[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Julie Craftscheck, and I'm UASU.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is the Psychology of Relationships.
[SPEAKER_05]: We often assume that love, marriage, or having children is the key to happiness, but research tells a more complicated story.
[SPEAKER_05]: Some of the happiest people aren't coupled, and often the milestones we chase don't bring the joy we expect.
[SPEAKER_05]: In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Lori Santos, Yale Professor, Psychologist,
[SPEAKER_05]: and hosts of the popular podcast The Happiness Lab to explore the science of well-being and why our brains can mislead us about what truly makes life satisfying.
[SPEAKER_05]: Drawing on decades of research, Dr. Santos explains the arrival fallacy.
[SPEAKER_05]: The mistaken belief that achieving a goal, like fighting a partner will finally make us happy, and why is so often leave us wanting more?
[SPEAKER_05]: We dive into the U-shaped happiness curve, revealing how life satisfaction changes across different ages and life stages, and discuss why social connection matters, but isn't the only or guaranteed path to fulfillment.
[SPEAKER_05]: Dr. Santos shares research back strategies for enhancing personal happiness while dating, navigating relationships, and cultivating joy that doesn't depend on someone else
[SPEAKER_05]: We also explore how to shift our focus from external achievements to internal well-being, building habits that boost resilience, satisfaction, and emotional health.
[SPEAKER_05]: Whether single, dating, or in a long-term relationship, these insights help you show up more fully for yourself and for your loved ones.
[SPEAKER_05]: Because real happiness isn't something to be found exclusively in a partner.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's cultivated within.
[SPEAKER_05]: Remember to subscribe to the Psychology of Relationships on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and leave a rating or review of this episode help you see love and happiness in a new way.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is the psychology of relationships, and you're listening to an episode that just might change the way you show up for love.
[SPEAKER_05]: Enjoy!
[SPEAKER_05]: Dr. Lori Santos were so thrilled to have you join us and we're going to be talking about this topic of happiness as you've been studying for over two decades now your course at Yale is the most popular class at the university and it's 300 year history.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, that is incredible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's humbling.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's also like a my logistical nightmare when we teach us telling.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it means it really young college students really want to figure out the kinds of things that can make them happy and they're really voting with their feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that really ultimately is what we all want, right, to be happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think, you know, this is a relationship podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we tend to see that people feel like love will bring them happiness and equates to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to kind of debunk and see if that's a given with you today.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think one of the things that really stands out from your podcast description is you might think you know what it takes to lead a happier life for money, a better job or
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that because I think that is like a lot of us think it's just that or in the context of dating a relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once I find a relationship, what do you think truly makes people happy?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's kind of not to like once I get to that thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, this is a bias that happiness researchers refer to as the arrival fallacy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like to call it the happily ever after fallacy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, I'll get the perfect job and then I'll be happily ever after, you know, or like, I'll get the perfect grades for my college students.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, then I'll be happy forever after or, of course, I'll get the perfect relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll get the Disney worthy prince and then I'll be happy ever afterwards.
[SPEAKER_02]: And basically what we find is that those circumstance changes, like getting the perfect relationship, getting the perfect job, you know, getting the perfect acolyte at work.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't make us as happy as we think, or for as long as we think.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's the arrival fallacy.
[SPEAKER_02]: We think when we get to this point, that's all we need and it's happy forever after that or mostly forever after that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it kind of just doesn't work that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's one of the big misconceptions we have about happiness.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's also one of the aspects of the arrival fallacy is that once you've arrived, now you see what else you want.
[SPEAKER_05]: I feel like, you know, once I get into the right relationship, I'll be happy and then you're in that right relationship and you think once we move in, I'll be happy.
[SPEAKER_05]: Once I get that ring, I'll be happy.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's just never ending.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's always like the next carrot and I think, you know, one of the things we know from the studies is that like the higher the expectations you have for that thing, in some sense, the more you're going to be disappointed researchers call this an effective forecasting error like we're forecasting something about our affect how much will like something and what you find is that the higher your expectations.
[SPEAKER_02]: the more you're kind of disappointed later.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just actually teaching my happiness class today and I was reviewing this one study on people predicting how they're going to feel after they get married.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you survey people who are like about to become newlyweds and you ask how are you to feel about your relationship in four years time and people make predictions.
[SPEAKER_02]: What you find is like most people predict you know about 80% of people predict I'm going to feel even better about my relationship or like
[SPEAKER_02]: super way way way way better about my relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: What you find is like 50% of people want to feel like worse.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like more disappointed than they expect.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: But one of the reasons I love this study is they did comparisons across people who had the highest expectations in the beginning.
[SPEAKER_02]: And particularly wives who had the highest expectations in the beginning, they were the ones who showed the most disappointment.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's kind of like if your fantasies are really the like super Disney princess version of the fantasy, then you'll actually wind up
[SPEAKER_02]: Not happier, but in fact, more disappointed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think to sometimes like you look to that milestone when you maybe aren't, like, happy already.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, well, when this happens, then I'll get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do find it fascinating, though, that there are stats that unmarried and childless women are actually the happiest group.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm curious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your take-a-ducks, it's so counter to what we've been told, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, once we hit that next milestone, why do you think that is the case?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, I think a couple of things, you know, one on the kind of child point, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think one of the things we know about having children is that we have lots of misconceptions about how happy it will make us.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think what the data really shows is that it does kind of give you a boost in happiness as defined as like a sense of meaning or a sense of
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, like it's kind of like a off the shelf kind of way of getting purpose when you bring a new life into the world That's gonna like outlive you and so on but if you look at people's moment to moment happiness having kids and in fact dealing with kids Doing childcare is pretty miserable.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, one famous study by the researcher Danny Connemen the late kind of Nobel Prize winning researcher He found that child care
[SPEAKER_02]: is just barely barely statistically above housework and like cleaning the house in terms of your day-to-day enjoyment.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think one thing we know about kids is like it just takes a big hit on your day-to-day enjoyment and it does that because of child care and you know I wish we lived in a world where everything was really egalitarian and in heterosexual couples there was you know even child care across you know the man the woman but
[SPEAKER_02]: In practice, like, that's just kind of not what we find, and so I think wives are taking more of a hit when it comes to that, meaning that like, you know, if you do a comparison, then unmarried childless women wind up being happier, because they don't take that moment to moment hit in their well being.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think this might just be the algorithm on my social media, but these are kind of the clips I always get served.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's always like women who are divorced after a long marriage and they have kids that they're much happier.
[SPEAKER_05]: after divorce and they don't want to get married as much as men who after divorce end up getting married within two to three years.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then there's also this happiness meter of like women are much happier after marriage versus men who become happier in a marriage.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know if I'm just getting like all this BS because of what I'm looking at, but I would love to know if you haven't stats around that.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's like really good what are often called hedonic adaptation curves for marriage divorce and so on.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do I mean by hedonic adaptation curve?
[SPEAKER_02]: He don't get adaptation is just a fancy way of saying, you get used to something, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You get used to kind of like all the benefits of getting married.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're married at first and that feels amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: But over time, like you're just married and you kind of get bored with it, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so researchers plot these curves of happiness over time that usually start with like, you know, the moment you get married and happiness is kind of high.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then, you know, months go by and that like curve kind of goes down over time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in fact, you can kind of plot those hedonic adaptation curves for men, for women.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes there are some evidence who just say go down a little bit steeper for women.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not always the case.
[SPEAKER_02]: But basically for everybody, your happiness goes down from like, you know, the day of your marriage to two years in, you're just kind of less happy overall with your life and overall with your marriage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Basically, you're just going back to baseline.
[SPEAKER_02]: Interestingly, there are versus true for divorce.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So right before a divorce, people tend to be a little bit more unhappy.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then, you know, six months in a year in, they kind of go back to baseline.
[SPEAKER_02]: And some of the hedonic adaptation curves show that people, you know, wind up even higher after a divorce, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, they can go above baseline.
[SPEAKER_02]: If baseline was like, you know, when they were first happily married.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so,
[SPEAKER_02]: I think all this goes to say that our relationship status doesn't have as much of an impact as we think, or it has the most impact when we're a sort of changing that relationship status.
[SPEAKER_02]: In other words, when you first get married, when you first get divorced, you're going to kind of go back to baseline from those either positive or negative changes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that definitely makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, I think like, I'm curious you're take on this, because I do feel like with the right partner, obviously it will bring you happiness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Enjoy, and you know, I think we're meant to do life together with other people and there's benefits of social connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also believe like, finally, a partner isn't the key to happiness and they're not gonna save you.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's kind of that line there of like, expecting some happiness, but not expecting so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think the problem is any time or super good thing happens to us, even if it's like a lasting, good thing, we stop noticing the goodness of that good thing over time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Take another one that I think people are really surprised by outside of the relationship context, getting access to lots of money.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so researchers look at what happens when people get like a big raise or even like win the lottery, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you win $500 million.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the prediction is like that's gonna make you happier, you know, you're flying first class You didn't good food living in a big house.
[SPEAKER_02]: All those things might continue to be true over time Six months from the moment you won the lottery a year from when you won the lottery
[SPEAKER_02]: You're still experiencing those objectively good things, but you're not noticing them anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: You kind of get used to them, and I think this is what happens in like a good marriage, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Unfortunately, what happens is even if the relationship is really solid, even if it's all, we've found the right partner, and we're getting something good out of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're just not noticing that same good thing over time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there are some techniques you can use to start noticing it again, to just call it fight heat on a adaptation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the big ones is just this act of savoring, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Just taking time to kind of notice and savour, like, I'm really happy, you know, what my husband did, like, you know, it's like really nice to see him, like, you know, he did a nice thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: He emptied the dishwasher to care the kids or whatever it was, find ways to show some savoring and even some gratitude.
[SPEAKER_02]: This act of being thankful for what partners do.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's lots of evidence, for example, that gratitude can boost marital satisfaction.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's in part because you're like noticing all the good things that are actually still there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another technique for kind of remembering how satisfied you are with relationships is one.
[SPEAKER_02]: that comes from the ancients.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a technique that the stoics thought about for a long time, which is called negative visualization.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's basically that you imagine what things would be like if you were never married, or if something terrible happened to your partner.
[SPEAKER_02]: So stoics like Marcus really is thought you should wake up every morning and say, you know, today, my spouse will leave me, I'll lose my job, I'll get back to our and I'll lose the use of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see you appreciate things, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what technique I often use in talks for parents
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course you love your kids, but you know, they can be a pain in the butt.
[SPEAKER_02]: Imagine right now that the last time you saw your kid is the last time you're ever going to see them alive.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like they're gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't exist anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: And every parent's like, but the point is not to feel the pain of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: The point is, my guess is if you just heard that and had that feeling, the next time you see your kid, you're going to hug them a little bit more.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, whatever they're doing, you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's negative visualization.
[SPEAKER_02]: You literally imagine.
[SPEAKER_02]: What life would be like if you lost the person you cared about or if you never met them if There's this one particular study that used that manipulation right about if like life had been a little bit different and just by a some small change You never met your partner, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think about that my husband we met at a party.
[SPEAKER_02]: What if I just like didn't talk to him at the party?
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, oh my god, my entire, you know, like so many of my happiest memories would be gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: That little prompt can get you to appreciate your partner even more.
[SPEAKER_02]: So negative visualizations are great technique for appreciating your partner, appreciating your kids, you know, appreciating all the good stuff that's true in life.
[SPEAKER_02]: So here's the question.
[SPEAKER_05]: It sounds like in whatever we do in life, all the celebrations and the happy moments.
[SPEAKER_05]: We eventually fall back to baseline.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: So Laurie, do you think the goal is to raise our baseline of happiness or is the goal to fight the eventual return to baseline?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a little bit of both right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there are ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can fight that return to baseline, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We just mentioned two of them, this idea of gratitude and savoring, and also this idea of negative visualization.
[SPEAKER_02]: That just kind of causes you to pop back up so that you don't return to baseline.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's separate things that we can do to just boost our baseline overall.
[SPEAKER_02]: these things that aren't as subject to hedonic adaptation.
[SPEAKER_02]: The trouble with those is that they kind of require a work, like they kind of require a little bit more constant effort.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not a one and done kind of deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there are things that we can do to sort of boost that up.
[SPEAKER_02]: The analogy often uses kind of with fitness, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's not like you go take that hard hit class one time and you're like, you know, dust your hands off.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, I never have to do it again.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, you can permanently change your state of fitness, but like it takes kind of
[SPEAKER_02]: Constant vigilance and work multiple times a week and so on.
[SPEAKER_02]: The same is true with boosting our baseline happiness of research shows that we can.
[SPEAKER_02]: statistically boost our happiness up.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can get a small but significant effect.
[SPEAKER_02]: Most interventions get you about 10% happier is sort of the rule, you know, you're gonna go up about a point on a 10-point happiness scale as one way to think about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can do that really permanently, but it's not one-a-done.
[SPEAKER_02]: You kind of have to keep putting continuous effort in.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are some maybe some tactics or any tools that you have that have helped people get to that 10%.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the big ones is changing our behaviors and a big behavior change we can make to feel happier is to improve our social connection.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think this is, you know, something that people and relationships need to hear.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think especially when we're investing in a new dating partner or in a new marriage, especially if we have kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can let our friendships and our other social relationships outside of that partnership kind of fall by the wayside.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the research really shows that, you know, the key to a happy life is as much social connection as possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: So by all means get some good social connection in with your romantic partner, but you also probably want to get some social connection in with like other people, even including strangers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your research by Nick Epileen is colleagues at the University of Chicago finds it looks like a little bit more chatting with the briefed at the coffee shop for the person who's sitting next to you on a train.
[SPEAKER_02]: That interaction with a stranger at winds up boosting our positive mood.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nick uses the analogy of sort of filling his leaky happiness tire and I do it's like your happiness tire is always leaking a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that little bit of social connection can kind of pump it back up again.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's a big one.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's also lots of evidence that mind sets shifts wind up making us feel a little bit happier.
[SPEAKER_02]: A big one that a lot of people need, especially in the context, I think of early dating, is to be a little bit more self-compassionate, you know, to engage in a little bit of kindness, you know, if you're on the dating market and with the apps and everything is feeling really tough, I think that you can get really down on yourself, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You can think it's just you or there's something uniquely horrible about you, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But self-compassion is really doing a couple of things, it's first
[SPEAKER_02]: mindfully noticing what's going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, this is frustrating.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really sad that I don't have a relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really kind of worried that this isn't going to work, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You kind of mindfully notice and really almost register articulate what negative emotions you're feeling, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Second step is that I'm not alone step.
[SPEAKER_02]: Researchers like Kristen F. Colle at Common Humanity, where you say, and it's normal dating feels weird and it's strange and the apps are tough, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not the only person who's gone through this.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a normative
[SPEAKER_02]: human experience, I'm not alone.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then third is to really talk to yourself like you would a friend, Kristen Neff calls it self-kindness, you say, you know, what do I need right now?
[SPEAKER_02]: What can I take off my plea?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if I was my really good friend who was going through the same thing, what would I say to myself, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You kind of just treat yourself with a little bit of kindness.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that kind of mindset of self-compassion can turn dating journey, which is otherwise frustrating and kind of makes you feel bad about yourself and it's just like really sad into one.
[SPEAKER_02]: that feels more like the journey where you can kind of take the good with the bat in a little bit more of a healthy way.
[SPEAKER_05]: And what you're really speaking to is in early dating, we put so much responsibility on the person we're dating to make us happy.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's just a lot of power given to that person.
[SPEAKER_05]: And what you just described is almost distributing that accountability of happiness amongst you, amongst the little social interactions that you may have throughout the day.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I wonder the way we talk about relationships, I wonder if you've seen any things that we've said about relationships that could be detrimental, for example, when a friend starts dating someone new.
[SPEAKER_05]: First thing we always ask is, does this person make you happy?
[SPEAKER_05]: Is that problematic?
[SPEAKER_05]: Are there ways or talking about dating a relationship that are not really benefiting us?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that one can be really tricky, especially if you're like kind of mid-into a relationship and you're putting all your happiness on your partner.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this can really affect marriages.
[SPEAKER_02]: The relationship expert Eli Finkle has this idea of the all-or-nothing marriage, where it's like all your social connection and sense of meaning and this stuff comes from your relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's like way too much pressure, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But I do think we want to be evaluating how other people make us feel, maybe even especially in the early times of dating, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think one of the mistakes we make, especially early in dating, is to have this like list of things that we want in a potential partner, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: The kind of like red flag type list of like, you know, he has to be this tall and he's to do this and earn this much money and so on.
[SPEAKER_02]: That list doesn't always map on to like how a person will make us feel.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and so one of the things I often suggest is to use that mindfulness strategy to notice like, how do you feel afterwards, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: If you get off a date, did that make you feel energized?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did the person make you laugh?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, do you feel seen?
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, do you feel listened to?
[SPEAKER_02]: Those kinds of questions in terms of how you feel after the date.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's much more important than like all these stats that we bring to the table when we're first starting to date.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so,
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's not so much that we want a partner to make us happy and give us all the meaning in the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's sort of putting too much on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I do think we kind of want to notice, especially in the early phases, kind of how are we feeling?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because that might help us overcome other mistakes we make about kind of thinking that there's one droopers in out there for us and they have to tick off all these boxes or else I won't even look at them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes the person that makes you feel good might not have the haircut that you think is like demaxively sexiest or you know might not have a job that you would have ticked off in your box ahead of time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ultimately, it's not a deal breaker if they make you feel energized and good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we call this the settling paradox that people like don't want to settle so much with their list or what's not on the list, but then they settle for poor treatment.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I guess like I'm curious for you, like what is that line though?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because like we know that relationships aren't going to always make us happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: There may be ups and downs, especially we're talking about long-term relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what's the point that you're like, I'm not happy yet this person isn't bringing out the best sides of me versus like I'm just going to stick it out and ride that because I know relationships can't make me fully happy.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is where kind of noticing our negative emotions winds up being really useful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think this is a really important thing to pay attention to in conversations about happiness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another way we get happiness wrong is we think it's like happy joy all the time, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: In listening to our negative emotions and paying attention to them is like, oh my gosh, I've done something wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I need to take a pill or something bad has happened, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's toxic positivity, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's like good vibes only, but like exclamation point, like good vibes only.
[SPEAKER_02]: Allow and accept that negative emotions are happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you just get more insight into how bad they are because you're letting yourself listen to them, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, I like to often use the analogy when I'm talking about negative emotions that they're like kind of the alert system on your car, driving along, you're, you know, brake light goes on.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have to like pull over immediately and freak out about your tire, but like, you got to devote some time, you know, sometime in the next week to half hour to go check your tire pressure and do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think our negative emotions throughout all kinds of parts of life work the same way.
[SPEAKER_02]: We get that little feeling of loneliness, that little feeling of overwhelmed, that little feeling of annoyance.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like telling us something useful that we're often not paying attention to.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think when you commit in the early phases of relationship to noticing those things, you can start detecting kind of where that line is.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, every time you hang out with somebody, you're made to feel,
[SPEAKER_02]: A little belittled, or you feel like you're not being listened to, like those are some signs that like, Ooh, I might need to pay attention to this a little bit more, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the flip side, I think, is true, too, for the positive emotions.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's usually the, like, low grade kind of contentment, everything is okay, emotion.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's often a good signal that somebody is a keeper.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, as opposed to the kind of high arousal, like, oh my gosh, are you so sexy?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I'm full, you just out of like, yeah, after day one, yeah, exactly, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that mindfully noticing those subtle emotions can really tell you a little bit more.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the consistency of those, I think, points you towards a line.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think often it's not that we don't know where the line is.
[SPEAKER_02]: We just kind of are pretending that the bad thing that we're noticing isn't there, because we, you know, want the relationship to be perfect enough, but when we really pay attention, we're like, why do I need it?
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes you can ask the question like, well, what I need to deal with this and and that could often be you need a conversation and to talk about it and you can strike some boundaries and ground rules and it can work out and sometimes what you really need is, you know, somebody who's different or treat you different.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think I have a problem.
[SPEAKER_05]: Please help diagnose me if you have this issue where I feel like I'm constantly waiting for the other shoot a drop.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like my issue is I'm scared to experience ultimate happiness because I know it doesn't last.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then I know that it's going to set me up for disappointment.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we kind of hear this from Daeders too.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're like, Oh, things are going so good right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: Must be too good to be true.
[SPEAKER_05]: What is this problem?
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, what is this illness?
[SPEAKER_05]: And how do we navigate around it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think you're not alone, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember this very distinctly when I first started dating my now husband who I kind of had had a crush on for a while.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just thought he was like the perfect guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was completely cognizant that I was definitely going to get hit by a car.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I was definitely gonna get diagnosed with some sort of terminal illness like it couldn't nothing could be that good for that long And this was made even worse by the fact that I had just gotten this job at Yale that I was so excited about.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like things are going too well.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I get it right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think one thing we forget is that just as the good stuff in life isn't going to stay good for as long as we think, you know, the marriage isn't going to be as awesome as we think and so on.
[SPEAKER_02]: the bad stuff's not going to be as bad either.
[SPEAKER_02]: That same phenomenon of hedonic adaptation doesn't just happen for all the good stuff in life.
[SPEAKER_02]: It also happens for the bad stuff in life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in fact, it's actually worse for the bad stuff in life.
[SPEAKER_02]: We predict like, oh gosh, this is going to take forever.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm never going to get over this, but we actually get over it faster than we think.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mostly because we're really good at rationalizing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is especially true in relationships.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so what I wasn't taking into account back then is that even though, you know, my husband was perfect.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm happy we didn't break up or anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like if we had broken up, it would have been sad for a little bit, but it wouldn't have been nearly as sad as I predicted when I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to get hit by a car.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would have resiliently bounce back and found someone else and it would have been fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think part of it is that we just don't understand our own resilience like most of the time when we hit a bad patch.
[SPEAKER_02]: It will be bad, but it won't be as bad as we think, and it won't be as bad for as long as we think.
[SPEAKER_02]: I joke with my students when I talk about negative events, and he don't ag adaptation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I show them that meme of the guy who's like, oh no, and it goes anyway, it's like the next frame.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think our brains are just prone to be like, oh no, anyway, like there's another guy at work, or there's like, you know, a guy can go and happen, find, and whatever, like, we get over things faster than we think.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's a second problem though, right, which is that one of the reasons that we're so scared that something's going to get messed up is that we have an incorrect theory about kind of soul needs and that there's only one person out there, right, and so it can kind of feel like if I mess this thing up that feels perfect no one else will ever feel this good or no one else will ever feel right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's just a misconception, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's this sense that there's probably a lot of people out there that you could connect with, like the Cinderella's stories just kind of wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's not like one prince for everyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's probably lots of people that you could actually connect with.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so when you kind of take a breath and realize, okay, this is not the only person out there for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just makes it a little bit less scary, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's less kind of risky.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can kind of be more genuine and be yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think kind of overcoming that bias of like the soul mate bias.
[SPEAKER_02]: If there's only one person for me, I think that can make you a little bit more chill like in the beginning stages of relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it can make you a little bit more honest about that line, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You can step away knowing it's going to be okay afterwards.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's also like the present bias too, like that's what's in front of you right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to see what's in the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think like even with jobs and other parts of life, even though you know like in theory there's like thousands of jobs out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you have your heart set on one thing, it can feel like that's the only option.
[SPEAKER_00]: And nothing will go from there.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is actually a bias that researchers call focalism, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Where it's like, when you're focused on that one thing, it matters so much, but that's not the only thing out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a billion things happening in life.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's actually a very funny dating study on focalism, where researchers asked people, first, how happy are you right now?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then immediately after asked, how many dates have you been on in the last month, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And when they do that, the correlation between the two answers is pretty low.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, point one, something, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But if they flip the order of the questions, if they ask you, how many dates have you been on in the last month?
[SPEAKER_02]: Which I think the modal response for college students is basically like zero or look not very many, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then ask, how happy are you?
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, all of a sudden, the correlation is really, really significant, like 0.5 something, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so this is focalism right when you're like, oh my god, my dating life, that's the focus.
[SPEAKER_02]: It colors everything, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You think everything else is terrible.
[SPEAKER_02]: But in reality, if it wasn't the focus, it probably wouldn't be maddering so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think kind of getting a moment to get that perspective of like what else is going on out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: That can also kind of give you that sense of taking a deep breath and realizing like, okay, this is not as important as I thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that is so good for people to hear, like people rewind that section because that is something that we see a lot of like getting so fixated on dating.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like the rest of your life is amazing, but dating isn't going your way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've been there before in the past.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can really like make you not appreciate everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think what you also said about the it takes less time to recover the we think.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is also so true, and you know what we see is, you know, actually a big part of our book is that we believe that we're in a love crisis that people feel like dating has got in so hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're so afraid to put themselves out there because it feels like one disappointment after the next.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I guess like from your perspective, we know that connection matters.
[SPEAKER_00]: We fear that if people succumb to the love crisis, it just keeps exemplifying the lonely desepidemic.
[SPEAKER_00]: What research do you have of just like why we shouldn't give up on love and dating in connection?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, I mean, it does matter, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, ultimately, you know, some of the things we know is that at least connection through your life, matters for things like longevity and so on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Particularly in these longevity studies, I think a happy marriage is really strongly predictive of like longevity and physical health and these kinds of things.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's not just like psychological health and mental health that winds up being your physical health, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think investing in it is ultimately a good thing, especially if you do it right and kind of fight, you know, the hedonic adaptation that can come from it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That said, I think there's also really something to enjoy in the journey along the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you do it right, you know, a date isn't just successful if it turns into your like married partner for the next 50 years, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we can get a lot of social connection from these conversations.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think we can do that more if we sort of switch around our goals and the way we're evaluating things.
[SPEAKER_02]: If the only evaluation is like, you know, did I meet someone that I definitely want to spend the next 50 years with?
[SPEAKER_02]: probably just statistically a lot of our dates aren't going to like, you know, be full successes, but if the success of the date was
[SPEAKER_02]: Did I have an interesting conversation with someone?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did I learn something from someone?
[SPEAKER_02]: There's lots of work that's switching your goals to like learning goals, winds up making you feel better because you're not trying to hit some success criteria.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're really trying to learn something along the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And anytime that we meet people and chat with them and learn something interesting, it winds up being a success.
[SPEAKER_02]: We just talked about how chatting with a priest at the coffee shop or chatting with somebody on your train ride is a positive mood booster that can fill up your canleaky
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, going on dates even if they're not the like, you know, successful marriage date.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you have an interesting conversation, like, that's a social connection you're building up.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think seeing your dating life is only successful if you get to that final thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of why there's this sort of love crisis, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Those people are like, oh, I don't want to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I see no value in it because like quote unquote, it didn't work.
[SPEAKER_02]: But work for what, you know, if you can have an interesting conversation, I think that can be helpful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think switching to this kind of, I'm just learning about this interesting person mode can also make those connections and those dates even more fun, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because now, there's just less at stake.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can be a little bit more vulnerable.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can be a little bit more silly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the research shows that doing that is probably going to be more likely to make it so that the date works in the other way, too, right, where you can actually find a bit more of a love connection as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: Have you seen a direct correlation between happiness and age and experience?
[SPEAKER_05]: And I asked this because I was on a hike the other day.
[SPEAKER_05]: A hike I go on all the time.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this little girl was with her dad and she was like, I'm so happy.
[SPEAKER_05]: I love this hike.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm so happy, Daddy, and I was so envious of her in the moment, because I thought, oh, I know exactly how this hike is going to end.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not that great.
[SPEAKER_05]: I did it on this a hundred times, but good for you, little girl.
[SPEAKER_05]: And sometimes I think about that with relationships, too.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's like, okay, I'm probably a little less happy, the more relationships I get into, because I kind of know how they're going to go.
[SPEAKER_05]: Is there a correlation?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, there is work looking at happiness and age.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a complicated pattern.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the data fit with what you saw in that little girl, right, we're at the beginning of life.
[SPEAKER_02]: We tend to be pretty happy.
[SPEAKER_02]: That curve is actually going down now, as we see the mental health crisis in young people.
[SPEAKER_02]: But historically, happiness early in life is the highest.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then there's kind of what researchers call a U-shaped curve where happiness tends to go down through our 20s and 30s.
[SPEAKER_02]: It kind of reaches a Nader around 48, 49 years of age.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm very excited about this because I just turned 49, which means I'm back on the other way again.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, but then the U curve starts rising back again.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it continues to rise even into old age, which is also something we don't expect.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, as you're getting up there, maybe developing health problems and so on, you kind of continually get happier and happier.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so,
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess on the other side of the U-shaped curve, there is kind of happiness and wisdom.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it kind of takes for a while, you know, I feel like I'm at like a wise age, but my happyness has been taking you know, for some time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's just kind of the natural aging curve we have.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm not sure how old you are, but knowing that you're older than like a five-year-old UA.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, that's good to hear that.
[SPEAKER_05]: It goes back up because I think part of why my happiness may be going downward is because I'm like, what's next?
[SPEAKER_05]: What's out there for me?
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, what is the future as I enter Perry Metapaz?
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, what am I looking forward to?
[SPEAKER_05]: But it's nice to hear there is hope.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, comes back, comes back.
[SPEAKER_05]: Seeing that you teach as class at Yale, what are kids struggling with these days?
[SPEAKER_05]: What is this younger generation dealing with?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh, I mean, the mental health statistics for young people and by that, I mean, like college age students right now are just really devastating.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so one national survey shows that over 40% of college students report being too depressed to function most days, over 60% say they're overwhelmingly anxious, over 60% say that they're lonely most of the time, more than 1 in 10, has seriously considered suicide in this year.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the statistics are really striking.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that young people today
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the big struggles, honestly, is loneliness.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a generation of young people that spend less time around other people than young people ever have.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's reflected in their dating.
[SPEAKER_02]: These are young people who, like, the college age students are having less sex than they've ever had.
[SPEAKER_02]: In the history since we've been measuring how much college students are having less sex, I think they get around other people in date, less often.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's partly, you know, why they're experiencing so much loneliness is they're just like not around other people as often as they could be and so you can ask why is that I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: and obvious culprit is like, there's just much more entertaining things to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like, you know, in the 90s, we had to go out and have sex because we don't have Netflix.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like, yeah, social media, to be just going through.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's like, good, good.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it, you know, it's having a psychological cost, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We've given students like easy technological ways to overcome the usual friction that like comes with being a human in social relationship with one another.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's kind of not great.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's one anecdote from students is like, I feel like students are constantly trying to use technology to solve these problems.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, just solve socially, especially in the dating context.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is in the friendship context.
[SPEAKER_02]: So these students had proposed this app that was called, let's get a meal.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the idea was like, you know, you want a chat with someone in the dining hall.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you go on this app and you like pull up like, you know, kind of match with someone else who might want a chat with you on the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: but they could just go up to the first thing I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're in a dining hall.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's only the same people.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you and I didn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they're like, well, I don't know if someone was to talk to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're like, of course, I want to talk to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just like sitting in the dining hall, all like, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I feel like more and more students like need technology to help them solve these hurdles.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I worry about that a little bit with dating apps, because obviously in the modern day, you know, that's the way a lot of people are dating.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it...
[SPEAKER_02]: It means that I think the way that a lot of people find interesting good relationships is like you meet someone at a party, you meet a friend, you meet someone when you're out, doing activities you normally do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think young people just don't realize that that's a potential source of kind of data ability and they kind of wind up on these apps, which can be helpful in lots of ways, but might not be the only way to meet someone that you all really click with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's what we hear even for people in their 20s and 30s and plus is like the apps or IRL.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're like, it doesn't need to be either or like just do it all that's so fascinating because we started this with like the age correlation and part of it was like being too busy and getting wrapped in your life when you're in that more mid level, but you're seeing like the younger people where you would think like social interaction would be a
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's a sad thing, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, I remember the dining halls being, you know, where everybody was talking now, it is true, like, you go in and people have their big headphones all crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's so sad to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what's sadder is like, I think we don't know yet what's gonna happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: What we know is in that U-shaped curve, the young people are kind of flattened.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we don't know if they're just going to go down to the usual middle age baseline or if their middle age baseline is going to be worse, right, you know, they might have the same dip in the curve that you typically would get from your, you know, being 18 to being 49.
[SPEAKER_02]: and their dip might go even lower, which is really scary when you see how bad the statistics already are.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say this as someone that meant my fiance on a daily app, so I always caveat that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am so proud of it, in every way, but I also see how much people struggle with them and I remember we had,
[SPEAKER_00]: Celeste Heathley, who's like a communication expert on the podcast, and she was talking about like the science around like how when you send a text, for instance, you're not getting the same like dopamine and feelings of like interactive in person.
[SPEAKER_00]: So people are now replacing that with messages and texts and not talking to people because now we've been socialized and it's like you can't go up to someone at a dining hall and it's like weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: How would you advise people to, I guess, use technology?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we can't pretend it doesn't exist and clearly it's still responsible for many people getting together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would never have met my partner, so I'm so thankful for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you like, I guess, use it in a way that it can maximize your happiness, not reduce it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think it's worth recognizing the spot where we do get some benefit from technology, where it is helping us and where it's not helping us as much as we think.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is tricky because we often don't notice, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We have really bad predictions about when it's going to work and when it's not.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what the research really shows is that there's some ways of using technology that work pretty well and others that don't as well when it comes to social connection.
[SPEAKER_02]: The thing that works pretty well is connecting in real time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, we know in real life is pretty good, but in real time works just as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do I mean by in real time?
[SPEAKER_02]: We are talking on this like podcast app that folks use Riverside.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can see each other, we can hear each other in real time.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's pretty good.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you meet someone on a dating app, text a few times and then you quickly move to something in real time.
[SPEAKER_02]: If it's too weird to do that in person, maybe you hop on Zoom or, you know, I don't know, like, like, FaceTime or whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you get to in real time as quickly as possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that helps you diagnose whether partners are good for you, but it also means you're finally getting some real psychological connection before you kind of text into oblivion.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the kind of constant, like, whoop, but you had a text, oh, I got a message whoop, and it's like that not in real time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think like our primate brains can't process that as well, and we just don't experience that as nutritional for like social connection, like it's not as nutritious.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's easier, it's frictionless, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't have to schedule a time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have to like, put my background and make sure my hair looks good.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we got to overcome that friction.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think that's where we want to move to.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it is true that technology gives us so many more in real-time mechanisms than not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just think of rewind to the pandemic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so happy we had technology to connect with people in real-time that we couldn't connect with in person.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, even at work, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like, I think, you know, co-working is so much easier because I can see a colleague who's in New York or in Philly or something really quickly.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we need to remember that the in real-time can work really well for dating, but we need to move from the lake.
[SPEAKER_02]: Voop, Voop, not so much in real-time texting or messaging to an in-real-time interaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Texting is really tough because I feel like sometimes I have this false sense of, I'm spending all this time with my friends and then I think about it, oh my, I haven't seen this person.
[SPEAKER_00]: in a month, but I texted the group text with them every day, and I think it's so easy to replace.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that I'm really glad that you said, like, one should not be a replacement, and then how do you get to it feeling more, like almost like mimicking what it would be like in person.
[SPEAKER_05]: totally.
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you also find that with technology with these micro touch points and makes the in-person touch points overwhelming?
[SPEAKER_05]: I find this with myself where I feel fine texting and calling and video chats, but I went to this event last year where we had to stare into someone's eye for like five minutes and I couldn't stop balling because it was so overwhelming.
[SPEAKER_05]: My brain
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think we've all saw that like at the end of the pandemic, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we were all really kind of excited to get back to the social stuff, but it was a lot, you know, it was like energy sapping and kind of tiring.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so the problem is that, you know, we're built as primates to get in real life social connection.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when we don't do it for a while, we can kind of feel like we're a little bit out of practice, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We can kind of get in our heads about it a little bit and really kind of worried and be scared about being vulnerable and so on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think the remedy for this is just
[SPEAKER_02]: And that includes, if you're a kind of self-proclaimed introvert, one of my favorite episodes of my own podcast, The Happiness Lab, was looking at the happiness benefits of social connection for introverts.
[SPEAKER_02]: We brought on this woman Jessica Pan, who is a self-proclaimed introvert, it has this lovely book called, sorry, I'm late, I didn't want to come for a title.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, great.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't call in how an introvert began extroverting, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so she did this like one of these experiments that journalists do where she did a year,
[SPEAKER_02]: of as a hardcore introvert, you know, extroverting, you know, so she went to the thing where you stare into someone's eyes and she did stand a comedy and like speed dating and just all this stuff to kind of get out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was not easy, right, she had to have kind of put some intent into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But afterwards, she feels so much better about doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's less scary now because she did it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she's more fluid at it.
[SPEAKER_02]: She learned the right strategies and she's happier.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think if you're feeling like, yeah, it was a lot, some self-compassion.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a lot, especially if you're out of practice with it, you know, in a lot of middle-aged folks with kids who are busy or just going to naturally be out of practice with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the benefits can still be there, no matter your personality type.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad you gave that example, too, because we also hear people being like, well, dating makes me unhappy, dating apps make me unhappy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: And ultimately, though, they are desiring that relationship, you know, like, again, if you're single, don't want to date, that's one thing, but I think it's when you actually want that, and it just feels momentarily.
[SPEAKER_00]: unhappy?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you kind of like, I know you obviously gave before thinking about the milestones a little differently and appreciating more the process?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there any other tip you would leave people to, I guess, take something that feels unhappy and maybe make it a little happier experience?
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the tricks for overcoming loneliness is to try to help the loneliness of other people.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's to get out and start checking in on other people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like we can apply the same kind of tip to our dating in the following way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like imagine if your goal wasn't to make sure you're finding the perfect partner or someone falls in love with you, but you wanna help other people feel like they've been heard and they've been seen.
[SPEAKER_02]: and they had a really good time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can imagine if you're like my goal for this dating is not to get the perfect partner It's to make sure this other person was listen to you had fun had a good time, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: The move is that first of all any kind of other oriented motivation winds it making us feel happier, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because kind of like your mind gets tricky like, well, if I have the bandwidth to do this nice thing for other people, I must not be lonely.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my guess is an inadvertent effect of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're trying to just like make the other person not necessarily like you, but just have a really good time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like the other person's going to have a really good time, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to feel energized and valued about being around you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you might be more likely to kind of come to a better connection without the worries about whether you're perfect or how you're being evaluated and so on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think we can take this kind of advice from loneliness and put it into effect to become kind of more fun, more other oriented dating partner.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this has been such a great conversation, a general of just, you know, reframing what happiness means.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it's not always going to be like rainbows and butterflies every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it shouldn't be that if something's hard, we don't do it because it doesn't make us immediately happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It gives us a little enjoyment that a lot of the stuff that we've been saying about, you know, changing the goalposts and the milestones of dating and focusing more on the process is actually backed
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't been scared for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think also just knowing too that your status doesn't define you, like if you're single or you're in a relationship, like it's almost independent.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the stuff can bring happiness, like connection in general.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the reason too of why, you know, there's stats on single people being happy is
[SPEAKER_00]: if they have that community in connection in their life, regardless, if they have a partner.
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, of course, if you find the right partner, that is another way to bring that happiness, but it's not the only way, and I think knowing that and being responsible for our own happiness, regardless of where we're partnered up or not is the agency that we need and ultimately what's in our control.
[SPEAKER_05]: Love that, love that.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a reminder that happiness is about balance and everything we do is about balance.
[SPEAKER_05]: We can't be happy all the time.
[SPEAKER_05]: Also, we're not going to stay sad all the time or stay mad all the time, but they all coexist at once and all these truths can be true at once.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's what makes us a balance individual.
[SPEAKER_05]: And maybe that's the ultimate goal.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not to be happy all the time, just to be it.
[SPEAKER_05]: balance individual.
[SPEAKER_05]: So Lori, thank you so much for this conversation.
[SPEAKER_05]: We love having science backed fast.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: And studies and stats, you know, just to prove what we've been saying to be true.
[SPEAKER_05]: If people want to find out more about you, where can they go?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, thanks so much for having me on the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been a blast.
[SPEAKER_02]: They should check out the happiness lab podcasts, which you can download wherever you get your podcasts.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can also see more about
[SPEAKER_05]: And if you haven't done so yet, subscribe to the psychology of relationships today, so you don't miss an episode.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we'll see you all next week.
[SPEAKER_05]: Bye!