Last updated April 10, 2022

Status:: { Books MOC Author:: Medium:: #literature/books/finished Tags:: Links: { How to Not Die Alone Application

{ How to Not Die Alone

Introduction

• Relationships are built, not discovered
  • Based on our choices on who, how to settle, etc

Summaries

• Section 1: Ready
  • Dating blind spots, attachment theory, long-term qualities
• Section 2: Exploring
  • Pitfalls of modern dating, swipe bettr, meet people IRL, go on fun dates, learn who to see again
• Section 3: Serious
  • Defining relationship, moving on

Section 1

C1 - Why Dating is Much Harder Now

• Our more free and expressive identities make it harder to choose our life, and a partner is part of that problem
• The wide selection of people available on dating apps hinders us due to the paradox of choice
• While shopping for products keeps us certain with their descriptions and reviews, finding someone to date is more uncertain and open-ended
• Not having the unrealistic relationships portrayed in society, we expect too much from our partner
• We don’t have a reference as to what a proper relationship is from rolemodels
• Options like children, monogamy, marriage make it hard to choose

C2 - Dating Tendencies Quiz

Three Tendencies

Romanticizer

You want the soul mate, the happily ever after—the whole fairy tale. You love love. You believe you are single because you haven’t met the right person yet. Your motto: It’ll happen when it’s meant to happen.

• Unrealistic expectation of relationships

Maximizer

You love doing research, exploring all of your options, turning over every stone until you’re confident you’ve found the right one. You make decisions carefully. And you want to be 100 percent certain about something before you make your choice. Your motto: Why settle?

• Unrealistic expectation of their partner

Hesitater

You don’t think you’re ready for dating because you’re not the person you want to be yet. You hold yourself to a high standard. You want to feel completely ready before you start a new project; the same goes for dating. Your motto: I’ll wait until I’m a catch.

• Unrealistic expectation of themselves

C3 - Disney Lied to Us

• Two approaches to a good relationship:
  • Based on the right person or based on the effort and experiences
• Something on finding the right person

C4 - Maximizer Tendency

• Two sides: Maximizers vs satisficers
• Mazimizers want to make the best possible decision, while satisficers have standards, but won’t worry for something better out there
  • Simply need some evidence, to look for a good enough option
• Unfortunately, seeking for perfection is unnatainable :/
  • Suffer from FOMO and FOMTWD (fear of making the wrong decision)
• Satisfiers can get an objectively worse outcome, but they feel much better than maximizers
  • Focus on not the quallity but how we feel about it
• Satisficers feel good due to rationalization, they learn to appreciate what’s in front of them instead of seeking something more

Secretary Problem

• When choosing the most quailfied person, evalullate the first 37% and choose the best one. Now, choose the next person that meets that standard.
• Your sample size should be based on years until you want to be fully committed

C5 - Don’t Wait, Date

• We will never be 100% ready ourselves to date
• Sure we can wait, but we should do so while acknowledging the lost opportunity costs, to learn about our preference sand experiences
• To get started, we need to learn to

practice asking interesting questions, expressing yourself in a compelling way, and going in for a first kiss. Those are your reps.

Steps to Overcome Hesitation

1. Make a deadline, suggested is 3 weeks from now?
2. Prep
   • Download apps
   • Craft outfits
   • Learn to listen and play
3. Tell others to help with focus
4. Commit to your new identity
   • Instead of improving ourselves, sometimes we just need to let go of some of our identities
     • Active dater vs future one
5. Set goals
   • Consider a certain time of day every week for a date
6. Be compassionate to yourself
   • Accept rejection, pep yourself up

C6 - Attachment Style

50% secure, 20% anxious, 25% avoidant, 5% anxious-avoidant Anxious attachment

• People who need constant contact
• Anxious unless with their partner
• Prone to guilt-tripping

Avoidant attachment

• Don’t show emotions, convince themselves they don’t want to connect

Ideal is secure attachment

C7 - Look for a life partner, not a prom date

• Make sure we’re looking for someone who can help raise a stable family, not someone who you can show off to your social group
  • Can I make a life with this person vs what a love story with this person would look like
• Ideal to change this mindset 6-8 years prior to wanting to have kids
• We tend to undervalue important qualities of long-term relationships in favor of trivial things
  • ex) Making dancing a requirement if you dance, even if you don’t even do it that often

Common trivial qualities we assess partners on:

• Money
  • A salary above 75k/year does not ensure a greater emotional well-being
    • Richness is subjective
• Good looks
  • Appearance matters in life success
  • Appearance is just short-term, qualities stay !
    • We will eventually be accustomed to their appearance, making it less attractive
  • Our attraction to apperance is survival-based, as it allows time for the child to mature before we lose interest in our partner
  • It’s cool to have, just make sure it doesn’t make someone a turn off
• A similar personality

  Northwestern professor and marriage expert Eli Finkel, he said, “There is no correlation between how satisfied or how happy you are with a relationship and how similar your personalities are.” In other words, we make our potential pool of partners smaller by mistakenly eliminating people who are not similar enough to us.

  • Would we want to date ourselves?
  • Think of someone who can complement your own character
• Shared hobbies
  • Make sure you’re giving space hehe
  • Other Significant Other
    • It’s virtually impossible to have all your hobbies and needs met by one person, so have other people fill the gaps
      • Not being interested in certain things does not mean they are a bad partner
        • It allows them to stay secure and focus on what they’re best at

What actually matters

• Emotional stability and kindness
  • Most important yet underrated

  emotional stability as being able to self-regulate and not give in to anger or impulsivity. The combined emotional stability of a couple predicts the satisfaction and stability of their relationship.

  • allow us to show care and compassion
  • Tip: Evaluate kindness through their small interactions with other people with no intent of getting anything in return:
    • Nice to waiter, offer seat in transit, patient with people learning, compassionate
  • Tip: Evaluate emotional stability through their coping mechanisms with stressful situations
    • Do they calmly respond in the time between stimulus and response?
  • Loyalty
    • Tip: Do they still have friends throughout their life stages, even if the other party has had troubles?
      • Do previous people still go to them for advice?
      • Old friendships indicate loyalty
  • Growth mindset
    • Positive approach to facing problems and obstacles
  • The way they bring your best self out
    • Do their positive/negative emotions positively/negatively affect you?
    • Tip: consider how you feel after dates, ask someone how you acted due to them
  • Skills for fights/arguments
    • How do you handle relationship-long problems due to incompatibility?

      Dan Wile explained in his book After the Honeymoon: “When choosing a long-term partner, you will inevitably be choosing a particular set of unresolvable problems.” The goal isn’t to find someone with whom you don’t fight. It’s to choose a partner with whom you fight well, and who doesn’t make you worry that the fight will end the relationship

    • Able to switch the atmosphere when things get too tense
  • Decision-making skills when together
    • Tip: get immersive
      • Rhythym while canoeing lmao
        • ex) in charge vs follower

  “I want him to make me feel smart, funny, appreciated, and secure in our relationship.”

Section 2

• Getting out there

C8 - You don’t know what you want

app makers have a subtle but astonishing amount of power over our love lives. They are designing the environment in which we make decisions about dating. And, by extension, they deeply influence the decisions we make

• Bad as it can have some major affect on our decision-making
  • ex) emphasis on appearance through photos, little on knowing them

Issues

1- Emphasis on more quantifiable and comparable traits which are more superficial, leading to a higher valuation

evaluability: The easier it is to compare certain traits, the more important those traits seem.

Using data from a popular dating website, Ariely found that a man has to earn $40,000 more each year to be as desirable as a man one inch taller.

2- The apps allow us to filter out great potential matches.

Most of us have no idea what kind of partner will fulfill us long term. Yes, we think we know what we want. Yes, we have that long checklist. But those are likely not the qualities possessed by the person we fall in love with.

• Unfortunately, we tend to keep our initial, ignorant criteria xd

3- Apps promote “relationshopping”—searching for potential partners like potential purchases

We cannot be understood by comparing and contrasting our parts. Yet dating apps have turned living, breathing, three-dimensional people into two-dimensional, searchable goods. They’ve given us the false belief that we can break people down into their parts and compare them to find the best one. Apps primarily give us a list of résumé traits and nothing more. Only by spending time with someone can you appreciate that person for the “experiential good” they are.

• The importance of going on that first date

4- Apps make us more indecisive about whom to date

• The sheer amount of matches makes us anxious and indecisive on who to go on a date with
  • Paradox of choice makes us less satisfied

the point of a dating app is to go out on an actual date, not to spend all of your evenings swiping.

5- When we see only a rough sketch of someone, we fill in the gaps with flattering details. We create an unrealistic fantasy of this person, which ultimately leaves us disappointed

• Known as the monet effects
• Disappointed due to our high, unrealistic expectations

Date smarter

• Be more accomodating with your filters
• Change how you swipe
  • Don’t generalize people because of one trait like their occupation
  • Sometimes people are working towards your interests but haven’t had the chance to

    As you evaluate potential matches, look for what’s attractive about someone rather than what turns you off … Does checking “yes” to “occasionally does drugs” mean “I’ll take an edible on a camping trip” or “I go on the occasional black-tar heroin binge”?

Go on dates with people whom you don’t necessarily think are a fit. That’s the only way you can figure out what you actually like rather than assuming you already know.

• Be sparse with dates
  • You’ll make better decisions if you pace yourself and go out with a limited number of people at once. Try to really get to know them. If expanding your settings means a bigger menu, then dating fewer people at a time means savoring each dish.
  • More than 3 people at a time?

Getting more matches

Good photos

• Clean pictures
• Stand alone, look towards camera, don’t smile
• Candids are better
• Selfies are shit
• Black and white???

Present yourself accurately

• Reflect your own quirks in bio
• Be specific and prompt conversation in your bio

Include quirky things that make you stand out. If you say, “I like music,” that doesn’t really tell me anything about you. Cool, who doesn’t? Same with writing that you like travel, food, and laughter. That’s like saying you like Tom Hanks. Yeah, dude, he’s an American hero. Don’t tell me you like to cook; describe to me your signature dish and what makes your Vietnamese soup pho-nomenal. The more specific you are, the more opportunities you give potential matches to connect by commenting on that quirk.

• Include what you want, not what you don’t want

Opening lines

The goal of an opening line is to get a conversation going so that you can meet up with someone in person. Look at the profile and comment on something subtle, a detail that not everyone would notice. Use a touch of humor.

Stay in touch, get to the date ASAP

• Meet, don’t stay as a pen pal bruh
  • Over-texting can lead to an unrealistic expectation of the other person
    • “I’m enjoying this convo, we should continue it while having bbt or something”

    Or the next time they start to tell you something interesting: “Wait, wait, wait. I need to hear this in person! When are you free this week to meet up and tell me the rest of this story?”

C9 - Meet People IRL

Asian men contend with similar behavior. Rudder found that white, Black, and Latina women rate Asian men as 30 percent less attractive than they rate men of other races.

Ways to find new people

Go to events

Decision matrix for potential events you can go to

• How likely is it that I’ll interact with other people at this event?
• How likely is it that I’ll enjoy myself at this event?

Talking to new people

• Go alone to be more approachable
• Wear something confident, flirt, smile, eye contact
• Get reps in by talking to everyone to prepare for the person you’re actually interested in
  • Screen by asking “Are you in love”
    • bruh
  • Remember to try and continue outside the event
• You can’t be creepy if you’re only friendly
• Lines make people bored,

Friends

• Everyone wants to help their friends find someone
  • Ask people to set you up
    • Describe your interests in a partner

Setting up other people:

• Scan contacts for single people
• Contact the picker person or know better with sufficient information
  • Ask other person next

Connect with people you already know

• Jokingly question it and see their response

Get to know people, transit, public, etc

• Even if you find out they’re not for you, you can still find people

C10 - Date, not job interview

• The environment of a date affects our enjoyment
  • How much we like the location, the time of day, weather, etc
• Change from evaluation to experimentation
  • do they meet x vs how do I feel
  • Evaluation of ourselves (spark) and the other person prevent us from truly enjoying what’s there
• First date is to test curiosity, potential for more time in the future
  • The point of the first date isn’t to decide if you want to marry someone or not. It’s to see if you’re curious about the person, if there’s something about them that makes you feel like you would enjoy spending more time together.

Designing better dates

1. Shift mindset with a pre-date ritual
   • Law of manifestation, what you think becomes
   • Think of ways you can feel good prior:
     • Talk to a close friend, relalx
     • Comedy show
     • Exercise
     • Bath
2. Choose time and place
   • Something appropriate for the mood
     • Dim light, sitting side by side makes it more vulnerable for conversation
   • A fucking walk
3. Look for a creative activity/third object to bond over
   • Helps with fuelling conversation, taking pressure off solely you two
     • Books, games, other people
       • People allows you to see their social tendencies
       • Date ideas bookmark

       • Other person is forced to say yes, whole day excursion

4. Show your work
   • People appreciate the effort and value put into things
     • Mention the effort you put in for the date
       • I know you live near here so we can go here?
       • I saw you liked x so how about we do y?
5. Play/have fun
   • Most memorable dates are ones where you actually enjoy it
   • Curious and engaging way to learn
     • Create backstories for strangers
6. Skip small talk
   • Just skip it, talk about something on your way to the date, something that caught you attention
   • Ask for advice related to your life, hear responses
7. Be interested, not interesting
   • You don’t need to perform on a first date
   • Support responses that enable the other person vs shift responses where you bring attention back to you
8. • The urgency and interruption of phones prevent people from being fully invested, committing to heavy topics
   • Ask to put phones away
9. End on a high note
   • Do something quirky
     • People judge their experience based on the end and the most intense part
   • Compliment, offer dessert, etc
10. Reflection
    • Prompts
      • What side of me did they bring out?
      • How did my body feel during the date? Stiff, relaxed, or something in between?
      • Do I feel more energized or de-energized than I did before the date?
      • Is there something about them I’m curious about?
      • Did they make me laugh?
      • Did I feel heard?
      • Did I feel attractive in their presence?
      • Did I feel captivated, bored, or something in between?
    • Having to answer these lingers in your mind

C11 - Spark

• Spark is usually absent, and builds overtime

  Love at first sight is pretty rare. When psychologist Ayala Malach Pines surveyed more than four hundred people to ask how they fell in love with their romantic partners, only 11 percent claimed that they felt “love at first sight.”

  • Initially we rate people based on shallow qualities, but if we spend more time with them, we get to find out about their true identity and then judge that
  • Same applies for sex, it takes time to adjust to someone else’s body
• Spark can sometimes be bad if the other party intentionally tries to aim for it as it might be a form of exploitation, and is not always sustainable
• Go for the slow burn instead, gradual interest in the other person

Ditch the spark and go for the slow burn—someone who may not be particularly charming upon your first meeting but would make a great long-term partner. Slow burns take time to warm up, but they’re worth the wait.

C12 - Going on the second date

• Don’t judge others the way you would not want to be judged
• Be aware of our tendency to remember the bad things
  • Keep them to ourselves
• Take note of 5 positives in each date
• Make going on a second date a default as long as nothing insane happens
  • View the first one should be used to view whether you want to commit to a second date
• Don’t weigh pet peeves as much as genuine dealbreakers that harm the relationship, as it may prevent the possibility of second dates with potential partners
• Keep going on dates if you feel good
• Don’t ghost, if you’re a decent human being both sides will feel worse than if you were to just respond
  • Responding politely encourages the other person to reciprocate, leading to a friendly farewell

Rules for rejection

• Be clear and concise
• Don’t give crticism, a long conversation isn’t needed

C13 - Decide, don’t slide

• Deciding is when you actively make decisions to advance a relationship, and sliding is when it happens without confirmation or much consideration
• It’s important to define the relationship and not assume !
• Moving in together increases chance of marriage, take it seriously !

Before you move in together, set aside a weekend to answer these questions:

• Why are we moving in together?
• What does moving in together mean to you?
• Where do you see this relationship going in the future?
• Is marriage something we’re considering? If so, when do you see us getting married?
• What are your fears about living together?

C14 - STOP HITCHING AND STOP DITCHING

• People’s approaches to conflicts in relationships can be described by hitchers and ditchers
• Ditchers want to just drop
  • Due to unrealistic dating expectations/blind spots
  • Only in it for the feeling of falling in love, preventing themselves from being long-term partners
  • Question their beliefs by asking whether they want to stay sad in the short-term cycle, or grow a pair and try committing
• Hitchers work things out
  • Sometimes can be hard to get out of dead relationships due to loss-aversion, sunk-cost fallacy
  • Know that staying in a dead relationship wastes both parties' times

Backlinks

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list from { How to Not Die Alone AND !outgoing({ How to Not Die Alone)

References:

Created:: 2022-01-04