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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Logan Ury
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September 4 - September 13, 2023
You might think you shouldn’t have to buy a book on love. Love is something effortless, natural, organic.
Here’s the truth: While love may be a natural instinct, dating isn’t.
But until now no one has applied behavioral science to help people find love. Maybe that’s because we think love is a magical phenomenon that defies scientific analysis.
Who wants to be rational in love?
(They really work!) And allow me the chance to change your mind. You’ve done things your way for your entire life. Why not try something different? A lasting, loving relationship may very well be waiting for you on the other end.
Dating is harder now than ever before. And the next time your mom pesters you about finding someone nice to settle down with, you can tell her I said that.
That gives us incredible freedom to shape our identities—to pick Nashville over Atlanta, to choose whether to work as a meteorologist or a mathematician—but that freedom comes at the cost of certainty. Late at night, our faces lit by the blue glow of our smartphones, we wonder, Who am I? and What am I doing with my life?
The dark side of all this freedom and endless choice is the crippling fear that we’ll screw up our lifelong pursuit of happiness. If we’re in charge, then we have only ourselves to blame. We could fail, and then it would be our fault.
And we’ve been swiping for love for less than a decade. If it feels like we’re in the middle of a gigantic cultural experiment, it’s because we are.
while people crave choice, too many options can make us feel less happy and more doubtful of our decisions. They call this the paradox of choice.
People are struggling. Like that obnoxious person in front of you in the fro-yo line who can’t pick a flavor (“Can I try them all one more time?”), we’re crippled by analysis paralysis. And this is especially true when it comes to choosing a life partner.
Great relationships are built, not discovered.
Today our primary view into other people’s relationships is staged, curated, Instagram-filtered social media feeds—excited mid-hike engagement announcements, vacation pictures with a snoozing baby strapped on someone’s chest.
Feeling like everyone else’s relationship is perfect when yours is floundering (or nonexistent) exacerbates that pain.
Study after study demonstrates the power of role models. It’s much easier to believe something is possible when you’ve seen someone else do it,
In some ways, these questions are exciting. Who doesn’t want to feel free and in control of their destiny? But at a certain point, all these options and opportunities can stop making us feel free and start making us feel overwhelmed.
It can feel like our entire lives hinge on the one major decision of whom to marry. This is especially true for women, who face more time pressure to pick a spouse if they want to have children by a certain age.
We can take control of our love lives by better understanding ourselves: what motivates us, what confuses us, what gets in our way.
Have you ever looked around and wondered, Why has everyone found love except me? I like my job, I like my friends, I like myself. Why hasn’t this one piece of my life fallen into place yet?
many of them suffer from dating blind spots—patterns of behavior that hold them back from finding love, but which they can’t identify on their own.
In Maya’s mind, love is something that happens to you, like lightning striking. So why try? Romanticizers wait for love and won’t put effort in to create love.
We know from ancient poetry that humans have always experienced love. In the four-thousand-year-old Sumerian “Love Song for Shu-Sin,” considered the world’s oldest love poem, the author declares: “Lion, let me caress you / My precious caress is more savory than honey.” (And I know what you’re thinking, but no, that isn’t a Beyoncé lyric!)
When I spoke with him, he explained how our ancestors used to view love: “It was seen as a very exciting moment, akin to a kind of illness, a kind of ecstatic moment. Love stood outside of ordinary experience… almost like a religious visitation. And it might have occurred to someone only once in their life. It was not generally seen to be something that you should act upon in any practical way. You let it wash over you, you let it guide an intense summer in your youth, but you certainly didn’t marry according to it.”
In animated Disney movies, people fall in love without even knowing each other.
Even Prince Charming has morning breath. No one is perfect, including you. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Think about the last time you really let someone down. (If you’re having trouble thinking of your flaws, try giving your siblings a call for inspiration.
If you’re not perfect, why should this person be? Stop the double standard: You’re not a movie star. (And if you are, cool! Thanks for reading my book!)
Finding someone can be hard, but often the real challenge comes later. The hard part is the daily work you put in to grow and sustain a great relationship. The hard part is feeling excited to see your spouse at the end of the day, after thirty years and two kids, long after the honeymoon period is over. The hard part is remembering why you love someone during all the logistical, financial, emotional, and spiritual challenges life throws at you.
In a rom-com, the meet-cute is the hero and heroine’s first encounter, and it often happens as the two characters are just going about their day—visiting the farmers’ market, for example. And you think that it could happen to you, too. You’ll reach for that perfect-looking tomato at exactly the same moment when the handsome stranger next to you goes for it, and BAM! your eyes meet. He explains he needs the tomato to make his grandmother’s bruschetta (pronounced with the proper Italian flourish). You offer to let him keep it. He asks if he can buy you a cappuccino to thank you. You say yes.
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Just like people don’t post pictures of themselves crying or picking their nose, no one puts up photos of blowout fights with their girlfriend or nights spent wondering whether they should stay with her.
Steven told me he couldn’t remember a time when he’d just known instinctively what to do. Extensive research preceded every major—or minor—decision.
He pored over Scotch reviews for two hours before buying his dad a bottle for Father’s Day. He saw every decision as a problem to dissect, analyze, and fret over. Pro/con lists filled the Notes app on his phone.
Steven is a Maximizer. Maximizers obsess over making the best possible decision.
Imagine you’re on a two-hour flight. The plane takes off and you begin scrolling through the movie options. Do you A) select the first movie that appeals to you? Within five minutes, you’re reclining in your seat, eyes glued to Good Will Hunting. Or do you B) spend twenty-five minutes scrolling through every single new release, comedy, drama, documentary, and foreign film, as well as all the TV shows, before committing to the absolute best option?
That’s because—and it’s worth repeating—satisficing is not about settling. Satisficers may have very high standards and stop only after those standards have been met.
The difference is, once they stop, they don’t worry about what else is out there.
That’s why maximizing leads to anguish, delays in decision-making, and missed opportunities. In other words, it’s better to be a Satisficer.
Anxiety plagues Maximizers. It’s not just FOMO (fear of missing out). They also suffer from the less catchy FOMTWD (fear of making the wrong decision).
Anything less than perfection feels like failure.
Maximizers fear making a mistake. What if I get divorced and have to raise my children on my own? What if I dread coming home after work because I have nothing to say to my wife? What if I’m so bored that I have an affair?
Now, in our increasingly individualistic and secular culture, we each define our own identity.
Our life, once scripted by culture, religion, and family, is now a blank page. This grants us the freedom to express ourselves more fully. But we’re also burdened by the pressure to get it right.
When we are the authors of our own story and that story sucks, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Imagine you’re a Maximizer who’s sick of spending money on your morning coffee. You spend hours conducting research into home espresso makers. You read Amazon reviews and study product comparison websites like Wirecutter. You select Wirecutter’s number one pick: the elegant Breville Bambino Plus. As soon as it arrives, you notice it doesn’t fit as easily into your kitchen as you thought it would. You wonder if you should’ve gotten a smaller one. Just as the review warns, it doesn’t capture the brightness of your coffee bean. As your cup brews, you stew, and regret not going with a different
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Satisficers report feeling happier with their choices, even when they select an objectively worse option.
Remember, Satisficers can have very high standards. They may look around for a while until they find an option that meets their expectations. The difference is, once they find something that meets their standards, they are happy with it. They don’t wonder what else is out there.
And that’s why I want you to work toward becoming a Satisficer. The best choice of all is choosing to be happy.
admitted he’d made no steps toward buying a ring. She told him it was over. Enter moving boxes, breakup sex, new profile pictures on social media.
Maximizers, give yourself the gift of happiness. Give yourself the gift of satisficing.
Research shows that Satisficers tend to be happier, because in the end, satisfaction comes from how you feel about your decision, not the decision itself.
You’ll never be 100 percent ready for anything, including—and perhaps especially—dating.
