WHATEVER is annoying

Just a quick little fun note. I read this article today. Apparently, "whatever" is the most annoying phrase in America. See the article here in USA Today: 'Whatever' is, you know, annoying, but 'it is what it is'

Looks like letting WHATEVER happen to you is not only unwise to do, it's unwise to even say!

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WHATEVER

In my last post, I described the idea of pre-commitment. Now let’s apply it to relationships. Quick recap: A pre-commitment is deciding ahead of time—before a situation or circumstance—what you intend to do. Research shows that pre-commitments make it more likely that we will do what we intended to do when the time comes. Of course, pre-commitments don’t protect us completely from temptation to stray from the plan, and not all plans should be kept.

How effective are pre-commitments? It probably depends on scads of things, including the area of pre-commitment. Some things are harder to stick to than others. What kinds of things are hard for you to stick with in day-to-day life?

While not any panacea, it should be kind of obvious that deciding what you intend to do makes it more likely that you will do what you intend and not slide into whatever.

The opposite of pre-committing is letting WHATEVER happen. WHATEVER can be all kinds of things. WHATEVER can be good, but at important times in life, WHATEVER can be bad. A lot depends on if a lot is at stake. There is nothing wrong with sliding into WHATEVER if nothing WHATSOEVER is at stake.

Okay, time to work. You, I mean, not me. I’m going to be done working after I finish this. I’m going to assume that you, the reader, are in one of two categories:

Category One: You are a single or a sort-of-single. Either way, you are not done looking around for the person you might want to be with for the rest of your life.

Category Two: You in a committed relationship, and that means are not looking around because you have committed to someone (most likely, in marriage). Of course, you could be looking around, but that’s another story.

You category two types can get something out of pondering these questions in your relationship. However, I’m going to focus in on category one folks today.

Here are some steps you can take to up your pre-commitment game.

1. Think about the WHATEVERS that can happen in your love life that you might like to avoid.

2. Think about what you would like to have happen instead of various WHATEVERS. In other words, what is the anti-WHATEVER?

3. What pre-commitments could you make that would make it more likely that the best things would happen?

Here is one example. Sarah wants love in her life. She’s not been in a relationship for some time and she is feeling lonely. She has had serious relationships that, ultimately, didn’t go where she wanted them to go. Sarah happens to have a strong faith tradition and belief; however, she has not thought much about the beliefs that she wants or needs her future mate to hold, when she gets to the “to have and to hold” part she seeks. (I’m just picking one particularly important area of compatibility for Sarah, but you could apply this point to any number of things, including hobbies, looks, values, life motivation, beliefs about being green, etc.) Since she has no pre-commitment to herself about what she should hold out for, she’s looking for love in WHATEVER places she happens to be. She’s not guided by a pre-commitment to what she should see in a person before falling in love.

You could think about what pre-commitment means to someone like Sarah in terms of setting boundaries. These boundaries could be her minimum standards for a mate in areas like values, drive, or intentions about having children (or not). In her dating life, she could set boundaries about things like her romantic and sexual behavior. Where will she draw the line? Does she want there to be a line? Anywhere? I know it may sound quaint but people can decide who they are and what they will do, and not just let WHATEVER happen.

Yes, I’m talking about mate selection, again. I talk about that subject a lot because people have a lot of options—or at least some options—about where they will end up in their love lives. And people have the greatest number of options before they get settled on one path with a specific partner.

If you are seriously seeking someone, at sometime, what are some of the pre-commitments that you could make that would help you find lasting love? If you decide on some pre-commitments, are you willing to write them down? Do you have a good friend that you could tell them to—someone who’s willing to encourage you to stick to what you think is important?

Without deciding otherwise, WHATEVER will be will be.

Que sera sera, Sarah.

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Eat and Drink What You Want: The Pre-Commitment Diet

I have an idea for a new diet. I won’t sell any books about it, though, because it’s not really about cutting calories or losing weight. And it’s bad marketing to announce that your diet does not help you lose weight. This diet is most relevant to times when you are eating out with friends or business acquaintances. The pre-commitment diet is about increasing your odds of eating what you want most and drinking what you want, when you are out with others. Of course, I’m not really interested in meals out, beer, or diets, in this blog. It’s about relationships. Here, I’m laying down some principles for upcoming posts.

I like to mention books that I have enjoyed or found interesting. Another of the books I’ve liked a lot in the past year is one by a behavioral economist named Dan Ariely. The book is called Predictably Irrational (the title is a link if you are interested). Ariely’s specialty is examining the ways in which people do not behave quite rationally in all kinds of situations. One of the very interesting things about Ariely’s work is that he devises inventive ways to test various ideas and theories. His book is really a series of descriptions of these interesting experiments, followed by discussion of the principles they highlight and what it may mean to the reader. I will cover one of his studies here that happens to be based on beer. I’ll expand the application for relationships of this study on beer in the next post. After that, I’ll write about one of his studies that is focused on sex.

(By the way, I am not unaware of the probability that blogs that contain the words “diet,” “beer,” and “sex” are likely to draw some attention. In fact, maybe someone reading will have gotten here by Googling those three words at the same time. As you’ll see, beer is not really my focus, but I do want to describe his experiment and it is about beer.)

Ariely’s beer experiment was focused on the orders people made in a pub near MIT (Ariely worked at MIT at the time, not the pub). He and his colleague were allowed to run this experiment in this pub. The idea was pretty simple. He was testing the idea that, when in a group, the beer orders the first people to order make affect the beer orders others, who follow, will make. I don’t mean people across the bar, but people in the same group. So, imagine a setting where persons A, B, C, D, & E are out relaxing, and they are all going to order a beer. To make things simple, let’s assume they are going to order their beers in alphabetical order, so person A is up first.

What did Ariely find? The first person in the group who orders a beer is the one most likely to get the beer she wanted and to like the beer she got. How can this be? We’ll, it turns out that in social settings, like this pub setting with college students, that people like to be unique and special. If person D wanted beer X, but persons A & C already ordered beer X, person D will feel some pressure to be unique and cool, and get a different beer even though he wanted beer X. Being unique and cool is not always groovy. Person A, having no one going before her, gets the beer she really wanted all along because she’s not affected by anyone else’s order.

(By the way, again: It’s studies like this that make me completely mistrust focus groups as ways of gathering information. Unless the setting is just right and the interviewer super skilled, how can what the first people say not affect the validity of what others who follow will say? Are you getting the real opinion of those who speak after several others have spoken? I bet not. This is also pretty good confirmation of the importance of secret ballots.)

Okay, application time: Ariely found that if you had persons A, B, C, D, & E each write down their order on paper, privately, everyone would get the beer they wanted most and would report being more satisfied. This is where the term “pre-commitment” comes in. By pre-commitment, I’m not talking about what builds up to commitment. I’m talking about pre-committing yourself to what you want—or what you think you should do—BEFORE you are in a situation where the circumstances and people might sway you to do, or choose, something other than what you really want or really think you should do.

The pre-commitment diet I have in mind is about deciding ahead of the time that others place their orders what you want and then sticking to it. So, my pre-commitment diet is mostly about getting what you want when you order, not about losing weight. But, if could lead to weight loss if your pre-commitment was about what you were going to order because it had fewer calories.

There is great power in deciding ahead of time what you are about and what you mean to do. Otherwise, the situation or social pressure might lead you to slide into something other than what you wanted to have happen in the first place.

Next time, I’ll focus on that principle when it comes to relationships. And after that, we’ll get to sex. I’m pre-committing to write about that.

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Interest in Everyone is Interesting to No One

Here’s a research nugget that rings true. Using speed dating methods, Paul Eastwick and Eli Finkel of Northwestern University found that people who convey romantic interest in nearly anyone who is attractive to them end up with fewer people finding them attractive. The lesson? Potential objects of your affection will be less interested when they detect that you are not too choosey.

Put simply, people are able to detect when a person is non-discriminating. And this happens fast, since the phenomena can be measured in speed-dating.

If you are looking for love, hopefully you are looking for someone special, not just any person who will do. Being choosey is not only going to make it more likely you find a partner who fits you in important ways, it will also make you more attractive to this person when you find him or her.

Here’s a very practical tip if you are trying out speed dating in your search for lasting love. Leave your Crosby, Stills and Nash t-shirt that says “love the one you’re with” at home.

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Churning

I’m returning, briefly, to the subject of the endowment effect. If you want more background before I get to a new point, see the two blog entries below by just searching “endowment” and you’ll get right to them. Then, come back here for the latest thought.

I’m re-reading Tim Harford’s book, The Logic of Life. As I mentioned in an earlier blog (Stuck on You), I really like this book a lot. In the earlier sections of the book, he covers issues directly related to the theme of this blog about relationships and commitment. He covers things like reasons for the greatly increased practice of oral sex among teens. And it, depressingly, makes a lot of sense. He also covers phenomena such as the way the partnering options are affected by how many people exist in your community who you’d be interested in versus how many other people like you are interested in those same people: for example, how it skews things when you live in a city where there are many more single females versus males. Numbers affect things.

Early on in the book, Harford covers some research on the endowment effect that I had missed before. While there is tons of evidence that the endowment effect operates on all of us, it affects people the least who have the most experience buying/selling/trading in that market. He cites a study where a researcher named List did a study at a Pin swap meet. Apparently, there are enough people around who are very interested in all manner of pins (you know, like what you might pick up when you travel to Niagra Falls to commemorate your experience) that there are who swap meets among collectors. In this study Harford cites, the researcher did the classic type of endowment effect study—he gave people something they did not already have and then examined how much it would take to get them to part with it. Here is the bottom line. People who were very experienced pin traders were much more willing to part with the pin they just received in exchange for another. They had become less rapidly attached to the pin they just received than others who had less experience. In essence, the experienced people did not overvalue a new pin just because one was just given to them.

Relationship application time. I’ve seen this illustration used before where someone will liken the way people attach to romantic partners to duct tape. Crude, yes; relative, also yes. Imagine someone taking two pieces of duct tape and sticking them together (sticky sides together) and pulling them apart, over and over and over again. You’d not be surprised that the tape becomes less sticky overtime. The stickiness wears out. Now, think romantic relationships. There are a number of scholars (and others) who believe that having a great many romantic relationships might wear down one’s ability to attach. If I apply this point about the endowment effect above, I get this theory. People who have had a lot of romantic (and sexual) partners may be at greater risk of coming to a point where they do not overvalue the person they are with now. That makes sense and may not be as big of a deal if one is still searching for a solid match of a partner.

Imagine how this might affect someone once they have found “the one,” the person they want to spend the rest of their time with. I’m all for thinking realistically in relationships, but only to a point. There might be something pretty valuable in being able to consistently overvalue your mate: to think they are the best thing since sliced bread and you’d not trade them for anyone. It could be that churning through too many romantic partners earlier in life might make it harder to have that way of seeing one’s mate that may help keep commitment strong.

Maybe staying sticky is a pretty good reason to go slower and more carefully in how one approaches the dating and mating part of life.

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Hand Held. Hand Played.

I am continuing on with some thoughts about gaming and doing well in life, especially in love life. Please see the last post before this one, if you have not already. This one will make a lot more sense if you do.

Everyone is dealt a hand in life. Here, I’m focusing on the hand you were dealt when it comes to succeeding in romantic relationships. A person’s hand is made up of many things that affect success and risk in romance. This is a very short list (there are many other things I could list):

- Family history (parents divorced, for example = more risk)
- Education and income (less = more risk)
- Looks (see blog entry below “what women want (and men too)”
- Disposition and personality tendencies (are you smooth or easily upset?)
- Past relationship history
- What city you live in terms of available partners
- Mental health history and issues
- Attachment security and insecurity (more insecure = more risk)
- Age (it’s complicated)
- Genetics (yes, the risk for divorce is partly genetic)

To some extent, you have little control about the hand that life dealt you. You have some control, however. For example, there are increased risks in marriage when a person has a lot of sexual partners prior to marriage. Presumably, one could decide not to do that and affect the hand they have to play later in life.

My point here is that whatever your hand, you will do better in life to play it and play it well. As I said in the last post, “give yourself a hand and don’t drop the ball.” Hope you got the play on words. Think like you have a hand to play in life and not like someone who’s just dropping a roulette ball and hoping that it lands on his or her number.

I’ve been reading a very interesting book called “The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life,” by Ben Sherwood. (The title is a link to it if you want to read more about it. It’s a bestseller.) Ben Sherwood covers a whole range of interesting stories about people who survived various things that most people do not, or would not, survive. He uses those stories to talk about the characteristics of survivors. He notes that, in some situations, you will not survive and there is nothing to do about it—nothing in your hand that it would matter to play. If you are on a plane falling from the sky, you have few or no cards to play. That’s in comparison, though, to a plane crashing while taking off, where many people do survive. As Sherwood describes, in that type of situation, what people do in a critical window of 90 seconds after the crash determines everything.

As Sherwood goes though the book, one of the things he attacks over and over again is passivity. He challenges the idea that there is nothing you can do to affect your chances in various situations because he believes (and research backs him up) that such a fatalistic view can get you killed when you don’t need to be dead. And I’m not talking about merely being undead, like many characters in my sons’ video games, but really alive.

In romantic relationships, playing your hand means taking an active role in what you do and why. It means deciding and not sliding so that you can do what you are able to do to improve your odds in life and love. That may also mean learning some things you don’t know already, like about what things make it more likely that relationships will succeed. Or, learning how to choose a partner wisely (see earlier post, “Looking for Love that Lasts,” as well). Or, if you are a couple trying to figure out if you got what it takes, taking a relationship education class together to see what you can learn and how well you cope together with learning. (For more information on relationship education, see websites such as www.PREPinc.com, www.loveyourrelationship.com, and www.smartmarriages.com.)

The key is realizing that what you do truly matters in how your life will turn out. That can make all the difference.

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Black Jack or Roulette? You Choose.

I’m not a gambler. I don’t really enjoy it much and I’m not all that good at it, especially in games that involve bluffing (just ask my wife how good I am at hiding what I am really feeling). Part of my aversion to gambling is that I lost 20 bucks once playing poker with friends in 8th grade. Twenty bucks was a whole lot of money when I was in 8th grade. That’s a lot of pizzas or burgers. I was traumatized and decided not to play poker anymore with the guys. I didn’t give up my friends, I just gave up doing that with my friends.

Why am I writing about gambling? Simple. It’s a great metaphor for how people approach dating and mating.

I know people who like gambling from time-to-time. (I don’t know anyone who has anything like a gambling addiction—at least in so far as I am aware.) I am told by people who study these things that that the games you can play at a casino vary a great deal in terms of chance and skill. At the two ends of the spectrum are the roulette wheel and black jack. People who are skilled gamblers prefer a game like black jack to roulette because there is some skill involved with black jack. In fact, black jack is a game where your odds relative to the house’s odds are best. It’s not that they are ever as good as the house, mind you, which is why casinos make a great deal of money. Perhaps I should say “take” a great deal of money rather than make it. Roulette is pure chance. You put down a bet (of various kinds, like betting on black or red or a specific number). You drop the ball (or someone does) and round and round it goes, finally dropping down into a slot. You bet on red, and it drops in a red slot, and you win. It drops into black or green and you lose. (By the way, while most slots are red or black, there are a number of green slots which just goes to demonstrate to you that your odds don’t even get to the level of 50-50, which is what the red and black bets lull you into believing. The house is not stupid.)

With roulette, you drop the ball and the ball is out of your hands. There is nothing you can adjust once you have placed your bet. You can’t up it, lower it, or get it back. You win or you lose. That’s what you can do. In contrast, black jack takes some skill. There are fairly well understood relative odds that change based on what cards you already have and what cards the dealer is showing. Disciplined black jack players know when the odds have moved against them (and do not bet more) and when the cards they can see suggest they should up their bet and either hold with the cards they have or take more. Good black jack players don’t go by feel, they understand the relative odds and where they have become most favorable, and they act on this.

How is this like relationships? People who are in the relationship market tend to be either playing black jack or roulette. People would be smarter to be playing black jack than roulette. Roulette people are letting things happen to them; they are sliding into relationships or situations and not making decisions. They are letting life happen to them rather than making the best decisions they can with the cards they have been dealt.

What’s the deal? Well, the deal is important. There is no illusion here (or in a casino) that everyone has equal odds of doing well. Some people have been dealt a worse hand than others. We can wish this were not true but, as they say, wishing does not make anything so. I would not go so far in calling this the luck of the draw, but that’s because I believe there is more meaning and purpose and order in our lives than it sometimes looks. But there are good hands and bad hands and in between hands. It’s worth thinking about what is in your hand. I’ll write more about this next time.

While some people do not have ideal options, I believe that everyone has choices. It may be most important of all for those with tougher hands to play as well as they can. Everyone can make decisions within the range of things that they control, and, within that range, the odds of doing well in life and love go up. That beats dumb luck. Dumb luck tends to be hard luck.

It’s your life. Give yourself a hand and don’t drop the ball.

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