Eli Finkel & Paul Eastwick on Real Love vs. Movie Love | EP 629

In this episode of Passion Struck, John R. Miles is joined by renowned psychologists Dr. Eli Finkel and Dr. Paul Eastwick to explore how movies distort our understanding of love—and what decades of relationship science actually reveal. Together, they break down the myths of “destiny” vs. “growth” beliefs in romance, why initial attraction doesn’t always predict long-term success, and how cultural scripts shape our expectations for passion and commitment. They also discuss their groundbreaking research on mate preferences, relationship dynamics, and what modern love really demands from us. Whether you're single, dating, or decades into a relationship, this conversation challenges everything you thought you knew about love—and leaves you with practical, evidence-based insights to build a deeper connection. Visit this link for the full shownotes! Go Deeper: The Ignited LifeIf this episode stirred something in you, The Ignited Life is where the transformation continues. Each week, I share behind-the-scenes insights, science-backed tools, and personal reflections to help you turn intention into action.🔗 Subscribe at TheIgnitedLife.net and get the companion resources delivered straight to your inbox. Catch more of Eli Finkel and Paul Eastwick: https://www.lovefactuallypod.com/If you liked the show, please leave us a review—it only takes a moment and helps us reach more people! Don’t forget to include your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally. How to Connect with John:Connect with John on Twitter at @John_RMilesFollow him on Instagram at @John_R_MilesSubscribe to our main YouTube Channel and to our YouTube Clips ChannelFor more insights and resources, visit www.passionstruck.com. Connect with John Pre-Order The Mattering Effect: https://matteringeffect.com/Book John to Speak: https://johnrmiles.com/speaking/Keynotes, books, podcast, and resources: https://linktr.ee/John_R_MilesChildren’s Book — You Matter, Luma: https://youmatterluma.com/Substack: https://www.theignitedlife.net/Support the Movement: https://startmattering.com/. Every human deserves to feel seen, valued, and like they matter. Wear it. Live it. Show it. DisclaimerThe Passion Struck podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Passion Struck or its affiliates. This podcast is not a...

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00John R. Miles?

  Coming up next on Passion Struck.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  It's one thing to really find somebody initially appealing and find yourself falling for them and you're learning all these things about them. But what ultimately happens is regardless of what happens to the initial passion, you create eventually patterns of interacting, ways of making it through your daily life, a little culture that's all your own, that sometimes we call these microcultures. Movies are often very good at depicting that because sometimes those are really the specifics that give each relationship a life of its own.

• 0:36John R. Miles?

  Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become passion struck.

• 1:19John R. Miles?

  Welcome to episode 629 of Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles, and this is the show where we ignite change from the inside out, so you can live with deeper intention, greater meaning, and more authentic connection. All month long, we've been diving into our series, The Connected Life. How we build meaningful relationships, lead with emotional intelligence, and stay grounded in a world that constantly pulls us apart. Earlier this week, in episode 628, I sat down with Dr. Michael Morse, one of the world's leading experts on cultural psychology. We explored how tribal instincts shape our identities and how understanding those instincts can help us lead, connect, and grow with more purpose.

• 1:59John R. Miles?

  And in my solo episode last Friday, I shared the React Method, a five-step framework to stay emotionally anchored when your nervous system wants to bolt or blow up. If you've ever felt triggered or overwhelmed in the heat of a moment, that solo episode gives you the tools to respond with intention, not reactivity. But today, we're talking about something that connects and confuses us all: love. Because let's face it, our ideas about romance are shaped by everything from science to cinema. But how accurate is that second chance airport reunion scene? To unpack it all, I'm joined by Dr. Eli Finkel and Dr. Paul Eastwick, two of the world's leading researchers on modern relationships

• 2:42John R. Miles?

  and the co-hosts of the podcast Love Factually, where they take the tropes of romantic comedies and put them to the test of real psychological research. We're taking a magnifying glass to what we've been fed about dating, desire, and long-term love, and revealing what decades of research actually tells us. In today's conversation, we explore what really drives attraction, compatibility, and commitment, why modern dating is harder but potentially more meaningful than ever before, and what science can learn from, yes, Ryan Gosling. Whether you're swiping right from 20 years into a marriage, this episode is packed with insight, humor, and practical wisdom for building better relationships.

• 3:25John R. Miles?

  And before we dive in, don't forget to join me at theignitedlife.net. It's where I take these ideas deeper, share personal stories, and offer tools to help you live intentionally every single week. You can also catch our full video episodes on YouTube at John R. Miles, as well as shorts and behind-the-scenes clips at Passion Struck Clips. Every review supports our mission and might just spark the change you've been waiting for. Now, let's dive in. Here's my conversation with Dr. Eli Finkel and Dr. Paul Eastwick. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin.

• 4:09John R. Miles?

  Hey Passion Star Community. I am so excited about this opportunity that we have today. This incredible interview with Eli Finkel and Paul Eastwick, which I think is going to be such a fun discussion for us to have. How are you gentlemen doing today?

• 4:26Speaker 02

  It's good to be here.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, doing good. Thanks for having us, John.

• 4:30John R. Miles?

  When I was introduced to you by our mutual friend David, and he told me that you were doing this podcast analyzing rom cons, I was immediately hooked. I have to say, I've been a fan of rom cons for a long time. And so it drew me right in and I've been a big fan of Matthew McConaughey for years and in his movies.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  I think we wanted to cover that classic canon, but with the lens that we were brought up in scientifically, which is about what do we know about attraction? What do we know about close relationships? And what is it that these movies are selling us that are accurate reflections of what we see in the science? And what are they selling us that's made up and are just like bad ideas that are simmering out there in the culture?

• 5:15John R. Miles?

  Well, let's give a little bit of backdrop for the audience so they get this all figured out. Because you two live at the intersection of Hollywood and data with what you're doing. But you're both behavioral scientists. Eli, you're at Northwestern and Paul, you're at University of California. Is it San Francisco?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Davis, yeah.

• 5:34John R. Miles?

  Davis, just right up the road. How did you end up coming up with this concept?

• 5:40Speaker 02

  I'm happy to share this one. We love movies, but we have actually no expertise whatsoever in movies, no training, formal training in movies, other than that we love it and we're completionists. And we talk about this stuff all the time. Our training is in social science. We're both social psychologists by training. And what that means is we use evidence. We test falsifiable hypotheses about best practices for relationships. Like behaving in this way, on average, will yield better relationship outcomes than behaving in that way. And we realized sometime last summer, we were just chatting about it and we realized it would be very fun. To try to share some of the findings that we get, most of these findings are cloistered in academic libraries, could we share them with the public in a way that would be fun

• 6:25Speaker 02

  for us and fun for them? And we decided to use films as something like a Trojan horse, right? So if you like your Matthew McConaughey films, you might think, oh, let's see what these guys are saying about my favorite McConaughey film. And along the way, you're like getting your spinach, but hopefully in a really fun way.

• 6:43John R. Miles?

  I love it. Are there ever times when the two of you just cringe at the science? Or are there moments where you go, yep, that's exactly how attraction works?

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Oh, what's been fascinating about this, and I don't think I would have anticipated this ahead of time, is how many of the movies are really a mixed bag? That very few movies are filled with complete and utter nonsense that are completely untethered to the science? And how few of the movies basically nail everything absolutely perfectly and we have no notes? There are a few that have been to those buckets, but really, for the most part, there's a real mix in that any movie, whether it's like the silliest rom com or the more thought provoking fare, they've got things in there that are well matched

• 7:36Speaker 01

  to what we see in the science and other things in there that are a little bit untethered.

• 7:40John R. Miles?

  I just have to ask, is there a myth we've all come to assume about lover relationships that movies keep feeding us? And your research absolutely debunks it?

• 7:52Speaker 02

  I'll start us off, but Paul, I'm going to throw this to you. One of the myths that has, that the movies inject into our culture, right? Movies do this. They tell us how relationships work. And some of these ideas are right, and some of them are pretty misaligned with the evidence. And one of them is this idea that some people are tens and some people are twos, and that it's goofy and you really shouldn't even try to date somebody who's out of your league. And Paul, you've done a lot of work in this space.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Right. So I think we're very comfortable with this idea that it's, oh, like people tend to date within like their approximate station, if you were to rank people in terms of how desirable they are. The idea of mate value is very big in the scientific literature, but the key caveat that is absolutely clear in the science is that

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Things like made value matter the most in context when people are initially meeting each other, when people are meeting for the first time. And that with time and with, well, to experience people in different contexts, disagreement about who is desirable and who is not, tends to grow larger and larger. Some of the movies get this. Some of the movies will even play on this theme where you didn't think much of this person at the beginning, but you grow to like them more over time, or the reverse. You start by thinking somebody's pretty great and then it goes downhill from there. That's, that happens very commonly in real life and we see that in, in a lot of the studies that are conducted, tracking attraction over time.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  But there are other movies that really hew very closely to the idea that people need to stay within their lane. And that's often the cases that we'll point out like, it doesn't really exactly work this way.

• 9:39John R. Miles?

  Well, I just have to ask, we all are asked for cocktail party pitch of what our podcast about is about. Yours is called Love Factually, which I love the name. Can't say the movie was the best movie of all time, but

• 9:53Speaker 02

  That was Love Actually.

• 9:54John R. Miles?

  Our movie.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  It's all by one full letter from what we're doing.

• 9:58John R. Miles?

  Right.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  So I have to say, when someone asks you that, do you go, we ruin your favorite love stories for fun? Or is it more like we expose the science behind the swoon?

• 10:08Speaker 02

  We've been, okay, so like our tagline is like fact checking Hollywood, one rom com at a time. And again, we do some more serious fare as well. It's not only sort of light rom coms. We have a range of, for example, we just recorded an episode on Frozen that will be releasing lately. There's a lot of romantic themes in Frozen and a lot of us grew up with these themes. And to what degree are they accurately aligned with what we know about how romance actually works? But we've been delighted, I think pleasantly surprised by how fun it's been to engage with these ideas. And one of the conceits of the podcast is we're not going to sit here from on high and throw darts at all of these works of art or pieces of film, pieces of popular culture at the very least. We're going to make a real effort in every show.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Every episode is about a specific movie and there's a common structure that we use. And early on, it's like, what does this movie get right? We've never been at a loss for things to say about what the movie gets right. We are treating Even relatively mindless rom coms as texts worthy of engaging with. And the reason why we're doing that is because these texts, these movies are in fact injecting ideas into the culture. And we're taking seriously the idea, the ideas that they're conveying into the general public, that these have consequences. And so we can evaluate them and we, in every case, take this stuff seriously. So we're hoping we're not yucking everybody's yam on these things.

• 11:30John R. Miles?

  Yeah. And Paul, could you go over, my understanding from listening to the show is you give them two ratings. Can you discuss what those ratings are?

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. One of the ratings is a simple one to five star rating. And that really is meant to be our subjective, personal rating of how good a movie we think it is, right? Fully acknowledging, yeah, there's a certain amount of subjectivity baked into that. But that's just really like whether the movie hits us in all the right ways or it doesn't. But then we've got a second rating, which is the more scientifically based one. We call it the Rust Belt. That is named after a famous relationship scientist named Carol Rustbald, who was actually Eli's advisor. And so this is in her honor that we have this particular rating system also from one to five. And the idea there is that, well, this is supposed to capture how accurate

• 12:26Speaker 01

  the movie is portraying the various attraction and relationship relevant themes. And look, there are some movies that we like quite a bit that like when pushed, like not, it doesn't fare so well on the Rustbald scale. So movies can be fun and enjoyable, but then when we're forced to confront whether the thing is actually accurate, you know, that's where we can hit it. So we try to separate like subjectively, how do we feel about the thing from how well does it align with the science?

• 12:59John R. Miles?

  Okay. So the way I've decided to conduct this is I'm going to do some questions directly about movies and then I'm going to do some questions about science. So we get

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 13:11John R. Miles?

  A bit of both your expertise. Let's go into one of the most famous rom coms, The Notebook. In this movie, the love is all about passion, conflict, destiny. Based on your research, how do relationships that start that way usually end?

• 13:30Speaker 02

  Well, all else equal, like having passion for your partner is a good thing. We can separate out that question of how much passion you feel from your partner. We can separate that from like your ideology of passion. That is your story that you tell yourself about how crucial passion is to a relationship, or how much you think that relationships are meant to be or not meant to be. We talk about this as destiny beliefs or soulmate beliefs in social psychology. And those beliefs tend to be a little bit corrosive. That is, on average, relationships are going to encounter some difficult times. And if the story you're telling yourself about what love is, what compatibility, is that there is some cosmic connection there.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  It's pretty hard to reconcile that with the idea that I'm with this person I'm having trouble with. We seem to be having compatibility issues. If you think, no, you're either destined or not destined, then it's hard to work that stuff out. And so you could also have a different perspective on how these things work, which is a growth or a work it out perspective. And from that point of view, when you're struggling, when there's tension in the relationship, this isn't a signal that we're not compatible in some fundamental way. It's an opportunity for us to work through conflict and try to make it better. Paul, I don't know if you wanted to riff about The Notebook per se.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's the meta perspective on these things. I do think a little bit of what The Notebook is trying to convey. So in the beginning of The Notebook, as we are getting acquainted with this couple when they're very young, is they're very passionate, but also their relationship has a certain amount of conflict to it. But it's all portrayed in this very romantic way. I think that the truth of what it captures about young love in particular, and where I think what the movie does quite well, is portray the challenges that the couple has when the parents aren't supportive. That's no joke, especially when you're young, especially when parents are hovering and nearby. Trying to get by without the support of your social network in general

• 15:27Speaker 01

  is very challenging and will create conflict. So I think that's a component that the movie does quite well. It also yada yadas some of their conflict and like actively hitting each other, which is like something that's portrayed a lot as, isn't this cute? But in real life, that's not actually cute. And the science, that's not actually cute.

• 15:49John R. Miles?

  And I've always heard reports about that movie that the two lead actors did not necessarily have the strongest care for each other.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Oh, funny. That's interesting because I mean, they had that great kiss. It was like the MTV, the MTV Awards. And boy, that seemed to be chemistry there, but you might be right. I am not as familiar with the backstage machinations.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  One thing I would like to say about that movie and romantic passion, I totally agree with you. That movie is like one of the high watermarks for this idea that it's about like overwhelming passion and love. And even if we fight all the time, like that's what we do, we fight, right? And then they make up and just the love is so overpowering that they can conquer everything. One thing that's interesting that movie did for better or for worse is then they fast forward like 40 or 50 years. And what is that she now has dementia and he's her caregiver and it is a beautiful story, but it's not really a story of passion anymore. It's a story of a different sort of love, what we might call more companionate rather than passionate sort of love. And so you are right that the movie is all in on the passion stuff, but it also suggests that over time, the companionship is going to matter a great deal too.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  And that tracks pretty well, the literature that we have in the field.

• 17:02John R. Miles?

  So now I want to turn the discussion to baking. I've heard you two describe partner preferences as full cakes, not ingredients. What's the implication of that for how we make dating decisions?

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is a useful metaphor. Now I say this as somebody who's not actually a baker, so it's possible we'll get some real bakers in here who'll be like, you don't understand baking at all. Fair enough. But I think sometimes when we ask people about the kinds of qualities they want in a partner, when people come up with the laundry lists of the various marks that a particular person would have to hit in order for me to be willing to date them in the first place, they're thinking about all these attributes in isolation from other attributes, right? It's I want somebody who is intelligent and adventurous and has a great smile and is going to enjoy taking me out to fancy dinners, right? It ranges from the abstract to the very concrete. But the problem, I think fundamentally is that we need a real person.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  All of these things end up being intertwined and tangled together. And different attributes take on different connotations depending on the other attributes that surround it. Add that to the fact that people are really good at something we like to call motivated reasoning. So if you like somebody and they happen to be, I don't know, especially, let's say they're a little bit high maintenance. Okay. So somebody's high maintenance and they really like things done their particular way. But this is somebody that you're going to start to interpret their high maintenance behaviors to something like, well, this is somebody, she just knows what she wants.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  That's good. That's a good thing. So because we have such an almost unlimited ability to reconceptualize other people's attributes to fit whatever preconceived notion we would like it to have. That ends up creating quite a challenge if you're trying to give some sort of formal diagnosis to somebody about whether this person is or isn't good for you.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  I'd love to riff on this. First of all, Paul, I know that you're talking about Sally in When Harry Met Sally and how she needs the cake on the chocolate sauce on the side. And then Harry, who thinks it's ridiculous at first, eventually is, yeah, of course it's better that way, right? Because now he's in love with her and he reinterprets this stuff. The baking metaphor was really vivid for me because in high school, my closest friend, a guy named Adam, he like hated eggs. He like thinks they're incredibly gross, but he realized that like cake is better when it has eggs in it, right? That is just because he doesn't like scrambled eggs and doesn't like eggs by themselves, that like eggs are in cake and cake with eggs are better. And that's, I think, a reasonable way of thinking about this attribute based approach of thinking about what you want in a partner. And I think we, we see a good example of this with La Land.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  So again, I don't know that everybody's seen it as, as recently as we have, but the Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams. Oh, wait, it's Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, right?

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Other Ryan Gosling.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  But he is obsessed with jazz. He's like completely on a crusade to save authentic jazz, old school jazz. And he's clear right from the start that he would have no interest ever in dating a woman who didn't like jazz. Well, then he meets Mia, the Emma Stone character, and they're attracted to each other. And she says very early on, I feel like I need to say this, I don't like jazz. And he says, wait, what are you doing right now? And she's, well, I got some time. So he takes her to a jazz club. And it turns out that watching him be excited about jazz thrilled her. And the fact is there was no incompatibility because she didn't like jazz. He thought there would be, but people don't come as like single attributes in isolation and her constellation of qualities.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  Made her appealing to him and he was willing to get over this. I would never date somebody who doesn't like jazz, but he would have eliminated her from consideration had it been in an online dating profile.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  I think that one of the things that that movies like Land depict pretty well is that people, especially as they're getting to know each other, if they're at least approaching dating openly, they're just enjoying meeting new people. There's a certain level of natural curiosity that people tend to have about meeting somebody new. What are you like? What are the ways that I can maybe fit into that? And look, we don't love everybody that we meet. And sometimes it's, oh, I cannot find a way in here. This is uncomfortable. This is painful. But on average, there's a certain level of curiosity. People are looking for things to connect over. I mean, we've watched a lot of speed dates in our time. That's all people are trying to do.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  They're trying to find something to connect over. But some of that is this like natural curiosity that's there. And sometimes it hits and it hits in a big way in that movie, despite the fact that they come into it seeming on the surface to us, it's portrayed deliberately to us, like these two will never make it work, will they? But they do.

• 21:56John R. Miles?

  I love it. Eli, being from Chicago, my mom grew up in Glenview. My aunt actually went to school with Bill Murray until he went into high school and they were in the same class the whole time. And she told me that when she was in her 40s, she was an attorney at this point, working downtown Chicago. And one night late after work, she's actually walking down an alley and all of a sudden someone comes up from behind, picks her up and starts twirling her around. And it was actually Bill Murray.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 22:30John R. Miles?

  And she said that we all hear about the pranks that he does and everything else.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:35John R. Miles?

  But she said he would actually come to elementary school reunion.

• 22:41John R. Miles?

  Of all things and is exactly the type of person that you see when you see him.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  So legendarily, the stories about him are that he's like a pretty cool hang and that he's always around and that people really enjoy meeting him.

• 22:57John R. Miles?

  I've got a good friend who lives in Charleston where he lives now, and she said she was at a Halloween party. And that all out of the blue, this person shows up at the party, wearing a mask, comes in, wasn't invited. And later on, they find out he had pranked their party.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:17John R. Miles?

  Well, I bring him up because Groundhog Day is another movie that you guys have profiled. And the movie is really about becoming a better partner by becoming a better person. Is that a real life model for relationship growth?

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Paul, want to take that one? Well, in Groundhog Day, I would say it captures both the realistic and the unrealistic version of this idea. There is a reading of Groundhog Day, which is that he had to do a whole bunch of work on himself. And become advanced to some next plane of enlightenment, some next plane of accomplishment. In order to then merit having the long-term relationship. So if that is your reading of the thing, that's not really how it works.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  It's not like people have to go through some sort of improvement process in order to get a partner. You need to raise your attributes from subpar to above average in order to date somebody, right? That's getting to some of these same like mate value, actually rather like red pill adjacent issues. So if that is your, and again, what's cool about Groundhog Day is it permits a lot of different readings. But if that is your reading of it, nah, that's not great. But there's another reading of it, which is that he, by experiencing repeated interactions with the same person, he learns how to, I don't know, share more intimacy.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Now, it's awkward and complicated because each day he has to start over and she has no memories of all the things that they've talked about before. But there's another way of thinking about it that actually she is helping him to grow and change and become a better person despite the fact that she doesn't remember it. And if that is your interpretation, that is much closer to the way close relationships actually work.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  First of all, I grew up like less than a mile from Glenview, very kissing cousin to wherever you were talking about. But I want to say that the Groundhog Day was a good illustration of why I have just had so much fun working on this show, Love Factually. So we've talked already that each episode is about a movie and we talk about what the movie gets right, what the movie gets wrong. We also haven't talked about it here today, but we talk about are we okay with this? Which is one of the moral issues that either the filmmakers are playing with or the, you know, characters are confronting. But one of the things that has shocked me with how fun and interesting it's been is these movies are thought provoking in ways that our science hasn't dealt with. So one of the segments of every episode is like, what do we wish we knew?

• 25:57Speaker 02

  What ideas came up in here that we feel like the field of relationship science, this like 60-year-old discipline that tries to use falsifiable hypotheses and evidence to figure out what makes relationships function better or worse? And Groundhog Day is interesting because he is developing, over the course of that movie, a deep reservoir of experiences with her. And he has this one-sided falling in love process of just growing to admire her and remembering the experiences that he had with her, and she has nothing at all. Every day, he's gonna wake up and she's gonna be a stranger, well, actually, more accurately, he is gonna be a stranger to her. And she didn't really like him in advance anyway.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  And so it got us to think about the nature of intimacy and how this might succeed or fail in meeting our needs to belong and make social connections. Working on the films, like thinking seriously about these films from the perspective of the scientific lens, has been enlightening about ideas that we, as scholars, haven't really even tried to start asking yet.

• 27:02John R. Miles?

  Well, I love that. So, thank you so much for covering that. And both of them went to neutrer.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  I also went to neutrer.

• 27:09John R. Miles?

  There you go. This podcast, we talk a lot about the science of mattering, or what Jeff Cohen would say is the science of belonging. But it really comes down to being seen, valued, significant. How do you feel that plays out in healthy versus unhealthy romantic dynamics?

• 27:28Speaker 01

  I think people really get a lot of meaning out of their close relationships and out of their closest relationships. It would not surprise me if it is the single most significant source of meaning that people are deriving. The extent to which that works depends a lot on the sort of relationship that two people co-create together over time. It's one thing to really find somebody initially appealing and find yourself falling for them. And you're learning all these things about them. But what ultimately happens is regardless of what happens to the initial passion,

• 28:08Speaker 01

  you create eventually patterns of interacting, ways of making it through your daily life, a little culture that's all your own, that sometimes we call these microcultures. Movies are often very good at depicting that because sometimes those are really the specifics that give each relationship a life of its own. And these specifics, these patterns, these little cultures that people create are very commonly the source of meaning and significance and fulfilling that need to belong when they go well. And in relationships that aren't going well, it's often because those patterns, those microcultures,

• 28:50Speaker 01

  those little things that they've created along the way have created something actually quite toxic, something quite distant, creating something that makes you feel extremely lonely because the relationship has been constructed in a way that isn't fulfilling those needs. So it's a useful way of thinking about the importance that relationships have in our lives. But we also have to recognize that the fact that we get to build these things on our own from scratch means like, you can build something that works really well, and you can build something that works absolutely terribly.

• 29:22John R. Miles?

  And Eli, I wanted to ask you a follow on to this. If someone feels invisible or underappreciated in a relationship, what does the science suggest about how that affects long-term stability in the relationship?

• 29:35Speaker 02

  It's interesting. One of the episodes we did more recently is sort of a more art house film. We both loved it called Marriage Story. It's a Noah Baumbach movie starring Adam Driver, the guy who played Kylo Ren in the sequel trilogy of Star Wars and then Scarlett Johansson. And what we see in that movie is like a marriage that's actually pretty good, but it falters because he doesn't quite see her enough. He thinks everything's good, things are fine, his career is going well. She's supportive of his career. Her career is also going well, but there's some part of herself, some like authentically important aspect of who she is that he doesn't really see or recognize.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  And what's interesting is that movie is basically a movie about a divorce. Right from the beginning, we know this, that's not a spoiler. And she says early, when she's talking to her divorce lawyer, that she had this opportunity. She was, she's an actor, she was offered this pilot, the, her Adam Driver character is condescending about television. And she says to her divorce lawyer right at the beginning that if he had just taken him, taken her into his arms and give her a hug, gave her a hug and said, I want you to have this part of terrain that's yours, then we probably wouldn't be getting divorced right now. And it's a glib, easy thing to say to your divorce lawyer. All of us can come up with grievances in our own relationships or marriage and point to this thing that if our partner had only done this, it would have been better. But I think she was right.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  I think that Noah Baumbach, who wrote and directed the movie, is sympathetic with her point of view. And I do think that what happened in that movie is he didn't see her enough. He didn't appreciate her needs and goals and aspirations. And so when she had an opportunity and he could have supported her, he missed it. And in our field, sometimes we talk about this as capitalization. Sometimes we talk about this as secure base or relationship catalyst sorts of support, but he missed the opportunity to see her, to promote her, to cultivate her personal well-being, and that harmed the relationship in a big way.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  And just to connect this to the earlier point, and I think Eli and I even have cut different reads on what's happening in this movie. But I think that, yes, he failed to appreciate her, but it's not because he's like a bad dude. And it's not because he messed up one time, right? In that one moment. I understand that's what the character says, but at least my interpretation of what actually has happened is that they built a structure for a relationship that did not permit opportunities for her to have her own ambitions. And when she did, she felt she had to keep them to herself. There were no openings for them to move beyond the structure that they had built for their lives that was about his vision, his ambitions.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Hers had been sidelined for about 10 years. And, and that's what I mean by like, you create patterns. It's a pattern that is set up that does not give her an opportunity to pursue her own things. And so what does Adam Driver do in that situation? He's totally failed to appreciate all he has to offer because their relationship has effectively shut out that component of who she is.

• 32:45John R. Miles?

  I want to switch gears to someone, an actor who personally I don't think of as a rom con actor, and that is Tom Cruise. It's just person. But we got to talk about Jerry Maguire. And you get to the most famous line from the movie, "You complete me." From a psychological standpoint, is that romantic? Or is it a giant red flag?

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Oof. That one is tricky. We hemmed and hawed on this one, right? Because it is, in fact, here's the part that, I'll start with where that line works. And then Eli, you take the part that doesn't. Here's the part about that line that works and is true. It's that when the people are in a relationship together, they do. Share parts of their lives, you take on different kinds of expertise. I don't know if anything ever happened to me and my partner, like, I couldn't cook anything anymore. Like, I forgot how to do all this stuff. She takes care of that stuff, right? There are other things that I do. I'm like, I'm pretty good at cleaning things, okay? That's my job, okay? But people do this, right? And we call it inclusion of the other in the self, right?

• 33:55Speaker 01

  And it's true with things like skills. It's true with things like attributes, but it's also true of things like interests. Like, what do we like doing together? And when people go through a breakup, they have to go through this long process of figuring out, wait, did we like it or did I like it? Like, I gotta take some time to figure that out. It's part of why a breakup is hard. So, that's where the "you complete me" line, as cheesy as it is, capturing something real, that when you're in a relationship, you find a way of merging together with this other person. Now, again, that's one reading of the thing.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  I'm happy to give, like, a generous reading as well. Again, there's multiple readings. Look, I like that movie, which is, like, acceptable to say, but the amount I like the movie is probably in the guilty pleasures category. Like, I gave this five stars out of five. I like this movie a lot. What I really like about the way "you complete me" emerges in that movie is he's a little unsure about how much he adores her. So, this is, of course, Tom Cruise and Renee, well, Zell, Renee Zellweger. And she's clearly in love with him, but recognizes that he's just not sure. And he's like a responsible guy, so he's willing to commit, and he certainly loves her son. And like, none of this is enough for her. So, they basically split ways.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  But then, something amazing happens for him. And what he realizes is, I looked around when that amazing thing happened, and it wasn't complete. Because for me to have an amazing experience without being able to share it with you, it didn't have its full amazingness. And if that's what "you complete me" means, I don't object at all, right? The idea that you would want to be with someone and pursue this in your life, that what you'd really love to have in a spouse or a life partner or a serious romantic relationship is somebody who just makes the painful parts of life a little less painful, makes the good parts of life a little better.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  And I think that's what he means by "you complete me," and I basically loved it.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  I think maybe the

• 36:02Speaker 02

  Oh, Paul, it's perfect. You have nothing else to add.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  I think where the line is misleading, though, and I think you'd agree with this, is if you read it as implying that like, you are who you are as a person and you are not enough, right? That you, that you're missing something. Oh, there are lots of skills I don't have, right? But I won't be complete unless I find somebody else with those skills. What it does in that sense is it undersells the flexibility that people have, right? It makes people feel overly rigid in their ways and imagine, oh, like, I gotta find the person who perfectly complements me in all the right ways. If that is what you think that line means, yeah, that's sending people in very much the wrong direction.

• 36:51John R. Miles?

  Well, I still think the best part of that whole movie is show me the money.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  Show me the money. It is epic. Cuba Gooding deserved that Oscar. He was great.

• 37:02John R. Miles?

  Oh, he was fantastic. Even the way he passed down in the end zone was fantastic.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, they certainly milked that scene for all it was worth.

• 37:11John R. Miles?

  A movie that I recently watched, I tend to watch this every five years or so, just because I love John Cusack, is Say Anything. And I have to say, I almost like Joan Cusack's son. The little kid in the movie is like my favorite when he's teaching him how to become like the next Karate Kid. What I've always loved about this movie is how different these two are. Here you've got this guy who's not going to college, doesn't know what he wants to do in life. And then you've got this love interest who's the valedictorian, has scripted her whole life. And he ends up taking a chance that she'll notice him. And I just love how this film unfolds.

• 37:56John R. Miles?

  I look back and sometimes I'm like, they could have done this thing so much better. But it, the raw way it was created, still makes it to me a classic. What are your guys' thoughts on it?

• 38:07Speaker 02

  I'll take this one. I love the part of the movie that you're flagging right now. And just to remind people who have not seen Say Anything recently, when he calls her, she has to look him up in the

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  She does not know who he is. And yet, he's really into her and he's not, he's for the most part, not stalkerish. In fact, I think we maybe need to touch on that briefly about some stalkerish elements of what he's doing. But when we discussed this movie, we had Laurie Santos join us. In fact, she was the one who recommended that we do this movie. And she talks about him as like the original guy who was going to support his wife's career. And he admires about her, that she's ambitious, that she's smart. She's also beautiful. I think the line is something like, what is it with the body of a game show host, Paul? Do you remember?

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah, right.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  The brains of a something. Yeah, she's the full package. And so I quite like the aspects where he is into her and he's gonna take a risk and he's gonna support her. And in fact, the risk of ruining the end of the movie, he ultimately, the last part of the movie is he's going with her somewhere new. He's moving in a way that's going to support her career ambition. So I like that stuff. Paul, do you want to talk at all about the skeevier aspects of that movie?

• 39:23Speaker 01

  There's a period in the movie where she's broken up with him. It's partially at the behest of her father. And she's going along with it. But we're to understand that her feelings are complicated with this whole thing. The John Cusack character is really broken up about the whole thing. And he does some things that I think are played in the movie as fairly harmless. But in reality, people find very upsetting in the wake of a breakup. I'm thinking in particular about the fact that he leaves a lot of phone messages.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  A lot of

• 39:58Speaker 02

  Voicemails.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  Right. Quite a few unreturned phone calls there by Lloyd. People actually really don't like that. Right? This is the kind of thing that after a breakup, frequently, if you're the person who's broken it off, you very much want to be left alone. We all have this image, I think, in our heads, whether you've seen this movie or not, you've seen the image, I guarantee, of Lloyd Dobler holding the boombox above his head as he serenades, as he serenades her outside the window. Playing Peter Gabriel. And I think the issue there is that people seem to remember that as this glorious heroic moment. And I even remembered it as a glorious heroic moment that was gonna change your mind. And the reality is, that isn't what happens

• 40:42Speaker 01

  in that scene. It's actually quite tragic, quite sad, quite uncomfortable. He visibly looks uncomfortable, like he's being driven to do this absolutely silly thing from something internal that he can't quite control or can't get mastery of. So it's a beautifully depicted thing, but it's not like a recommendation. It's like, look at the madness to which love and breakups drive people. Look at the pain it puts them through. It's not, here's how to serenade your love when she's having second thoughts. That's not the point.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  John, we didn't know when we started this stuff. Again, we're fans of movies. So we had some idea what movies were, but we had never been movie critics. We had never been systematic in the way that we approached movies. And I will say, a couple dozen episodes in, that one of the things that has really shocked me is how often the romantic conceit is, the woman's not really interested in the man, and then he goes bigger and bigger, and he persuades her. And Paul, you and I have talked a bunch of times on the show, like, what versions of this might be acceptable, under what circumstances is it reasonable

• 41:56Speaker 02

  to try a second time. But if a generation or two of young men and women came to believe that the truly heroically romantic things are, the woman says no, and the man goes bigger and gets the woman. If generations, including Paul's and mine, we grew up thinking that's what romance was, I now understand, having seriously engaged with these movies, how we all thought that. It might be, it might be Heath Ledger crooning his way around the football stadium. It might be Ryan Gosling hanging one-handed from a Ferris wheel. It might be John Cusack holding a boombox above his head. And in the end, they always get

• 42:37Speaker 02

  the girl. But those moves were always a result of, she rejects him, and so he just goes bigger. Is that really what we want everyone doing? We have concerns.

• 42:47John R. Miles?

  Well, there's another relationship in that movie that involves a guitar player and her love interest, and I think it's Lily Tyler's and Joe. And it's so interesting because she goes into it totally in love with them. And then as she sees him get more and more self consumed, she realizes her own true value by the end, which I thought was an interesting sub relationship plot that's happening at the same time.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  It's a good one, too. And it's honestly, it's a good example of the way that people process breakups, right? People have to often create a narrative around it, and they have to share that narrative with others and feel as though it's being validly reflected back at them. And I love that she has a whole room of people who are happy to listen to her perform her entire suite of songs about Joe. I would certainly sit around to hear all of those songs.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  They're great songs.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  But there's like a social validation component and a meaning making component, which is really key to people getting over breakups. And it doesn't help when, you know, Joe keeps changing his mind. When people are fickle and they're doing that on again, off again thing, that interferes with some of the breakup recovery process because it makes it harder to form a coherent narrative.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  Paul, I'm reminded, listening to you, that one of the big ideas in the relationships world about for people interested in studying like how love works, especially passionate love. One of the major thinkers in this space is a scholar named Dorothy Tenov. And she says that she identifies a word, she calls it limerence, but you might think of it as like just very extreme passionate love. What she's feeling for Joe as she's writing all those songs. What's interesting about it is, according to Dorothy Tenov, what you need in order to sustain that level of passion is both hope and uncertainty. So if you're sure that the guy doesn't love you anymore, you can get over the heartbreak. And if you're sure that he does love you, that also might reduce some of the passion, because a lot of what goes into that type of passion is anxiety, right? And what Joe is doing is

• 44:44Speaker 02

  like a cosmic disaster, because he likes her, he doesn't like her, she's got a chance, she doesn't have a chance. And that's why it's so difficult for her to get over him and how she creates such great art as a result.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 44:57John R. Miles?

  So we started with Ryan Gosling and I guess we're gonna go out on him. So I can't do this episode without talking about Barbie. So Barbie ends up breaking up with Ken to find herself. Is that empowerment, avoidment attachment, or just great brand strategy?

• 45:15Speaker 01

  It's probably It's definitely the last. Right. What I love about that movie is that both what it shows about her and him, I think we ought to understand that she never really thinks of him in any way that's romantic, right? That never really comes across. She has thought of him as a friendly Ken the whole time. And in fact, she has her sights set on other things throughout the entirety of that movie. There's something that is very true about that. Many times, people get into friendships that are really just friendships.

• 45:54John R. Miles?

  Calling the lie to when Harry Met Sally, who says that's impossible.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. And I do think that had Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, felt the same way, there would have been a fine friendship and there would have been no problems. The real challenge there is that he was pining for her. He had been friend zoned. He was very much stuck there. And the challenge was that he just thought that if he could try to impress her this way, try to get her through this other, this other avenue, that he would eventually have success. Friends often term romantic, but usually when it does so, because it's happening gradually to both people, even without them quite realizing that it's happening. So this like fighting your way tooth and nail through the friend

• 46:43Speaker 01

  zone, it's just not all that effective. And that's what he was trying to do there.

• 46:48John R. Miles?

  I just wanted to end with maybe a quick lightning round with you guys. So I started this whole thing out with Matthew McConaughey. We just talked about Ryan Gosling. So if you had to pick one or the other as the ultimate lead male character in a rom con, would you go for McConaughey or Gosling?

• 47:06Speaker 02

  This is easy for me. This is a Ryan Gosling.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  I mean, Gosling is the closest thing we have to a patron saint, I think.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  He's the patron saint of love factually. You're right.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:18John R. Miles?

  Okay, say you're rebooting a classic rom-com to reflect what science actually says about healthy relationships. Which movie are you rewriting and what's the one thing you change?

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  That is a good question. Paul, would it be something for you? I know that one of your all-time favorites is When Harry Met Sally, but you also had some reservations. Maybe there's a tweak in there?

• 47:40Speaker 01

  I don't think I'd want to touch that.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  Not change anything?

• 47:42Speaker 01

  With a 10-foot pole. No, this is not a movie we have covered yet. So I might be, I find the conceit of Sleepless in Seattle very confusing. I understand it's playing on some classic tropes. I understand that there was a time where call-in radio was like a big thing and you could just learn about a person in the abstract without interacting with them at all and have that turn into something? I wonder what that movie would be like today if it was mediated by something that wouldn't be live, but would be something that's like more computer-mediated or something along those lines?

• 48:23Speaker 01

  I understand you've got mail with the same two actors. But there's sort of something in there that I'd be interested to see and to grapple with. What does technology do to both help and hinder relationship development? But that's like a lot of the classics, like When Harry Met Sally, I don't want to touch. I would be willing to revisit Sleepless in Seattle and see what we can do with that.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  If I had one, so look, we're all in on rom-coms. We take them seriously. We also do some pretty serious films about relationships, including Eyes Wide Shut from Stanley Kubrick and Her from Spike Jones, also starring Scarlett Johansson, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But one of the classic rom-coms, truly major ones, is Pretty Woman. And I don't think I would change Pretty Woman, but it was interesting to discover as we were preparing for it. That was initially a much grittier script. That was going to be a much grittier sort of script. And one of the things that's like very like rom-com trope-y in a way that I don't think is the best thing about that movie is like they part ways as friends.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  And it's you grew and I grew and we're both better. But then it's no, you get the fairy tale and he rides up on his steed and does his romantic thing. I could imagine a version of that movie that would have been more serious about the prostitution angle. That would have been like a darker, serious film. I'd like to see that in addition to the movie that we got, because I think there's a lot of potential there.

• 49:47John R. Miles?

  And then last one, better long-term couple, Harry and Sally or Jesse and Celine?

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Oh, well.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  We've only done the first two. So Jesse and Celine, in case not everybody knows, this is the before trilogy, before sunrise, before sunset, before midnight. Paul, you and I have done the first two of those and the third one is on the docket. We happen to know how the third one goes and they fight a lot in that.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  I think if I get one night, I want that magic. But if the question is long-term.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  Paul, you were not invited.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  I'm also, I see greater potential for when Harry met Sally. But I agree that like from the perspective of relationship science, Celine and Jesse are absolutely fascinating.

• 50:35John R. Miles?

  Eli and Paul, it was such a fun time to have you guys on the show. Where can people find out more about you and Love Factually?

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. So wherever you get your podcasts, look for Love Factually. You'll find me and Eli there talking about all these movies, find the movies and queue them up and see what there is to learn from relationship science. You can also find us on our Substack. That's lovefactually.substack.com.

• 51:00John R. Miles?

  Thank you both so much for coming. Honored to have you both.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  Thank you very much.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 51:05John R. Miles?

  That's a wrap. I hope you found that conversation with Eli Finkel and Paul Eastwick is thought provoking. And let's be honest, as fun as I did, because love isn't just poetry and passion, it's psychology, patterns in the complex dance between expectations and behavior. And as Eli and Paul remind us, the stories we absorb, whether for movies, memes, or dating advice, shape how we show up in love more than we realize. If you're intrigued, go check out their podcast, Love Factually. It's smart, hilarious, and packed with insights. That might just change how you think about dating, commitment, and connection. You can find the link along with key takeaways and show notes at passionstruck.com. If today's conversation resonated with you, there are three ways to help keep the momentum going.

• 51:50John R. Miles?

  First, leave a five-star rating and review. It helps others discover the show and lets me know what's lining. Second, bring this message to your team or community. I speak at conferences, communities, and organizations about human connection, behavior change, and the power of matter. To book me, visit johnrmiles.com/speaking. And third, share this episode with a friend, partner, or anyone navigating love, leadership, or self-discovery. And be sure to join The Ignited Life, my free newsletter that delivers weekly prompts, behind-the-scenes insights, and tools to live with more purpose. Subscribe now at theignitedlife.net. Next week on Passion Struck, we kick off a brand-new series, The Power to Change. My guest is Dr.

• 52:33John R. Miles?

  Bob Rosen, bestselling author, psychologist, and global CEO advisor. We'll explore how to rewire your mindset, behavior, and emotions to unlock lasting transformation, and how real change begins by shifting your inner narrative. It's a powerful episode to spark the next chapter of your growth.

• 52:49Speaker 03

  Detached does not mean disengaged or disconnected. Quite the opposite. It means that you get rid of the stuff that is holding you back and holding you down, the baggage, and it frees up energy to focus on the things that matter, whether it's our health and well-being, or our communities, or democracy, or the environment, wherever you stand politically, it frees you up for energy.

• 53:21John R. Miles?

  Until then, remember, if you found value, share it. And more importantly, live it. Because ideas don't change lives, action does. Live life passion-struck.