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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Logan Ury
Read between
May 12 - May 22, 2023
Great relationships are built, not discovered. A lasting relationship doesn’t just happen. It is the culmination of a series of decisions, including when to get out there, whom to date, how to end it with the wrong person, when to settle down with the right one, and everything in between.
that freedom comes at the cost of certainty.
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.
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.
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, whether that’s running a four-minute mile or eating seventy-three hot dogs in under ten minutes (#life-goals).
Romanticizers believe that love is something that happens to you, and that the reason they’re single is they just haven’t met the right person yet.
people have either a soul mate mindset, the belief that relationship satisfaction comes from finding the right person; or a work-it-out mindset, the belief that relationship success derives from putting in effort.
“In all my relationships, I end up thinking, Wait a minute. Why is this so hard?” she said. “Love is supposed to be effortless, right? This can’t possibly be ‘the one.’”
those with the work-it-out mindset believe that relationships take effort, that love is an action you take, not something that happens to you.
No relationship is easy all the time. Even the healthiest, most rewarding marriages require effort.
Love takes work—from finding it to keeping it alive.
The magic lies in the fact that two strangers come together and create a life. It’s not important where or how they met.
The Happily-Ever-After Fallacy is the mistaken idea that the hard work of love is finding someone. In reality, that’s only the beginning. Staying in love takes work, too.
Maximizers are a special type of perfectionist. They’re compelled to explore every possible option before they feel like they can choose. Yet this compulsion becomes daunting, and ultimately unfeasible, when they face a vast number of possibilities.
satisficing is not about settling.
Satisficers report feeling happier with their choices, even when they select an objectively worse option.
“Maximizers make good decisions and end up feeling bad about them. Satisficers make good decisions and end up feeling good.”
The best choice of all is choosing to be happy.
Eventually, you just have to get out there and start dating, imperfect as you are. Everyone else is imperfect, too—even the person you’ll end up with.
we’re less committed to choices we think we can reverse, and commitment is crucial for happiness.
You retroactively ascribe more positive traits to things you chose and more negative traits to things you didn’t.
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.
Remember that no one is perfect, and if you leave, the next person you meet won’t be perfect, either.
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.
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.
“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.”
He found that over the course of seven years, “lust” (sexual desire) for a partner declined twice as fast as “liking” (friendship characterized by loyalty and kindness).
“There is no correlation between how satisfied or how happy you are with a relationship and how similar your personalities are.”
Find someone who complements you, not your personality twin.
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.
A good relationship has space for different people with different hobbies.
having multiple people you can turn to for emotional needs—rather than just one or two—leads to an increase in your overall well-being.
Remember, just because they don’t share all your interests doesn’t make them a bad partner!
that emotional stability and kindness are two of the most important and yet underrated characteristics.
Emotionally stable partners are measured in their responses. They take time to thoughtfully respond rather than impulsively react.
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.
The goal isn’t to find someone with whom you don’t fight. It’s to choose a partner with whom you fight well, and who doesn’t make you worry that the fight will end the relationship.
evaluability: The easier it is to compare certain traits, the more important those traits seem.
Most of us have no idea what kind of partner will fulfill us long term.
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
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. Their memory isn’t an average of their minute-by-minute experiences.
I’ve come to see our obsession with the spark as one of the most pervasive and dangerous ideas in dating.
People often confuse anxiety for chemistry
Stop believing that if a dependable person doesn’t give you butterflies, it must not be love. It’s still love, just not the anxious kind.
Don’t pursue the wrong relationship because you met the “right” way.
“The spark is neither necessary nor sufficient for long-term relationship happiness.”
Ditch the spark and go for the slow burn—someone who may not be particularly charming upon your first meeting but would make a great long-term partner. Slow burns take time to warm up, but they’re worth the wait.
