How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science That Will Help You Find Love

by Logan Ury

decades of relationship science have revealed what matters for long-term relationship success: things like if the person is emotionally stable, kind, and loyal, and how that person makes us feel.

we’re suggestible—show us a metric and we’ll assume it’s important.

While people have always prized certain superficial traits, the apps make us think they’re even more important simply by measuring, presenting, and emphasizing them.

University of Chicago professor Chris Hsee writes about a related concept called evaluability: The easier it is to compare certain traits...

He discovered that there is, in fact, a quantifiable correlation between height, income, and finding success on the dating apps.

Using data from a popular dating website, Ariely found that a man has to earn $40,000 more each year to be as desirable as a man one inch taller. Yes: $40,000.

High earners don’t inspire single men on that dating website the way they inspire single women.

They preferred a woman whose BMI was 18.5—slightly underweight—and didn’t care about her salary or her level of education.

not that men actually value thinness in potential life partners above all else— they’re just stuck working with a limited set of comparable qualities. (Also, ughhhhh.)

I was selecting potential partners based on the superficial traits featured on the dating apps, and I’d created an image of an id...

Most of us have no idea what kind of partner will fulfill us long term.

measured based on their objective attributes.

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.

Remember what psychologist Barry Schwartz discovered about the paradox of choice: We assume that more choice will make us happier, but that’s often not the case. In fact, too many options make us less happy, in part because of choice overload. It can feel so overwhelming to compare our options that we may give up and make no decision at all.

It’s not just that too many choices make it hard to decide. Schwartz tells us that even when we’re able to overcome choice overload and make a selection, having so many options to choose from makes us less satisfied with what we choose. (This effect can be amplified when you’re a Maximizer, as discussed in Chapter 4.) We start to think: What if I’d chosen something else? Would that have been better? Would I be happier? That train of thought leads down a dark path toward regret. And the effect multiplies. 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.

Remember, the point of a dating app is to go out on an actual date, not to spend all of your evenings swiping.

When we see only a rough sketch of someone, we fill in the gaps with flattering details. We create an unrealistic fantasy of this person, which ultimately leaves us disappointed.

I call this error in judgment the Monet Effect. When we have only a rough perception of someone, our brain, hoping for a great outcome, fills in all the gaps optimistically. People seem way more desirable than they actually are. It’s only later, when they transform into real people standing in front of us, that we see the flaws.

When you evaluate external candidates, you know only the broad details about them. They tell you about their wins. Internal candidates, you know more intimately; you are familiar with their successes and their failures. The Monet Effect helps explain why, when compared to internal candidates, external CEOs are often paid more but perform worse.

You give up on the date you’re on and start fantasizing about the next person on your screen, who seems perfect because of the Monet Effect.

You’re dooming yourself to an endless cycle of unrealized connections.

The people you see on the apps are a reflection of the restrictions you set up when you joined.

Therefore, I want you to be more open-minded about whom you allow the apps to show you. Take out your phone and update your settings. Yes, on all the apps. Yes, right now. For the people you’re filtering out, whom you once thought were too young or too old, could you be more flexible? And would you really not date a great person outside your stated height range?

What you do isn’t who you are.

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

If someone is a maybe, swipe right now and see what happens. As you evaluate potential matches, look for what’s attractive about someone rather than what turns you off.

be open to the fact that someone may be far more interesting in person than a profile suggests.

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.

Show us that you have a friend who can take a photo of you.

When people text nonstop before a date, they end up creating a fantasy of each other in their minds (#themoneteffect). When they meet up, the person is inevitably unlike the fantasy, which leads to disappointment, even if they would’ve been a good match otherwise. Great text chemistry doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll vibe in person. Wouldn’t you rather figure that out sooner?

We think we know what we want when it comes to a partner, but our intuition about what will lead to long-term happiness is often wrong.

Dating apps may cause us to focus on the wrong things. We value what gets measured. Because apps can only measure superficial traits, they exacerbate our shallowness.

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.”

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. They replicated the results in an experiment on Chicago buses.

Our instinct to avoid conversations with strangers is wrong. We only think we want solitude. We underestimate how much joy social connection can bring.

Nothing screams, “Don’t talk to me!” more than a giant pair of over-the-ear headphones.

While apps are the most common way people meet one another these days, you can still strategize ways to meet people IRL (in real life).

And evaluative dating isn’t merely unpleasant; it’s also a terribly inefficient way to find a long-term partner. In this chapter, I’ll teach you how to shift your dating mindset from evaluative to experiential. 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.

That’s how behavioral scientist Kristen Berman describes what happens when we’re prompted to repeat canned responses like a robot. We launch into a story we’ve already told half a dozen times—likely on other dates—and start rattling off our résumé. In these moments, we’re just spewing out information, not connecting with the other person.

Lucky people expect good things to happen. They are open to opportunities and recognize them when they appear. When they looked through the newspaper, they weren’t just looking at the photographs with blinders on; they saw the hint on the second page.

People who saw themselves as unlucky tensed up—because they expected the worst—and their anxiety prevented them from noticing unexpected opportunities. A lucky break was staring them in the face in a big bold font, but they couldn’t see it because of their negative outlook. Their mindset became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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. Assignments ranged from keeping a diary of lucky occurrences, to “visualizing good fortune,” to verbally declaring their intentions: “I am willing to put time and effort into changing my luck.” After a month, 80 percent of the luck school’s “graduating class” felt happier, more satisfied with their lives, and most important, luckier.

And try sitting next to—rather than across from—your date. Have you ever opened up to someone on a long drive? Or noticed that it feels easier to talk to a friend while walking side by side, when you’re not making direct eye contact? That’s because it’s easier to talk when we’re not looking someone in the eyes. Psychologists Shogo Kajimura and Michio Nomura at Kyoto University in Japan explored this phenomenon in a 2016 study. When participants stared into the eyes of a face on a screen looking at them (as opposed to one looking off to the side), they struggled to complete a simple word-matching game. Kajimura and Nomura attributed that difficulty to biology: Eye contact and processing language rely on the same neural circuitry. You can use this insight to your advantage on dates. Why not suggest going for a walk? This will help the date feel less like a job interview, protect your brain from overloading, and promote connection.

But when you see effort, you appreciate value.

One great way to show your effort is to offer to plan the date, or to choose a place near the other person’s home or work.

Laughing releases oxytocin— the same bonding hormone released during breast-feeding—and makes us trust the other person more. (And if it’s oxytocin we’re after, laughing is a more socially appropriate activity on a first date than breast-feeding.) Laughter lowers levels of the stress hormone cortisol, allowing us to relax. Laughter also creates a dopamine hit, activating our brain’s pleasure centers. It reinforces our behavior and makes us want to go back for more. All good things for a first date: more bonding, less stress, and an improved chance of a second date.

Instead of trying to be interesting, make the person feel interesting.

That means learning how to be a good listener. There’s a lot more to it than just hearing what another person is saying. Most of us listen in order to formulate our own responses, which puts the focus back on us. The goal is to understand rather than merely waiting for your turn to talk.

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?” or “How did your family choose that lo...

Research from MIT professor Sherry Turkle found two negative impacts of having a phone on the table when you’re talking to someone: One, it decreases the quality of the conversation. People naturally tend to discuss more shallow topics, because there’s a fear that at any moment the phone will interrupt them. Two, it weakens the empathetic connection that forms between the two people.