E74 - Love, Sex, Relationships & Your Brain (with Dr. Helen Fisher)

Helen Fisher is a Biological Anthropologist, is a Senior Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute and Chief Science Advisor to the Internet dating site Match.com.

She is the author of several books including the Anatomy of Love, Why We love: The Nature And Chemistry Of Romantic Love and The First Sex: The Natural Talents Of Women And How They Are Changing The World. Her Ted Talks on YouTube, The Brain in Love and Why We love Why We Cheat, have been viewed a combined 3 million times.

In this episode we discuss romantic love, the biological and evolutionary relevance of love, what makes two brains romantically compatible, online dating, the differences between how men and women choose partner, whats different about Gen Z and how they are approaching love and much more.

Interviewed by Dr. Alex Curmi - Give feedback here - thinkingmindpodcast@gmail.com Follow us here: Twitter @thinkingmindpod Instagram @thinkingmindpodcast

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Transcript

Welcome back to the Thinking Minds podcast. My name is Alex. I'm a consultant psychiatrist. Today I'm in conversation with Doctor Helen Fisher. Helen Fisher is a biological anthropologist. A senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute and chief science advisor to Match.com. She's the author of many books, including The Anatomy of Love, Why We Love the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, and The First Sex The Natural Talents of Women, and How They Are Changing the World. Her tedtalks available on YouTube, called The Brain in Love and Why We Love, Why We Cheat have been viewed a combined 3 million times. In this episode, we discuss romantic love. The biological and evolutionary relevance of love. What makes two brains romantically compatible? Online dating. The difference between how men and women choose a partner. What's different about Gen Z and how they are approaching love? And much more. This is the Thinking Minds Podcast, a podcast all about psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, and related topics. If you like it, there are a few ways you can support it. You can share it with a friend. Follow us on social media. Give us a rating wherever you happen to listen or if you want to support us further, you can check out the Buy Me a Coffee link in the description. In addition, if you have any feedback, you can email us at Thinking Minds Podcast at gmail.com. Thanks for listening. And here's today's conversation with Doctor Helen Fisher. 10s The Fisher, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I'm delighted to be with you. Love. Relationships. Attachments. Romance. Sex gets us all into so much trouble. So many of my clients struggle with it. We all do on some level. And to have someone such as yourself who's had such an illustrious career studying this and helping us to disentangle some of the complications of this area of life is super helpful to listen about, to read about. And one thing I'm curious about why love? Why did love become the focus of your career? 2s Oh, what's interesting question. A lot of people assume that, uh, you know, it's because I had a bad love affair in teenage, but I didn't. In fact, his name was Alex. I always liked that name. Alex. 1s But anyway, when I was in graduate school, I'm an identical twin. And, uh. And ever since I was a six years old, you know, as soon as people see an identical twin, they will immediately ask them, you know, do you like the same food? Do you have the same friends? Do you have the same cavities in your teeth? Uh, uh, etc., etc.. So long before I remember, once I was standing in the in the hallway and mother, my mother was introducing me to somebody and, um, the woman leaned down to me. I think I was about 5 or 6 years old. And she said, do you and your twin sister think alike? And at the time I thought to myself, well, how would I know how my twin sister thinks? But obviously I've made a career out of it. Um, but anyway, the bottom line is, um, I always was interested in the biological aspect of of human behavior. I mean, I, I'm fully aware that your childhood plays a large role in who you are, and all of your lifelong experiences can make major adjustments, even in personality. But the bottom line is, we do have, um, you know, does your culture, everything you grew up to see, do and think and say and there's your temperament and I'm interested in temperament, uh, the biological foundations of personality. So anyway, when I was in graduate school in the early 1970s, um. 2s I had to write my PhD dissertation, and in those days, they truly did believe that all behavior was learned, um, that the mind was an empty slate in which environment inscribed personality. I knew that wasn't true because of being an identical twin, so I decided what I would do. I thought to myself, if there's any aspect of human behavior at all, um, that has a biological foundations, it would be our reproductive patterns. Because, as Darwin said, if you have four children and I have no children, you live on and I die out. So there would have been selection. I mean, I understand this group selection, all kinds of others. But the bottom line is I figured that. So I chose to study love because I felt that, as I said, if there was any part of human behavior that could have some genetic and hormonal and neurotransmitter, any kind of biological, um, foundations, it would be studying love. So my PhD dissertation, um, was on hominid pair bonding. Uh, you know, 97% of mammals do not pair up to rear their young, and people do. It's a rather unusual reproductive strategy. So I, I started in with, um, simply monogamy. Mono means one gamete means spouse. It does not in the scientific literature means being sexually faithful. It's come to mean that. But the bottom line is it's basically means pair bonding to ethologist. And so I started with that. Why we bother to pair up at all, uh, why we serially pair up. Um, I looked at the, the demographic yearbooks of the United Nations that at divorce I studied in 80 cultures. I looked at adultery in 42 cultures, and I began to see the patterns of human pair bonding. And then I thought to myself, there must be some biology to basic romantic love. I mean, we pine for love. We live for love, we kill for love, and we die for loves. One of those profoundly basic, uh, human, uh, aspects of our behavior. And so I thought, well. I remember where I was walking in in Greenwich Village in New York, and I said, I wonder if there's got to be biology to romantic love. And that came to me to think, all right, I'm going to look into the brain and figure this out. It was very interesting. My very first academic paper I had, I was maintaining that we've evolved for three different basic brain systems for reproduction. Sex drive gets you out there looking for a whole anybody, a whole pilot, people. You don't have to be in love with somebody to have sex with them. Romantic love that enables you to focus your mating energy on just one at a time, and feelings of deep attachment. So that enables you to stick with this person for a period of time. But anyway, I so I, I wrote a hypothesis paper paper about these for what I thought were these four brains, three brain systems, and one of the four peer reviews. I'll never forget it. One of the four peer reviewers of that article wrote and said, but you can't study romantic love. It's part of the supernatural. And I thought to myself, now hang on here. You know, depression is not part of the supernatural. Anger's not part of the supernatural. Um, fear is not part of the supernatural. Why was such a basic drive? And it is a drive. Um, I'll be part of the supernatural. So that's what started in being an identical twin. Yes, we we mythologize love, don't we? And we form huge cultural bastions about love. You know, films, movies, TV shows. Have you given that you studied biologically? And I've noticed in the culture, there is still a very strong trend against explaining human behavior, even, for example, the differences between men and women. From a biological standpoint, have you continued to face pushback and controversy around this? 2s Oh my gosh. You know, I've written six books on love, but one of the six was not on love. It was on gender differences in the brain. It was written 24 years ago. It came out in in 2000, 1999 or 2000. And I looked at all the gender differences in the brain and, um, and then proposed that men and women are like two feet. They need each other to get ahead, but they don't have exactly the same biological profile and that they need each other. And I went into how with the rise of women, uh, ever since really before World War One, uh, right after World War one, um, and and the and I talked all about the attributes, the biologically based attributes that women were bringing into, uh, the business world, a political world and the family world. And I was I wrote about women, uh, not because I'm a woman and not because I'm basically a feminist, but because we we knew a lot about men. They're already in the job market. And here was half the human race moving back into the job market. And, um, I spent five years writing that book day and night, day and night. I takes me long time to write a book because they're real. And, um, it was killed in one week by feminists on, um, on Amazon, I cried, I'm still. How did they get it? They just. Even though the news was so good that women are bringing to the modern world all of these magnificent traits that can be tremendous use. I mean, women are very good at negotiating. They're good at reading, posture, gesture, tone of voice. They're linguistically skilled. They're good with people. Um, I mean, if you can negotiate a, a, you know, a, a a little piece of cake among five four year olds, you can probably do pretty good in government negotiation, too, and many other skills that women have. But the feminists could not hear that there were any differences. They were fighting the last war and unable to read and embrace the fact that men and women are different, and that women bring to the modern world such incredible skills. It was a horrible disappointment for me. So for them, do you think acknowledging differences between male and female brains left them? They felt that that left women vulnerable to further discrimination and oppression. Was that their reasoning, do you think? 2s Yeah, I guess. Yes. I mean, and don't forget, there had been, I mean, in Darwin's day, I mean, people thought women were, you know. 1s It got around the home, uh, unable to run businesses. Uh. Uh, you know, not aggressive enough, uh, etc., etc.. So they were fighting the last war. They hadn't matured into realizing what my book was saying, which is, look, women have incredible skills. And, uh, and here they come into the job market around the world bringing some basic human skills. And, you know, I mean, basically, I mean, I'm an anthropologist and, you know, for millions of years we lived in these little hunting and gathering societies and women commuted to work every day, and not every day when they were out of food, they came home with 60 to 80% of the evening meal. The double income family was the rule. Um, I mean, there's data on a lot of way. Well, there's big data on over a hundred, um, cultures and, uh, you know, less technically sophisticated cultures. And, and women play, uh, very powerful roles. And in this book was called The First Sex The Natural Talents of Women and How They're Changing the World. And in that book, I was maintaining that, uh, we're really moving forward to the kinds of male female relations that we had a million years ago in which. Both men and women are in the workforce. Uh. Uh, both men and women are making major contributions to the home. And, uh, it's a very natural, uh, progression, uh, away from the agrarian world we came from. And, I mean, when you think about our agricultural past and I certainly studied it, you probably have to, uh, I mean, we saw the rise of the belief that that, uh, women, that men ran the home have that in hunting gathering societies, we have the belief that, you know, men are smarter. They don't think so in hunting, gathering societies, uh, you know, uh, uh, the, you know, the belief that, um, a woman had to be a virgin at marriage, uh, etcetera, etcetera. We evolved along with our agrarian, uh, lack of divorce in hunting and gathering societies. If you were in a really bad relationship, you walk out because you can, uh, women could walk out. They were economically powerful enough to walk out. They had large, um, social systems supporting them, etc. but on the farm, you really couldn't walk out. I mean, you can't chop the cow in half and take half of it out of town. You can't take half of the wheat field. You're stuck for life. And along with that, we see the evolution of arranged marriages, a woman's place in the home. The man is the head of the family until death do us part. And all of that as we moved into the industrial world and now the post-industrial world, we're moving forward to the kinds of relationships that we had in that are much more, um, suitable to not only the human societies but to individual psychologists. Um, so in a way, women aren't. Discovering the freedom for the first time. They're rediscovering their freedom. They're regaining it. A freedom they once had. 2s And same with men. I mean, all during the agrarian past, if the family was a failure was because the man was a failure. I mean, his he had the huge responsibility of of providing for the family and uh, and uh, and he had to do it alone. 1s You know, as a woman tended the home and the man was the breadwinner. And I mean, as women's roles have expanded, men's roles have expanded, too. I mean, now there are not a lot of them, but stay at home fathers. Well, the the woman provides the, uh, economic means. Um, and, you know, you see, I don't know men cooks and men doing all kinds anyway. We're seeing the roles of both men and women expanding into what they were for millions of years before we settle down on the farm. And my understanding is, some of the differences in the brains between men and women are reflected by the fact that women and men choose mates very differently, and for very different reasons. Could you outline the differences between how men and women choose partners, and how that's reflected in their brains? 2s Yeah. So this is the this is the. I'm writing another book on it now. Um, I'll just a little background. It started in 2005 when, um, Match.com gave me a call, uh, two days before Christmas and asked me to come in and talk to them. And I went down and I it was fancy place in New York. And I sat in this room by myself, and all of a sudden 11 people pile in. I said, is this a think tank? I didn't know what it was going on. And as it turned out, it was the CEO of match on down. And in the middle of the morning he said to me, he said, why do you fall in love with one person rather than another? And I said, I don't know. I mean, nobody really knows. We do know that you tend to fall in love with somebody from the same socioeconomic and ethnic background, same degree of intelligence, good looks and education, same religious and social values, somebody with your same economic and reproductive goals and your childhood always plays a role. Say it again. Your childhood always plays a role. But the bottom line is you can walk into a room and everybody's from your background and same level of intelligence and good luck, and you don't fall in love with all of them. So I thought to myself, okay, could basic biology draw you naturally towards one person rather than another? So, um. Because my background was in studying, um. Uh, genetics and hormones, etc.. So anyway, I looked into for two years, um, a lot of the medical and biological literature looking for any trade at all linked with any biological system. And as you know very well, there's all kinds of systems in the brain, but most of them keep the eyes blinking in the heartbeat. And they got nothing to do with personality. But there are four basic brain systems. And, you know, all this anyway. And I'm sure your people listening to you too. But I'll say it again. Um, the dopamine, serotonin, testosterone and estrogen system, each one of those basic brain systems is linked with a constellation, a suite of bundle of personality traits. So what I did is I said, okay, I took out four sheets of paper, and I wrote dopamine, serotonin, testosterone, estrogen, the top of each. And I listed the traits linked with each of these four basic brain systems. And then I decided, all right, I can make it to find out who's naturally drawn to whom. And you asked about men and women. Um, I'm going to make a questionnaire to see to what degree you express the traits in all four of these brain systems. That's one of the problems with modern questionnaires, is they put you in this bucket or that bucket. It's not the way the brain works. As you know, we got a lot of different traits from all kinds of places. So anyway, I created a questionnaire that's now been taken by over 15 million people in 40 countries. And um, and then I have to validate the questionnaire. So in other words, if you score high on my traits in the dopamine system on the questionnaire, do you also show more activity in the dopamine pathways in the brain? So I did two fMRI brain scanning studies and proved it. So it's the only one in the world that's actually proved with brain scanning and validated with it. The big five is a wonderful questionnaire, but they made the questionnaire from linguistic studies. And you can't go back to linguistic studies to prove it. I think they got it largely right, but it's not validated anyway. Um, or it's not validated. It's not validated by mapping onto the brain. Exactly. They went on to do brain studies, but they didn't build the questionnaire from brain physiology to map it that way. So anyway, the bottom line is 15 million people have taken this questionnaire in 40 countries. And then I needed to still answer the question that mattered asked me, which is why do you fall in love with one person rather than another? So, um, I was working first with chemistry.com, which is a subsidiary of match, and then with match. So what I was able to do is I would watch first dates. Uh, on chemistry.com. People had to take my questionnaire before they search the internet to go out with anybody. And the other people on the, on the, um, dating site had also taken the questionnaire so I could know, I could watch who was naturally drawn to whom and what I really liked, and came back and told the site that they liked this person. So I studied the people who went on a chosen first date with somebody and came back to the dating site and said, yes, they're going to see this book, and they actually like the person that felt some chemistry. 1s And, um, I like first dates because you know so little about somebody that your natural biological tendencies would play a larger role. And as it turns out, um, in 28,000 people on the dating site chemistry.com, uh, people who scored very high on the traits in the dopamine system, people I call explorers are drawn to people like themselves, risk taking, novelty seeking, curious, creative, uh, impulsive, um, mentally flexible. People are drawn to people like themselves. Explorers. Dopamine goes for dopamine. Serotonin? Uh, uh, I call these people builders. It's not a great term, but I. But I'm stuck with it. I should have called them guardians, but, uh, as Plato did. But, uh. But anyway, the bottom line is, um, uh, they're also drawn to people like themselves. Traditional, conventional people who follow rules, respect authority. Step stability, um are drawn to people like themselves. In those two cases, similarity attracts. In the other two cases, opposites attract testosterone and here comes you. That's the long winded answer to your question. Testosterone goes for estrogen, and estrogen goes for testosterone. And I call the high, um, testosterone people directors. Maybe I should have called them the drivers. But anyway, they are analytical traits linked with the testosterone system analytical, logical, direct, decisive, tough minded, generally skeptical, good at rule based systems and math, engineering, computers, mechanics, music. Music is very structural. And these people are drawn to their opposite, what I call negotiators high estrogen people. And this is men as well as women. I think Obama shows a lot of high estrogen traits. I think that Clinton did, um, you're not American, but, um, you know, Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves in America? Uh, I think so. Highest. So it's not just women, uh, you know, and there's a lot of women who are very high on testosterone. I think Margaret Thatcher was very high testosterone woman. But anyway, the bottom line is people who are very expressive of the traits in the estrogen system are, um, they see the big picture, their contextual, long term holistic thinking. They tend to be imaginative, uh, intuitive, uh, able to deal with ambiguity because they collect some kinds of data from so many places. Um, very good verbal skills, people skills, good at reading, posture, gesture, tone of voice and empathetic and nurturing. So I now have data on who was drawn to whom. But we are a combination of all of them. And I'll give you an example of me. Um, I married my husband five years ago, uh, three years ago when I was 75. I'm still madly in love with him. Live with him for many years before I married him. Anyway, we're both high. Dopamine works fine and wants to go around the world. Yesterday, if we had the time and the money, uh, you know, exploring. Both of us are big explorers. Uh uh. Works fine. He's very high on testosterone and I'm very high on estrogen also. Once again, a natural attraction. In those ways, it's very compatible. He is higher on serotonin. He follows the rules. He respects authority much more than I do. I mean, I follow the rules of the road. I don't want to be roadkill if it doesn't make any sense to me. I don't follow the rule. I mean, he'll stop at a at a stop sign in the middle of the desert with nobody coming. I wouldn't do that. I might slow down, but not long. I mean, a good example is we were going to the movies sometime ago, and I said to him, I said, sweetheart, do you have any water in your backpack? He said, oh yeah, I got water. I said, well, great, we can, um, drink it in the movie house. He said, no, we can't. You can't bring food or drink into the movie house. You have to buy it at the concession stand. Oh, says I, so I think this is actually one of the problems with some psychiatry and psychology today. They're so fixated on your childhood, which is certainly a puzzle, but they forget that some people are who they are, and it has nothing to do with you. And it has nothing to do with their childhood. They tend to be stubborn. They are more creative. They are more skeptical. They are more nurturing because it's who they are. And it's this second half of the puzzle. I mean, there's a great deal of data now, great deal of data from genetics and hormones, physiology of all kinds, that a good 40 to 60% of variation between people has foundational genetic, uh, uh, biological, uh, foundations. And it's that part of. 1s Of personality. Your temperament that I. 1s I'm continually trying to bring to. The whole world? Yes, absolutely. And I believe that work you are referencing that determine that so much of our personalities genetic is done by Robert Plowman, who we had on the podcast as well, talking about just how profoundly genetics can influence our personality. I certainly think it's very important when it comes to self-development. I think a lot of people think of their personality is something that should be constructed. I should get these personality traits, but rather knowing the literature well. Personality is something you must discover and accept before you can start to build. Yes, you can to some degree modify your personality traits. You can discover new traits. It's very difficult, but first you need to discover what your personality is, what your natural strengths and weaknesses are. And when people are starting out, I tell them not necessarily to to really build a life that's based on their strengths, because that's going to be the easiest path for them. Choose a job that complements your natural strengths and minimizes the effect of their weaknesses. And similarly with choosing partners, it's a similar idea. 1s That's there's a lot of proof of that in the business world. My next book, you know, I wrote this book, Why him, why her? And which I go into these four styles, but I hadn't done my brain scanning, etc. this next book is going to talk about them, and then it's going to go into how you apply this data in, uh, building a team, in selling an innovation and in leading. But like what you said, you know, the second chapter in my book is can we change? And sure, to some extent we can change. I mean, we learned to modify our personality in early childhood, as when your mother says, smile for grandma and you learn to smile for grandma even though you're pissed off at something, you know? Um, and so we're constantly working to fit in and to change what we can. But these basic things don't change a lot. I mean, could you make Donald Trump an empathetic guy? Could you make, uh, Obama into Putin? I don't think so. I mean, if a child is very curious, can you make a child curious? You can beat them every time they ask a question. They might not ask it. Um, you know, can you make I mean, it's so interesting in America when, you know, Mike pence, his job was to certify the election of, of of, um, uh, Joe Biden. And he went in and did it even though people were screaming behind his back outside the windows, hang Mike pence. Why did he do it? He he's a he's a high serotonin guy who follows the rules. He's going to follow those rules if it kills them. And that was a perfect example. Uh, so I think. It would be great if people in your community just. Just hand them my my questionnaire. You know, it takes ten minutes to do. And so they could get some idea of, oh, that's why I always want to go out with the bad girl or the bad boy. Oh, I see I'm high dopamine. No wonder I took that risk last fall when we went to Portugal, you know? Um, and somebody else says, no wonder I'm so good at chess. I've got that kind of mind. Or no wonder I cry at parades. In other words, I do think, just like you said, understanding who you basically are. And we can change to some extent. But you know what? It's tiring. It's tiring. I mean, for example, um, what? I do a lot of speeches around the world and I, you know, I was making a speech to a lot of, um, people from Deloitte, and, um, I was asked the question, are you more yourself at home or at work? And almost all of them said, I'm more myself at work. And one guy said, he said, you know, I love my wife and children, but at home I have to accommodate. At work I can be myself. And I did a thing with visa and, uh, you know, I made the speech and then there was a coffee hour. And during the coffee hour, I saw this woman. She was in accounting at visa. Big high up in accounting. And accounting is a detail oriented, very structured, very stable kind of thing. You don't make a lot of imaginative 1s things in accounting, but imaginative accounting lands. You're in jail. Exactly. Or you're going overseas to Switzerland or hiding it in Barbados, whatever. But the bottom line is, when she took my questionnaire, she was so high on the traits of dopamine, you know, risk taking, novelty seeking, curious, creative, spontaneous, energetic. And I pulled her aside during the coffee hour and I said, you know. My question here shows you is a very high explorer, but your job is one of the high serotonin. Um. Uh, builder, I said, which are you? And she said, I am. What? My. Your test showed, Helen. I'm basically the explorer of the high dopamine. I said I really like my job, but it's tiring. The point is, you can act out of character, but it's tiring. And just like you said, it's so adaptive to get into a job where you can be who you really are and find a partner where you can be who you really are. Uh, I mean, we won't change that much. And if we do, we're going to be tired day and night. Yeah, absolutely. And getting back briefly to the differences between men and women. Is there scientific basis to the idea that men, for example, in terms of initial attraction based, that more on looks and visual stimuli and women bases more on a man's general personality, their skill sets, their competence, their status. Is there truth to that? And if so, what's the what could be the evolutionary reasons for this? 2s Thank you for asking. Uh, there's a lot of data on it. Uh, and, of course, there's going to be variation between men and variation between women. But we're talking about averages. And yes, on average, uh, men are more attracted to, uh, uh, what they say visually and women to what they see in the pocketbook. Now, why would that be? You know, from a Darwinian evolutionary perspective, it's extremely adaptive. I mean, uh, looks count, uh, and a very, you know, shapely woman with clear skin and clear eyes and healthy hair and everything is actually advertising that she's got a very strong immune system and she's been able to fight off the parasites, didn't have the accidents, etcetera, that make you lopsided and, and, and, you know, and so the one thing a man has to do with the woman is pick a woman who, who's going to give him healthy babies and a woman with a strong immune system, which he's advertising with their looks, um, is an adaptive mechanism that evolves. So I don't think it's superficial that men like women that are good looking. I think it is an evolutionary strategy that evolved millions of years ago to be naturally attracted to the kind of person that could bear you healthy babies and send your DNA on into tomorrow. So that's men, uh, women. They like your pocketbook. They want to know if you got a job, uh, you know, etc.. Well, for millions of years, men, women, I mean, needed a man who could hit that buffalo in the head with a rock and come home with some food for dinner. They needed, um, provisioning and protection. And today, how do men protect women with money? 1s When you get money, you get schools. You can put your children in a better school system. You can live in a healthier, more safe neighborhood. Um, you can get people better educated, etc., etc. so it's very adaptive for women to look for a man, look for partner who, um, can help provide for their DNA. And so it's very adaptive that for good Darwinian reasons, that men would be more attracted to a, you know, a shapely, healthy looking young woman and that women would be attract naturally attracted to a guy who's, who's got, um, uh, a steady job, uh, who's financially stable. Um, it's very interesting, you know, because I work with Match.com, and every year we do this study called Singles in America. And so I and my colleagues could cook up about 200 questions, and then we we pull the American public. We do not poll match members. This is a national representative sample of singles based on the US census. And one time I asked the question, what do you first notice in somebody that could be interesting to you? And there's about 20 boxes you could check. These are the top three things that singles notice first in a potential partner their teeth, their grammar and their self-confidence. And everybody was thinking about, I mean, with my match people, they're saying, well, why would that be? But from a Darwinian perspective, your teeth show your age. Your grammar shows your background and your self-confidence shows your psychological stability. And so over and over. And you as a psychiatrist know this. You know, Darwin pops his head up and you respond in. 1s What ways are evolutionarily adaptive. 2s I would have definitely predicted teeth and I would have definitely predicted confidence. Grammar would have totally passed me by. But it's good to know that. Good to know. Yeah. And is it true that Gen Z women are swearing off sex? And why do you think that is? Isn't that interesting? It's not just the women. Um, I call them the New Victorians. And I got that. I mean, long before this Russian, uh, Ukraine war, I was talking to a Russian journalist, and she sees the same thing in, in Russia. Um, you know that the young. It's not just the women, but but the young are very slow growing up. Uh, we're seeing the expansion of all childhood is expanding. Uh, young adulthood is expanding, middle age is expanding, and old age is expanding. And what's interesting about a lot of these people in their 20s, which is early, you know, Gen Z, they'll different, different people. 2s Define that as some people say, ages 18 to 24, 18 to 26. Whatever. Gen Z and millennials, people of reproductive age are, well, particularly the young, are very slow at having sex. And when you think about it, something like a third of them are still living at home. It's pretty hard to have sex every night with somebody new if you're dragging them at home, you know? And and it's a very earnest generation. They are really determined on getting that good job and, and putting their life in order before they make a, a, a long term relationship. I wrote an article on this called Slow Love. And, you know, in my day, uh, people married in their very early 20s, women around age 21, men at age 22, 23. Now they're married in their late 20s or even early 30s on average. So there's this long period of what I call pre-commitment, and they're very slow to get into things. They've even created all these terms. They've got a million terms for, um, uh, you know, ghosting and and benching and, but, but the, uh, gaslighting, you name it. But the most interesting one to me is, uh, DTR define the relationship. And what the young want to do is. Define where we're going. What's going on? These are my goals. If you don't have those goals, we're going to quit now, so I did. I asked on my singles one annual Singles in America study. You know. Well at what age? I mean, at what time in the relationship do you. Have this DTR define the relationship conversation and the average was four months. Now, I don't know. You're younger than I am, but I wouldn't have dreamt of asking a guy four months into a relationship. Where we're headed. I don't want to dreamt of it, but then again, it may be me personally. I got married at 75, so I'm obviously going to go racing. I mean, I mean, I had long, wonderful relationships. I just I finally understand marriage, by the way. But anyway, um, the younger very serious. You ask the question, are they, they're having sex, but and also with this Roe v Wade issue in America, I mean, I'm doing studies now. I mean, they're scared of having sex. Um, because there's opportunities for abortion. Are, are, are, are drying up. Uh, and so but also they're growing up very slowly and they're a very careful generation. Uh, and, um. 1s And which was quite remarkable because in terms of sex, I mean, 1s unlike my generation, uh, you know, they don't have to walk the walk of shame if they have sex. The vast majority would know how to not get pregnant. They know how to not get diseases. The lid is off the pot, they can have sex, but they're not doing it. It's a very careful generation. I once asked, um, you know, why people weren't getting into a partnership? And 40% said, um, they wanted to stabilize their life before they did it. So, uh. 1s Why it is that it's a very careful generation. I think that maybe 1s their parents were the boomers. And we were pretty riotous. And I think they a lot of them experienced a lot of divorce. Uh, you you you can answer that one better than I can, but it's my guess is that they're also with the internet. You are really connected with world problems, and, uh. 1s Uh, 1s I just think it's a very careful generation. And sex is part of being being careful. Yeah. I mean, I agree it's a more careful, more cautious generation. I'm thinking about people younger than me. I'm 34, but I'm not sure that this carefulness is all born out of, uh, maturity and a mind for the big picture. I think some of it is. I'm sure some people are like that. But I do think that younger generations were very, very overprotected. Oh, yes, when they were young. There's a book written about this by Jonathan Haidt called The Coddling of the American Mind. And he speaks about just how much overproduction can be detrimental to your psychology. And we know this in psychotherapy, you avoid things which make you afraid and you become more fearful. Overall. It decreases your fear in the short term, increases your fear in the long term. And dating is hard, and dating is full of ups and downs and things that make you afraid. And of course, bad things happen. Break ups, relationships break down. 1s There's a lot of turmoil. And so I'm sure some people are being more careful, some people are being more mature. But my concern is a lot of people are rationalizing, delaying, getting stuck into the ups and downs of life. And one of the ups and downs of life is relationships. And I think that's that could be a problem depending on an individual's case. Because if you, for example, whether you're a man or woman, if you don't date, really, if you don't get into a relationship, say, by the time you're 30, that doesn't necessarily equip you to date. Well, dating is a skill. You know, learning about yourself through dating is a skill. Learning about other people, learning what makes a relationship work in the long term takes a little bit of trial and error. So I would definitely advocate dating kind of cautiously, but dates because it's important. Whereas not dating at all, you could get to an older age where all of a sudden now things are on the line. There's more pressure to get married, especially if you want children and you really have no knowledge or skills, and you might end up with someone that you're not really compatible with as a result. So that's kind of my thoughts on it. I like yours better than mine. I do, I know I do, I mean, I, I mean, I, you know. 1s They're mature in some ways, but they're really inexperienced because of being so coddled. And I know Jonathan Height very well. I actually saw him a few nights ago and he told me the story. I'm sure he wouldn't mind. You know, he has a son and a daughter, and it was several years ago. And, uh, the son wanted to, uh, he wanted to he wanted to follow his own principles and get this kid to do things by himself. And so he was hoping he was started in, uh, getting the kid, um, to take the subway. Kid wanted to take the subway by himself, but it was Jonathan and his wife that were concerned about it. So he'd been used to taking the kid to the subway. But you had to cross Seventh Avenue. New York is a big avenue. And, uh, and across all the streets and this and that. I think the kid was, I don't know, nine, ten, 11, I can't remember. So the first day he let the kid go by himself. And I might get this a little wrong, but that's the principle. And he followed behind him 2s to see if he could do it, and he followed behind him quite a, you know, more than once. And finally, you know, he let the kid do it by himself and without following him. And there's, you know, I don't know if you know, a woman called, uh, Lenore Skenazy, uh, she's um, uh, she was, um, dubbed the worst mom in America because she left, let her nine year old take the subway to school by himself. And so she started a an organization. I wish I could remember the name of it, but they're good friends. She's good friends with Jonathan Hite. Um, uh, about. Let your children learn by doing things. It's the parents. That that are so scared, and they instill this fear into the kids. And the kids have none of the skills, just like you're saying, to go out and and explore the world. And in fact, John Heit, once he let his kid kid was 13. Go way out. I mean, it's like an hour and a half on the subway to, uh, to watch tennis matches. And he let him do it by himself. Of course, he and his wife stayed up, up, up and up and up. And the kid didn't come home until, I don't know, quarter of three in the morning because he was watching the very last of the matches. And then he had a hot dog, and then he got the subway. And of course, the kid just waltzed in. He was he felt empowered and the parents were almost sobbing. And that's what you've got to do. I was watching, you know, I was once, um, traveling in Tanzania with actually with a film crew. They invited me to come along from the BBC and, um, they were, um, they let real big knives around. Very small children. And it's one time learning. The child makes the mistake once and doesn't do it again, because they just can't be watching every kid all the time. And so, you know, I mean, we come from a background where children did learn, you know, a five year old would learn from a seven year old could learn from a ten year old from, you know, in these multi age play groups. And parents weren't, you know, looking at every single thing they did. The these hunter gatherers, people did hang high up in their lean to the poison that they used on their arrows that. 1s That needed training, but everything else, they let the very small children do all kinds of of things that, uh, parents today would be, would be horrified. Yeah. I really like to think about the zeitgeist and the different psychological problems that emerge in different societies at different points in history. And I think one of the conflicts we're facing in Western society at the moment is we have a bit of a conflict. On the one hand, we desire explicitly ultimate freedom, the freedom to do anything and be anyone we want and have whatever identity we wish, while at the same time we want ultimate safety where it has to be 100% safe and secure and no one can come to any harm. And both of those, just even by themselves, are fantasies. They're not attainable, let alone if you put them together where they're actually pulling in opposite directions. It can be very difficult. And I think a lot of people are along, people in their 20s, you see them without realizing it, laboring under this conflict. I want to be anything. I feel in some sense, my culture is telling me I can be anything, but also everything has to be safe and relatively straightforward, hopefully. And it's a problem. I think a lot of people suffer as a result. I completely agree with you, and I think people like Jonathan Hyde and Lenore Skenazy, which is I can remember the name of her thing, you know, who are fighting back and and writing about it and letting kids do. I mean, I was, you know, when I really have don't know what to think about something, I go back to. Okay, well, how did hunter gatherers do this, you know, and they were given a great children, were given a great deal of autonomy, but they lived in these very solid hunting gathering groups of about 25 individuals. And so they had a wasn't always stable. People were fighting with each other then the way they are right now. But the bottom line is there was a very stable. Basic group in which you could experiment with autonomy. And really, what we've done, just like you say we've given we've we've lost that local community in many ways. And what we've won is freedom and autonomy, but we don't have as much of that local community now. It's interesting. I've got a woman and she's a wonderful I adore this girl. She comes and she moves the dust around every two weeks, and she's just wonderful with my place and everything. And I asked her, you know, well, how many people, uh, do you see for Christmas dinner? And she said, oh, my family is 54 people. 1s She's from Ecuador. I could not scare up five relatives of mine. I couldn't do it. I mean, I come from a totally different background and, you know, this loss of local community and of course, in New York and much over the world, we're building new local community. I mean, I call it the urban clan. And in my life I have a group of people. We play bridge every Sunday night. And but I could probably call on almost any of them if I was sick. Uh, but they're not living right next to me. They don't see me every day. This lack of local community is really not natural to the human animal. Uh, the autonomy is. But the second half of the puzzle is is not clear. I mean, people have community, but it's over the internet. You you build your community over the internet, and you have your school community, which can end at 5:00. You got your business community, but at 6 p.m., the, the, the, you know, the the workday is over and they're gone and etc.. So, um, yeah, it's the the issue of autonomy and making it's so interesting because, you know, when I was a kid. 1s I didn't. Maybe it was my parents. They just assumed I'd do something with myself. But there wasn't this pressure, uh, that there is today to to succeed. No, there's a huge pressure. There's a huge pressure. But then the pressure. I think the nature of the pressure changes as the generations go down. So I think a lot of my generation, the pressure is get a job that makes you stable financially, like don't end up homeless, get a university degree and get a good job. There's no talk really of fulfillment or self-actualization. I think now times have changed and now the pressure is a not necessarily a pressure that parents impose on children, perhaps a pressure that young people impose on themselves because they see it's now more possible than ever to self-actualize the internet especially, is not only do I need to have a stable income, but I need to be fulfilled. I basically need to enjoy my job most of the time. My time outside of work needs to be really fun and full of travel and amazing leisure activities. I need to have a great romantic partner, which is of course what we're talking about today, which which is fulfilling in itself. And they're my best friend and they also give me everything I need. So the. Because it's theoretically possible to live this really amazing life. Now, a lot of people have this pressure to construct it, but it's really hard. Like self-actualization is no joke. It takes a lot of work. Actually. It's not. It's not simple. Just removing societal barriers isn't enough. You know, it's so interesting because, um, with the same Singles in America study that I now have data on over 70,000 people ever from, ever since, from from 2010 to to today. And last year we asked the question about, you know, do you go to a psychiatrist, you know, and, um, something like 85% had gone to one. Uh, you know, to understand themselves and what they're doing. And, um, what really astonished me is the huge number of singles, I can't remember quite that. It was way over 50% wouldn't even go out with somebody until that, unless that person had had, um, you know, had been to a therapist of some, some variety. Now, in my day, if you went to a psychiatrist, you told nobody. It's now fashionable. And I think it's fashionable for exactly the same reasons that you're saying, is this all this pressure to be everything to everyone, to understand everything about yourself and and so. And they are heading to the psychological community to, to try to put it all together. 1s Um, and we're very grateful for your help and your research to help us with that. And what do you think are. If there's a few things you wish people understood about love and relationships, maybe there's a lot of misconceptions you'd like to clear up. What are a few things you just wish people would know? There's so many. I was going to write a book 101 Myths About Love. And if I live long enough, I'll do it. Uh, and I've assembled all of them. 1s Oh, there's so many things. Um, I'll start with some basics. I mean, romantic love is a drive. It's a basic mating drive. Um, it it locks into the addiction centers in the brain. Um, and, you know, and I, I don't have I don't need the man on this woman in the street to know about that. But I would like psychiatrist to know that that they're dealing with an addiction. Um, I do think that that there's not only sex addiction, there's clearly romantic addiction. People who are in happy partnerships. We see activity in the nucleus accumbens linked with all the addictions. And certainly when you're rejected in love, that this is an addiction that the therapy community needs to know, that, you know, you can't just say, oh, well. 1s Drop them. You've got to treat it as an addiction. But for the man on the street, the woman on the street. There's so many things we don't understand. Men. We just don't understand men. They fall in love faster than women. They fall in love more often than women. Um, men are two and a half times more likely to kill themselves when a relationship is over. Really? When it comes to love. Women are the picky sex, and men are the more fragile sex. Um. That's not. For example, it's interesting. I asked a question on the singles in America thing. Why do you go into a one night stand and you can check a lot of different boxes? Men were two times more likely to go into a one night stand than women, two times more likely to do it, hoping that this would trigger the beginning of a longer partnership. Now, when I say that to people, they don't believe me. It's the fact men, you know. So I would like it if people gave men a bottle. I mean, this concept of toxic masculinity just gives me the hives. There are so many men who sacrificed their lives on the battlefield, in the workforce, uh, in relationships they're not happy in. Um, women do it too. But this idea that men are somehow toxic is just flat out wrong. Um, that's one I thought. Here's something about older people, because I'm older. In the singles in America, I asked two questions about, um. 1s And here's what they are. Would you make a long term commitment to somebody who had everything you were looking for, but you were not in love with them? Second question would you make a long term commitment to somebody who had everything you were looking for, but you did not find them sexually attractive? The least likely is people over 60. The least likely to compromise about sex and love is people over 60. We the. We don't have a whole pile of cougars. Um, older, desperate women. They're looking for the same things, uh, that the young are the most likely to compromise about. Would you make a long term commitment to somebody who had everything you were looking for, but you weren't in love, and you didn't find them sexually attractive? The most likely to say yes I would is men in their 20s. And I thought to myself, why would that be? And it's because it's the young that need to pass their DNA on to tomorrow. Those are the ones that need to compromise. And it's so interesting because I asked my wonderful, uh, cousin 1s about his wife, and he said to me, he said, you know, Helen, she wasn't the best I ever had in bed. And there was another woman who I was actually more in love with. But this woman was going to be very helpful to my career, and she was going to be a great mother to my children. And this is what the young have to do. They're much more driven by reproductive instincts, even though a lot of people aren't having babies right now, but they still got the instincts, um, making the behave in certain ways. So, uh, older people aren't desperate. The young can compromise. 1s Men are falling faster. Women are the picky sex. And I'd really like everybody to know how to handle this internet. 1s It's just this newest do the same old thing. Now, for example. Um. 2s As more people are meeting in America on the internet than through a friend. 40% are met their last first partner, uh, last first date on the internet, and only 25% met through a friend. And people say, oh, this is changing, love. Everyone's going crazy. These are not dating sites. They are introducing sites. That's all they do is introduce you. The only real algorithm is your own brain. You got to get out there. And the people, your mother can't tell you who the perfect person is. She's not going to kiss him or her. You know, your best friends have some idea who you are, but don't. They don't know you the way you do. You got to get out and meet the people. And the two problems with the internet. It's just the newest way to do the same old thing. This is just the newest way to meet people. That's all it is. But there's two problems with it. One is that people binge and the brain is not built, uh, to deal with more than 5 to 9 options. I'm sure you know, this cognitive overload, the power paradox of choice. Um, and so what these people do is binge. And the one thing you one of two things you need to do if you're going to be on the internet and I recommend you do, um, it is work, but you're trying to win life's greatest prize. The works should pay off. Uh, don't binge because after you've met 5 to 9 people, good scientific data on this. Get off the dating site and get to know at least one of these people better. Apparently the data is. And you may have better data on this than I and than I do, but, uh, um, apparently that as you get to know somebody you end up liking the better. Um, but you gotta you gotta not binge. That's number one. Number two, think of reasons to say yes instead of no. There's a huge brain region in the medial prefrontal cortex linked with negativity bias, particularly women. If they're the big six, as you say. Yeah, they're picky and they will, you know, I mean, there's a huge brain region for negativity bias. We remember the negative for good Darwinian reasons. I mean, if you and I were walking along the grasslands of Africa a million years ago, we liked each other. We were friends. But if we forgot who didn't like us, we could die. So we, the brain is built to remember the negative. And when you've just met somebody, you know so little about them that you can overweight. What you what you see in front of you, and you'll end up saying, oh, I don't know. He has likes cats and I like dogs. Not can't work. Oh my God, she was wearing that kind of clothing. I could never introduce her to my parents, etc. and so don't binge and think of reasons to say yes instead of no. Try people out. 2s And I've seen that problem with people. I know the negativity bias happen over and over again. People rejecting potential, uh, partners because of what seems like really small reasons. And going to the point that you mentioned about binging. Of course, it's worth mentioning that newer forms of online dating like Tinder and Bumble Hinge, they're designed for binging. Not only are they designed for binging, but their whole revenue model functions on on binging. So would you. Obviously you've got a bias. You work for Match.com, but it sounds like sites like Match.com, Match.com, maybe Cupid, uh, more classic style dating websites are much more likely to, uh, allow a person to date with moderation rather than to binge. I think the brain is built to binge. I don't think it's going to make a difference by sight. I don't have a bias. I actually like Tinder. Uh, I like Tinder because you meet the person very fast. The average time, uh, meeting somebody on Tinder is about six days. And they really know that the longer you stay on the site, the less likely you are to ever meet the person. I understand why people binge. I mean, you are trying to find life's greatest prize and, um, and, and and, you know, if you people who build a long term good partnership apparently live 5 to 7 years longer, it's adaptive to find the right person. I'm not surprised that people binge. I'm not surprised that they say no instead of yes. I don't think that these sites are any more designed to, uh, you know, to to binge or not binge. I think it's the way the brain is built. Um, I do know that with match, I, I once talked to the woman who was a sociologist for for Tinder. She's not doing it anymore, but she said, the hell she said, Helen, you know, something like 80 to 85% of the people on Tinder, she did very studies. Uh, do are looking for a long term, uh, partner for some variety. I do think that some of these. Stereotypes or. Probably a little misleading. I mean, they're all trying to. 2s Tap into the brain and help you find somebody. It's so interesting because I've had people say to me, oh, well, they just want you to stay on match and all that stuff. And I have spoken. I mean, I've, I've been around for 20 years on match and I've known more than nine of their CEOs. And I once said to him, I said, well, you know, people always say, you know, everybody, you know, that match wants to keep people on the side. And they said, Helen, that is so wrong. The best thing for our business is to have you get on the site on Tuesday and meet the perfect partner on Tuesday night, and then tell all your friends that's what they that's where they make their money. And I don't really I mean, I've never studied Tinder, but as I say, I like it because you meet somebody faster. Uh, but, um, I think in many respects they're all, ah, they're going to provide you with different kind of people. I mean, farmers.com if you know, or, uh, you know, uh, other ones are going to give you different kinds of people because different kinds of people are going to sign up for different kinds of websites. And, and I do think that matches the. Grand old ladies. They started the whole thing in 1995 and it was very interesting the evolution of dating sites too, because in the beginning everybody thought, oh, this is just for losers. And then it evolved into, oh, it's okay, but it's not for me. And now it's for me too. And I think the beauty of the I'm not selling them, I'm just a scientist studying their their studying their patterns. But, um, I'm not selling the site. And, um, I mean, I like the people that match. I stayed there for 20 years because I, I, I, I, they have some integrity. But, um, I imagine a lot of these sites do and, um, I mean, what's really nice about them is in this day and age, somebody in their 50s or 60s, they've gone through a bad divorce, that they know everybody at work, they know everybody in their social circles. How are they going to meet anybody? And this these sites give them the opportunity. They are work. Uh, I'm I'm not a person who really ever enjoyed dating. I mean, I don't think it's fun. Maybe some people do, but as I say, you're looking for one of the most important things in life, which is a partner. And, uh, these sites enabled you to do what your grandmother and grandmother did in the 1800s, what your mother and grandmother did a million years on the grasslands of Africa. And I mean, the beauty of the the problem is that we have so many alternatives. I'm in a million years ago, you wandered around most of the year and a little hunting and gathering group of 25 people. And once a year in the dry season, they would assemble in larger permanent waterholes, and there'd be about 500 people in these things. Well, we can't study them. They've been gone long gone. But I would imagine that that's when there are a lot of courtship occurred, you know, then you met your your father's brothers in a different hunting band and, and, you know, his sister is someplace over there, and you meet people close to your age, but you never had the opportunity to meet as many people as we do today. We just have to learn how to use these introducing sites. Don't binge, you know, think of reasons to say yes. Just try to use it properly. Um, I'm not sure I fully agree, if that there aren't differences in terms of propensity to binge between newer, uh, apps like Tinder and older ones like Match.com. Obviously the the point that you made that the human brain is has a tendency to binge naturally. I fully agree with, but simply the ease of use of an app like Tinder. And as you said, it allows you to meet someone quicker. And just the layout of the app House works does seem to me to make it more likely, um, that someone might binge. And it's also because it's so quick and people's profiles are relatively brief. It to me, it's I worry that perhaps it commoditize people a bit and makes people appear to others as products to be marketed. I suppose this is part of a problem with the internet. And I mean, how about reading Jane Austen or Trollope or, uh, or Thackeray or something? Um, they were selling products, I mean, and a very small thing of products. I mean, I mean, women had to marry men with money because they didn't have any. They weren't going to inherit any. They had to marry within their social class, uh, you know, etcetera, etcetera. I mean, it was very confining when you, when you read these novels from Dickens to Thackeray to, to 2s the French and Iranian and, you know, I mean, they were very constricted in who they could. And you read these old, uh, books like the Jade goddess, uh, to I think it was a Chinese, uh, book. And, and the woman falls in love with the gardener. And runs away with a gardener. Uh, he's a and he's wonderful at carving jade. It's one of his Chinese or or buddy or Japanese. But anyway, the bottom line is she stepped out of her class. She married the wrong guy. She got captured by her family, and they buried her alive in the garden because she didn't follow the rules. And today. Okay, we can binge. Okay, there's this sites that can do it easily, but we can choose for ourselves. I think it is such a great step forward as long as you know how to use these sites. Yeah, that makes sense. I'd like to just briefly pick up on a point. You mentioned earlier you were talking about how, based on the data, men in the early 20s are the most likely to compromise. And I'd like to offer a reason why potentially why that could be. I'm speculating, obviously, but I think one reason why men in their early 20s are more likely to compromise in terms of dating is because they really don't understand their their mating value. Yet men in their early 20s are like men in their early 20s are like a start up. You know, they they don't really have they don't have high stock yet in the, the sexual marketplace. They haven't developed their skills, their competence, their status. They might be good looking or not. Um, but as we mentioned before, uh, big reasons why women choose men, uh, because their ability to do things, to act in the world, to have authority, to have some sort of status. And so I wouldn't be surprised that men in their early 20s don't yet, if they lack imagination and vision, especially for what their life could become. 1s You don't realize their own value, and that might make them much more likely to compromise in a dating situation. I love it, and by the way, you know, young women are at the very height of their nubile. 2s Power on the dating market. Whereas men have not developed their potential. Exactly, exactly what you said. And it's tragic because they're both ignorant of it. They're both ignorant of the women are ignorant that they're at the height, and men are ignorant that they're sort of just at the beginning of their journey. And of course, as time has gone by, though, I mean, uh, when I ask, um, on the same, you know, dating, uh, the singles in America study what you're looking for in a partner. I mean, we we do that every year. We. I could date on 70,000 people. As I said, more and more men, young men, all men want a partner who is equally well educated, who is, um, got a successful career and who is financially stable. So as more and more women move into the job market, they're no longer just selling their good looks and their ability to cook dinner. They are also beginning to have to sell their education, um, their ability to build a career, etc. and this may be another reason for slow love. Everybody's having to not just men having to build their potential, but women are beginning to have to build their potential as well. And uh, and even, you know, you see, um, men in their 60s and 70s, I mean, brain circuitry for manic love is still working. They don't want a 25 year old because they've already had children, they don't want that lifestyle, etc. but they do want a woman who looks young, even though she may be only a few years younger and has vitality and energy, but they'd also like one who's coming to the thing with a little bit of money and, and uh, and status, etcetera, etcetera. So I do think as we shed our agrarian background and more and more women are in the job market, what you say is changing that both men and women are having to build a better sales pitch. 2s Um, yeah, it's hot out there and I'm conscious of your time, but, um, just to to wrap up, what do you think? You've studied human nature for a long time. What do you think has surprised you the most about human nature across your career? 1s You're going to think I'm crazy. 2s I have studied human nature for. 1s 50 years. 1s And I always intellectually understood why you would marry. I always understood romantic love. I've been loved many, many times. I always understood the sex drive. That was just fine. But attachment was something that. 1s I have advocated have studied in the brain. I've written six books on, but I never profoundly understood until I met the man that I just married. Why you would sign up for life with just one person. I never got it. I never got it until recently. And if I can finish the book I'm writing now about about personality, my last book, if I Live Long Enough, I hope I do, will be in a memoir about a biography of somebody who studied love. I've been to 112 countries and seen it everywhere, and I think I might even start the book by saying, you know, I never emotionally got it. Why we would do this crazy thing of sign up with just one person for the rest of your life. And I finally understand that that's that's the maybe the biggest thing in my personal life. Yeah. And maybe also that love is a drive. I mean, in terms of intellectually never dawned on me till I did those brain studies to realize, wow, these are these are drives. These aren't just cognitive processes and emotional expressions, which it is, but it's these are profoundly basic drives. As I said, people pine for love. They live for love. They kill for love and they die for love. I seem to have found in my life and studied 1s one of humankind's most profoundly basic experiences. Wow. That's a nice note to end on. And now, hopefully having, uh, gained a bit of a window into some insights that you've brought to us, maybe people will have a bit of an easier time finding their path. Thank you so much. And this has been one of my favorite conversations. I really enjoyed speaking with you today. I'd love for you to have you back at some point in the future. Be wonderful. Thank you. My next book comes out in about a year and a half. I'd love to talk to you about it then, but it's a pleasure to talk to somebody who's in my field, basically. And I learned something. 13s Thanks so much for listening this week. If you've got any feedback, as always, do get in touch. If you enjoyed the episode, why not give us a rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts? Because it really helps other people to find us. If you want to get in touch, you can find us on Instagram or Twitter, or you can drop us an email. And if you value the show more generally, why not by us? Coffee. Thanks so much.