Last night I gave a sold-out Pints and Profs talk on the science of dating. I even received emails from people who got stopped at the door, which tells you something about the current state of romance where apparently adults will leave their homes on a Sunday night to hear a psychologist explain why finding someone worthy to bed or love has become a magnificent shitshow. Cheers to those escaping adulting for a few hours to consume beer and gather at the intersection of nerdiness and sexiness.
There was ferocious curiosity in the room. Our first Q&A break had to be forcibly terminated or it would have turned into Jorge Luis Borges’s infinite library, except every book would have been titled Why Is This Person I’m Dating So Fucking Complicated? The final Q&A lasted more than an hour, until I finally said no más because I had developed an urgent post-lecture need for a Korean corn dog.
The audience kept my brain humming as these were not softball questions. People wanted to know:
When you’re dating someone with an avoidant attachment style, can the relationship move toward greater security? If so, how?
What do you do when someone’s religious upbringing has left them uncomfortable with sex, inexperienced, or reluctant to explore it, while your own sexual needs are going unmet?
What are ambitious, career-oriented women supposed to do about the hypergamy problem, when some men appear uncomfortable dating women who match or exceed them in intelligence, income, status, or achievement? Check out this Reddit thread.
How should we think about a partner having an extremely close friendship with someone of the sex they’re attracted to?
What is the evidence on whether polyamorous relationships work, and what is your advice?
This is the part of my job I love. Take psychological science out of the sterile university conferences, add a pub, add people with romantic histories, disappointments, desires, insecurities, kinks, divorces, dating apps, attachment wounds, and just enough alcohol to loosen their social inhibitions that keeps the interesting questions trapped behind timid temperaments. Suddenly nobody wants another list of five communication tips for success. They want to know how human beings work when sex, status, rejection, jealousy, love, ambition, fear, and desire co-exist on one phonecall.
A decent amount of what we discussed would make your HR department visibly perspire so I’m putting some details from the night behind a paywall.