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0:20

there the real reason I

0:22

don't use dating apps is because I don't

0:24

wanna go about my love life in

0:26

the same way I do playing

0:29

a wordle or some game on my phone.

0:31

It's just it's weird to me.

0:33

You don't want

0:35

to use the same technology that you would for goofing

0:37

around while waiting for the bus that you do to find

0:39

your actual life partner because it seems so incredibly

0:42

important to you. Why would you reduce

0:44

the selection of or at least the initial selection

0:46

of somebody who might turn into your life partner

0:48

to the same technology that comes

0:50

when you're just doom scrolling through Instagram.

0:53

Is that what you're saying? It's just it just

0:55

seems too trivial. I

0:57

almost feel like I'm cheating

1:00

to get to a

1:02

human being, someone who I know is

1:04

gonna inevitably be far more

1:07

complicated and emotional and

1:10

the act of finding the person

1:12

seems so diametrically opposed

1:14

to what the experience of being what that

1:17

person would actually be

1:18

like. And

1:19

I think that's that's my reasoning.

1:21

And I know that's not everyone's and I

1:23

can't speak for everyone under the age

1:25

of thirty who maybe shares some degree

1:27

of that sentiment, but that's that's

1:30

how it is for me.

1:37

This is how to build a happy life. I'm

1:39

Arthur Brooks, Harvard professor, and

1:41

contributing writer at the Atlantic.

1:43

And I'm Rebecca Rashid, a producer

1:45

at the Atlantic.

1:50

Many of my students have told me

1:52

that there's kind of an irony about dating these

1:54

days. they can get anything they

1:56

want as consumers at the drop of a hat.

1:58

Look, you want a hippopotamus delivered to your house,

2:00

you can practically get it from Amazon Prime,

2:02

but A lot of the same people

2:05

who are amazed at that will confess that

2:07

their dating lives are pretty dry.

2:10

They'll often say they don't know how

2:13

to date in the right way that

2:15

where it can be actually successful. They don't

2:17

know what the right procedure actually is

2:19

or or they're afraid of what will happen

2:21

if they put their heart on the line. What

2:24

explains this incredible irony,

2:27

where there's easier access

2:29

to people all over the world, but at the same

2:31

time, people are either less

2:34

prepared or more afraid to engage

2:36

in love

2:37

behaviors.

2:41

Today, we want to explore where

2:44

the romance facilitated by technology

2:46

has delivered on its promises. Now

2:48

what it means to actually put the work

2:51

into love, I'll

2:52

be straightforward about my perspective here

2:55

and hear me out. I

2:57

believe a lot of emotional dissatisfaction in

2:59

modern dating can be explained by

3:02

research. There's

3:03

data showing technology mediated

3:06

relationships fall secondary to

3:08

in person interaction. Other

3:11

research suggests that romantic love

3:13

can blossom when people explore their differences.

3:16

Something I fear dating apps often

3:18

discourage. It concerns

3:21

me that many of these apps favor selecting

3:23

romantic partners based on similar

3:25

traits, rather than complementary

3:28

traits. Now look,

3:30

I recognize that technology can create

3:33

opportunities to connect. and

3:35

that there is research showing the success

3:37

of online connections after they jump

3:39

off the screen. But I also

3:41

want to examine potential hazards

3:44

of the limitless nature of tech,

3:46

reducing human beings to options,

3:49

and perhaps even encouraging a certain degree

3:51

of socially sanctioned game

3:53

playing. I don't

3:55

know when when if you talk about it with your students,

3:57

when when I talk about it with my undergrads. Right?

3:59

So I teach buses about human sexuality and

4:01

about intimate relationships and stuff and

4:03

ask them, you know, do they use Tinder? And

4:06

some of them do, and they ask, you know, what are you using

4:08

for? And people are using

4:10

Tinder to find love. notifying

4:13

hookups, which is interesting to me. Right? My

4:15

name is umbrella. I'm a professor of social

4:17

psychology at the University of Kansas.

4:20

I sat down with Ulrik a lot

4:22

to identify the satisfaction gap

4:25

between what tech promises and

4:27

what it often delivers. the

4:30

fact that it's easy and accessible

4:32

doesn't mean that it's what people need. So there are

4:34

gonna be a gap between what the industry

4:37

and the technology is gonna provide us

4:39

and what we actually need and

4:41

between, you know, people

4:43

are doing for money and what people are doing

4:46

for. you know, the greater good. The

4:48

trend, the social cultural trends are

4:50

out there showing that, you know, less people are getting

4:53

married, less people are having kids, less people

4:55

are having sex, which is, you know, kinda

4:57

weird because you have this

4:59

plethora of options. Right? You can go on

5:01

Tinder and just swipe and get your

5:03

next, you know, hookup. But this final

5:05

that less and less people are finding

5:07

themselves in in a relationship. And

5:10

one thing that I've actually seen, Dave, that looked

5:12

up, says that people are less likely to get

5:15

married, but they're also less likely to co

5:17

habitat, and as you suggested, less

5:19

likely to have intimate physical relationships. we're

5:21

not substituting one kind of relationship for another.

5:23

We're substituting no relationship for

5:25

relationship, and that's what we really need to dig

5:27

into. Right?

5:28

Right. And and you you you might

5:30

say,

5:31

you know what? Well, maybe people find their,

5:33

you know, relationship somewhere else. You

5:35

know, the world is like a small village now. You

5:37

can have people, friends all over the world, so

5:40

this is not what we're seeing. There are so

5:42

many people now that are lonely, they're

5:45

looking for lab can't find it. When

5:47

they find it, they can't stick with it. And

5:49

it's definitely something that we're trying to understand

5:52

and and figure out the underlying mechanism

5:54

of that. And kind of trying to figure out what happened.

5:56

Now

5:56

let's talk a little bit about some of the big differences

5:59

to make this vivid

5:59

for our listeners. In your work,

6:02

you talk about how when

6:03

you discuss your feelings with

6:05

somebody in person versus when you discuss

6:08

your feelings with somebody on on

6:10

social media, it has opposite effects

6:13

on the establishment relationship. Fuck me about

6:15

that. Yeah.

6:16

So what we find, this is work that I

6:18

did was a former grad student, Kwang

6:20

Li, when you're when you're self

6:23

disclosing and you talk about your fears,

6:25

your dreams, your fantasies, your

6:28

secrets, all of these things, to

6:30

people face to face. Right? In person,

6:32

it usually increases intimacy, increases

6:35

satisfaction, help you build the relationship.

6:38

people are actually over time getting closer.

6:40

However, if you do the same thing online, right,

6:43

on things like, you know, Facebook,

6:45

Twitter, Snapchat, what have you, it

6:47

has the opposite effect. Right?

6:49

And basically, you know, people and,

6:51

like, people we're talking about you as a person

6:54

and your partner having lower

6:56

level of intimacy, lower level of satisfaction,

6:59

you're gonna feel like you're left out.

7:01

Right? We can sit together in the same room, and

7:03

you can tell me something. or

7:05

you can email it to me in the effect is gonna be very,

7:07

very different. Right? I know. Now you

7:09

remember in that famous famous

7:11

paper by Arthur Aaron, or he was actually

7:14

trying to induce feelings of romantic love

7:16

between strangers. And he would

7:18

bring he brought the the experiments wonderful rubbing

7:20

strangers into the room. They sit across the table from each

7:22

other. They start by answering thirty six questions

7:25

that are escalating in intimacy. So the

7:27

first one is something stupid like if

7:29

you can have dinner with anybody you want, who would it be?

7:31

And it's a nice breaker. But by, you know, question

7:33

thirty is when was the last time you cried?

7:36

which is the classic kind of question of self

7:38

disclosure that you're talking about.

7:40

Yes. I think, again, technology can be

7:42

very helpful can help you with,

7:44

for example, filter, right,

7:47

up to the first day. But after

7:49

the first day, it's gotta be in person. It's gotta

7:51

be face to face. You gotta be able

7:53

to smell the other person, see

7:56

their, you know, body language. You know, we have,

7:58

for example, research on theory. it's

8:00

so much

8:01

easier to do flaring face to face

8:03

and do it via the computer. And I think

8:05

that we're happy to rely on

8:08

technology. We're happy to even

8:10

use those replacements. So, you

8:12

know, one of the things that we see in our studies is

8:14

that people are now using chat bots

8:17

as replacements for friends and relationships.

8:20

Have you ever heard about Replica?

8:22

No. What's that?

8:23

That's a chatbot that was

8:25

built by a group of programmers. Their

8:28

friend was killed in a in a car accident.

8:30

They wanted to replace him. So they took

8:33

all of his, you know, social media information

8:35

and created a chess ball and kinda

8:37

kept on talking with their friend via

8:39

the ball. And now they

8:41

give it to anyone. Anyone can use it

8:43

and build their own replacement

8:45

for a friend, a dead friend, or an

8:48

ex lover, or what have you, And,

8:50

you know, one of the things that you gotta wonder

8:52

is, is it really helpful? Is

8:54

it really something that, a,

8:57

you can trust b, you can benefit

8:59

from and see what happens to your information.

9:02

Who gets all of your secrets that you are so

9:04

happily sharing with a step.

9:06

Right? And and again, from our research, when

9:08

you are dropping

9:11

these things on a on a bot, or

9:13

when you're communicating, you know, like

9:15

that online, you're not enjoying

9:18

the same benefits. And we see face to face

9:20

with real person.

9:21

Amberi, it sounds awful. I

9:24

mean, we've all experienced deaths in our families

9:26

and, you know, the loss of people and people have broken our

9:28

hearts. And it seems like it would compound

9:30

the pain to have a fake version

9:32

of the person. There's a reason that people

9:34

don't want that. Right? There is this human

9:36

element. It's like the essence of

9:38

life is love. It's

9:41

what it means to be alive. And that's

9:43

what we've I feel like we're losing especially

9:46

when we're trying to match ourselves

9:48

up to other people in in actual love relationships

9:51

using these anti human

9:53

means. So Yes. So think about

9:55

the movie hair,

9:56

right, where Scarlet Johansen is

9:58

is kind of like, you know, this

9:59

amazing version

10:01

of Alexa, and the guy's

10:03

falling in love with her, and she only finds out that she's

10:05

actually having relationships with

10:07

all these other guys at the same time. You

10:10

know, we're in in my research, now we're doing

10:12

some research on AI and trying to understand these

10:14

chat bots and understand what happens when,

10:16

for example, they would do the AI

10:18

on study and go through these

10:20

thirty six questions with an AI

10:22

rather than the person. What would happen then?

10:25

We're kinda wondering is that gonna increase

10:27

intimacy? Or is that gonna make you, like,

10:29

look creepy and people would not wanna engage

10:32

in so? Yeah.

10:33

creeps me out just to talk about it. You know, particularly

10:35

when starts to pass the two ring test and

10:37

you could fall in love with it technically. I

10:40

mean, is

10:42

tech gonna kill LOVED?

10:46

Maybe

10:46

it already did, but, you know, it

10:48

it's so I I mean, to take a

10:50

horrible kind of like example, I think about

10:52

the atom bomb, it can be very good uses

10:54

to it. Right? We can create a lot of energy clean

10:56

energy and on all that, but it can

10:58

also obviously create the bombs. And this is why the

11:00

reason why I talk about Adam. But you could talk about

11:02

AI because that's another example that people are scared

11:05

about and kinda like, oh my god. The the

11:07

the robots gonna kill us and I I think,

11:09

you know, technology on its own

11:11

is not better good. I think technology

11:13

can be amazing if you're, for example,

11:15

highly anxious or if you're suffer

11:18

from social anxiety and stuff like that. So they're

11:20

good side ways for sure. It's great. Right? We

11:22

can talk, you know, there are there are thousands of miles

11:24

between us. We can still talk and have this interview because

11:26

of technology. But at the same time, if all

11:28

of your relationships are online and all

11:30

of your relationships are mediated via

11:33

computers, then you're missing on

11:36

a big part of what it means to be human and

11:38

and human content.

11:39

Look, when when you and I were our twenties,

11:42

and what do we want? We want it love.

11:44

And you would see somebody who you

11:46

found really attractive and you'd go talk to that person.

11:48

You know, lot of my students will say, if you do

11:50

that in a restaurant or a bar, they're gonna think

11:52

you're some sort of a weirdo. Tell me

11:55

what I can tell my kids and students that

11:57

that they can do so that they can meet

11:59

somebody in person. What's the solution? To

12:02

give up social media. So

12:04

that's that's one yeah. That's one step.

12:06

I mean, there's so much research about the

12:08

damage that social media can do to

12:11

you. So in one of the studies that

12:13

we did, we asked people to look at

12:15

pictures of potential mates. And

12:17

they either looked at ten pictures or hundred

12:19

pictures with a text underneath or

12:21

without it. And, you know, the

12:23

the more tenderlike environment where they

12:25

had hundred pictures. And without

12:28

text, cause them to look

12:30

more in a kind of one dimensional objectifying

12:33

mode So you're losing a lot

12:35

and opportunities to meet someone else who is amazing

12:38

just because you're using this technology. So

12:41

some of Art's other studies are about

12:43

doing these novel activities,

12:46

you know, together. Right? So, you know,

12:48

like, high diving or you

12:50

know, I just recently started doing some triathlon.

12:52

So I get to meet a bunch of amazing people

12:55

-- Yeah. -- and do you think that we all love to

12:57

do? And and this is what I tell my my kids

12:59

to do. Right? It's you know, just try to

13:01

to kinda go back to basic, be out there

13:04

in the real world, enjoy the sunshine, do

13:06

activities with friends, you know, find groups

13:08

of people that you enjoy do some

13:10

sports, you know, together. So this is

13:12

really interesting. So the the admonishment that

13:14

we should get out social media or young people should get

13:17

out social media is different than how to meet people.

13:19

The key thing think that you're telling us now

13:21

is that go do a thing

13:23

that somebody else is doing and in doing

13:26

that third thing together. That's a very Aristotelian

13:28

piece of advice, isn't it? I mean, you talked about

13:30

perfect friendships come from a a love

13:32

of a useless third thing. I'll

13:35

talk to young people who are traditionally religious,

13:37

for example. And I'll say, were you trying to meet somebody

13:39

like online? And say, well, how about church? How

13:41

about your synagogue? How about looking for a

13:43

young person who actually shares that sick, which is

13:45

not useless, by the way, but which is a third

13:48

love, a third air stability in love. So that's what

13:50

you're talking about, get out there, do more stuff,

13:52

find other people who have the same kind of

13:54

interests as you, and that's a lot

13:56

less threatening than walking up to somebody in a

13:58

bar at one o'clock in the morning

13:59

going, You don't wanna have

14:02

coffee, which,

14:03

you know, kinda screeching me out too.

14:11

Okay. Back to Omry Gilat in a

14:13

second. The first, a

14:15

quick time out. This

14:17

episode is supported by the John Templeton

14:19

Foundation. The

14:20

John Templeton Foundation funds research

14:23

and catalyzes conversations that inspire

14:25

people with awe. and wonder. They're

14:28

proud to support leading scientists, philosophers

14:31

and theologians from around the world. Learn

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14:38

will at

14:39

templeton dot org.

14:41

I wanna offer

14:43

up a sort of a new framework to

14:46

think about tech and dating apps and

14:48

their role in facilitating romantic

14:50

connections. This is oddly

14:53

a sort of business school approach to problem

14:55

solving. But

14:55

here we are.

14:57

There are two kinds of problems in life.

15:00

complicated problems, and complex

15:02

problems. They sound

15:04

like the same thing. They aren't.

15:07

complicated problems in life or problems

15:09

that are hard to solve. But once

15:11

you solve them, you can replicate the solution

15:14

over and over, like making

15:16

a toaster. You can get one at

15:18

Walmart for twenty bucks, and it will

15:20

be your toaster for the next twenty years.

15:23

It's unbelievable. It's human genius.

15:25

That's our complicated problem. Well,

15:29

all the really interesting problems in life,

15:31

all the things we really care about are

15:34

not about good toast. They're

15:36

about human love. These

15:38

are what we call complex problems.

15:41

A complex problem is like your relationship

15:43

with your cat. Your cat is complex.

15:46

It wants kibble and a scratch and warmth

15:49

and to go out from time to time. but

15:51

you never know what it's gonna do. And

15:53

that's because you can't really simulate the

15:55

cat. So relationships

15:58

fall into this category. the

16:00

category of complex problems.

16:03

And

16:03

that's why relationships are so hard

16:05

to figure out, and that's why they're

16:07

so interesting to us. Here's

16:09

the problem with tech in

16:11

a nutshell, in my opinion. We

16:14

want cats, but technology just

16:17

gives us toast again and again and

16:19

again. Tech tends to take

16:21

complex problems like human love

16:23

and treat it as if it were complicated problem.

16:26

of trying to solve a bunch of math,

16:29

and it just doesn't work that way.

16:34

Okay. So let's say now that that

16:37

somebody's had some success and is actually dating

16:39

somebody. Fantastic. Right?

16:41

What's the goal in the

16:43

first few years. One of the things that I have found

16:45

is a lot of people think, you know, they've they've seen

16:47

a lot of Disney movies and they have

16:49

sort of destiny beliefs and

16:52

and they believe in soul mates. So what they want

16:54

is the passion from the very beginning to continue

16:56

till the very end. And what actually the data say is

16:58

that you should be pursuing companion and

17:00

love over passionate love. In other

17:02

words, best friends, best the

17:05

goal as opposed to just the passion,

17:07

the white hot passion at the very beginning because the neurochemical

17:09

cascade a falling in love, cannot be maintained,

17:12

you'd go insane. And this gets us to

17:14

really a huge area where you've been

17:17

the major contributor in social psychology,

17:19

which is attachment styles. So

17:21

tell me what's the goal when

17:23

somebody is now

17:25

paired up?

17:26

What kind of attachment should be the ambition?

17:29

that gives the greatest likelihood of a successful, happy,

17:31

and enduring relationship. Right.

17:34

So, you know, often the beginning is

17:36

around passion often people are very attracted

17:38

to someone else. Right? They don't look at you and say, oh,

17:41

you have an amazing attachment style. I definitely

17:43

want you as the father of my kids or something.

17:45

they see someone and they find him attractive

17:48

or her attractive and they wanna hook up and

17:50

they wanna have sex. And as he said, these are the

17:52

honeymoon kind of phase of the relationship.

17:54

But after that, it's more about

17:56

finding someone who can understand you,

17:59

who can support you, I would

18:01

say even if you drop the romantic

18:03

love, the goal is to feel secure, the

18:05

goal is to feel loved, and

18:07

appreciated, and and,

18:09

you know, to know that you have someone in your

18:12

corner that would be there no matter what.

18:14

There are some couples who staying very

18:16

highly, passionately in love you

18:18

know, meddling in love forever. Right? It

18:20

can happen. But for most of us,

18:23

passion and sex would go down and

18:25

attachment and caregiving would go up.

18:27

This is what we've seen in many of the studies,

18:30

and that's kinda like just a normative way

18:32

of relationships to evolve. However,

18:35

you know, again, with insecure people, everything

18:38

is a bit more difficult. There are three

18:40

styles. Right? There is secure style, which the

18:42

majority of people are, then there people who are avoiding

18:44

who don't wanna be committed, don't wanna be,

18:47

you know, worried about other people,

18:49

depending on them, getting to close and

18:51

stuff like that. And then there are anxious people.

18:53

these are people that are all

18:55

the time worried about, preoccupied about

18:57

being rejected, and abandoned, and

19:00

people never love them as much as they love

19:02

them, you know, that that and so on. So,

19:04

you know, when you're insecure, either avoiding no

19:06

anxious, everything is harder. The

19:08

best scenario that can happen is that you find

19:11

someone who's secure who's providing security and

19:13

can help you shift over

19:15

the lifespan to becoming more

19:17

secure than you were at the beginning.

19:19

you make it sound simple, but of course, it

19:21

isn't. And I think one of the key points that you're making

19:23

along the way here is that you

19:25

gotta do the work. I mean, you

19:27

actually have to take the risk and do

19:29

the work. The idea of simplifying

19:32

procedures on basis of

19:34

apps and tech

19:35

make it easier than it actually really

19:38

is. And that's probably in and of itself

19:40

doing disservice because it says that finding

19:42

the most important thing in your life is as

19:44

simple as wiping right, and

19:47

it isn't like that at all. And that actually

19:49

isn't even helpful for the

19:51

beginning of relationship.

19:53

Right. Right. And relationships, you

19:55

know, in bold always in bold work. And and, you

19:57

know, people have this very strong sense of

19:59

fumble. Right? There is always something else

20:01

that we might be fitting out, maybe a better partner,

20:03

a more, you know, attractive partner, or

20:05

a richer partner, or a more sexy partner.

20:07

What have you? Right? if you live your

20:10

life with that fence, you you always

20:12

gonna chase the next big

20:14

thing instead of being happy with what

20:16

you have and actually enjoying it.

20:18

So this is

20:20

tough advice that you're a a tough

20:22

prescription that you're giving young people today, which

20:24

is honesty, vulnerability, and

20:26

authenticity. I mean and

20:28

so, basically, if you're in love with somebody,

20:31

you should say, I'm in love with you. If and

20:33

that's which is authentic, which is super

20:35

vulnerable, your love, say your

20:37

love and and and take a risk. Be

20:40

an entrepreneur in in your

20:42

in the startup of your own love life. Is

20:44

that what you're saying?

20:45

what what what he said. Yes. Absolutely.

20:48

It like, everything that he said is perfect.

20:50

In a way, from the moment that we are born,

20:52

right, you think about it from a touching

20:55

perspective, and we have this

20:57

unconditional love from a mother. Nothing

20:59

is better than that. we need

21:01

that. We need someone. And and

21:03

often that someone is our romantic partner,

21:06

I I used to have a English teacher back

21:08

in high school who you know, it's better to fall in love and

21:10

fail and to never fall in love. And and I totally

21:12

agree with it. I think that, you know, you gotta put yourself

21:14

out there again and again. And

21:17

and the worst thing that people can do is

21:19

hide behind again all these screens.

21:21

And then they find out that, you know, having

21:23

this one dimensional, the in dimensional

21:26

life is not fulfilling and

21:29

is depressing. And it's something

21:31

that you gotta you gotta be aware of. It's you

21:33

gotta be prepared to

21:35

deal with the consequences. Make

21:38

yourself vulnerable. Put yourself

21:40

out there. you know, experience

21:42

the real world first hand

21:44

and be be ready

21:46

to put real work into it.

21:52

get it. I mean, you

21:55

don't like the

21:57

selection of a life partner to be reduced to

21:59

more or less

21:59

the same technology as video gaming or shopping

22:02

for socks on Amazon. Right. They get

22:04

it. They get it. and you want to start

22:06

off in a more profound way. Now, of course,

22:09

I'd

22:09

like to speak for everybody, but I would suspect

22:11

that most people would say, no,

22:13

I don't I I don't wanna reduce, you know,

22:16

love to shopping either, but I gotta

22:18

meet somebody someplace and hope that it turns

22:20

into love. So for you, I don't know.

22:22

the shopping analogy

22:25

resonates because it dating apps

22:27

really feel to me the

22:29

same way when you go into the grocery

22:32

store and you have one item you

22:34

need to get, like peanut butter. And you're like, okay, I just

22:36

gotta get in and get out. That's what I want. That's

22:38

it's very clear to me. That's the thing I need.

22:41

But as I'm shopping,

22:42

I get more and more distracted. Mhmm.

22:45

Buy all the options. And

22:47

I I come out of the store with everything

22:49

else but the peanut butter. Yeah. I mean, the

22:51

the research is pretty clear that dating apps,

22:54

they do induce the paradox of choice, which

22:56

means that you're you're very likely

22:59

to imagine a future where

23:01

you're regretful of a choice

23:03

that you made. And so you keep shopping in the current

23:05

moment and therefore never really landing

23:07

on somebody and ruling out a lot of choices that might

23:09

be really really good. Right? On the other

23:11

hand, you wouldn't say the only way I'm gonna

23:13

get peanut butter is I'm gonna spontaneously stumble

23:16

across it and it's gonna be the love of my life.

23:18

I mean, you you gotta find some way to

23:20

get the peanut butter too.

23:32

Thank you to our How To Listeners who

23:35

make this show what it is. We

23:37

asked, when was the last time you

23:39

confessed romantic feelings for someone?

23:42

And

23:42

here's what you said.

23:45

My husband of many years

23:48

passed away unexpectedly almost

23:51

four years ago now. And

23:53

so I have found

23:56

myself in the dating pool

23:58

after

24:00

about twenty years of being out of it.

24:03

in that time, I have

24:06

confessed to my romantic feelings several

24:09

times. actually

24:12

just last week, I

24:14

had reconnected with somebody I dated

24:16

shortly after my husband died and it wasn't

24:18

a fit timing wise. and

24:21

then we reconnected again couple months

24:23

ago. And so about

24:25

a week and a half ago, we had a conversation in

24:28

which we said, oh, well, maybe Maybe

24:30

things are getting a little too serious. Are

24:32

we able to do the things

24:34

we need to do after

24:36

we agreed that it would be good for us to

24:38

each take some space I

24:40

felt so sad. And

24:45

as I investigated my

24:47

sadness, I

24:49

realized that I had fallen

24:52

in love with him, and

24:55

that I needed to tell him this,

24:58

And so I did. I told

25:01

him, and

25:05

he felt

25:06

felt feels the

25:08

same way. My

25:10

name is Shawn, and I live

25:12

in British Columbia, Canada.

25:15

what

25:15

a wonderful

25:17

example of

25:19

how humans are different than machines. I

25:22

mean, It takes

25:24

risk. It takes

25:26

actual human interaction, which

25:28

is what Sean is talking about. And

25:31

she had to interrogate her feelings about why

25:33

she felt so sad. There's

25:35

no algorithm that's gonna tell her that.

25:38

She had to muster

25:39

up the courage to go tell the man that

25:41

she's falling in love with him. That's

25:44

uniquely, weirdly human.

25:47

We're cats, not toasters.

25:50

Sean makes that point. One last

25:52

note, I

25:53

hope Sean and that man get together. because

25:57

happiness is love.

26:02

That's

26:03

all for this week's episode of how to

26:05

build a happy life. This episode

26:08

was produced by me, Rebecca Rashid,

26:10

and hosted by Arthur Brooks. editing

26:13

by AC Valdez and Claudine Abbev.

26:15

Fact check

26:16

by Anna Alvarado. Our

26:18

engineer is Matthew Symonson.

26:28

This

26:28

episode is supported by the John Templeton

26:31

Foundation. The John Templeton

26:33

Foundation funds research and catalyzes

26:35

conversations that inspire people

26:37

with awe and wonder. Learn

26:40

about the latest discoveries related to

26:42

well-being, gratitude, forgiveness, and

26:44

free will at

26:45

templeton dot org.