Why You Keep Dating the Wrong People (7 Science-Backed Fixes)

Here are 7 strategies, things to keep in mind that will make your dating life better. And once again, these are all scientifically validated. And if you are a, a serial member of the wrong dating club— I've got the wrong person again and again and again and again— especially if you're falling in one of the patterns that we talked about here, these 7 strategies are really going to help a lot. Okay, dating strategy number 1: do the work. And stop relying on somebody else's judgment. I mean, mate choice copying is all about making somebody else do the work, but just in general, one of the worst dating strategies is caring what other people think about the person that you're dating. You know, if you're on a dating app, for example, you're looking at a dating profile and you're thinking, if I went out with this person, what would people think of me? That's pure social comparison. And that's a sort of laziness, but it's also a way to destroy joy in your life. Social comparison, after all, is, as they say, the thief of joy. That's attributed to lots and lots of people as a quote, even Theodore Roosevelt. But you know, it's true. When you consider a match, ask yourself, do I actually like this person? Not what would my friends think about her, or what will people think of me when I'm with her or him? Do the work and stop comparing. That's the first big lesson about what people do when they're actually dating in the right way with a high likely— higher likelihood of having a good relationship. Number 2, if you are falling in love too quickly, you are emo-philiq, the way to solve that is by being aware of it. Like anything else, you know, the reason that I do my work in the Science of Happiness is because people get happier when they understand the science and change their habits on purpose, which you can do. And then of course, best of all, when you teach it to other people. If you are, have a tendency toward hemophilia, you need to know that so you can say, oh, I'm doing that thing again. I'm becoming unbelievably infatuated again. It's not a romantic thing. It creates tons of pain. It will cycle you through relationships that go too quickly. They become too intimate, too fast, where you wind up being heartbroken again and again and again, and maybe even a string of failed marriages, which is really hard for family life. It's really hard for getting on with your life. There's nothing beautiful about that. As a matter of fact, nothing fun about that at all. You're at high risk under these circumstances, and that means adopting some boundaries, actually putting some protocols in place on how quickly you're going to do this, how quickly you're going to do that. You actually have to pace yourself in a particular way, in the same way, by the way, if you knew that you, you have a tendency to drink too much at parties, that you're going to set up some rules for yourself. I'm not going to drink at this party, or I'm going to have 3 glasses of water before I actually have a beer. People have all sorts of rules that can keep them in check. You're in charge, not something having to do with your neurochemistry, but you have to know who you are and make some decisions. That's number 2. Number 3, expand your time horizon for your relationships. Now, this is an important one. When you think of romance, what's the timeline over which you imagine it? Is it a week at the beach in Ibiza? Is it a semester in college? Is it the rest of your life? Well, it turns out that the shorter it is, the greater risk that you are of choosing a bad partner. This is not a moral point that I'm making. This is a very well scientifically valid— validated one. In 2018, psychologists were writing in the Journal of Sex Research Well, that's on the nose, isn't it? And they compared adults' mating timeframes with personalities of their mates. And the shorter the timeframe was for what they were looking for, the more likely they were to attract somebody with psychopathic or sadistic personality traits. You will magnetize yourself to that. Now, I'm going to tell you in a minute where to go to get those longer-term time horizons as opposed to the short-term time horizons. But the whole point is, think to yourself, about the time horizon that you envision. And here's the mistake that a lot of people make who are getting the wrong person over and over again. They have a long-term time horizon in their head, right? But they're putting themselves in a situation that looks like a short-term time horizon. Look, if you're meeting somebody in a bar in Ibiza and you're leaving in a week to go back to your home country, you might be thinking to yourself, I'm gonna meet the love of my life, and then we're gonna correspond with each other, and then we're gonna visit each other over the next couple of years and and then, you know, he's gonna come to the United States and marry me and, uh-uh, not likely gonna happen. That's not how it works. He's in a short-term mating situation for a reason. So no matter what the time horizon is in your head, you have to actually make sure it's the same time horizon in your behavior and what you're saying. See what I mean? Number 4, focus on things that aren't what dark triads are good at displaying. Now, what are dark triads really, really good at displaying? Physical attractiveness and status. That's what they're great at. They're great at that. That's why they have the— they're virtuosos at dating profiles. And that's the stuff that dating profiles are talking about. It's like they have the best photos and they, they look like they have the best jobs and they're getting in and out of a Ferrari, or, you know, whatever happens to be. Don't look for that. Now, I don't have to tell you, you know perfectly that if you had to choose, okay, what am I looking for in a long-term mate? What's the best, the best odds that this thing— I'm going to grow old with a person? Good teeth? Nah, that's not it. How about a desire for faithfulness and exhibited kindness? Those are better odds. It's what it comes down to. So the more that you're actually looking for what dark triads are good at, the more likely you are to get a dark triad. On the contrary, look for something and be clear that you're looking for traits that dark triads are really bad at, like faithfulness and kindness. Focus on the things that aren't looks and status. Okay, that's number 4. Number 5, go look in the right place. This is related to this idea of time spans here. Look in the right place. Really interesting research shows that, that you have the highest likelihood of getting somebody with light personality characteristics, not the dark ones. If you look in places like your house of worship, a library, a voluntary organization, a running club, stuff that's not overtly sexualized, something that's more about meeting people as opposed to bodies is what it comes down to. You're most likely to meet a darker personality type in bars and in clubs and at beaches. I got nothing against bars and beaches. Bars and beaches exist for a reason. People can be very, very happy going to bars and I sometimes I like going to beaches myself, but the whole point is when you're trying to meet your mate, you're much, much more likely to meet somebody who has a longer-term time horizon and therefore has lighter personality traits, more likely to give you a good relationship and break you out of a cycle of finding people with darker personality traits by meeting them in the places where they want to go so that they can meet their soulmate as well. That's what it comes down to. Now, what about online? I know you're thinking, you know, you have this question online, and the answer is that there are some apps that are more like bars and beaches, and there are some apps that are more like libraries and voluntary groups. You know what I'm talking about? Those that are actually loaded on values that are more characteristic of getting you out on dates sooner as opposed to lurking online longer, that are more, that have more ways for you actually to learn more about a person's values and values congruence. Those are the ones you actually want to look for, is what it comes down to, as opposed to the ones that have really short-term time horizons. And the good apps are actually getting better at being more like libraries or volunteer organizations and less like clubs and bars. All right, number 6. Here's a hard one. Stop looking for your ex. It's a really weird thing. What you find is that many people have this idealized memory of their first love. I've seen this again and again and again, and it's actually one of the reasons that there is a shocking statistic of the really high percentage of divorce proceedings that have a social media reference in them because somebody from the past reached out to them. Somebody from their past reached out to them because they're like, because their marriage isn't working or they're, or they're, they're, they're really dissatisfied with their mate and they think, well, my first boyfriend or my first girlfriend or that girl, that boy that I met in college, they idealize it in a particular way and they're looking for that relationship again. Many people will sort of imprint this idea of true love from earlier in their life and they'll keep kind of looking for their ex again and again and again. There's a reason you broke up. Maybe it just didn't work out, but maybe that person truly wasn't right for you. And if you're trying to replicate that and trying to get your ex over, not literally your ex, but somebody just like your ex, you're gonna have the same problem again and again and again. I see this constantly. The same partner over and over and over again who looks like a person that they felt like they truly loved. If this is you, what do you do? You're not a prisoner of that behavior. On the contrary, one of the things that I teach my students a lot is something called the OSS, the opposite signal strategy. And there's lots of ways where you get a signal and you do the opposite on purpose and you will it. So for example, if you're lonely and you're depressed, what you want to do is curl up on the couch with a a comfy blanket and a pint of Häagen-Dazs and watch Netflix by yourself and feel sorry for yourself. But that's the wrong thing to do. You have to engage in the opposite signal strategy of going out and riding your bike and calling friends and all the stuff that you don't want to do. Why? Because your brain is lying to you. Your executive centers are not working properly. You're impaired. And the same thing is true if you're in a pathological pattern of looking for the wrong person over and over again. The opposite signal strategy is Not him, not that, on purpose. Go for the opposite of the thing that's actually not working for you. Even if you're like, I won't like that, give it a try. That's all I can say. The opposite signal strategy is often a really good strategy. And last but not least is number 7, stop romanticizing doomed love. Hollywood doesn't care about you. Hollywood wants to sell tickets. Stories about people that in real life would never work out. And if they worked out for 2 weeks, they certainly wouldn't for 2 years, or let alone 20. And we need to stop romanticizing these, these star-crossed lovers all the time. But, and again, this is not just Hollywood. I mean, this is the oldest trope in country and Western songs and even, even, you know, romantic poetry. Here's a little poem for you. All right. I don't want anybody to say that they're not getting the arts in this show. You left me boundaries of pain. Capacious as the sea between eternity and time, your consciousness and me. That's Emily Dickinson, who's not a very happy person, by the way. And that's a beautiful poem. That's really nice writing. That's a horrible basis on which to base your relationship. That's not romantic at all. That's just sad. It's what it comes down to. What you deserve is a person who's right for you, a relationship that's functional, that gets better over time. It doesn't mean it doesn't have problems. It doesn't mean you're the same. On the contrary, you're gonna have lots and lots and lots of fights. But this is— you're looking for the person with whom you can have a, a deep values compatibility and a deep kind of friendship, a companionate love with plenty of passion that will last you to the end of your days. And you're not going to get that if you keep dating the wrong person over and over again.