What to read this week: Bonded by Evolution by Paul Eastwick

Bonded by Evolution
Paul Eastwick, Cornerstone Press

Most of us can tell tales of lost loves and romantic rejections, and psychologist Paul Eastwick is no different.

As an undergraduate at the end of the last millennium, Eastwick fell for a fellow student named Anna. She was tall and stunningly beautiful. An aspiring poet who was also fluent in Russian, she hung out with some of the coolest people on campus. He was “doughy-adjacent” (his term) and disliked partying, a “6” to her “9”. They spent some time together, but she ultimately hooked up elsewhere, while Eastwick was, he says, “friend-zoned”.

According to one view of relationships – which Eastwick dubs the “EvoScript” – a rejection was inevitable. The dating pool is a “marketplace”, in which each person has an inherent “mate value” – determined by their looks, intelligence, social cachet and bank balance. We are looking for the best possible parent for our offspring, so we try to pair off with the highest-value partner. The result is a rigid hierarchy of potential partners. “Find your rank and stay put, or fry like Icarus,” writes Eastwick, who is now a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis.

This theory, which appeared to be grounded in psychological literature, is now rife in popular culture and internet forums. In his enlightening new book, Bonded by Evolution: What we’ve got wrong about love and connection, Eastwick persuasively argues that it is complete bunkum.

For one thing, many of the experiments supporting the EvoScript measured mate value by asking participants to appraise photos or videos of people whom they had never met. In these snap judgements, people do tend to agree on who is more attractive – suggesting that we rank people according to the genes they carry.

But this overlooks the fact that our first impressions can fade fast after meeting someone in the real world. Such studies are time-consuming to conduct, but Eastwick and his colleagues have put in the work, and they have shown that the consensus on someone’s appeal quickly falls apart as soon as people get to know them.

In other words, our supposed mate value is ephemeral. “If I think you’re hot, someone else agrees with me a mere 53 percent of the time,” says Eastwick. That’s bad news for the dreamboats among us. “Mere weeks after potential romantic partners meet each other, hotness seems to lose its magnetic pull.”

Eastwick argues that compatibility is the overriding factor in determining who we will ultimately love – and this is very difficult to predict. While we can all easily state our preferences for the kind of people we fancy – someone who is extroverted, adventurous and exciting, say – Eastwick’s research shows that they make very little difference in the choices that we make. In fact, we are just as likely to be happy with someone who is easy-going, intelligent and successful – three completely unrelated traits. “What ultimately matters are the feelings their behaviours elicit in you, rather than whether they match some dusty old checklist of must-haves.” And, he writes, you can know that only through multiple conversations, which are inherently chaotic.

Justin Garcia, the executive director and senior scientist at the Kinsey Institute in the US, comes to broadly the same conclusion in his new book The Intimate Animal. While Garcia still employs the market terminology that Eastwick dismisses, he concedes that first impressions of someone’s date-ability are highly misleading. “We are quick to judge partnerships that seem mismatched on the surface, but one’s total mate value is much more complex than we imagine,” he writes.

Both books emphasise the importance of “self-expansion” in close relationships. “Universally, we find growth beyond the self, new experiences, and new ways of thinking to be an alluring aspect of partnership,” writes Garcia.

Such findings have clear implications for the behaviour of anyone who is looking for love. While online dating may have widened the potential dating pool, our choices of whom to meet are necessarily based on those superficial first impressions that will quickly change upon acquaintance, hence the number of disappointments many people face before finding “the one” (or, at least, “a one”).

Given the importance of compatibility, Eastwick recommends giving most people at least three chances before you make your judgement on whether to continue dating them. “Your third impression is a better predictor than pretty much anything that’s been tested,” he argues. And try to be inventive during those dates with a range of activities that might help you gauge how the other behaves in a variety of contexts – roller-skating, karaoke, chocolate tasting – rather than just settling for drinks, dinners or cups of coffee.

At the same time, you should tend to your friendship networks in real life, since we are far more likely to find love with someone we already know than a random stranger. If nothing else, you will reap the many advantages of social connection – which include better physical and mental health – for its own sake.

It is for this reason that Eastwick recommends remaining on good terms with your dates, since they may lead to many more platonic relationships – as he found out with Anna. He was heartbroken for a while, but his feelings for her soon evaporated. They remained friends, and he slowly came to know her group of friends. “The feeling of an expanding social circle is exhilarating all by itself, and I had Anna to thank for that,” he concludes. The friend zone, it turned out, wasn’t such a bad place to be.

After so many terrible tomes teaching us cynical strategies to “play” the dating game, it is refreshing to read two books offering some evidence-based optimism about our chances of finding “the one” by being yourself. Meet lots of people with an open mind, be honest, respectful and kind, and see how your feelings develop. They’re not rocket science, but these simple tips may just turbocharge your love life.

David Robson is the author of The Laws of Connection: 13 social strategies that will transform your life

Three other great books on relationships

Find Love: How to navigate modern love and discover the right partner for you by Paul C. Brunson

Is it harder to find romance in the 21st century than ever before? Tinder’s scientific advisor explains how our ideals are changing and outlines the biggest mistakes we are all making in our search for love.

The All-or-Nothing Marriage: How the best marriages work by Eli J. Finkel

Packed with evidence-based advice on how to find mutual growth in a long-term relationship, including techniques to improve communication and strategies to overcome inevitable disappointments.

Single at Heart: The power, freedom, and heart-filling joy of single life by Bella DePaolo

Society has put enormous pressure on us to couple up, but, as social psychologist DePaolo shows, an increasing number of people are finding happiness flying solo. A myth-busting antidote to Valentine’s madness.