How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science of Finding Love

by Logan Ury

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.

Hesitaters, it’s time to set a deadline for when you’re going to start dating. I suggest three weeks from now. That’s enough time to do what you need to do first—the pre-dating work I’ve listed below—but not so long that you lose momentum.

In general, I recommend that clients go on at least one date a week. You should proactively save time in your schedule for dates. One of my clients has a goal of going on a date every Wednesday after work. It’s consistent, breaks up the week, and gives her something to look forward to. Plus, if the date goes well, she can meet up with them again that weekend.

In other words, we want reversible decisions, but irrevocable ones make us happier in the long term. Keeping your ex around as a potential love interest turns your breakup into a changeable decision. Allow yourself to move on by making it an unchangeable one.

So, did you slide into your ex’s DMs last night? If you’re still carrying a torch for them and secretly wondering if you’ll get back together, try these Seven Simple Steps to Block ’Em Like It’s Hot: Take a deep breath. Grab your phone. Delete their number. Block them. Block them on everything. Social media, email, your bed, etc. If their mom or sister follows you, block them, too. (It might seem harsh, but you’re protecting your future self against mom postings of your ex with a new boo under the mistletoe.) Actually delete their number this time. I know you have it saved elsewhere. I’ll wait. Burn your phone. (Just kidding, but you honestly might want to limit your screen time during this initial separation phase.) Oh, and don’t forget the payment app Venmo. Seeing your ex send Venmo money to some new fling for—Oh, God, is that an eggplant emoji?!?! THEY NEVER SENT ME AN EGGPLANT EMOJI!—is doing nothing for your emotional wellness.

If you relate to Vivian’s story, and believe that you’re anxiously attached, that’s your homework, too. Now, I’m not suggesting that everyone you find boring is secretly secure. They might actually be boring. But it’s time to stop pursuing the chase. That was the challenge I gave Vivian: Try to date secure partners. The ones who text when they say they will. Who let you know what’s on their mind. Who don’t play games and avoid or even de-escalate drama.

Many of us don’t date for long-term viability. I certainly didn’t when chasing Brian. I call this pursuing the Prom Date. What’s an ideal prom date? Someone who looks great in pictures, gives you a night full of fun, and makes you look cool in front of your friends. Many of us finished high school more than a decade ago, and yet we’re still using the same rubric to evaluate potential partners. Do you really want to marry the Prom Date? To worry if your partner is going to help you take care of your aging parents? Or show up to your kid’s parent-teacher conference? Or nurse you back to health after contracting a case of Montezuma’s revenge?

But when you’re looking for a long-term partner, you want someone who will be there for you during the highs and the lows. Someone you can rely on. Someone to make decisions with. The Life Partner.

I’m lucky to count the brilliant couples therapist Esther Perel as a mentor. She once explained to me the difference between a love story and a life story. There are many people with whom you can share a tryst but far fewer with whom you can build a life. When you’re thinking about who to marry, she says, don’t ask yourself: What would a love story with this person look like? Instead, ask: Can I make a life with this person? That’s the fundamental distinction.

Finally, remember what we just learned about adaptation. Even if you marry the most attractive person, eventually, you’ll get used to how they look. That initial pleasure will fade. A big part of our sex drive is associated with novelty. So no matter how hot your partner is, it’s likely that your sexual interest in them will decrease over time, simply because they are no longer new to you. To paraphrase some Internet wisdom: “For every hot person, there is someone out there tired of having sex with them.” Infatuation fades! Lust fades! All that matters is that you feel attracted to the person, not that you scored the hottest possible person.

But that assumption is wrong. Research tells us that similar personalities are not a predictor of long-term relationship success. In my interview with Northwestern professor and marriage expert Eli Finkel, he said, “There is no correlation between how satisfied or how happy you are with a relationship and how similar your personalities are.” In other words, we make our potential pool of partners smaller by mistakenly eliminating people who are not similar enough to us. The question is: Would you really want to date yourself? I know I wouldn’t!

“The pairs that are too similar fight,” I said. “They get stuck on the same things. The most successful duos complement each other. They don’t have identical traits. When they miss a flight, one partner finds another route and soothes the other’s panic. That’s what makes them win. You want the same thing with your life partner.”

Here’s the key: It’s fine to have different interests, so long as the time you spend pursuing your favorite activities doesn’t preclude you from investing in the relationship. If you love wine and your partner couldn’t care less about it, that’s okay; you don’t need to marry a sommelier. What matters is that when you drink wine, or go on a trip to Napa to try a new prized cabernet sauvignon, your partner doesn’t try to make you feel guilty or say something like “Why do you always have to drink?” A good relationship has space for different people with different hobbies.

Key tip for your dating search Don’t worry about finding someone with the same hobbies. It’s fine to enjoy different activities as long as you give each other the space and freedom to explore those hobbies on your own.

Key tip for your dating search You can get a sense of how kind someone is by paying attention to how they treat people from whom they don’t need anything. Are they nice to the waiter? Do they give up their seat on the subway? Are they patient with new team members who are learning the ropes at work? Do they treat their friends and parents with compassion?

My sister found a wonderful man who will hold her purse whenever she needs him to. In other words, she married someone who shows up for her, who takes care of her when she’s down. Look for loyalty. Look for someone who’s there for you whether you’ve won an industry award or are stuck in the cancer ward.

Yet dating apps have turned living, breathing, three-dimensional people into two-dimensional, searchable goods. They’ve given us the false belief that we can break people down into their parts and compare them to find the best one. Apps primarily give us a list of résumé traits and nothing more. Only by spending time with someone can you appreciate that person for the “experiential good” they are.

The more options you have to choose from, the more chances you have to feel regret about your selection. This can even lead to feelings of depression.

One of my clients doesn’t go out with more than three people at a time. She finds that’s her perfect number, at which she can give each person a chance to let the relationship grow but also can compare how she’s feeling with each one. If you go overboard and chat with too many people at once, or constantly fill in your calendar with first dates, you are likely to end up like the person who sampled from the table with twenty-four jams. You’ll try more jams but won’t know which one to buy. The result? A lonely walk home, a bellyache from all that sugar, and dry toast.

Don’t create any guessing games about what you look like or if you’re single. Pictures that feature filters or possible significant others received 90 percent fewer likes than those without. That means no sunglasses and no pics in which you’re posing with someone people may think you’re dating. Potentially worse? A group photo with no clear indication of which person you are. I call these Where’s Waldo? shots. Select at most one group pic and clearly mark which face is yours. Women see around a 70 percent boost in their chances of getting a like simply by including photos where they’re standing alone, looking away, or smiling with teeth.

Similarly, men see a boost in their chances of getting a like by standing alone, smiling without teeth, and looking straight toward the camera. Candids seriously outperform posed photos. While about 80 percent of posted pics are posed, candid shots are 15 percent more likely to receive a like. Selfies perform poorly, especially bathroom selfies, which decrease your chance of getting a like by 90 percent. (Pro tip: When meeting new love prospects, try not to associate yourself with the toilet.) Show us that you have a friend who can take a photo of you.

Black-and-white photos kill. Despite making up only 3 percent of posted photos, they see a 106 percent boost in likes. Consider...

EXERCISE: Select Better Photos Collect ten to twenty photos of yourself (ideally a combination of photos of your face, your full body, and you doing an activity you love, like cooking or hiking) and send them to several friends. Ask which pictures they’d include, which they’d delete, and which they’d use as the first photo. Or run your own experiment on the apps: Swap out different photos to see which ones lead to the most matches.

Include quirky things that make you stand out. If you say, “I like music,” that doesn’t really tell me anything about you. Cool, who doesn’t? Same with writing that you like travel, food, and laughter. That’s like saying you like Tom Hanks. Yeah, dude, he’s an American hero. Don’t tell me you like to cook; describe to me your signature dish and what makes your Vietnamese soup pho-nomenal. The more specific you are, the more opportunities you give potential matches to connect by commenting on that quirk.

A good transition from texting to a date might sound like this: “I’m really enjoying this conversation. Want to continue it over a walk on Sunday afternoon?”

“I really enjoy our text banter and would love to see if we get along this well in person. What do you think about a quick drink this week?”

Or the next time they start to tell you something interesting: “Wait, wait, wait. I need to hear this in person! When are you free this week to meet up and tell me the rest of this story?”

We can learn to swipe smarter by expanding our settings to see more people, being less judgmental when we swipe, dating fewer people at a time, and transitioning to the date faster.

Alicia and I sat down and pulled up a popular event website. (We used SF.Funcheap.com, but you can just Google “upcoming events near me.”) As we scrolled through upcoming events, we plotted them on the Event Decision Matrix.

Alicia started using her matrix right away. Within a month, she went from going on a few dates a year to meeting six potential partners in one night. The event where she met them? The Ta-Nehisi Coates book club.

Create your own: If you’re a busy person who wants to meet people IRL but struggles to decide which events to attend, start plotting your activities on the Event Decision Matrix. If an event falls in that upper-right corner, go to it! As you attend more and more of these, you’ll learn how to quickly recognize events that hit the sweet spot: fun for you and likely to result in quality interactions. EXERCISE: Create Your Own Event Decision Matrix Description 3

How to Find Interesting Events Keep an eye on Facebook events in your area. Follow the Facebook pages of organizations you’re interested in, or sign up for their mailing lists. Look through Meetup.com for upcoming gatherings that correspond with your interests. Many of these are free. You know those friends who always seem to be attending cool events? Ask them to invite you next time, or find out where they discover activities. Look up talks at local universities. Google words like “art opening” or “film festival” along with the name of your city. Churches and synagogues have websites, too! Add the events you find to your matrix, and focus on that upper-right quadrant, especially if you have a busy schedule.

Ideally, go alone. You’ll look more approachable, because it’s easier to go up to someone who’s alone than to wedge yourself into a group conversation. You may feel that familiar itch to reach for your phone. But seriously—keep it in your pants.

If you feel like you really can’t go alone, select the right kind of wingperson: someone who’s independent, caring, positive, and invested in your success. Invite someone who makes you feel comfortable and who knows you’re trying to meet new people. Don’t go with anyone who’d feel upset if you spent time talking to someone else.

And your mother really said it best: “You only get one chance to make a first impression.” Wear something that makes you feel confident. Don’t forget to flirt. Make eye contact with the people around you, smile, and then take your gaze elsewhere. Start small and commit to meeting at least one new person per event. Introduce yourself. Say something to the people nearby about what’s happening around you. You could comment on a painting, the band, their earrings or shoes, anything! The point is to practice meeting new people, even if you’re not attracted to them. That way, when you meet someone you like, you’ll f...

Or you can keep it casual and say something like “Hey, I’d love to keep talking about [insert thing you were discussing]; what’s the best way to connect?” Then the person can give you whatever contact info they’re comfortable sharing, be that their phone number, Instagram handle, or email address. People will usually have a hunch why you’re asking to follow up, and if they have a significant other, they’ll find a way to mention that. (If they’re taken or not interested, they may decline to give you their info at all.)

Get set up by friends and family. According to research from Stanford, the third most common way for people to meet each other, behind meeting online and at bars/restaurants, is through friends. Many of my clients would love to be set up, but they’ve told me this rarely happens to them. To find out why, I asked a group of both single and partnered people why they don’t set up their friends more. They had a range of answers. Some said it just doesn’t cross their mind; or they assume if their friends wanted help, they’d ask for it. Others said they respected their friends’ privacy and didn’t want to interfere.

Ask people to set you up. I know it seems simple, but many people fail to ask their friends for help. Reach out to friends and say, “I am ready to find someone. Will you introduce me to some single people you know?”

Tell them what you’re looking for, and think of the Life Partner, not the Prom Date. For example, “I’m into people who are intellectual, artsy, and care about social justice” or “I’m looking for someone who’s kind, thoughtful, and loves food. They’re in good shape but aren’t overly obsessed with working out.” They may think of someone right away or stay on the lookout when they meet new people.

Give your friends feedback. If the date goes well, send them a thank-you text. Or better yet, flowers! If it wasn’t a good match, thank them for the introduction and let them know what worked and what didn’t. (Choose your words carefully in case this is a close friend of theirs.) This feedback gets them closer to understanding what you want; motivates them, since feedback is encouraging; and provides a chance for them to let you know if you’re being too picky. They might hear your reasons and encourage you to give the person another chance. Listen to them.

Once you’ve thought of a match, contact the person you think is pickier or the person you know better. “Hey! I think I might have a friend who would be a good romantic match for you. Here’s a picture of him. He’s really thoughtful, brilliant, and fun-loving. Would you be open to me setting you two up?” A couple things to watch out for: You don’t want to give too much information and overwhelm the person; nor should you provide too little information and risk triggering the Monet Effect. Just give enough so that your friend is intrigued.

If the presumed-to-be-pickier person says yes, ask the other person if they’re interested, using a similar text. If the second person says no, let the first person know, gently. You can say something like: “Turns out he’s not looking to date right now. I think he just met someone.” Be compassionate. It’s a tough world out there.

If both people say yes, connect them via group text or email. Keep it short. I try to say something fun or quirky. Sometimes I even suggest a date idea. Here are real messages I’ve sent: “Adam > Molly. Get back to me when you’ve come up with ten new ways to go down a slide.” “Craig, Tara. Tara, Craig. Hope you two can meet up soon. May I suggest a walk through Golden Gate Park where you try to pet at le...

Host parties! My friend Georgina, who’s responsible for several long-term relationships and dozens more friend groups, hosts a monthly brunch called the Big Gay Brunch. She reduces the pressure of trying to be a perfect matchmaker by making it a friendly event. People come hoping to meet new people, whether it’s romantic or platonic. She doesn’t have to figure out who will like whom; she just puts her wonderful friends in the same place at the same time and lets them take it from there.

Take a look at your friend group and see if there’s someone who’s single and with whom you share a lot of “friendistry”—a word I just made up that means “friend chemistry.” Is there someone whom you love spending time with, whom you trust, whom you might feel an inkling of attraction to? Come on, tell me. Who just popped in your mind?

If you go down this path, respect this person’s boundaries. I’m not encouraging you to get drunk with your friend and make a move. How about grabbing beers and saying something coy, like “Have you ever considered if we could be more than friends?” or “Crazy thought: I wonder what we’d be like as a married couple.” If they’re interested, they’ll follow you down this conversational path and tell you what you need to know. Or they may not see you that way. Regardless, it’s worth bringing up. If they’re not interested, what’s the worst that could happen? Make a joke and move on.

Introduce yourself to people when you’re out and about. Improve your chances by taking off your headphones and interacting with the world around you. If you’re at an event and you don’t know what to say, get in a line and start commenting on it! People in lines love to discuss lines.

There’s an old Henry Ford quote that goes, “Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.” Here’s my version: Whether you believe the date will go well or poorly, you are right. You’re self-sabotaging if your pre-date mantra sounds something like: “Obviously, this isn’t going to work. It hasn’t worked the last hundred dates.” You have negative-mindset blinders on! You’re adopting the mindset of an “unlucky” who misses life’s clues—in this case, the signs of a potential match.

I want you to put yourself through your own version of luck school, shifting your mindset to expect great dates. To help you do this, design a pre-date ritual. This is something you’ll do before every date to get you in the right headspace.

Here are some pre-date rituals from my clients: “I always plan ahead. I turn off my work notifications. I try to block off at least thirty minutes before starting my date. I usually call one of my closest friends, someone who makes me feel confident and loved.” “I like to listen to comedy before a date. My favorite podcast is called Good One. On every episode, comedians share one of their all-time favorite jokes and then analyze it with the host. It makes me laugh and puts me in a good mood.” “I do jumping jacks to get my heart pumping. It releases endorphins and puts me in a good mood.” “I feel so unsexy when I leave work. Baths before a date work wonders. I use a bubble bath with a great smell. I’ve found scent is a powerful aphrodisiac. Then I apply lotion to my body. It helps me turn my work brain off and turn myself on!”