choking under pressure"). Amazingly, research by Harvard Business School's Alison Wood Brooks suggests a way to prevent choking is "reappraising" the pounding heart of anxiety as the pounding heart of excitement. Say to yourself repeatedly, "I'm so excited to go to this party and meet his friends!"

It should also help to approach the evening with a relaxed set of goals: 1. Having fun. 2. Getting to know his friends. Because you're with him, they'll probably assume you're special -- which is surely why he's with you. (A handsome, high-status guy doesn't get involved with a woman he finds physically and otherwise meh.) At the party, instead of trying really hard to be liked -- a surefire way to be instantly unlikeable -- ask people about themselves, and listen with genuine interest. They'll warm to you, probably without knowing why. Sure, some hearts might remain hardened, but it's the rare person who'll cut themselves off, mid-"me, me, me!" to pelt you with canapes and chase you out of the party with a broom.

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 been with my boyfriend for a year, and I love him, but I also love my independence. I need alone time, meaning space from him and everybody. He wants to spend every minute together and seems to need constant closeness to feel okay. Is this a bad sign -- on his part or mine? Should I want to spend every second with him?

--Confused

The sort of relationship where the partners are never apart tends to be a good thing for only one of them: the tapeworm.

Chances are your boyfriend's preference for a more, uh, conjoined style of romantic partnership is shaped by his "attachment style." "Attachment" is British psychiatrist John Bowlby's term for a person's habitual way of relating in close relationships: for example, securely (feeling they can generally count on others to be there for them) or insecurely (suspecting others will bolt on them at any moment).

Our expectations for how we'll be treated by romantic partners appear to be driven by how we, as infants and tots, were treated by our closest caregivers. For example, if infant us shrieked out of fear or hunger or because of a soggy diaper, did our primary caregiver (usually Mommy, but maybe Daddy) reliably come running to soothe us and fix the problem? If so, we'd be likely to develop the psychological orientation that psychologist Mary Ainsworth, building on Bowlby's work, called a "secure base from which to explore."

If, however, our shrieks were ignored or only sometimes met with comforting, we'd likely end up "insecurely attached," and this would become a template for how we act in our adult relationships. (Hello, fear of abandonment and boyfriend whose romantic role model seems to be "court-ordered electronic ankle monitor"!)

Decide what independence means to you in practical terms, like how much alone time you need and anything else that's important for you, and tell him. Research suggests a person can change their attachment style -- become more secure -- but it takes a good bit of work on their part and their partner's (through frequent reassuring attention and cuddly touch to challenge their expectation of abandonment). Are you and he willing to invest the effort? If not, you probably have to swap him out for a partner who's more emotionally together: "I need you because I love you" (not "because I feel like a gaping human void without you").

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.

This guy texts and FaceTimes me daily, and he finally asked me out. I was expecting a date, but it was a group dinner in his friend's backyard, and he didn't make a move all evening. I was sure he was into me, and we're both fully vaccinated. What's his deal?

--Confused

Sexually, if your date is a total animal, you'd prefer it not be the sort that gets bungeed to the hood of a hunter's station wagon.

The underlying problem here is "information asymmetry," which Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz explains as "Different people know different things." (Asymmetry is simply a lack of symmetry, sameness: disproportion between parts of something, including unequally available information.) Information asymmetry is an element of "signaling theory," an area of economics that looks at the ways people behave -- flowing from the decisions they make -- because of the information they have (or lack).

In this situation, you know you want the guy to end the evening all mwah-mwah-makeout, but his mind might be filled with a bunch of bouncing question marks about whether you're into him. It's also possible he realized he's just not that into you, he wants to take things slowly, or he's generally timid about making moves on women (or especially so in hopes of avoiding #himtoo).

What ends the asymmetric information stalemate? Information! Send signals revealing the information you have that he does not: "I'M INTO YOU AND WANT YOU TO MAKE A MOVE!" Flirting is the ideal way to communicate this, as it gives each of you an ego cushion -- the ability to pretend it doesn't mean what it seems to mean -- that putting it out there in plain words does not. Powerful forms of flirting include: looking into his eyes while you talk, touching him, playing with your hair, and playing with your clothes or his. Err on the side of flirting heavily -- way more than seems reasonable -- because men can be a bit hint-blind.

His getting this information is likely to push him into action -- or tell you he's gotta bow out. But maybe consider being a little bit patient. It was one date! My guess? Life mirrored art: those rom coms where the "nice guy" wants to kiss the girl at the door, but -- whoa! There go his testicles, leaping out of his pants and going off to hide in the bushes, and he gives her a handshake goodnight.

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 am a 31-year-old woman, and I can't figure out why I'm having such a hard time finding a man. I am attractive (in good shape and considered pretty); have a master's degree; am successful in a competitive business; and I love to read and talk about news, history, and ideas. I have wonderful friends; I've worked hard to resolve my issues; and I do my best to be a kind person. I just want my match: someone who's smart, highly educated, equally successful or more so, attractive (tall -- at least 6-foot-1 -- and masculine), passionate, well-read, and a good person. What's wrong with me that, even with online dating, I rarely find men even in the ballpark of what I want?

--Miserable

Grocery shopping's easy when your list has generic items -- "beer," "chips," and "cheese" -- and not "cheese from free-range Albanian yaks raised by monks, whispering positive affirmations to them as they graze": "You are loved, loving, and lovable, and you manifest perfect health by making smart choices."

You're looking for "that special someone," not "that random anydude." You've developed yourself (advanced degree, cool job, and smartgirl interests), which sharply narrows the pool of equally achieving men you have to choose from. Being a woman likely adds another layer of difficulty, through "hypergamy." This is the strong evolved female motivation to "marry up" -- or at least date partners of a higher socioeconomic status (the guy in the corner office over the corner barber).

Women, in general, are the vastly choosier sex in the mating market -- in online dating and beyond. This aligns with evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers' 1972 theory of "parental investment." Trivers predicted that the members of a species -- typically the lady ones -- who have the greatest possible costs from having sex (pregnancy and offspring to provide for) would be the most selective in choosing partners.

Countless scientific findings -- across species -- support Trivers' theory, including recent research delving into the ratio of heterosexual male versus female "super-likes" on Tinder. (A super-like -- by swiping up on a profile -- unlike a simple swipe-right "like," triggers an automatic notification to the up-swiped person.) Belgian economics doctoral candidate Brecht Neyt, with his adviser, Stijn Baert, found that women on Tinder super-liked only 4.5% of the men's profiles, while men super-liked 61.9% of the women's. This is effectively digital beer goggles -- worn by a big chunk of the straight male population.

And recall hypergamy, women's preference for partners of higher status: a sign a man's likely to have continuing access to resources to provide for any children. Neyt found women liked profiles of men with a master's degree 91% more often (over those with a bachelor's), while men liked women with a master's only 8% more often.

Unfortunately, there's been a higher-ed "gender gap" for decades, with fewer men applying to and graduating from college. In 2003, for example, four-year colleges in the U.S. graduated 1.35 women for every dude who found his way out. As of 2013, women outpaced men in college enrollment 1.4 to 1, and the gap has continued to widen -- translating to an increasingly shrinking supply of those highly desired men with master's degrees (or Ph.D.s).

This is a problem because evolved female emotions are your mate-choice watchdog, motivating you to go for high-status men and making you feel bad about dating a man who's a kind but ambitionless slacker, or even one who's just moderately achieving. (Male evolved psychology, on the other hand, works to ensure that men don't shove aside hot, fertile 20-year-olds to go hit on that very attractive grandma with a lovely personality.)

In other words, you can't just tell yourself you shouldn't care about the job or education level a man has: make yourself be as hot for a successful plumber as you are for a successful lawyer. However, you could give your "list" of man minimums a hard look: see whether there are any you could live with cutting, thus increasing your pool of possibilities. For example, because height -- tallness -- is one of the strongest female preferences for male appearance, there's probably an undertapped stock of sexy, successful, really good men who are on the shorter side: uh, "condensed, dark, and handsome."

If you can't scale back your standards, you should make peace with the likely outcome: You'll probably continue to have a tough time finding the sort of man you want. Like other women looking for love who are high climbers on the career ladder, you might eventually come to the conclusion that you have two choices: a nice, loving, hardworking guy a few rungs below you or one of those body pillows that you draw a face on and name Ted.

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 dating an awesome woman I see a future with. However, there's a hurdle: She doesn't want to have sex until we're committed, but I don't feel right about committing without knowing we have sexual chemistry. A previous relationship ended because the sex was subpar, and I don't want to go through that again.

--Conflicted

Sexual chemistry is pretty important. You don't want to get all emotionally attached and then find that sexually, you go together like peanut butter and a repeating saw.

Men and women are alike in countless ways. (Both have two legs; men don't randomly have six like an insect.) However, we differ psychologically per the physical differences we do have; namely, how sex can leave a woman "with child" and a man "with a teaspoon less sperm."

These differences drive men's and women's conflicting "sexual strategies," explains evolutionary psychologist David Buss. For men, a casual sex-centric "short-term sexual strategy" -- hit and run...sex and shun -- has the most "reproductive benefits," increasing men's chances of passing on their genes. Women benefit most from a commitment-centric "long-term sexual strategy" and look for signs a man is emotionally attached, making him more likely to stick around and provide for any, um, sex biscuits they might create.

Where there are deep-seated desires, there's often deception. Buss calls this "strategic interference," describing sneaky tactics used to get the opposite sex to go against their evolutionary best interest. Men, for example, feign commitment to get sex, while women feign sexual interest to get commitment -- either long-term or enough to enjoy an evening of free fine dining. However, we have a defense against this: "negative" emotions -- like a woman's fear of getting humptied and dumptied and a man's fear that all a woman really wants to "ride like a pony" is his American Express black card.

As for what you should do, Buss' research might be helpful. Buss finds that men will shift to a "long-term sexual strategy" when that's what it takes to land a woman of especially high "mate value." If she doesn't seem worth the risk of waiting for, it's probably breakup o'clock. No, sex isn't everything in a relationship. However, if you like to have sex twice a day and your partner's up for twice every never, it's a little hard to meet in the middle -- though the less libidinous partner might come up with some, uh, helpful ideas, such as: "Do we really have to have sex when I'm conscious?"

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 dating a new guy. When we're alone, he's sweet and a complete gentleman. However, whenever we're around his guy friends, he comments about how attractive he finds other women, rants about sports, and farts in front of me. I've hinted that this makes me unhappy, but nothing changes.

--Upset

Love can be transformative -- turning men into emotional marshmallows -- which can lead a 20-something lovestruck dudebro to want to make it known to his posse: "I will not be waking up on Tuesday all Harry Styles in a dress on the cover of Vogue."

Your boyfriend's loutish behavior -- talking about other girls and farting in front of you -- sounds like a "costly signal," a form of advertising used by both animals and humans. A costly signal is a trait or behavior that's so wasteful, extravagant, and threatening to one's evolutionary interests (mating and survival) that it's likely to be a truthful indicator of an organism's financial, social, or physical mojo.

The peacock's tail is an example. As evolutionary psychologist Steve Stewart-Williams points out in "The Ape that Understood the Universe," it's like "a giant billboard": a huge electric blue and green yoohoo! to peacock-eating predators. This big bunch of buttfeathers also seriously slows the peacock's escape. However, the larger and more lush a Mr. Peacock's tail, the more the peahens (the lady peacocks) go for him. (The fact that he avoids becoming lunch while lugging around this massive feathery impediment suggests he must be a particularly buff and genetically superior example of peacockhood.)

Chances are your boyfriend is rude-vertising to the guys: Sure, he has love in his life, but he hasn't gone all bought, sold, and girlfriend-controlled. The costly signal in this? He's so secure in his sexual magnetism (like, the hot chicks are lined up and begging) that he can afford to act like a turd to his girlfriend.

Um, no. Or at least, that's what you need to put out there. In words, not hints. Tell him it's humiliating when he comments on other women when you're right there, plus the farting thing is a sexual turnoff. In short, he's transforming you into an unhappy girlfriend who won't want to have sex. Assuming he cares about you, you should see an abrupt end to the show he's been putting on for his dudebros: "No, I Haven't Become A Love Muppet Colonized By The Enemy."

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 my boyfriend's recent high school alumni gathering, it came to light that he had bullied a student (holding his head in the toilet, etc.). We've been together for almost two years and have discussed marriage. However, I'm truly unsettled that he was capable of committing such awful acts. It makes me feel that I no longer truly know who he is. He claims he's an entirely different person and could never do such a thing today. How much weight should I give this?

--Disturbed

Comforting sayings like "The meek will inherit the earth" (as in, "Someday, you'll be Elon Musk!") are of little comfort while the meek are being given swirlies in the girls' bathroom.

You're wondering whom you're with: the good man you were considering marrying or the aging version of a teenage tyrant who made the little guy his personal kickball. Figuring that out starts with diving into the psychology of a bully. Unfortunately, our current understanding of bullying is based on flawed and incomplete research, which is likely why many bullying interventions fail and sometimes even make things worse for the bullied.

Psychologist Dan Olweus' widely used (but problematically incomplete) definition of bullying is: "aggressive ... intentional 'harm-doing'" in an interpersonal situation where there's "an imbalance of power," meaning a stronger person goes after a weaker one.

This definition leaves a vitally important question unasked: what benefit might bullying have for the bully? It seems kind of basic to ask that; unfortunately, most social science research neglects any consideration of our evolved psychology and thus merely describes psychological and behavioral effects.

Evolutionary psychology researchers, on the other hand, look to figure out a behavior's function, current and ancestral: Why do people behave this way now? (What's the benefit?) And why might this behavior have evolved? (How would it have helped ancestral humans survive, mate, and pass on their genes?)

Accordingly, evolutionary developmental psychologist Anthony Volk refined Olweus' definition to reflect that bullying isn't simply "harm-doing" to the weak. It's goal-directed harm-doing: harm-doing in pursuit of social and material benefits.

Research finds bullies are rewarded for their verbal and physical beatdowns with increased "access to physical, social, and sexual resources": more perks, greater popularity and social cred, and more chicks (for guys who bully). Bullying is a way to create powerful social alliances (like high school cliques), and there can be an "offense is the best defense" motivation in coming off as a scary bruiser: a keep-away sign to other bullies seeking targets.

Bullying is linked with personality traits reflecting a willingness to exploit others for personal gain. However, personality researcher Brent Roberts, in studying individual differences in personality change, observes that personality traits can be considered "outcomes, not predictors (as they are typically viewed)." Roberts observes that, with age -- predominantly from 20 to 40 -- people show "increased self-confidence, warmth, self-control, and emotional stability": changes that can be driven by an investment in "the social roles tied to one's career, family, and community in young adulthood."

Like Elon Musk, bullied into a hospital bed as a kid (after a gang of boys threw him down a flight of stairs), I was bullied -- during the longest stretch of time in the universe: seventh grade. A gaggle of bigger, mostly older girls regularly taunted and physically attacked me. It was humiliating and horrible.

Years later, one of my tormentors saw my column and emailed me and apologized. I was surprised by how much it meant to me. It felt like justice, finally delivered -- 25 years after the fact. I told her I respected her for coming forward and that I forgave her. And I did -- not just for her sake, but so I could finally put it behind me. The teen years are not our most Socratic time, and the fact that it was important to her to take responsibility and apologize gave me some measure of my dignity back.

To figure out who your boyfriend is now, look to his character: Is he kind, generous, and considerate? Or does he have a tendency to exploit people that you've maybe tried to ignore? Even a confirmed high school bully probably isn't holding down co-workers' heads in the toilet, but if he's rotten to "the little people," you should see that as a big "B is for 'Still a bully!'"-emblazoned red flag.

You might discuss this further with him: what he did and why he thinks he engaged in this behavior. Does he express remorse -- reflecting a disconnect between who he was then and who he is now? Or does he respond with anger and resentment? You might also suggest he consider apologizing. It takes a special person to do that: one who cares enough about trying to make things right that he'll lay his ego on the line and admit to doing something terribly wrong to another person.

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.