Bonded by Evolution: How Attraction Really Works | Paul Eastwick - EP 731

What if the stories we've been told about love are not just incomplete, but actively making dating and relationships harder and more painful? In this eye-opening episode of the Passion Struck podcast, renowned relationship scientist Dr. Paul Eastwick joins John R. Miles to unpack his groundbreaking new book, Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection (Crown, February 10, 2026). Drawing from two decades of research, Eastwick reveals that humans evolved not to rank desirability or maximize status, but to form deep, idiosyncratic bonds through repeated, mundane interactions. Initial impressions fade quickly, consensus on "who's hot" disappears over time, and true compatibility emerges from how someone makes you feel (bigger, seen, supported) rather than checklists or traits. He critiques how dating apps reverse our natural bonding process, why "player" reputations tell us little about long-term potential, and how secure attachments create safe havens and secure bases that fuel exploration, growth, and a richer life. Through stories, science, and practical insights, this conversation offers a hopeful, evidence-based shift: from hierarchical competition to meaningful connection. If you've ever felt depleted by modern dating, questioned why rejection stings so deeply, or wondered how to build love that lasts, this episode delivers a liberating roadmap rooted in what we've truly evolved for—attachment, adaptation, and care. Passion Struck is the #1 alternative health podcast and personal growth podcast dedicated to human flourishing and the science of mattering. It is ranked #1 on FeedSpot’s list of the Top Passion Podcasts on the Web, and Interview Valet ranked it among the top 20 podcasts for business and mindset. Check the full show notes here: https://passionstruck.com/how-attraction-really-works-paul-eastwick/Download a Free Companion Reflection Guide:Connect with John Keynote speaking, books, and podcast: https://linktr.ee/John_R_MilesPre-Order the Children’s Book You Matter, Luma: https://youmatterluma.com/Learn More About Paul Eastwick: https://pauleastwick.com/Learn More About Bonded by Evolution: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/723049/bonded-by-evolution-by-paul-eastwick/Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection is available wherever books are sold. In This Episode, You Will LearnWhy evolutionary psychology's "mating market" myths (ranking, trading up, fixed desirability) are scientifically weak and psychologically corrosiveHow attraction shifts from consensus at first meetings to idiosyncratic, unique bonds over time—making "settling" a myth and compatibility something we createThe power of repeated interactions (e.g., sports leagues, classes) vs. app swiping: why dating apps deplete us by reversing our evolved bonding processAttachment science essentials: safe havens (support in hard times) and secure bases (celebrating successes) as the core of healthy relationships—and how they spark exploration and growthGender differences in attraction are far weaker and more flexible than pop stories claim (e.g., physical attractiveness matters equally; stranger propositions exaggerate gaps)The "compatibility illusion": why checklists of traits/values rarely predict success, and focusing on how someone makes you feel (expanded, valued) is far betterSupport the Movement. Every human deserves to feel seen, valued, and like...

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

  I think it's easy to underestimate how important support is in a relationship. That is often one of the central things that people look for in a relationship partner, and one of the central things that relationships provide. It's not like this even exchange of goods and services. Thinking about relationships is like, I don't know, a trade off between like sex and money. These are bad metaphors. Good metaphors are about support. This is the key thing that differentiates happy relationships from unhappy relationships.

• 0:42John R. Miles?

  Welcome to Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters. Each week, I sit down with changemakers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming. Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection, and impact is choosing to live like you matter.

• 1:30John R. Miles?

  Hey friends and welcome back to episode 731 of Passion Struck. Throughout February in our current You Matter series, we've been exploring quiet but destabilizing tension inside modern life. We are more uncertain than ever about whether we truly matter. Last week with Rebecca Goldstein, we examined the mattering instinct and the internal mattering map that helps us identify our mattering projects and where we spend our time. With Daniel Coyle, we discovered how flourishing emerges when people are treated as necessary contributors rather than replaceable parts. And earlier this week with Sonia Lubomirsky and Harry Rees, we explored responsiveness.

• 2:13John R. Miles?

  The lived experience of feeling loved, not just told we are. Today, we move to one of the most emotionally charged frontiers of mattering. Attraction, dating, and romantic choice. Because beneath every swipe, rejection, and second chance lives a deeper question. Am I desirable? Or am I disposable? My guest today is Paul Eastwick, professor of psychology at UC Davis, and one of the world's leading scientists studying attraction and close relationships. His new book, Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection, challenges decades of evolutionary storytelling that framed romance as a competitive marketplace,

• 2:55John R. Miles?

  revealing instead that human beings are wired primarily to attach, adapt, and care. Nearly 100 episodes ago, in episode 629, Paul joined me with Eli Finkel to unpack the difference between real love and movie love. Today, he returns with something even deeper. A scientific reframing of romance itself. One that replaces hierarchy with compatibility, ranking with relationship building, and scarcity with connection. In this conversation, we explore why attraction is not about universal desirability, but about specific compatibility. How dating apps quietly reverse the natural order of connection. Why reputation, status, or being a player tells us surprisingly little about long-term love.

• 3:39John R. Miles?

  We go into the science of safe haven and secure base, and how real relationships become places of emotional shelter. And lastly, we discuss how shifting from mating markets to attachment transforms not only dating, but our sense of worth. Before we begin, a quick favor. If this episode resonates with you, share it with a friend, family member, or colleague who's navigating relationships or searching for deeper connection. And if you haven't yet, take a moment to rate and review Passion Struck on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's one of the most powerful ways to help this message reach more people who need it. To go even deeper, you can visit theignitedlife.net, our Substack, where you'll find reflection guides and a workbook for this episode that's designed to help you apply what you hear in each episode to your life.

• 4:23John R. Miles?

  Today's episode is about reclaiming dignity inside desire and rediscovering the deepest human drive is not to win love, but to build a bond where we matter. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to designing a life that matters. Now let that journey begin.

• 4:47John R. Miles?

  I am so excited today to welcome back my friend, Dr. Paul Eastwick. Paul, how have you been?

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Very good. Thanks for having me back, John.

• 4:55John R. Miles?

  Well, I know we were both recently involved with supporting a podcast initiative to try to bring some needed money to some villages in Africa. I just wanted to get your thoughts on that. I really enjoyed doing it.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was an inspiring idea. So this is the Pods Fight Poverty Campaign. And the idea was that we were raising money to help lift these folks living in Rwanda out of poverty. And a lot of the podcasts constructed their shows around the theme of giving. And on our podcast, we cover romantic movies and rom coms. And so we thought, well, why don't we talk about It's a Wonderful Life? Because there's no better illustration of the joy and meaning that comes from giving than the final scene in that movie where everybody comes together to to help out George Bailey. Yeah, that was the one that we covered and

• 5:52Speaker 01

  we had lots of discussions of the science behind giving throughout that episode.

• 5:57John R. Miles?

  Man, this has to be the first year in 20 years I didn't watch that movie or the holidays. But I love that scene.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think people today, if you don't remember channel surfing, especially when your channels were like the network channels, that's what you had. You just came across that movie reliably every December 22nd or thereabouts. And I mentioned this on the show we did. I'd seen that whole movie, like maybe three or four times. I've seen the last 30 minutes. I don't know, upwards of 20 times. Because if you tune in and it's getting near the end, you stay for that.

• 6:34John R. Miles?

  Yeah, you're hooked.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 6:37John R. Miles?

  Well, the last time you joined me, it was episode 629. Just had to check to make sure that was correct. And you joined me with your co-host of the podcast, Eli Finkel. And we unpacked how Hollywood scripts distort what love actually looks like, which was such a fun conversation.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:57John R. Miles?

  What's been your favorite movie of 2025 that came out? That that you guys got to examine?

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Oh, well, so the truth is, we've only examined one 2025 film so far, and that was Materialists. And the reason that was fun, I'm mixed on that movie as a whole. But one reason that movie is fun is because it is, I think, nicely illustrating and also taking down some very bad ideas that we have today about the way that attraction and relationships work. And when I saw that movie was coming and the content that it would contain, I said to Eli, I was like, I know we don't usually do things that are in theaters, but we need to get to this right away because this is important.

• 7:45John R. Miles?

  Yes, well, I can't say that we went to many movies in the theater in 2025 because I have Apollo TV and they tend to come to us very quickly.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  So that's cool.

• 7:55John R. Miles?

  It's nice to be able to watch them on your own 75-inch big screen.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. One battle after another was definitely my favorite movie. That is not exactly a hot take. That's a very acclaimed movie, but it's brilliant. Not exactly the kind of movie we'd cover on our show, but yeah, fabulous art.

• 8:15John R. Miles?

  So what made you go from what you regularly talk about on the show to this brand new book that we're going to be discussing today, Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection? Why the focus on evolution as a component of it?

• 8:32Speaker 01

  That's a great question. I've been studying attraction in close relationships for getting close to 20 years now. When I went to graduate school in the early aughts, I knew that I wanted to study close relationships and study initial attraction, but I was also fascinated by the evolutionary psychological component. Evolutionary psychology was very big at the time. And I remember being struck by two things simultaneously. One was that, how fascinating and inspiring is it to

• 9:10Speaker 01

  think about the way that we evolved as a species? How our ancestors had been dealing with many of these same challenges for millennia?

• 9:22John R. Miles?

  Yes.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  And like, at the same time, the story that evolutionary psychologists themselves had constructed about the way human mating works, it just didn't seem quite right to me. And so I wanted to try to study these topics with an evolutionary lens, but also make use of some other kinds of tools found in other branches of the science to see if maybe there was some misconceptions in what had existed at that point.

• 9:54John R. Miles?

  So my take after reading the book, and I really enjoyed it, is that you found the story is scientifically incomplete, culturally harmful, and psychologically corrosive, if I wanted to give my...

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's fair enough. That's fair enough. And it's really been the last decade that I've started to realize the sort of nasty knock-on effects of some of this stuff. I want to be clear, I'm not blaming scientists for how their ideas got twisted by the grimmer corners of our internet landscape. But we also need to be mindful of these things and think about how we as scientists can do our best to, whether it's correct the record or fix some of the misimpressions that we sometimes unintentionally convey.

• 10:41John R. Miles?

  Do you think it's fair? My take is that when you examine this, what you found is that humans aren't evolving to rank their mates, but to form bonds. And that bond forming is the most important aspect of the relationships and the intimacy that we have.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  That's right. I think the common view of the way attraction happens, the way close relationships happen, if you look in the evolutionary worldview, okay? Whether it's the science or the way the science gets twisted and put online, it's a very hierarchical, there are the desirable people and the undesirable people and we all sort and then you're always looking to trade up. These ideas have been around for a long time. That is one way of thinking about how attraction and relationships work. That is not where I would start. I think the evidence behind that hierarchical idea, I think it's pretty limited.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  I think a better idea is to start with the idea that humans are social creatures. We are creatures who attach, that those attachments are fundamental to our health and well-being. And many times when we're finding ourselves attracted to someone, when we're falling for someone, it's that attachment system coming online. I'm not saying that there's nothing to the idea that some people are desirable and some people are not. I'm not blind. I recognize that applies in some contexts. But for the most part, humans are bonding creatures. We are looking for connection and we try to assess whether we're compatible with someone or not in order to try to build that connection.

• 12:26John R. Miles?

  One of the things that I always find about evolutionary psychology and what makes it so influential is that it sounds like destiny. At what point did you realize that the stories weren't just wrong, as we've been discussing, but they're actively shaping how people experience rejection, desire, self-worth?

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  It's hard, right? The whole process, if you're young or older, but I think for many of us start experiencing this when we're, well, let's say in our teenage years, what is it like to find yourself attracted to some people? Maybe those people are attracted to you, maybe they're not. You feel like you're getting a sense of your worth as a mate. Yes. And it can be very tempting to think that wherever you fit, says something that is deeply true, and the scary part is often unchangeable, about who you are and whether or not people are going to like you.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  I think absent some of those mating market metaphors, we're used to the experience of, sometimes you fit in, sometimes you don't, sometimes you can be a struggle to find your people. Sometimes you're successful at finding your people, but the mating component really turns up the pressure and it can be tempting when you're rejected a few times to think, well, this says something about who I am at my core. And so part of what I wanted to do with this book was dispel some of these ideas. Actually, the science really poorly reflects the idea that there is strong consensus about how desirable certain people are. There's a little bit of consensus.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  It's not a dramatic, perfect agreement about who's a 10 and who's a six and who's a two. And also, this idea that it's unchangeable, absolutely not true at all. And in fact, very commonly, how we come across to others, whether we seem like somebody who'd be a good pick for a partner or not, can change quite a bit depending on the context and like how long you've known each other.

• 14:48John R. Miles?

  One of my key takeaways from the book, and there were many, is that attraction is not about being universally appealing. It's about appealing to someone specific through interaction. And it reminded me of my buddy Phil. Phil always told me that over time, you become more attracted to someone through the interactions that you have with them, or you become less attracted to them. And so his point was, over time, how they look really starts to shift. Because whether you find that person attractive or not attractive is really influenced by the interactions that you have with them on a regular basis. And I thought his non-scientific explanation really went with what you found.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  It perfectly reflects what the scientific studies show, and which I think is a bit underappreciated. When we think about initial attraction, when we think about people trying to form relationships, often the schema that we pull to mind is something like, I don't know, a bunch of people going up to each other at bars. Okay, and that's great. Many people can do that very effectively. In those kinds of situations where people are meeting for the first time, there is reasonable, far from perfect, but reasonable consensus about who seems appealing and who doesn't. Attractiveness is part of it, your social skills, all of these things factor in.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  But your friend is absolutely right. As we get to know people over time, okay? So situations where you're interacting with the same people repeatedly, I'm often fond of referring to intermural sports leagues. Maybe you play ultimate frisbee, or kickball, or maybe you're in a cooking class that meets on multiple occasions. Whatever your thing is, if you're getting to meet those same people over and over again in a consistent space, what ends up happening is that everybody's impressions start to diverge. So yeah, maybe you seem like a six at first, but after a few weeks,

• 16:55Speaker 01

  some people maybe still think you're a six, some people maybe think you're a four, but some people now think you're an eight. It's this unique idiosyncratic way that we come across to other people. And with time, you get more of a diversity of opinion. And boy, is that a good thing? Because what that means is that if you're initially not super attractive, it doesn't ultimately feel necessarily like you're going to have to settle. Because if you're getting to know people over time, what that means is that, hey, eventually, you can find somebody that you think they're especially great, and they think you're especially great. So to the two of you, it actually doesn't feel like you have room to trade up.

• 17:38John R. Miles?

  I want to go to internalized ranking, but I want to approach this a little bit differently. You're not aware of this, but I've been in the editing phase of a new book I have coming out in the fall, which is focused on mattering. But how do you rebuild the human operating system underneath our sense of mattering? And I, over the past couple of weeks, had just finished a chapter where I focus on mattering and intimacy, which is why I was so excited to have this conversation.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 18:07John R. Miles?

  And I use an example of a relationship I was in with this woman. And at first, I found that there was a lot of desirability between us. But then, over time, what was happening was that I was slowly being rejected. And I found that as that was happening, I was trying to grip on even more tightly. But the more I gripped on, this belief that I had on my own internal ranking corroded my own sense of mattering. Does that make sense?

• 18:43Speaker 01

  It's certainly the case that our close relationships form a huge part of our sense of meaning in the world. And this is also part of the human condition.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Our close others shape how we see ourselves. They shape how we feel about ourselves. And when we don't feel like the people who are around us, accept us for who we are, they don't want to be around us, it truly can be one of the most upsetting things that people experience. It's why breakups are difficult because when you go through a breakup, you feel like you've lost this important thing. And that thing that you've lost is often who you ideally would have gone to for support when something goes wrong. So it can be profoundly difficult in a number of ways. And again, that's because we are these creatures that need attachments and that need bonds with each other.

• 19:39John R. Miles?

  Before we continue, I want to pause for a moment. One of the quiet insights in this conversation is that romantic worth is not something we prove, it's something we experience in relationship. And that truth begins long before dating. It begins in childhood, in the earliest moments when someone learns, my presence changes the emotional world around me. That's why my new children's book, You Matter Luma, which launches next Tuesday, was created to help children feel mattering in their bodies before the world teaches them to chase it through performance, perfection, or approval. You can preorder You Matter Luma now at Barnes and Noble, or go to youmatterluma.com. Now, a quick break for our sponsors. Thank you for supporting those who support the show.

• 20:25John R. Miles?

  You're listening to Passion Struck on the Passion Struck Network. Now, back to my conversation with Paul Eastwood.

• 20:33John R. Miles?

  I think that is definitely true. I also think part of it is the rejection because you personalize it, that there's something wrong with you. When, like another one of my things that I tell my kids who are older now is that I always found in dating, that there's like a 90 day point, a 60, a six month point, and a one year point. And I always say, for the first 90 days, everyone is on their best behavior and no one is trying to really bring forth their complete authentic self. And then as you get into that six month point, that is more and more emerging. And then it's completely there as you let your guards down. And that's why relationships either break up or they exist in those windows.

• 21:18John R. Miles?

  Did you find anything that correlates to that?

• 21:21Speaker 01

  One thing with markers like that is that I think because they differ from relationship to relationship, it's hard to look at the time course of a relationship and say, oh, at six months, this tends to happen, or at a year, this tends to happen. What you do see is more, you think about it more, sometimes we talk about the number of events that have taken place, but even that's like a subjective marker for time. But as I think about how relationships initially evolve and grow, it's like the moments you have together are the things that people are clocking more than literal time.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  The fifth time you interact with somebody, that might have a similar feel to it, even if that, those five interactions have gone over a span of two days, or if it's been a span of five months, right? That fifth interaction can feel similar. And it's part of that process of getting to know somebody else. As relationships go on, as we start talking about timeframes, like six months, a year, multiple years, it's hard to pinpoint any particular time that's key, but transitions can tell you a lot. So now, if you're thinking about, like, taking a new job, okay, what is that going to mean? Are we considering moving in together?

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Now moving, are we considering having a kid together? These sorts of transitions can be really key moments where people want to assess, maybe they need to reinvent some of what the relationship has been to some extent. But those are the things that tend to emerge consistently across relationships.

• 23:07John R. Miles?

  So in chapter two, you tackle the gender question, and you go into research that you did on Charles Darwin, and then you go into Dr. Robert Trivers. And What I found interesting about this chapter is that what you found is that gender differences exist, but they're far weaker and more flexible than popular evolutionary stories suggest.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:32John R. Miles?

  What did you find most surprising when you looked at this?

• 23:36Speaker 01

  It's so fascinating, and this was one of the first things that we looked at when we started studying initial attraction back in the day. We ran a whole bunch of speed dating studies because we wanted to see, well, what were the consistent predictors of who likes whom when people are initially meeting? And one of the cool things about studying speed dating is that you get a lot of data very quickly because you've got, let's say, 10, we ran mostly mixed gender speed dating events. You got 10 women and 10 men, and all the combinations are going to have a chance to meet each other, all the mixed gender combinations. And so you would be able to see, hey, when I felt this way about somebody, that was

• 24:21Speaker 01

  a strong predictor of whether or not I wanted a second date with them, whether I wanted to exchange contact information. Other things were weaker predictors, but it was such a powerful tool because we got to see in real time what was mattering for folks. And we looked at these attributes that everybody said would be gender differentiated. Men routinely say they care about physical attractiveness more than women. Women routinely say they care about earning potential and ambition more than men do. You'll find this on every survey throughout the world. But when we looked at it, not from the perspective of what is it that men and women say they want, but what mattered when they actually were

• 25:05Speaker 01

  meeting face-to-face people? What predicted who they desired? Yeah, physical attractiveness mattered. Believing that somebody else is attractive is indeed a powerful motivator of whether you want a second date. Doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. It's exactly the same strength. So it was these sorts of gender differentiated findings, or lack of gender differentiated findings, that made us say, whoa, maybe when you ask men and women what they want, you get a picture of exaggerated gender differences relative to what they actually want in real life.

• 25:42John R. Miles?

  On this chapter, one of the studies that caught my eye was this famous one where researchers recruited attractive men and women to do a psychological study. And they had them, each gender, approach people of the other gender with a direct quote, "I'm sorry to disturb you like this, but I've been noticing you around and find you very attractive. Would you go to bed with me?"

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Yep, it's a classic.

• 26:07John R. Miles?

  What did this study find that was so interesting?

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this study is one for the books. What they found was that a very large percentage of men would say yes to the request from a stranger to go to sleep with them. I think that was the euphemism they used in the original, or would you go to bed with me? Many men say yes when a woman makes this request, even though they don't know this woman. Very few women say yes to this request. If you look at some of the more comprehensive, more recent versions of these studies, this study's been replicated many times in many different places.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  But the largest samples find an enormous gender difference in who is willing to say yes to a request like this. So this is, I think, a very illustrative gender difference in a number of ways. But it's certainly consistent with the logic that, hey, you know, some of the original sexual selection theory logic, and sometimes it's also called parental investment theory. This is the idea that, well, whoever is the person that has to invest more in the resulting offspring, well, that person is going to be more selective with their mating choices because essentially they're putting in more upfront.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  And so this gender difference is absolutely consistent with that story. Women are going to be more cautious in situations like that.

• 27:42John R. Miles?

  So let's jump to a term probably most of the listeners have heard, and that is the mating market.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  And wait, I'm sorry, wait for that last one, but I feel like I should finish because there's like a button on that. Yeah, let me rewind and I'll, but I'll close it down quick. So it's certainly consistent with that classic gender differentiated story. However, I'm compelled to point out that the gigantic size of the difference found in those studies is much larger than what in the more common situations where people might be propositioned for casual sex, but it's usually by somebody like that they actually know. It's the stranger part that makes the gender difference so big. Women are freaked out by strangers, which makes

• 28:30Speaker 01

  a lot of sense, both like rationally and evolutionarily. And I think sometimes we miss that. When being propositioned for casual sex from somebody people know, there's a gender difference there, too. It's far smaller. So I think it's like important aspects of the context here to keep in mind. Sometimes we like really think that there's like cute experimental design and we think it's revealed this gigantic enormous truth about gender, but we got to look at these issues from a number of different angles.

• 28:59John R. Miles?

  What I remember is that when they were propositioned by someone that they already knew in their daily life, they said 40% of the time, yes, compared to the 2% when it was a stranger, which highlights the point.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yep. 40% versus 2%, it's a big difference.

• 29:18John R. Miles?

  So next, Paul, I want to jump to a topic people are really familiar with, the mating market. And it was interesting to me because in the book, you imply that this mating market has stable preferences, interchangeable partners and value that exists prior to people interacting. But I think you found. Those things to be false.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, certainly very much overblown. As I mentioned, when people first meet, yeah, there's some agreement about who's desirable and who's not. And, you know, that is probably the best case for the mating market at work. That when people first meet, there's a certain amount of sorting by who's desirable and who's not desirable. But these market forces lose their strength as people get to know each other more over time. And what's especially fascinating is that it becomes harder and harder to predict how a given relationship trajectory is going to unfold with information about how quote unquote desirable somebody is.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  So let's say I know a whole bunch of information about how desirable you are. I've got information about your attractiveness and your emotional stability, your social skills, your intelligence, all of this information. I'm gonna do pretty well, somewhat well, at predicting how people will feel about you when they initially meet you. Okay, so coming up to you at a bar, I can predict that pretty well. But if you're in a relationship and that relationship is unfolding over time, all of that information that I had ahead of time, it does a worse and worse job of predicting how your relationship is going.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  So it's almost as if your relationship is taking off, as it's leaving the ground and being launched into space or somewhere else, that our ability to use initial conditions to predict what's gonna happen, it just starts to fade. And this has been one of the most vexing like problems, but also, I think, interesting challenges of studying this topic. We want to have some sort of foresight for what's gonna happen in our relationships. But the reality is, once that relationship takes off, it becomes harder and harder to use information about who you are as a person to predict how things are gonna unfold.

• 31:57John R. Miles?

  That is really interesting. Well, one of the fascinating things that you dove into was the idea of safe haven, that healthy relationships provide these safe havens. What does that look like for the average listener in lived experience?

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's easy to underestimate how important support is in a relationship. That is often one of the central things that people look for in a relationship partner, and one of the central things that relationships provide. It's not like this even exchange of goods and services, thinking about relationships is like, I don't know, a trade-off between like, sex and money. These are bad metaphors. Good metaphors are about support. This is the key thing that differentiates happy relationships from unhappy relationships. So, the safe haven

• 32:54Speaker 01

  idea is basically this sense that if something is wrong, if I'm faced with a challenge, if I feel down, if I'm anxious, that my partner is somebody that I can go to for a sense of validation, a sense of acceptance, a sense that there is somebody out there who cares about me. It's a little hokey, it's a little squishy, and the reality is, this is the core thing that explains how close relationships function. It's not just about when things are hard, it also is about celebrating your partner's successes. So, I often talk about these like,

• 33:35Speaker 01

  twin components of the attachment bond. It's the safe haven, that's like, I go to you when I feel down, but also what we call the secure base component, and that means, oh, you're there to celebrate me when things go right. Having those twin things in one person is a really special and remarkable thing, and it really is the core to what close relationships can become.

• 33:58John R. Miles?

  Yeah, I found it really interesting that the secure base side, meaning like, being deeply anchored in a relationship actually makes people more exploratory, not less.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. I think we get this idea that, oh, if I'm like, too dependent on somebody, then I'll stay in all the time and be boring. But that's not really how it works. And when you feel like there's somebody who's got your back, then you try new and risky things. It's like you've got somebody that can launch you into the world, but also catch you when things go sideways, which they often do.

• 34:34John R. Miles?

  Going back to this whole idea of matter, and what do you think tells someone often wordlessly that they matter to a partner?

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it can differ for different people, of course, right? Sometimes it's like your presence. Sometimes it's just being willing to listen without offering lots of advice, and it can be hard to do. Take some practice. But what's great about the way humans form relationships, it's great and also makes it challenging because it's hard to offer clear advice to everybody, is that each relationship is unique and idiosyncratic, and that is by design. Because people, whether they know it or not, treat their relationships like those relationships are constructions. It's almost like you're building something without a blueprint.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  You're building some sort of tall tower and you don't quite know where it's going, but you're doing so together. And what you hope to do is build in patterns that allow you to provide support for each other in the way that person needs it. So sometimes, like in my relationship, sometimes that support means be there to listen, but don't bring it up at other times, right? It's not helpful if I'm like, oh, and another thing I thought about your problem. That's not that useful. But that's like a weird idiosyncratic thing about my relationship. To somebody else, that might seem very thoughtful or very caring. Oh, you were continuing to think about that thing that was challenging me.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  In my relationship, that doesn't work so much. People have to figure these things out. And a lot of these little idiosyncratic patterns and rituals that become a core part of what a relationship is. But people got to construct it in a way that works for them.

• 36:28John R. Miles?

  So I want to talk about this guy I know named Brad. And I'm using an anonymous name here, but this guy would never evaluate himself, but he would create these lists, these checklists for what he expected in a partner. And he would have values, how they should look, the personality type, the body type, the lifestyle they should have. And I watched him fail miserably time after time. And you refer to this as the compatibility illusion. What's happening here?

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is a major challenge because if I asked anybody to draw up on paper, what it is they're looking for in a partner, nobody is going to say, I don't know, whatever. Nobody's going to say, I don't know what you mean. Never really thought about it. Everybody has thought about this and everybody can construct the perfect partner in this way. And if you give people a long leash, they will really come up with a number of things they need to have. This was part of the point of materialists was showing how people do this. And when you're paying a lot of money to have somebody else set you up with a partner, boy, is that list that you come up with, it's going to be long and it's going to be exacting for what it is you're looking for.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  The trouble is finding a partner who matches on all those dimensions. Even if you can find somebody who fits all those things, it's actually not going to matter all that much. It's not that much better than a coin flip than if I gave you somebody who didn't match all of those things. People find this absolutely shocking, right? What are you talking about? My values are X. And if you give me somebody who doesn't share those values, there is no way that I would be able to make a relationship work with that person. And yet, what we regularly find is that this sort of puzzle piece type matching,

• 38:35Speaker 01

  right? The idea like, oh, I've got this sort of shape and I need somebody that's gonna fit in exactly this way. This is a bad metaphor for thinking about how people initially become attracted to each other and what differentiates good from bad relationships. It's not about that fit that can be preordained by your values and whatever you would have sketched out beforehand. These are very small effects. So I often want to point out to people like, part of the problem with modern dating is we get so in our heads before we've even met somebody about what we're going to think about them. I think to the extent that we can have

• 39:20Speaker 01

  a little bit more of an open mind with who we meet in the first place. I'm not saying, oh, just settle for anybody. That's not the point. The point is, don't restrict your field so much before you actually get to know people. Sometimes we can surprise ourselves with how we feel about somebody that is not the kind of person that we would have drawn up on paper ahead of time.

• 39:43John R. Miles?

  One of the things that I found in the book is that compatibility isn't found but formed, and you've talked about this several times. Are there interaction signals that matter more than the traits?

• 39:56Speaker 01

  That's a good question. I like to think about, rather than focusing on what are the traits this person has? Okay, who are they? What are they like? I'm not saying you ignore all that stuff, but I would rather focus on how you feel around them. Okay? Do you feel lesser than yourself? That's a bad sign. Do you feel bigger?

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Then who you were before, do you feel yourself growing in various ways? Maybe you feel smarter around this person just because of the way they're interested in what you have to say, or you feel funnier. There's a lot of different ways that being around one person changes not just like how we act, but actually how we see ourselves. I'm fond of recommending to people that they focus on that because that is likely to be a much better marker of whether this is a good match for you. So finding somebody who maybe doesn't like match everything on your checklist, but makes you feel good about yourself, changes how you feel about yourself in a new and dynamic way.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  I would much rather people look in that kind of direction.

• 41:10John R. Miles?

  What do you think happens when one person feels anchored in the relationship and the other person feels optional?

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is tough because, and look, many relationships end because it's fulfilling to one person, but not the other. And when relationships start going south, it can be remarkably challenging as well to get them back on track. But truism in the research on therapy, like couples therapy in close relationships, that boy, by the time a lot of people are seeking out couples therapy, it's already too late. Like the, the bad patterns have really ossified. People have become convinced that they're in their own like moral righteousness

• 42:03Speaker 01

  and the horribleness of their partner. So it can be very challenging to turn things around at that late stage. In a case where you've got something lopsided, to the extent that reinvention is possible, I don't mean at all like reinventing yourself to match what the other person is looking for, but to the extent that there are things about the relationship. That are not working for the person who's feeling cool about the relationship. Those things are worth looking at, but trying to like reinvent yourself to please the other person is not likely to be a solution. It's even if you could do it, it's probably not likely to work. Right.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  But I'm always tempted to, to first look at the relationship. Are there things there that can be changed? Sometimes there are, and sometimes there's not. And that can be like, it can be profoundly sad when that's the case. That one person really wants to save a thing and another person doesn't.

• 43:06John R. Miles?

  Yeah. So I wanted to wind down by connecting the science in the book to some of the current pain points that a lot of people face. So the first thing I wanted to talk about was why dating apps feel so depleting. And you argue that modern dating environments reverse the natural order of attraction. What, what ends up happening here?

• 43:28Speaker 01

  I think part of the challenge is that we spend a lot of time in our heads filtering through what we think we want, using all the features the apps give us, using the features that are really designed to get you to spend time on the app. Right? The app is meant to foster engagement. And that's the thing that we end up doing. And then we set up these dates, it'd be remarkably hard. A lot of people don't even get that far. And then the dates themselves are, we conduct them like interviews. Right? Where we're like trying to figure out all the stats and facts and figures about another person.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  None of this remotely matches how people have met and thought about, am I into this person or not? For the many prior decades and centuries and eons.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  So a challenge of using the apps is that it often removes the spontaneity, the casual interactions, the repeated interactions that we would have with somebody, whether we intended to or not, and sidelines those ideas. But for most people, that's the approach that works better, feels better, is more enjoyable. So it's hard to persuade people to throw the apps in the trash. I get it, like, the apps aren't going anywhere. They feel like a necessary part of dating these days. But man, for people who are struggling, I would rather tell them, like, again,

• 45:06Speaker 01

  go join a sports league, join some, take a dance class, do something where you're meeting people over and over again. And importantly, you're not joining this ultimate frisbee team to date somebody on the team, you're joining it to meet new people, period. Okay, you're just meeting new people. Because when we end up dating other people through the old ways, not the apps, it's like friends of friends, okay? That's how most folks do it. That's easy for a lot of people. Social interaction for a lot of people is hard, but meeting friends of friends, this is an avenue that's more widely available. Again, like, I sound like a grandpa shaking fists at a cloud, but don't forget about

• 45:51Speaker 01

  the old ways of how we used to meet people. It's still possible, and they're very rewarding and gratifying in and of themselves.

• 46:00John R. Miles?

  Okay, the other scenario I wanted to talk about is someone's reputation as a player or their history of dating.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:07John R. Miles?

  How much does that tell us about their long-term relational capacity?

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Weirdly little. And I think this is surprising to people, right? People think, he's a player, and I'll have fun with him when I'm younger, but then I'll find the stable guy. And the thing about this idea is so intuitive, but everybody hates this. Nobody likes being put in either of those boxes, right? You're somebody who get a reputation as a player or somebody who's good for a short-term thing, well, what the heck? I'm not worth actually getting to know. And then on the flip side, people don't like thinking about themselves as like, stable material, but unsexy. That's an absolute death knell for a close relationship as well. So luckily, it so happens that this idea that there's some sort of dimension where some people are like

• 46:55Speaker 01

  good for a fling or good for a long-term relationship, like none of that holds up. There are predictors of who is more initially attractive and who's not. But all the things in the world that we can identify that make some people initially more appealing, they're just irrelevant to somebody's long-term relationship potential. Like things like attracting, physically attractive people, yeah, they'll do better when they meet people at bars. Are they better or worse relationship partners? No, it doesn't make any difference at all. And that's the case across the board. It's actually, becomes remarkably hard to find any sort of warning sign early in this player category if we're trying to predict how their relationships will ultimately end up.

• 47:39John R. Miles?

  And then lastly for the book, I really liked the conclusion. And what I took from it is that humans didn't evolve to compete for status or mates. What you contend is we evolved to attach, adapt, and care. Why does understanding that not just change how we date, but how we actually see ourselves?

• 47:59Speaker 01

  I think it's very helpful in the sense that it gets us to focus less on this like economic model of human worth. Right, that I have a value and what do I deserve and do I deserve better? Again, I'm not trying to claim that everybody can be a Buddhist and totally remove themselves from all of those temptations. Yeah, it can be, we all feel like we can do better or we deserve better from time to time. But the idea that what we really want is to be surrounded by people who care about us, are looking after our wellbeing,

• 48:41Speaker 01

  and who we care about, who we want to be needed by.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  This is far more fulfilling and far more core to who we are as a species. And so I just think like this attachment lens, we are creatures who evolved to attach to each other, to form bonds. And that many times these bonds are romantic. They don't have to be romantic, obviously, but many times they are. This is a way of thinking about relationships. It's not easier, but it's like less mercenary. It's less hierarchical. It's less, I'm gonna, I need to get the best for me. And I find it more inspiring, even if at the end of the day, relationships are still hard. They're still challenging, but it's better to think about them this way.

• 49:31John R. Miles?

  Paul, last question I didn't get to ask you last time. What does it mean for you to live a passion struck life?

• 49:36Speaker 01

  Okay, this is a great question. I try to live my life in a way that with each day, I'm trying to do something where I can find meaning in what I'm doing. I'm very lucky that my work, whether it's talking about this science that we're doing now, or talking about rom coms on a podcast, that I can have a lot of fun doing that. So I'm, I feel very fortunate that I've gotten to incorporate a lot of my passions into the work that I do every day. That has not always been true. There have been many times in my life where the work was a grind, and I made sure at those times to find moments

• 50:20Speaker 01

  for the things I really care about outside of that. So I'm ruthless with my time. I organize my time in a very regimented way every day, but many times that's to build in moments to feel something, to feel a sense of meaning. And again, I've reached a point where I'm very fortunate that I hopefully get to do a little bit of that every day.

• 50:41John R. Miles?

  Awesome. And then where's the best place for people to learn about you, your book, your podcast, everything?

• 50:45Speaker 01

  So that's a great question. The book comes out on February 10th, so you can order it wherever you order books, whether it's Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, you can get the book there. The book's called Bonded by Evolution. And then if you want to hear me talk about romantic movies and rom-coms, please check out the Love Factually podcast. That's where me and my co-host Eli Finkel, we have a great time talking about the themes of the science in the movies.

• 51:13John R. Miles?

  Awesome, Paul. Such an honor to have you back on the show and congrats. I loved the book.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Thank you. And thank you so much for having me back on. This was a joy.

• 51:22John R. Miles?

  Anytime, man. Loved it.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 51:26John R. Miles?

  That brings us to a close of today's conversation with Paul Eastwick. If this episode stayed with you, it may be because it's gently dismantled a belief many of us carry, that love is a marketplace and our worth is the price. Paul's research tells a different story. Here are three reflections to carry forward. First, attraction is not about ranking, it's about resonance. Second, secure relationships create freedom, not dependence. And third, humans evolved to attach, not compete. The deepest fulfillment in love comes not from winning, but from mutual care and emotional shelter. Paul reminds us that dating is not ultimately a search for the perfect person. It's the gradual creation of a relationship where two people can feel seen, chosen, and significant. To

• 52:11John R. Miles?

  continue the work that we visited today, you can go to theignitedlife.net for episode reflections. Watch the full conversation on YouTube at John R. Miles or Passion Struck Clips and explore intention-driven apparel at startmattering.com. Next week, we continue the You Matter series with a very special episode. I am so honored to bring back my guest and friend Gordon Flett, one of the leading experts in the world on mattering. It's an episode that arrives alongside the launch of my new children's book, You Matter Luma. In this episode, we explore perfectionism, conditional worth, and the lifelong search to feel that our existence truly counts.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  Kids learn from the stories. Your book, I can't wait to actually see it. I know it's in the mail. Kids learn from the shared stories and also their stories. Like I would say, this is a great opportunity to say to kids, you know, what's your story? If you've ever felt like this, have you got something that you need to share? Do you think you could make a difference where you might be feeling lonely and then kids gravitate towards you? But yes, just seeing the difference, and there's real life examples of this as well, that I think can be pointed to, that parents and teachers can point to, in terms of somebody who has got on the mattering track and really made a difference in the lives of others. I'm fascinated by those people who seem to be heaven sent.

• 53:35John R. Miles?

  Until then, remember, you matter more than metrics. You matter beyond comparison, and the deepest bonds in life are not found, they are formed through care. I'm John Miles, and you've been passion struck.