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

by Logan Ury

Columbia professor Sheena Iyengar and Stanford professor Mark Lepper demonstrated this in a now-famous study. They entered a gourmet grocery store and set up a table of free gourmet jam samples. When they offered twenty-four types of jam, people were more likely to approach the table than when they offered six jams. However, customers who sampled from among the twenty-four jams were far less likely to buy any jams than those who encountered only six options. The researchers hypothesized that when you have six options, it’s possible to make a c...

In a grocery store, that might mean leaving with no jam. In the world of dating apps, that means not finding a re...

In Clueless, one of my all-time favorite movies, Tai, the new girl, asks Cher, the most popular girl in school, what she thinks about their classmate Amber. Cher says, “She’s a full-on Monet. It’s like a painting, see. From far away, it’s okay, but up close it’s a big ol’ mess.”

In the bathroom, you can’t help but open Tinder. Time for the ol’ swipe-and-wipe.

Just because you know where people have been or where they are now doesn’t mean you know where they’re going.

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?”

Behavioral scientists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder observed the same preference in their paper “Mistakenly Seeking Solitude.” When they asked a group of commuters whether they’d like to interact with a stranger on the train or sit alone without speaking to anyone, most people chose the silent option. Then they ran an experiment to see which experience commuters actually enjoyed more. They randomly assigned commuters on a public transit train in Chicago to either talk to the person sitting next to them, “remain disconnected, or to commute as normal.” They found that those who engaged with the stranger had the most positive experience on the train, and those who sat alone with their thoughts had the least positive experience.

Our instinct to avoid conversations with strangers is wrong. We only think we want solitude. We underestimate how much joy social connection can bring. Open your eyes and look around. Say hi to a stranger!

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Let this be a reminder to leave your electronics in your pocket when you’re traveling through the world. Nothing screams, “Don’t talk to me!” more than a giant pair of over-the-ear headphones.

ENVIRONMENT MATTERS Remember the story of those Google employees who cut back on their M&M’s consumption? They ate less candy once it moved from glass jars to opaque containers. That example demonstrates one of the most important lessons of behavioral science: The environment in which we make our choices matters.

From reviewing résumé qualities and asking, Is this person good enough for me? Do we have enough in common? to getting out of your own head and into the moment; to asking yourself, How do I feel with this person? To paying attention to what unfolds when you’re together. To dating with an attitude of curiosity. To allowing yourself to be surprised.

The point of the first date isn’t to decide if you want to marry someone or not. It’s to see if you’re curious about the person, if there’s something about them that makes you feel like you would enjoy spending more time together.

Why did the lucky folks spot the first sign when the unlucky participants missed both clues? It all has to do with the way these two groups of people interact with the world. Lucky people expect good things to happen. They are open to opportunities and recognize them when they appear.

“Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.”

Fortunately, we can change our mindset. Wiseman created a program called the “luck school,” where he taught unlucky and lucky volunteers to think like a lucky person. He focused on four things: listening to their intuition; expecting to be lucky; spotting chance opportunities; and rebounding more quickly when bad things happen.

Look for a fun activity you can do with your date. Dan Ariely and a team of Harvard Business School researchers ran an experiment where they sent couples on virtual dates in an online setting designed to look like an art gallery. They hoped this setting would spark conversation, and it did. Participants chatted about the artwork and discovered common interests. The art functioned as a “third object,” something both people could comment on. A third object takes the pressure off. It makes awkward silence a bit less awkward.

Third objects can include books, games, and even other people. I recommend going on dates where you can watch your companion interact with others. This is a great way to get a sense of those hard-to-measure qualities that are so important, like kindness.

Take time now to think of some fun date activities. Don’t be afraid to get a little zany. 4) Show your work.

This is why Domino’s Pizza lets you follow along as your pizza is “fired up,” “in the oven,” and “double-checked for perfection.” We all know how pizza delivery works. But when you see effort, you appreciate value.

Think back to the best date you’ve ever had. Perhaps you met up at a tequila bar, ate perfectly cooked carnitas tacos, and sipped spicy margarita after spicy margarita, whispering increasingly flirty things in each other’s ears, until it felt like you were the only people there, which, eventually, you were? Or did you go for a late-night walk, confess your fears about your fraught relationship with your brother, and then have him kiss away your tears, which transitioned to a full-on make-out, pressed up against your door?

What made your best date so great? Probably not the fact that your companion satisfied eight of your top ten criteria for a partner. You probably had fun! And yet fun is rarely something we build into our dates.

Let’s say you’re on a date in the park. You might play by looking around and coming up with backstories for the people nearby. You could use these improvisational backstories to start analyzing which couples you think will last and which will break up—and why. Or you could run around and see how many dogs you can pet in fifteen minutes.

Have fun. Be silly. Make a joke.

We form stronger connections with each other when we ask questions. Questions allow people to reveal personal details about themselves, which is essential for forming close bonds. What’s more, research from psychologist Karen Huang shows that being inquisitive tends to increase how much others like you.

When you walk into a date, instead of starting with the awkward “So, how’s your day going?” or “Where do you live?” jump right into the middle of things: “You’ll never guess what happened on my way over here!” or “I just got off the phone with my sister, and she told me about this battle she’s in with her landlord over the recycling bins.” By skipping the getting-to-know-you small talk and diving straight into the type of conversation that friends (or lovers!) might have, you take a shortcut to intimacy.

“How was it?” I asked. “Well, she talked over me the whole time, and she spent most of the date monologuing about some work drama. Oh, and she insisted on ordering for me.”

But good dates are about connecting with another person, not showing off.

It’s like this quote from Maya Angelou: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Instead of trying to be interesting, make the person feel interesting.

That means learning how to be a g...

You can become a better conversationalist by learning to give support responses rather than shift responses. Sociologist Charles Derber identified a shift response as a moment in which you shift the focus of the conversation back to yourself. A support response, on the other hand, encourages the speaker to continue the story. For example, if your date says, “I’m going to Lake Michigan with my family in a few weeks,” a shift response would be: “Oh, I went there a few summers ago.” Even though, on the surface, you’re engaging with what your date has said, you’ve drawn the attention back to yourself. A support response might sound like “Have you been there before?”

This!!

They make your date feel appreciated and amplify the connection between the two of you.

peak-end rule: When assessing an experience, people judge it based largely on how they felt at the most intense moment and at the end.

So order dessert at the end of the meal. Give the other person a meaningful compliment before you head your separate ways. Take advantage of the peak-end rule.

MeNingful compliments

The Post-Date Eight What side of me did they bring out? How did my body feel during the date? Stiff, relaxed, or something in between? Do I feel more energized or de-energized than I did before the date? Is there something about them I’m curious about? Did they make me laugh? Did I feel heard? Did I feel attractive in their presence? Did I feel captivated, bored, or something in between?

Have you ever noticed how people tend to date their neighbors? How couples form during freshman year among students who live across the hall from each other or take the same premed classes? That’s because the more we see something, the more we like it. Psychologists call this the mere exposure effect. Exposure breeds familiarity. We’re attracted to (and feel safe around) familiar things and people.

When we first meet people, we evaluate them on their mate value—their overall attractiveness and how they carry themselves. As we get to know and share experiences with them, we discover their unique value—who they are on the inside.

A friend of mine went to South Korea to teach English after graduating from college. After three weeks, he was feeling homesick. He missed his family. He’d made no friends. His students barely seemed to register his lessons.

“I really feel like our whole relationship was propelled by our how-we-met story,” he said. “If we hadn’t had this picturesque story of meeting abroad, of love at first sight, I don’t know that we ever would’ve gotten married. Our whole lives were trying to live up to that fantasy meeting.”

Don’t pursue the wrong relationship because you met the “right” way.

DITCHING THE SPARK FOR TH...

Over time, Jonathan, my client who had been going on dates that felt like job interviews, changed his approach. He ditched the coffee shop for a tiki bar near his house with great bartenders and flattering lighting. A place just noisy enough to give him an excuse to whisper in his date’s ear. And he stopped worrying about the spark.

Seeing the positives in life is a muscle, a skill you can develop. It requires practice.

Psychologist Shawn Achor’s research on gratitude journals found that simply writing down three new things you are grateful for, every night for three weeks, will start to change the way your brain perceives the world. The exercise trains you to notice things you might have otherwise missed, like how wonderful it is to catch the bus right before it leaves or how good it feels to laugh with your coworker.

5 min journal!

Unsurprisingly, his post-date texts to me were like mini–Mean Girls burn books: “Too short, didn’t laugh, boring job, might want to move back to Canada, mispronounced the word ‘concomitant.’ ”

She’s kind. I love the way she treats the restaurant staff. She’s thoughtful. She asked me about my big meeting at work. She’s family-oriented. She actually seemed interested in hearing about my grandma. She’s super-smart. GOOD KISSER!!!

Do it

As the graph shows, in some European countries, almost everyone is signed up to donate their organs. In other countries, barely anyone has registered as a donor. While we might attribute this to differences such as religious views or a more or less communitarian approach, that’s not the case. Similar countries (like Denmark and Sweden) have very different organ donation rates.

Why not set a default that you’ll go on the second date? Not only will this help you avoid the brain’s natural tendency to focus on the negative, it will also help you look for that slow-burn person instead of seeking the spark.

The second-date default will help you give more people a chance.