1309: Paul Eastwick | Science Says You're More Attractive Than You Know

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26:15It's not as cringy as my ad pivots. And many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to the course. Come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. Again, all free at 6Minutenetworking.com. Now, back to Paul Eastwick. I think about this now as an adult, and I can't help but think that these other women in the sorority, they don't care if she's happy. That is the least of their concerns. What they care about is, look at the girls in our club that reflect on us. They're all dating the right kind of guy, in our opinion. I don't care if he cheats on her or doesn't want to hang out with her and she likes the other guy from the other frat who's too short.

26:54We want it to look a certain way in the photos. That's all I care about. And so that to me was really the core of her criticism in the diary. She didn't articulate it like that. But looking back 25 years or whatever, hence, it totally makes way more sense. That's exactly how she was feeling. Tell me about the ego script. You mentioned this in the book. Is this kind of part of that whole thing? Is this kind of dovetail with that? I think so. when I talk about the Evo script, I'm referring to some of these ideas that originally grew out of evolutionary psychology in the 1990s. This was genuinely part of the science, but it's really gotten spun out in our culture and online, especially in a bunch of nefarious ways.

27:38And one of the components here does have to do with these standards that we assume that we have to meet. Mate value is part of it. We talked about that. You feel like you've got to be an eight or a nine if anybody's going to pay attention to you. And the only way to get there is to engage in radical acts of self-improvement, which can be very demoralizing for a lot of people. Some of it ends up being pretty gendered too. The early phase of evolutionary psychology really had a lot of components in there that were about how different men and women are, how different their concerns are, how different their wants and desires are.

28:21And look, there are many domains of life where men and women are quite different, of course. But what we've tended to see in the more recent science of attraction, that, again, when you step away from those broader pressures and you look at what people actually like when they're meeting each other face-to-face, we actually don't see much in the way of gender differences. That's even true with stuff that seems obviously gendered, like earning potential, ambition, like it's surely more important for a guy to be ambitious than for a woman to be ambitious. But what we actually see is that, this is surprising to some folks, but when men meet ambitious women, they tend to like them more than the less ambitious women.

29:05That is not what I've been told on Instagram comments. Exactly. On Instagram, where the women are quite ambitious. But setting that irony aside, that little boost that you get in terms of your appeal for seeming a little bit more ambitious, seeming like you've got your life together, it's there for both men and women. And I think the fact that women will say on surveys they care about earning potential and ambition more than men do doesn't reflect their real life experiences of attraction. I think that's one great example of how they're, you know, you get gender differences over here and what people think, but not over here in terms of what actually appeals to people.

29:46That's actually quite interesting. I was not expecting that. Tell me how we've internalized some of this ego script in modern society. because one, it's at odds with how humans actually evolved and at odds with science, but also it does us no favors because it's wrong. Yeah, I think one of the biggest problems is this idea that we need to make ourselves appealing to strangers. We've got this idea that, okay, to succeed at the mating game, you have to go out there and attract people from ground zero, deliver the perfect pickup line in order to reel somebody in or just be exceptionally attractive and exceptionally good looking and let them come to you, I suppose.

30:26But what this misses is that a key part of the way that we evolved as humans was in these small social groups. If we imagine living life on the savannah 150 ,000 years ago or 500 ,000 years ago, you likely lived in a group of maybe 50 people, give or take, it could be 70, but it's not that big. And there might be a few other groups nearby that are about the same size, and you probably know these folks. But now let's just do the math on how many people are roughly your age, how many people are of the gender you prefer, and how many people are not partnered already. It's a pretty small number, but at least what you have going for you is that you're going to get to know these people over time.

31:14That's the context that shaped the way we think about ourselves and the way we think about romantic partners, this deluge of strangers that we get today. Like we've been primed and told, oh, this is the evolved way, attract strangers. No, it wasn't. This is a weird modern skill that few people have. So I worry about this. That is a really good point. This is a weird modern skill that few people have. And in the past. You didn't mean to do it. I was watching a documentary. There's a show fan who runs this show in France where he goes and lives with tribes that don't speak any English or French and don't have modern technology.

31:53He will just get dropped off in the middle of the desert in Tanzania and walk for two days. And then he finds this uncontacted tribe and he'll just hang out with them and live there for a couple of weeks. It's really incredible. And one of the things that he had mentioned, which I think maybe you touched on similarly in your book, or maybe I read this elsewhere, the tribes are small, right? I mean, there's maybe 120 people living in a village that has like sticks around it to keep the livestock in basically. And when you want to get married, the way you do it is either you marry somebody inside that little circle or like you're out hunting and you run into some other hunters from the other village thing that's 10 miles or five miles or however far away.

32:33You're like, hey man, do you know any girls that are my age that are like not married and they're like yeah my sister and if you get that lion i'll introduce you and it's okay i met this guy in the middle of the savannah he killed a lion he's like 15 like us he should come here and meet dad and bring some goat milk that's the game that's the game yeah i do have a thought experiment like this in the book where i talk about it's important to meet people through networks but sometimes like it feels like your networks have dried up and there's no options and you got to hit the road. I love the studies.

33:09This is the work that the anthropologists conduct. I'm a psychologist, not an anthropologist, but I love their work. And so what they look at are these neighboring groups, exactly like what you described. And again, these groups are so small that it's not uncommon that, okay, who's in their, you know, late teenage years looking to partner up? oh whoops in this group we got five guys and one woman oh so four guys are left they hit the road and they can travel together but they keep their ear to the ground where is the balance in the other direction where are there some unpartnered women let's go seek our fortunes elsewhere i kind of love that i love this idea that yeah like we do have this ability to seek out new horizons and one cool thing about humans is that's not gendered either so if you look at the other apes it's usually one gender that moves around and it varies whether it's the males or the females that tend to move but humans like if you look at these human hunter-gatherer groups sometimes it's the men that are taken off sometimes there's an abundance of women and the girls look at each other and they say like we heard there are some pretty nice looking guys they're about a hundred miles to the west this is going to take us a few days but time to go well this this is when i moved to New York City, everyone there is a transplant, almost.

34:31Not everyone, everyone, but a lot of people. And you get to talking to somebody and be like, hey, so what made you move here? And for guys often will be like, well, I got a job here. And for a lot of the women, it was like, well, I lived in this really small town and I always wondered what it would be like to live here. And it's like, okay, so reading between the lines, you lived in a really small town and it was either marry the guy that you dated since eighth grade or go somewhere and look at what else is out there because this is your chance to do that. So now you work at Sirius XM Satellite Radio as a receptionist at the desk and you're meeting all kinds of like famous people and corporate dudes and stuff like that.

35:05And I remember one gal, she was a receptionist there and I ran into her years later in Los Angeles on the street in Hollywood. And she was like, Jordan, oh my God, small world. And we were talking and she's like, yeah, I'm here because my friend that I moved to New York with married an A-list celebrity and they're getting married. Their wedding is this weekend, and so I'm here for that. And I remember thinking, like, wow, your plan totally worked. Totally worked. This girl from a small town in New York upstate, Schenectady or whatever, right, goes and marries this super famous dude, and, like, you're dating his cousin or friend or whatever.

35:44And it was like, yeah, it was either that or a dude from church. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but she wanted to see what was out there. And apparently this guy was out there. And sometimes this perspective I'm advocating, it sounds like I'm saying like, ah, stay in Schenectady, although I think Schenectady is probably pretty big, but smaller place, ah, stay in your small town, like you'll do fine. I love the modern ability. I'm a humanist. I love the modern ability to move to where you want to go. But it's important to keep in mind that mentally, we still think about people in these concentric circles.

36:19This is the Rim Dunbar idea that it's like, there are 50 people that you can conceptualize as being very close to you. And the more people that you're quote unquote friends with, the more they're really becoming more like acquaintances, you actually aren't that close anymore. But I think it's an amazing thing that humans can move in these modern cities, but still maintain that sense that you have these close others nearby. And good for her that she was able to meet such terrific people using this kind of approach. One thing that you mentioned in the book is that mate value has nothing to do with compatibility.

36:56You touched on that on the top of the show. I think this is worth exploring because people might not want to date you, not because you're a six and they're a seven, but because of compatibility. Or they might want to date you anyway, even though you're a six and they're a seven because of compatibility. That's a huge realization because it does trash the whole, oh, okay, you've got to look smacks and hit your cheekbones with a hammer. Have you seen these guys online, by the way? Yes, absolutely. You got to hit your cheekbones with a hammer and you got to be ripped and have a six pack. And I've talked to these guys and I'm like, do you really believe that my wife would leave me if you showed up with your abs in your Bitcoin?

37:33That is like a delusionally weird cope. Of course, it usually makes up for the fact that their entire personality is abs in Bitcoin, right? And they have nothing else going for them. Because otherwise, why would you think that? I never think, hey, man, I bet that guy's wife would leave him for me because I'm rich. I never think that. It does not occur to me outside the context of using it as an example for this podcast. That is the first time I've ever heard somebody call that a cope. But of course, that's what it is. Of course, that's what it is. So I will now explain why it is indeed a cope.

38:07So let's say that your wife is an eight and you're a six. Okay. Your wife, the thing is, probably thinks that you're a 10. Otherwise, your relationship would not have gotten to this point. This is the beautiful part of the perception of compatibility, that really it's all in what people think. Because I'm a psychologist, the subjective is beautiful to me. Yeah, your wife thinks you're more desirable than other people think. That's why you work so well together. Now, add on top of that, I'm sorry, Rift guys. when you come along, maybe you are an eight on average, but she doesn't think that. She thinks you're a six because people also do this thing called derogation of alternatives, which means because she's happily partnered with you, she looks at these other guys and thinks they're worse than they actually are.

39:02So what you have to overcome to do what these guys assume, apparently, they can do. It's an enormous gulf most of the time. And again, it's these sorts of motivated perceptions, motivated biases that people have that are really responsible for often keeping relationships going. Yeah, the derogation of alternatives is interesting and it makes complete sense. I've done this myself where I had a friend who wanted to introduce me to somebody and I had a girlfriend at the time and I was like, oh man, you really think she's attractive? And he's like, are you crazy and then years later he's like I still can't believe you didn't want to meet so and so and I was like yeah what does she look like yeah and he showed me a picture and I was like oh my god she's gorgeous what was I thinking he's like yeah you had a girlfriend and I was just like oh yeah her like what I mean it's a funny thing because when we're with somebody and they make us happy we put on these blinders we don't notice the other desirable people around us yeah in some cases like yours maybe you come to regret that decision later yeah no it's fine look I'm happily married now but it's funny because Adam will always be like oh Jordan doesn't like hot women because he said this good the woman he showed me was like objective like I don't know what I was thinking I guess I was just like head over heels for whoever it was at the time that I was dating because yeah I don't know man still kicking myself up maybe we do this in all sorts of other ways too so in ongoing relationships look everybody's got negative qualities okay everybody's a little messy or they get a little overly stressed out at times we all have issues issues but our romantic partners it's not that they don't acknowledge those issues but they have ways of putting them in a box so your friend also might have been like why are you with erica like she's such a stress case all the time but to you you would honestly say back would be something along the lines of yeah but like it's kind of exciting that's why i love being with her i never know what's coming next.

40:56And you're not lying. You're honestly perceiving her in that particular way when nobody else does. Again, these sorts of biases are really important for people's ability to maintain their relationships. Otherwise, we'd get so frustrated with all the negative aspects of our partners, we wouldn't be able to keep it up for long. That's true. Do people tend to marry those of similar attractiveness? Because I'm only thinking of counterexamples that you see on TV where Lyle Lovett marries Julia Roberts and everyone's, what the heck is going on here? And it's like, yeah, you don't think about, I don't know, everyone else on planet Earth.

41:34Yeah, so it is true that people tend to marry other folks who are of similar levels of attractiveness. We also tend to marry folks who are like similar levels of SES too, right? Socioeconomic status, income, and things along those lines. That's usually because that's who you're meeting. But on the attractiveness side, usually because, yeah, when people do form relationships quickly, when they have initial impressions of each other, yeah, the attractive people are better at attracting the other folks who are going to be similarly hot. But ultimately, if your relationship is matched or mismatched, it doesn't predict that much.

42:13It doesn't predict how long your relationship is going to last. That was my next question. Yeah, because I think a lot of people go, oh, he's so much better looking than her. She's so much better looking than him. This isn't going to last. And the other assumption is, tell me if this is true. Oh, he's rich, I guess. Because look at that. Yes. Oh, yeah. This one's fascinating because there's long been this idea that there's a particular gendered tradeoff where men can trade their money for a woman's looks. And I'm fond of pointing out this little nugget that when the studies were conducted to show this in the middle part of the 20th century, they didn't even assess how hot the guy was.

42:58And they didn't even assess how much money she had. It was that they'd never read Jane Austen, where the women's money matters a lot. Okay. So when you do the studies the right way, there's no gendered tradeoff at all. Like sometimes people trade money for looks, but actually women do that like just as often as men do. There's a mean difference. Men have more money on average. Women are actually considered hotter on average. So you're going to see in the average couple that she is hotter than him and he has more money than her. But that's just like a mean difference in how men and women are. But I think that's where we get this illusion that there's a trade happening out there.

43:43It's just the mean levels in the population. Yeah. OK, that's a really interesting explanation, because, yeah, in my head, as somebody who's just chugging the same amount of pop culture as anybody else, I guess, on average, maybe a little bit less. It does really seem, oh, well, my buddy, he's OK looking, but he's loaded and his wife is a total smoke show. And then if you think about it, I'm like, well, no, I mean, he's in great shape and he's cool and he's fun and I like him. Well, wait, maybe these are the same reasons his wife likes him. Maybe, and I'm not really in a good position to judge what other people attach to their preferences.

44:17Like, do they care about physical fitness that much? Or maybe they like him because he's taller. He's really witty. And maybe she prioritizes that. In fact, my friend who I'm thinking of is all three of those things and married a really gorgeous gal. And people will write in to me as a sort of semi-wannabe whatever public figure who's on the internet. I get all manner of messages in my inbox and people will go, oh, my gosh, your wife only married you for your money. And I'm like, yeah, so what? But because my wife is quite attractive. But it has occurred to me now after reading your book that maybe she actually believes that I'm attractive, which is really good news.

44:51And no, it really is good news. And odds are that she genuinely does. And maybe she's willing to say at some point, OK, like insert movie star here. Does she have like a movie star guy that she's at least willing to admit is super attractive? Yeah, who knows? Yeah. I'll have to ask her when I want to have nightmares for the next 20 years. Right. There you go. So maybe don't. But even in that case, I think she still genuinely thinks that you're basically in the same category. And that even if this guy came along, you have so many other things going for you. This is how people tend to think about romantic partners when their relationships are going well.

45:29I want to point out, too, that this explains where relationships go badly as well, because some of that is motivated reasoning, too. You're not actually being a dick to your partner. The various ways that you were once connecting, you're not connecting anymore, and now we start seeing and amplifying all this negativity. It can go in the other direction, too, but so much of it is in our subjective perceptions. If dating were actually a marketplace, some of you would have been delisted years ago. Luckily, our sponsors still see potential. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Saley.

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48:38Like, correct me if I'm wrong here. All this stuff kind of applies mostly slash only to Western societies, because I'm thinking of, and hear me out here, I'm thinking of the example where, let's say you're in an Islamic society, and it's like, you're going to marry this 50-year-old man when you're 25 because he's my third cousin, and this is who I'm introducing you to. And if you don't like him, my other friend is a professor, and you can marry him. And it's like, all these guys are in their late 40s and I'm 22 and I have to marry one of these guys. I guess my point is the woman is not necessarily exercising her choice about who's attractive and interesting to her at all.

49:15Yeah. So this is an important point. And you do see major cultural differences in, you know, how common it is, range marriages, marriages where there's going to be a lot of parental involvement versus what we often call love marriages in contrast. Like, oh, people get to freely decide. But here's a key point. I think when we think about arranged marriages, we think about the form that you just described. But that's actually not the most common way that it happens. It's usually, you can think about it like intense parental involvement. The parents will be introducing you to various folks. But you still have a lot of control, typically, in whether you want this thing to proceed or not.

49:59you're being given a few different options for who to consider. And the key thing is this. If we just look in these cultures, so cultures where this is common, at the distinction between how happy are women when they're in a love marriage versus when they are in a quote-unquote arranged marriage, there's not much of a difference. But where you do see the difference is when you ask them, how much control did you have over the person you married? And regardless of whether it was an arranged marriage or a love marriage. If the women feel like they had control, they feel great about it. If they feel like the person was selected for them and they essentially had no control, that's when they're super bummed out.

50:42So there are indeed major cultural differences in how much parents are playing a role in this way. But I tend to think about it more not in like a systemic thing that's causing the problem it's really about the cases where people feel like they don't have a say in who they get to marry that makes sense you ever watch 90 day fiance no no i feel like you'd either love it or hate it it's one of my guilty pleasures i haven't seen it in years usually it's guys they meet some girl on an app and she's like 20 years younger and lives in kazakhstan you're like thinking that she's either not real or whatever and then of course, you're surprised that she exists.

51:24But then the family hates her because clearly she just wants a green card because she lives in a igloo. And it's just like this whole mess of things. And as I was reading your book, I was thinking like, let's lay 90 day fiance over top of this or over top of that. And that's, I guess, a different case, right? Because these are like clearly people going, oh, a different economic situation for me and my family for the rest of my life. That's pretty appealing. I think that's right. That is an important point. This is something that we humans do. I think it explains too, like we're these creatures that have all been small groups to evaluate folks that we've met for a long time, then what have the apps done to us?

51:59We're also pretty flexible and we can make mating work within a variety of different contexts. Sometimes we do things like we turn mating into a shopping exercise. In reality, that's what the apps have done to us. But we can also imbue mating with all of these important social connections to a way out of poverty. I think there can be cases where people still engage in the same kind of motivated reasoning processes. If she's thinking this is a way to a better life, she's probably motivated to think this guy is going to be pretty good, at least at first. That would just be my guess, though. I'm now like way beyond the data here.

52:40But at least that's how I like to think about it. There's always going to be a tendency to hope for the best, try to perceive things in ways that make interaction smooth and make things go well, at least at first. Whether or not I want to recommend marriages like that for folks, I genuinely wouldn't want to do that. Is it safe to say that hotness, I love that we're using that as a technical term, by the way, is it safe to say that hotness loses its pull over time? Absolutely. In fact, this one has shocked me a little bit too, as we've really dug into the research on this. So look, yes, Attractive people are more appealing at first.

53:17People agree at first about who's attractive and who's not. But what's so interesting is that, again, this is just another one of these cultural ideas that has way too much currency is that, all right, you meet somebody and, you know, you impress them and bang, you're dating. Like 20-minute coffee date, I know how I'm going to feel about you. It's not usually how it works. What the common thing is that people kind of grow on each other over time, right? The initial like lightning bolt thing, it happens. But if you take a sample of relationships and then you rewind time and you say like, okay, how did you feel at moment one?

53:53I don't know, like 20 % will tell you it was a bolt of lightning. Everybody else was like, eh, I thought you were all right at first. So here's why that ends up being important. Because if we look at that stretch of time when people are starting to think like, hmm, maybe I like her. She seems pretty funny. I like the way she tells stories. She makes me feel confident. What's also happening during that stretch of time is that I might think she's exceptionally hot. And in fact, her confidence makes her seem hotter. But the extent to which she is objectively hot, the extent to which other people think she's hot, is starting to wear off.

54:31So being an attractive person, it matters at first. But then your ability to reel somebody in over time, which is often a required part of this process, your hotness, your objective hotness is not going to help you as much as what's going on diadically between the two of you. And again, depending on whether you are objectively hot or not, maybe that's good news or maybe that's bad news. So the more you get to know people, the less looks matter. Exactly. Maybe it doesn't matter if we pick a partner with similar attractiveness. Maybe I want to shoot for the moon. I don't know. This is definitely part of it.

55:08And you can shoot for the moon. Or just not care. Yeah, right. Exactly. And it can be tough to get in the door. I mean, God, I remember, like, embarrassing stories of me in eighth grade. I, like, started to figure this out. I knew that if I could just get super hot girl in this class, her name was Alex. And I don't know. She just absolutely knocked me sideways. but like i didn't like get any time with her and so i remember like going to my eighth grade social studies teacher and being like can you put me an alex no you did this too i did this it's a brilliant strategy but my teacher was like absolutely not absolutely come on to me and she's no i'm not doing this i'm not part of your game i'm not a matchmaker get out of here but it would have worked it's so funny that that's your example because i have it in my notes which i wish I could prove to you by showing them, but I can't.

56:00I have that exact example because I was like, hey, can you put me in the same group as Lauren? And he was like, why? And I was like, she's lives near me and is really smart. And he was like, yeah, right. And he did, man. He did. I wasn't creepy though. I wasn't creepy. I think that helps, right? Not that I'm saying you're creepy. Did you ask a female teacher to do it? Yes, I did. That's why she was like, this is weird. That was my mistake. No, my male teacher was like, yeah, this is actually a really good play. I'm sure that somewhere he was like, okay, kid gets it. He's thinking ahead. I feel like if I'd asked a female teacher, she would be like, no, this is creepy.

56:41You're trying to artificially create a situation that shouldn't exist. Whereas the guy probably just understood instinctively that, yeah, if this kid's going to have a chance in hell, then it's going to be this one. And so he threw me a bone. I don't advocate for teachers being matchmakers. But the funny thing is, I think that, yeah, your teacher, not mine, was acting with some wisdom there. And in seeing that people spending time together, like anything can happen. It could have been the case. You'll have to tell me. But in this group, it might have been the case that Lauren liked you less as she got to know you.

57:18That's actually just as likely. That checks out. You got to keep trying. This is what we got to do. We got to get out there. We got to keep trying. We got to keep getting into Lauren's group. Take a shot. Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. Then you try again. You try not to take it personally, looks maxers. Like this is the thing. It's really hard to predict whether somebody is going to like you more or less as they get to know you. You got to get in there and keep doing it. What about people who think that they're going to date from their friend pool? Is that more successful, less successful? Because it seems like the science we're talking about now, it should work better, right?

57:55It's actually still quite common. I know we think like online dating has totally taken over. Online dating is the most common. But even still, there's still a whole lot of friends, introducing friends, kinds of relationships that happen out there. Even some of the online dating relationships that form, it's like you meet this person online and then you're friends for a while before you actually get together. So anyway, there's a lot of ways it can happen. But when I advocate for people dating in friend groups, there are a couple important wrinkles there. One is that at least for heterosexuals, it's important that those be like mixed gender groups.

58:38And it's not just because like it's a popularity thing. is because what's often going to happen is that the women in that group, it's not that you're going to date them. It's that they're going to advocate for you. They're going to get to know you, and then they're going to advocate for you to, like, their friends or, like, their friends of friends. Like, sometimes the connections can be a little distant, but that's why you, like, start with the mixed friend group, and then things go out from there. I don't know when was the last time you watched the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. It's been a minute, yeah.

59:08Yeah, but that's exactly what's happening in that movie. There's this core group of mixed gender friends that are not exactly dating each other, but they are like branching. And as they branch, it's like people get pulled together. I think it's really a perfect demonstration of this idea. Yeah, wow. I've never actually done the friends first dating thing. That was never it for me. I was always like, go out with somebody and try to hook up or sleep with them depending on how old I was. And then after that, I start dating. It usually did not start dating and then hook up. It was like I would just hook up a bunch of times and then it never start dating and then it would just end.

59:44I almost did it backwards, which I wanted to ask about because I basically had like sexual relationships at an appropriate age, let's say starting in college. And then it was like either that turned into something or it didn't turn into anything. I think a lot of times what people are doing, yeah, there's a tendency to look at hookup culture and be like, oh, this is terrible. But I think a lot of times, again, when it's perfectly consensual, this is people working it out, trying to work out how they feel about each other. Oftentimes, people don't know how they feel. They hook up. And then if it's good, then they're like, let's do that again.

1:00:18And if it's not good, they think like maybe one more time or maybe not. I think a lot of it was kind of like Jordan doesn't have the guts to do what he kind of wants to do. So let's drink too much. She'll drink too much at the same time. Then we hook up and then it's like, hey, was that OK? Yeah, let's do it again. OK, awesome. Now I don't have to be drunk next time because we ripped off that Band-Aid. Kind of like that. That's really interesting. Yeah. So the reduction in inhibitions is the thing that gets over the initial concerns. I mean, I do think this is why especially young folks are more likely to do that.

1:00:54But sometimes when we think about friends first, it's tempting to think, oh, you're like best friends for a long time. And then all of a sudden something happened. But look, that happens. But think about it more like you're just in each other's orbit. But maybe you've only spent time one on one for a grand total of 45 minutes. But you'd still call the person a friend. It might be somebody you would text 30 years ago. Somebody you'd call. I think that's also a useful way for thinking about how this happens. And sometimes it's a simple matter of getting to know somebody in multiple different contexts.

1:01:30Have you ever had that experience of like, if I see this person on like my dorm floor, I say, hey. But if I see them like at the grocery store, I like stop and talk to them because it's kind of interesting and exciting to see this person in a different context. So many times that's where it's coming from. It's like I've now seen you in four different contexts and we've talked in different ways in these four places. I'm starting to feel like I'm getting to know you. And that can be like how the ball gets rolling. You know, it's funny you should mention this. This is one of the first concepts that I came up with with my friends when I want to say either middle school or like freshman year of high school.

1:02:08We're trying to figure out girls. And my friend was like, OK, so I like Meg. and I saw Meg before at a football game and like she looked at me and I said hi and I got introduced by Mark and then I saw her today downtown Birmingham and I saw her and she saw me and then I like didn't really say anything to her. You invite her and Danielle over and then invite me and Jordan over and we'll like hang out at the house and this will be like the third time. So for some reason, seeing people in different places multiple times in different contexts is like a good thing for attraction. We didn't really understand what we were doing but we figured that out.

1:02:43Like, I firmly believe that the average Gen X theory of dating forged in the late 90s is better than almost everything that exists online today. And I don't think it's just a bias coming from my own age. And look, I hope that people hear that story and younger folks today and that they're like, yeah, that's what we do. You have this awful stereotype of the way the young folks date today and we're all on our phones. And it's not actually what we're doing. We're actually doing exactly what you described. I don't know for sure, but I really hope that the average 21 year old today hears what you just described and says, yes, that is what I'm doing and what we're trying to do out here.

1:03:28It's like light matchmaking that we do for our friends and acquaintances. It's a wonderful thing. Let's kill some sacred cows. We already crushed one, which is that women date rich men or men who make more. But also it's true that rich women date men or women who make more date men who make less, but they're just harder to find. So that's why we often see women dating men who make more. It's just like a probability thing. What about the idea that women usually date older men? Of course, I've seen plenty of examples of this not being true, but I don't know. I feel like for my friends, it's mostly true.

1:04:00Is that real or sample bias? Okay, it is absolutely true that on average, if you look at couples, the man is older than the woman. I actually think this is one of the enduring mysteries that we only half understand. Because we look at that average age difference, and it's in every country in the world where we've measured it. It varies. It can be like two years over here and seven years over here. But you always see that average difference. Now, there have been some studies, initial impression studies, where you look at, okay, but what are people attracted to? Who are we drawn to? And again, I come from like a speed dating tradition, but we've also got like blind dates where we've looked at this.

1:04:43and you can look to see, okay, so are people more popular? Do they seem more dateable when they're younger? And indeed, when men are evaluating women, yeah, they like the women more to the extent that they're younger. It's actually not a huge effect, which is, I think, probably good on average. Yeah, let's leave that one there, yeah. Yeah, all right. It's a small effect, but yes, the men like the women more to the extent that they're younger. Leave it there, Epstein. Yeah, exactly. Ay-yi-yi. But, again, this has surprised me, but we've now seen it over and over again. The women also like the men to the extent that they're a little younger.

1:05:23Now, that's age, again, abstracted from everything else. So we're not looking at things like, oh, I'm sure that if they earn more, they're going to like those guys a little bit more. But there is something about the appeal of youth, maybe in men specifically, where this gets a little flipped around. Women actually don't realize they might like the younger guys once they're on the actual dates with them. Maybe they're a little more charming. Maybe they're a little hotter, whatever it is. So it kind of leaves us with this unusual mystery, which is that women are liking the younger guys. Again, just a little bit more than the older guys.

1:06:02Why do we see this average difference? I've got ideas. I've got speculations. One of them is simply that if you look at the pool of dateable folks, like who's in the dating market? Younger people. Yeah. Well, so it's younger people, but we start out in this funny place where like there are teenage girls who are dating and boys who are not. But they're like in the same class together. And that is what starts to create this average age difference, that from an early age when girls start dating, they look older because they look around and they see what are essentially boys who have not gone through puberty yet.

1:06:47And so that essentially we just kind of get used to dating folks of a particular age range in that way, and it kind of carries forward. This is kind of speculative, but it is an intriguing mystery why it is that women like younger guys a little bit more on dates, but they end up partnering up with men who are a little older. Look, I can't make you more attractive in the next 60 seconds, but I can introduce you to products and services that'll make you a little bit less of a disaster. We'll be right back. You don't need a passport to taste the world's most luxurious beef. Just head to Benihana.

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1:08:34JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Now for the rest of my conversation with Paul Eastwick. Like, I mean, I look at guys my age and I don't mean this sounds rude, but whatever. I'll look at guys my age and I'm like, what happened? Did you just not work out at all for the last 15 years or what? And then I'll talk to some of my friends and I'm like, hey, how often do you like sleep with your wife? And it's not that often sometimes. And there's a really big difference between the relationship and physical health of guys who hit the gym three times a week and maybe they take testosterone or their testosterone appears to be normal and the guys were like not doing any of that.

1:09:12And it's quite interesting. And you mentioned that testosterone affects your relationships. It's expensive for the body to make testosterone in terms of energy. Tell me more about this. I don't think anybody's ever talked about this on the show. And it does jibe with my observations that like my friends who are healthy and like virile or whatever you want to call it, they seem to be doing better relationship wise. I think we often think about testosterone as an individual difference, as something that differs between people. And of course it does. It's something that changes quite a bit with age.

1:09:48Average gender differences too. But what testosterone does to our relationships is a little funny because testosterone varies a lot within a person depending on what exactly they're going through in their life at the moment. And one of the biggest contributors is, are you single or not? Because when people are single, they know it and their body seems to know it and they produce more testosterone. And that testosterone is part of what we get a little bit of that edge, a little bit of that energy. You want to go out and socialize and spend time with people. when people get into a relationship and especially if that relationship is a happy one their testosterone tends to decline because they don't need that late night energy in the same way anymore so i think that's useful in that sense testosterone it's not a thing that's like gonna exactly make you more desirable it's something that's responding to your social context now this is all independent of like people like taking supplements and things like that.

1:10:56So wait a minute. So then if you're single and your testosterone is higher, does it follow that if you're committed, your testosterone drops? Yeah, that's exactly what you see. If you're committed, it is going to be lower on average. It's especially true if you're in a committed relationship and you are happy in that relationship and you feel committed to it. But those folks tend to have lower testosterone. I was actually part of a lab where we would assess each other's testosterone and you go around the room and everybody was looking at their values and chuckling about it. But it really followed a few very simple things.

1:11:25The older folks in the room, I was one of the older folks at the time, we had lower testosterone. The partnered folks had lower testosterone and the women had lower testosterone. But you could see all three things happening simultaneously. So actually, my friends who look like they're young and virile and in shape, they might be miserable in their relationship because their testosterone is high. Right. It's possible that that's an indicator of, I mean, if I were using it to measure how happy you are in your relationship, it would be one of the worst measures I could devise. Okay. And I'd rather just ask somebody.

1:11:58But yes, testosterone tends to follow all three of those things. And it was funny to look around. There'd be like a young girl who was single who would have more testosterone than an older partnered guy. Right. It'd be very common to see that. What's our number for science? No, scam. So what if we start taking exogenous testosterone? Does that make us more likely to stray or is that just not a thing that connects? This is a great question. I don't know the answer to this. Now, I don't think the studies have been done that are that compelling. What I would absolutely buy is that it's going to increase your sex drive and your sexual desire.

1:12:36And for your relationship, that might be a good thing. You hear these stories these days about women microdosing testosterone to improve their sex drive. But whether or not it'd make you more likely to stray, my prediction is no, that it would not. It would make you want to have sex with your partner more, but it wouldn't make you more likely to stray. But I'm pretty sure nobody's really done the studies. Because another funny thing happens, like when it comes to like sex and sexual fantasy and stuff, is that the partner is always playing a role in there. And there are studies that do this. They actually get people into the lab, partnered people, and they say, who would you want to be with if you weren't with your partner?

1:13:14And you can picture somebody. And then they say, like, please now have an elaborate sexual fantasy about this person. And what they show is that if you do that, yeah, you will experience more sexual desire for the person you just had a sexual fantasy about, but you'll also have more sexual desire for your partner at the same time. And I think that there's something intuitive about that as well, that, okay, I'm taking this supplement or I've had this experience. I've just seen something hot, but it like rebounds onto the partner in a good way, I think. It's like I had this experience where like I got hit on and then I'm more interested in sex with my partners.

1:13:54It's kind of a great thing in that sense. That for sure jibes with my personal experience. Sometimes I remember this doesn't happen that much anymore. But like back in the day, my wife would try to make me a little bit jealous probably before we were married, where she'd be like, I went to a coffee shop and this guy like asked me, you know, for my number or whatever. And she just started needling me and testing me a little. It's good natured. It's not malicious. And I'm like, oh, OK. And like now I'll be like, tell me, was he good looking? Like, I don't play into it like, what? That's what you do.

1:14:20You're correct. You're objectively correct to do that. To be like, oh, no, tell me how hot he was. Tell me about his guns. Yeah. No. Because she's getting worked up for you now. Tattoos? That's kind of, what were the tattoos? Did you touch them? Yeah. And she's like, shut up, you know? And I was just like, because it didn't work. Her plan didn't work. But then it became my plan. That's right. I love this. This is brilliant stuff. These are the real dating tips right here. The real science bag dating tips. This is actually what I used to teach. I remember because guys would say like, what happens when a girl says my ex-boyfriend was a Navy SEAL?

1:14:51And it's what you do instead of going, oh, well, I go to the gym like six days a week and I ran an ultra marathon. Instead of that, go, oh, wow, he sounds perfect for you. Do you have his number? Maybe I'll call him. And then they're like, no, you were supposed to get upset and compare yourself in a negative way and then chase me more. It's like, no, no, no. Maybe I'll introduce him to my sister. Maybe he needs a workout partner. In fact, I want to meet the guy. He sounds awesome. Exactly. There's a lot of wisdom in that. And look, I think what's going to happen in a lot of cases is, okay, like he was hot, but there were all of these things that weren't great.

1:15:22And again, she's in the relationship with you. Odds are she's motivated to perceive you to be better than this guy in a variety of ways. okay, like he was hot, but there were all of these things that weren't great. And again, she's in the relationship with you. Odds are she's motivated to perceive you to be better than this guy in a variety of ways. So you can lean into that without getting needlessly jealous about the components that you don't have. And to try to have fun with it because so much of what makes relationships work is the ability to like laugh at ourselves, laugh at our partner, have these kinds of like in jokes and stories that you can riff off of.

1:16:02In many ways, this is like the lifeblood of what a relationship is. It's like the history you have together. And anything that creates tension, it is so much better to be able to laugh at it and to be able to like enjoy it and work it into your story and exactly the way you describe. Before I let you go here, I would love to kill a few more sacred. I got a few more things here. Is it a myth that casual sex is what men want, but not women. It is true that men are more interested in general in casual sex than women. Yeah, you see that one on average. I want to add the caveat that is really true when it comes to strangers.

1:16:39It is true, but far less true when it comes to people you actually know, for many of the reasons we've discussed, that when you get to know people over time, that decreases the threat level, makes women feel a little more comfortable. So again, if you're a guy and you are out for casual sex. If that's your thing, the whole stranger approach thing, really, that is the worst case scenario that really heightens the gender difference. I see. So try to bang your friends. You said it, not me. Okay. So on the other side of that coin, what about the idea that women want commitment more than men? Is that true?

1:17:18Absolutely not. In fact, if anything, that gender difference is like a tiny bit the other direction. Romantic relationships matter a little more to men than to women, probably because men don't have great social networks outside of their relationships. So they're like always we're walking around a little desperate because we like forget as we get older how to be friends with other men. So if anything, like men need them a touch more than women. I think this is worth keeping in mind. There's this trope online, especially once again, in this sort of red pill subreddits and wherever else, that's something like, and they always seem to pick a different number.

1:17:53It's like one in five or one in three children is sired by a father, not paired by the mother. That sounds high to me. What does science say? I'm glad you asked this one. This one is shocking. The answer is 1%. 1%. Yeah. And they do this with these fascinating genetic studies. They go back well before birth control with these studies, and they look to see, basically, does your Y chromosome match the person who shares your last name with the assumption that the last name is passed through fathers? And in 1 % of the cases, it doesn't match. It's a very clever way to capture paternity over centuries that these folks have devised.

1:18:39So, yeah, 1%, way less than birds, way less than other purportedly monogamous mammals. Cheating happens, but it's not as common as we think. That must have been an interesting study because especially in the United States, you'd have to control for like slavery stuff. Yeah, I do think it was conducted elsewhere in the world, but that's a very good point. Because that could get kind of like icky and uncomfortable and like then you got to control for stuff where you're like, how do I even do this? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's complicated. You mentioned in the book, this is just a one-off thing.

1:19:11Tinder dates are more likely to be psychopaths. Did I get that correct? What is that all about? Yeah, it's true. And I think that's probably just because there are some folks out there who, yeah, higher in psychopathy, higher in Machiavellianism, right? That's like you're being very manipulative. Yeah, the dark triad stuff, yeah. Exactly. So these folks are overrepresented on Tinder and presumably other online platforms. They only sample Tinder. I'm sure it's not a Tinder-specific thing. Yeah. People are like, oh, thank God I'm unhinged. No, no. I wouldn't be too happy about that. Plenty of fish to the rescue.

1:19:50But yes, they are more likely to be out there on the apps. Or in other words, app users tend to be a little bit higher in these qualities than non-app users. And that's not just a function of, oh, like, the partnered people are off of the apps. So it's just something to be watching out for. Do you know why that is? My guess is that if you are higher on these qualities, you've found a way to use the apps in a way that works for you. I mean, and maybe these are folks, if you're a little bit higher in the dark tribe, actually, all these approaches I'm recommending, you know, hang out with people face to face, meet each other in groups, that people are then on to you.

1:20:29Yeah, they sniff you out pretty quick and you got to move towns unless you're on Tinder and you can just jump into a random new bubble every weekend. Yeah. So, again, I'm guessing, but that would be where I'd land is that it's something along those lines. Interesting. What do you think about the five love languages? For people who don't know, this is like, I don't know, you pick a part of this diagram and it's like, do you like gifts? Is it acts of service that people prefer or is it a physical touch or whatever? And it's this relationship scientist and his claim to fame is he can predict if people are going to get divorced years in advance or something based on a two hour session.

1:21:04I'm curious what real scientists think of this stuff. Yeah, it's all like nice. I don't know. You should do nice things for your partner and you should tell them that you love them. These are wise things to do. But the idea that like you have a language and you need your partner to speak that language or else you can't ever meet or understand each other. This is just totally untrue. There's nothing in the love language matching part that predicts anything. Like, so you should do nice stuff for your partner. That's great. And if learning about the love languages makes you realize, oh, I guess I could be doing more chores for you.

1:21:40Or I could be telling you more how much I appreciate you. Like, that's great. But the idea that we're explaining compatibility this way, no, no, no. That's not how it works. Good. I like that. Last but not least, okay, a lot of people are going, great. Great. So online dating arbitrarily limits our options. We filter for a sweet dog walker making six figures who's tall and likes Metallica. That's great. But then I end up with somebody who has one or two of those traits that I'm perfectly happy. Okay, but where do I begin? How do I make online dating more workable for me, you know, man or woman?

1:22:12Yeah. Again, if you're going to continue to use the apps, and I understand why people would, My suggestion generally is use the filters less. And then when you do meet people face-to-face, give them more of a chance. So setting up like a 20-minute date here and a 20-minute date here, sandwiched in between some more dates, you're spinning your wheels and kind of wasting your time. I would rather people give everybody that they're willing to consider three dates, preferably in three different contexts. So you get to see how they react in different ways. You can try to build something together. I think we tend to think, oh, I'm in evaluation mode.

1:22:48I'm trying to figure out what I think about you. And of course, there's some of that. But let's think about it like a building process. Are we building something between the two of us, a set of stories, a set of in-jokes and other things like that? If we think about it a little bit more that way, I think the whole process will become more enjoyable and more fun. Paul Eastwick, thank you very much. Really interesting conversation. And I needed that because, as you can tell, I'm congested and under the weather and he needed something that I could really get fired up about. And this is absolutely it.

1:23:18I don't know. You don't need people telling you this, but you're really good at this because other people I can tell they're like going through their question and it's like not building. But anyway, that was really fun. Thank you for coming on the show. You're about to hear a preview with Jamie Mustard, who signed a billion year contract at age five while he still believed in Santa Claus and spent his childhood inside Scientology's Sea Org, where kids were warehoused like livestock and denied even basic education. The story of the lost children of Scientology has never been told. And I really do believe if people knew what happened to us in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, what happened to us kids in that environment, they would stop it.

1:23:58There's a line for the suffering of children. By the age of five or six years old, I just basically started to go completely numb. These thousands of kids, they have autoimmune disease. They're all doing construction. Most of them, some of the more successful ones get lucky because they become contractors. But if people knew it would happen to us, which is the story that I wrote, that people would stop. It would be the end. On the day of my birth, I was handed over to a religious paramilitary organization, high control authoritarian group in a slum tenement, where I spent the first two and a half years of my life with little to no human touch.

1:24:35and that would be the beginning of pretty much a 20-year gauntlet where I wouldn't go to school and I would literally be animalized. We weren't looked at as anything of value until we could work or contribute labor. I never went to school. At the age of 20, I could barely write characters and I didn't know how to use a comma or construct a sentence or a paragraph. The reason I never spoke out is what I write about that happened to me, it's humiliating. I don't want anyone to know any of the things that we've talked about today. I mean, I think Scientology is the most sophisticated mind control system probably in the history of the human species.

1:25:11I'm starting for the first time in my life to be shame free. To hear what happened during the largest FBI raid in U.S. history, which makes you wonder how this all stayed hidden in plain sight, and when he finally escaped nearly illiterate at age 19, check out episode 1270 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. All right, great convo. So here's the takeaway. You are not a number. dating is not a marketplace and the idea that you're losing because somebody else has a higher score is mostly garbage. What actually matters is compatibility, context, and proximity, not some imaginary ranking system cooked up by guys who treat relationships like fantasy football.

1:25:48The real problem is not that you are not high value. It is that you are playing a game that does not exist. So get offline more, stop filtering people to death, meet humans like a fellow human, and maybe, just maybe, stop taking advice from anybody who uses the phrase sexual marketplace value unironically. All things Paul Eastwick will be in the show notes on the website. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support the show, all on our website as well at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Don't forget about 6-Minute Networking as well over at 6minutenetworking.com.

1:26:23I am at jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. in. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogerty, Tata Sidlowskis, Ian Baird, Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. In fact, the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who is interested in dating science, the science behind attraction and mating, or they're caught up in all that weird icky red pill stuff, definitely share this episode with him.

1:26:55In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time.