Valentin, Valentine, Valentino – Love Around the Globe

It is Valentine’s Day 2020 and I have long pondered what blog to write you on the occasion. When I prepared my TEDx last year, I realized that I use largely Western evidence to write for a Western audience. This also applies to my TED video, to be released soon. I have to recognize that some of this evidence does not apply to the wider globe. The degree of women’s agency varies across countries, as does access to information and the presence or shape of democracy and the rule of law. For example. Not to mention social norms and traditions.

With that in mind, I have written this blog as a little tour through the dating columns of the world. You will find that love is everywhere, while its form, and the priorities around it vary.

Have fun!

America

Modern Love in the New York Times is a wonderful series. This one proposes American husbands can be trained like dolphins and other wild animals. American wives too. (I shall try these tricks on a German husband soon.)

China

China has a popular TV dating game show, Fei Cheng Wu Rao, “If you are not serious, don’t bother me.” It involves quite a bit of conversation on stage, and interaction between groups of two genders to narrow down a choice. Rather than seeking lofty romance or high ideals, contestants do not shy away from materialistic pursuits. Famous quotes include “I would rather cry in a BMW than laugh on a bicycle.” It went so far that Government intervened and ordered a psychologist chaperone to accompany the talk show host.

Egypt

One of my favorite dating columnists of all times is Nehad Abolkomsan. She has a popular TV show ‘Nehad’s Stories’ which gives advice to young women, often in matters of love and courtship. Her advice is quite evidence based and matter of fact. When you learn that Nehad’s day job is that of a lawyer and chairwoman of the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, you understand why her program focuses on empowering women, seeking to give them a voice, agency and confidence. Including and especially when negotiating the dating and marriage markets. Here you can watch an episode, which is beautifully put in scene and focuses on how women should select their groom. She encourages looking for qualities suggesting that he would be supportive of a woman’s ambition and slow to anger. She also promotes a longer than average engagement period, based on statistics that put Egyptian marriages concluded after a short engagement at high risk of divorce. Quoting a survey into the preferences of Egyptian women, she finds that 80% of young women care about the ethical values of the potential groom, followed by a distant 19% valuing family and lineage and 13% love and romance. The episode ends with an interview of a young woman from Upper Egypt who has defied odds and traditions to realize personal and professional success.

Germany

The weekly Die Zeit has a series on dating with the title ‘It’s Complicated.’ It loves lives up to the stereotype that in the country of poets and philosophers, every puddle needs to have depth. The articles raise questions, reflect and explore with open endings, rather than advise or present complete personal stories. Popular topics include the pitfalls of online dating, aging and age differences, gender and social expectations and their reversal, as well as honesty and trust and their challenges, up to safety risks such as stalking. The common thread seems to be the question ‘What If?’ ranging from the light hearted ‘What if your date blows on his coffee?’ to several serious columns asking implicitly ‘What if s/he is the wrongest of them all?’

Nigeria

Efua Oyofo runs the blog ‘Dating While Nigerian’, which has now become a facebook page. I find it interesting that Efua is a labor and jobs professional, given that search and matching are relevant for both labor and marriage markets, and that several economic models apply to both. Her blog is quite forward, and an Economist article featuring it suggests that Nigerian dating breaks a few Western rules.

I hope you enjoyed this brief tour and found some inspiration for your own Valentine’s Day!

PS If your country has a popular dating column, please send me a link.

129 Ways To Get a Husband. An Economist’s Answer – Part II

Good morning, dear readers. There is nothing better than being up earlier than the others on a Sunday morning, whipping up a hot chocolate from scratch and writing about…loveonomics.

– If you don’t burn the chocolate, that is. But baked chocolate is also an inspiring taste. Trust me. Ok, where were we.. yes, let’s continue our review of the 129 ways..

4 Join a hiking club

On the one hand, this seems to be a good idea independently of wanting to date or not. Getting out, getting exercise, meeting new friends. On the other hand, if you want to do it with the particular aim of finding a partner, you need to do some prior research: who is in that hiking club, which demographics by age, gender, education, profession? Would these demographics appeal to you? Also, how much do you love to hike vs. other sports or causes? The day only has 24 hours and the hiking club competes with several other options. You should join causes and sports close to your heart and vision for yourself. If it is not clear to you which those are, your first step is to sit down with yourself and figure them out.

5 Look in the census for places with the most single men. (McCalls suggests Nevada)

It definitely matters where you are, as I wrote here before. One very important factor for quality of place when it comes to dating is the gender-ratio. A whole book as well as several of my blog posts have been written about the importance of gender-ratios for dating and it can hardly be emphasized enough. The gender in the minority will have more choice and will therefore set the terms. (Unless extremely powerful social or legal norms limit its decision-power or self-expression.) In that way, dating follows indeed the logic of a market and the influence over the result moves to the party that is in higher demand and shorter supply.

A remark on McCall’s choice of Nevada, which apparently had one of the highest single male/female ratios in the 1950s. It still performs well on this score, although cities on the West Coast, especially California, but also Oregon, and the state of Washington are all great places for women to date under this perspective. The metropolitan areas of the East Coast are the opposite (says the American Community Survey 2017). If you don’t live in America, look up the gender statistics of your country’s most recent census.

6 Read the obituaries to find eligible widowers.

This is weird. You don’t want to feed on someone else’s grieving. Such an attitude may disqualify you in the long run even if your company is appreciated in the short run. You also don’t know how long people need to grieve. The dating prospect may not be emotionally available for quite some time.

7 Take up golf and go to different golf courses.

Much better. Kindly refer to what I said on the hiking club. Note that the demographics of your nearest golf club may be quite different from the demographics of your nearest hiking club. The same may apply to the member fee. Assess and pick according to your preference.

To be continued next week.

Without burning the chocolate.

Love in a cold climate

5 ways to kindle the warmth in the freezing season

“Highs around 44…”, a polished news speaker voice from the clock radio wakes me up. You have got to be kidding me. Highs! Around 44! I pull the blanket over my head and snuggle up closer to The Husband. As far as I am concerned, I am happy to stay right here until the voice returns with “Highs around 60.” At least.

Unfortunately, that is not an option, and I have to embrace this day like everyone else, a day whose sun hasn’t even risen yet. It’s cold outside and most of life is confined to indoors, for parents and kids alike. Interesting life forms join us, such as Influenza, and one or another loved one may fall ill. I can think of circumstances that I literally warm up to more. Economists, scientists, have they come up with something useful to turn the ice into ice cream so to speak, as a couple, as a family?

I wouldn’t be writing this, if they hadn’t, so you can keep reading and see if you agree. My allies in spirit Bruno Frey, Sally Bloomfield, Jeffrey Dew and the holder of a bottomless treasure trove on just this topic, Sheldon Cohen, have some robustly tested advice to share.

  1. Good friendships can repel the simple common cold. Good social integration is associated with a reduced risk of this type of infections. Also, social support provides a buffer from the pathogenic influences of stress. – And if not…
  2. Bless you, if you have a family. Marriage and family are a mini-insurance against life’s adverse events. Such as the cold season. You may all get sick at the same time, but it is not likely. So if one is terribly sick, the other can take over. – Not that this is always fun, but…
  3. Exercising generosity improves marital satisfaction. Small acts of kindness, regular displays of affection and respect, and a willingness to forgive failings, are all positively associated with marital satisfaction. Even if it is not at all times exciting to care for the sick and/or shoulder their burdens, the small effort pays off in terms of happiness. The emphasis is on ‘small’ and ‘regular’. Big sacrifices can tilt the balance too far.
  4. It’s fine to kiss. Just don’t shake hands. Professor Sally Bloomfield, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says: “People avoid kissing each other when they have a cold, but in fact they are more likely to pass on an infection by shaking someone’s hand.” Air- or cheek kisses are safest.
  5. Remember the obvious, which for sheer obviousness does not appear in empirical research: light the fireplace, bake waffles with the kids, make hot chocolate or apple cider and wear thick crazy patterned socks.

That should do for a couple of weeks. Enjoy until the clock changes….which will be a whole new challenge.

Work-Life-Child Balance in 2017: 5 Myths Busted

It is 9:25pm and The Husband and I can sit down for dinner. Finally. After I spent two and a half hours bathing and feeding three under 6 year olds. The eldest two fell asleep at 8pm, which is a miracle as they usually tend to hop around until after 9. But the little one, despite his only eleven months, struggled to calm down. It took another one and a half hours of me limbo dancing with him in a baby sling until he eventually dozed off. And in between back rubs and sandwich folding, I checked on various urgent work email trails. (I usually take care to answer only the most important ones, because, under the circumstances, I may end up sounding less composed than I actually am.)

During the same time, The Husband was trekking through Rodman’s and Aldi chasing some vital ingredients to reconstruct a German Christmas in America. (Let me take a sip before I continue. I have just been handed a Cabernet with a blue cheese and fig jam tartine on the side. Hm. Senses slowly coming back.)

How do people do this? I mean, spending quality time with your kids while earning the means to do so and still getting enough sleep to ward off premature dementia? How are you supposed to do it? – The question keeps occupying researchers and I am not sure it is solved yet. Still, my recent dive into the research rewarded me with busting a few myths:

Myth #1: You need to spend a maximum of time with your kids

No. In fact, the quantity of time is irrelevant for children age 3 to 11 as long as it does not drop below the minimum of about 6 hours per week, according to this new large-scale study. Frankly, 6 hours is nothing, like just getting dressed and one meal together six days a week. Or, one weekend afternoon and nothing else. Kids that have this much of parent time, or the double of it, fare just the same in terms of achievement, behavior and emotional well-being.

So there. What have we been stressing about? Mothers in 2016 spend on average 14 hours with their children per week, while mostly, half of it would do. The only group of children for whom more time makes a difference are those that are about to grow out of childhood: for adolescents, 12 years+, more parental time makes a difference in terms of better behavior.

The quality always matters though. The time you spend together should be interactive. If you spend it doing nothing or watching TV, it will be detrimental.  – On the other hand, unstructured alone time is good for children; it has been shown to build executive skills. 

Myth #2: It doesn’t matter if parents sleep less when they have kids

Oh, it does. If parents are stressed and sleep-deprived, parent time will be harmful for children, Milkie’s study found out. As a parent, you should see to your own sleep at least as much as to your children’s sleep. Let’s be realistic, this is unfeasible without enlisting outside help from time to time, as well as taking turns with your spouse in getting up at night and a flexible employer who understands that on some days, your full brain at work at 10:30am is better than half of it at 8:30am.

It’s a tough nut to crack, but I understand it a bit like the oxygen mask in planes: you must put on your own mask first, if you want to have a decent chance at helping your child.

Myth #3: It is a good idea for a mother to give up her job to have more time for children

Better not. Two things that do more than parental time for the future success of a child, according to the above study and others, is family income and a mother’s educational level. Higher income and higher maternal education are always good. Milkie also finds that mothers’ work hours don’t matter much at all.

So, both spouses working is a good thing. I can imagine some non-linear reasoning here though, with the impact of dual earning being particularly strong at lower income levels and less so above a certain level. Further studies should look into this.

Myth #4: Only your kids’ fun matters, your own doesn’t

Actually, your own fun is vital. A study on 6500 children and their fathers published in the British Medical Journal found that the amount of fun fathers had while parenting was much more important than the time they were involved. Fun fathers were 28% less likely to have children with behavior problems.

“The researchers discovered that how secure the fathers felt about their role and their partner, and how emotionally connected they were with their children, were more important in reducing the likelihood of behavioural problems than the time they put in to childcare.”

Myth #5: We want to keep our kids supervised because of the risks they are exposed to.

Nope. We supervise them closely because we find it immoral to do otherwise. It has nothing to do with the actual risks the kids face. As Ashley Thomas and her team carefully researched with an experiment, our brain muddles up the two, morals and risk perception. The less morally acceptable we find the reason why a child is left alone, the more at risk we believe the child is.

This is not to say that there are no risks out there. I am not in the camp of ‘let the kids be in the street alone all day, like it used to be’. Yes, it used to be the case, and I had collected two concussions by age 6, while my 6 year old today has never had one. But we do need to take a step back and realize our risk perceptions are out of whack. Kids need enough unsupervised freedom to develop their own life skills.

So they can make their own blue cheese and fig jam tartines and get themselves to bed. For example. Eventually. Bottom line, parents need to let themselves off the hook a bit more, take license to live, and breathe and have fun, and stress a bit less in 2017.

(Second) Spring, Fertility and Happiness

Despite the ever changing weather, I hear birds chirping outside. Beams of sunlight come and go, as do bees that are kept at the local elementary. The daffodils have not given in to the rain and the mosquitoes have not arrived yet. Perfect spring. New green life is piercing through frosty soil, and a somehow larger family of Easter bunnies gathers on our lawn. A good moment to think about how human families form and grow and pursue happiness. I have witnessed this lifecycle building best in my immediate friends, such as Beth (not her real name).

Beth has been married for over ten years now. She confided to me that her wellbeing had changed markedly since she first partnered with Jack. Getting married and moving in together nudged up her happiness. Trying for a child and getting pregnant brought an even deeper contentment and feeling of security, also for Jack. The actual birth of the first baby was life changing and laborious. But at the same time deeply rewarding and instilling pride. Beth and Jack felt like family. Both of them older than 36, they also saw a long held wish materialize, and at a time where their biological clock could have decided otherwise. In spite of the hard work that followed and would eat up part of their leisure for good, they were happy.

Mikko Myrskylä und Rachel Margolis mined the extensive data from British and German household panels and found that the birth of a child normally increases the parents’ happiness. This is strongest for the first child and a bit milder for the second (and non-positive for the third). The effect is temporarily very strong. As they write, “happiness is, on average, 0.3-0.5 units higher (on 0-10 scale) when a child is born compared to the baseline 4-5 years earlier. This magnitude is comparable to the effect of divorce (-0.49) or going to from employed to unemployed (-0.47).”

Happiness gets a boost around the birth of a child, with 2-3 years anticipation before the birth and lasting 1-2 years thereafter. The happiness increasing period before birth may reflect partnering, marriage and getting pregnant; and the post birth decline possibly a realization of the permanent loss of spare time.

And, wait for it. You better have your kids at a mature age. Older parents, above 35, as well as the highly educated have a stronger happiness surge, and even when happiness drops around 2 years after the birth, it still stays above the long term average. So for these groups, parenthood increases their happiness sustainably. Younger parents (below 25) can see their happiness decline long term. This may reflect that younger parents typically have fewer resources available, and also that they still have a – now unfulfilled – need to enjoy life and leisure on their own. Older parents likely have had their partying years and can let them go.

Looking at all this it is understandable that more and more people decide to have their children later, and to limit their number. Parenthood in the second springtime of life lets the new happiness last.

Memento mori

“Memento mori – remember you are mortal.” This is really not big news, all our lives will end. But we are most of the time too good at ignoring it.

See, I have to write about death and mortality today because I am seeing too much of it. The Brussels and Ivory Coast hate attacks, people surprised by a diagnosis of terminal illness, young top-of-the-crop talents taking their own lives, car accidents, and again, diverse health struggles lost, heroically. Always untimely. Sorry for not coming up with a more uplifting topic, but bear with me. Because first, it is Good Friday and death is for a while the theme, and second, because by the end of this blog, I will try to extract some beauty from the setting. Somewhere.

Likely, none of us knows for when God has ordered the taxi, or who the driver is. And we repress thoughts about it successfully. We live as if we live forever. We love as if our relationship will last forever and beyond. It is easy to value today as if we had lots more of them coming, and value it barely more highly than tomorrow. Economists call this intertemporal preferences, or discount rate. For example, with a low rate we don’t discount the future strongly because we are convinced we have lots left. Or we are good at waiting. There are advantages to a low personal discount rate, such as willingness to save, invest, delay gratification, to work hard today for a better tomorrow. Most education aims at instilling these values in children.

But they may not be entirely realistic. In the long run, we are all dead, as Keynes wisely observed. We live moving towards death.
Some people get the news about God’s taxi, its driver and the approximate departure years in advance. It is still shocking news. It changes one’s outlook completely, and often quite painfully. Arguably the more painfully, the less prepared one is. There is a sudden realization of the strength of the will to live. An anger with fate or a higher power, sometimes turning one’s faith bitter. And the fear that the driver may be really unpleasant. And of the radical good-byes. (Radical, but not terminal, I believe.)
Even when the taxi is announced at a point in life that one could consider rich in years, and fulfilled, more often than not it pulls the emotional rug from under people.

My lesson from observing this is to get prepared. To live life, love, friendships, faith and work knowing the road will once end. To cherish every day, to worry a little less, to breathe more deeply, to savor food more, to spend more time with your kids, to give more and hoard less, to hold on to good memories and let go of grudges, to care for one’s time wisely and abstain from things, people and situations that drag.
To take liberties and forget others’ approval. To indulge all those who don’t know this. Simply, to put things into perspective. Many annoyances lose their weight in front of the fact that our stay on earth has an expiry date.

It is still fine to work hard and invest in tomorrow. But it is wiser to plant Lutheran apple trees and take joy in the planting rather than doing it only for the harvest. The apples may well be our offspring’s to enjoy without us, which is also worth it.

New Year Special: 6 Things To Make The Joy Last


Do you still feel the holiday warmth? Our house for sure still breathes hot chocolate, cookies, spiced goose, gifts, generosity and good company. I love it, and would like it to linger.

Can it? Over the years I have found that what can last without boredom is the inner part, the family ties, the altruism, the generosity – non-material would be too simple an expression; family ties can be very material. But transcendental nonetheless. The consumption aspects grow stale far too quickly. I mean I lurrve chocolates. Really. But I can’t look at them right now. Not even the finest brands – which I usually crave all year.

Another phenomenon came up this holiday, and everyone, including president Obama apparently, is going gaga about Fates and Furies. I also enjoy the read. Being still in the first quarter of the book, it’s kooky and a little bit crazy, a tasty and lighter bite after Crime and Punishment, which my book club wormed through earlier.

The new book, as many of you may know, dwells on marriage. How it can be something altogether new even after a string of relationships. The book marvels, almost like a distant perplexed observer, about how marriage can last, about passion that lasts.

But it can. Yes it can.

Psychologists have found that the kind of passion that typically a new love brings can indeed last decades. In very long-term couples that report still being madly in love, MRIs find brain activity that suggests new love next to other feelings commonly found in older companionate marriages, such as trust, familiarity and a feeling of kinship.

I am actually not surprised. In fact, I am rather happy that someone else provides a good argument-ology to my anecdotal observations and doesn’t let me look like a doe eyed dreamer when I claim the same.

So what makes the joy of marriage last? There are six attitudes you need to hold on to and cultivate, according to this research. Hint, we are onto our seasonal theme again: inner values matter. Intentionality matters. Having friends matters.

So here you go:

  1. Have some money, but spend it frugally and don’t care if your partner is rich. The couple should have solid earnings (i.e. more than $125k for the household). But only little should be spent on the engagement ring and the wedding, and neither partner should care if the other is rich.
  2. Don’t care too much about looks either. People who report caring about the looks of their partner are more likely to divorce.
  3. Go to religious worship regularly. This one is now well established in the research, and no wonder. Common values bond, a network of friends with the same values supports, and the whole thing is transcendental and non-consumerist = the essence of durability.
  4. Date 3 or more years before engagement. It sure helps to know each other well, to weed out any remaining information asymmetry, and to have weathered some ups and downs together. But to be honest, this one is a bit of a trade-off with the previous habit. The religiously observant, for whom ‘time before engagement’ often means abstinence, will not be thrilled by the length of this time. Religious people tend to have shorter pre-engagement and pre-marriage times.
  5. Have lots of friends at the wedding. People with bigger (but not more expensive) weddings are less likely to divorce. This one may be a proxy for ‘have lots of friends’ generally. People with lots of friends are probably not dramatically difficult to get along with, plus they have networks for help (with kids, the house) and emotional support. The appreciation of friends for the bride and groom is essential also because its absence would mean that partners would sometimes have to choose whom to spend time with, friends or spouse.
  6. Go on honeymoon. People who went on honeymoon are significantly less likely to divorce than people who did not. This probably means, don’t be too stressed or too workaholic to have a honeymoon at all. Or, in other words, be able to rank your relationship more highly than any other gainful occupation.

In the hope that every reader’s joy may last during 2016 and beyond. Happy New Year!

 

Happy Halloween – Why A Little Thrill Is Good For your Love Life

In the early 70s (probably bored by the first oil price crisis) psychologists Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron conducted a series of experiments. First, they sent a group of men down a rickety, wobbly bridge across a scary river. On the bridge, a woman asked them to complete a projective test that involves making up narratives about ambiguous pictures. A similar group of men was sent across a safe and sturdy bridge across a small creek and presented with the same test.

Guess what. The men who experienced the scary bridge produced narratives that were much richer in sexual content than the men on the safe bridge. Also, they called the female researcher back much more often (9 out of 18 vs. 2 out of 16 men). The results were corroborated in a laboratory setting with scary shocks, where the men anticipating shocks produced more sexual narratives and reported being more attracted to a female also present.

Hm. It looks like our hearts and minds are not very good at distinguishing where flutters and butterflies come from. Scary can mean hot. The nearest potential partner becomes more attractive. Feelings get a boo – st.

What can we do with this? Well, as wobbly bridges are rare these days, I would advocate you ride a roller coaster with your love at least once a month. And take advantage of the current season: check out the neighborhood’s scariest displays. No dodging the haunted houses…

Mothers In Law Are The Best Thing For Marriage

How the emergence of grandmothers helped build monogamy

You may remember the saving moment when granny arrived on the scene, a few days after the first baby decided (your) sleep was overrated. Grannies still know how to hold and soothe a baby, and many of them cannot think of anything that makes them happier. Grannies also, conveniently, biologically need sleep a little less than younger women.

While in modern times it can feel like they save young parents’ lives, in ancient times, they actually did save lives. Families who had a grandmother around, that is, a woman who would no longer bear children but could look forward to another twenty-odd years of life, had better survival chances. Granny could look after older children while mummy had a new baby at the breast, and daddy was free to go hunting. Families whose genes supported such a lifecycle, i.e. the end of female fertility during healthy years, were favored by evolution.

A recent PNAS article explains in more detail that an increase in life histories involving grandmothering had another beneficial side effect. In societies with active grandmothers as described above, fertile males would naturally outnumber fertile females. And as mentioned previously here and here, this also means, (fertile) women had higher bargaining power than men. Men needed to compete for fertile females; the latter could choose and thereby call the shots.

In a world where women call the shots (also see here), a couple of things happen to relationships and family life. You have empirically a higher incidence of monogamous marriage, higher earnings for men and higher wealth for young parents. – All symptoms of men working hard to obtain the favors of women.

In short, the emergence of grandmas has very likely helped couples form a strong and stable bond (as desired by -the newly powerful- women.)

With this in mind, a warm thanks to all grandmothers, and well wishes to all grandparents, on the occasion of National Grandparents’ Day, 13th September!

Love Advice from A Beautiful Mind – 5 Rational Dating Strategies

Rest In Peace, John Nash, hero of the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and of many an economics student’s a-ha experiences, who died end of last month. Nash received the economics Nobel Prize in 1994 for his findings in game theory. Game theory, which studies interaction and negotiation, is one of the best fields within economics to consult for dating. I thought, within the wealth of Nash’s publications, his paper on “Two-person Cooperative Games” sounded about right for our theme; and indeed it offers a wealth of lessons from both its assumptions and conclusions. While his assumption that people are rational gave me pause, it actually turns out very useful if you wish to err on the side of caution in your strategies.

But let’s begin. Here are 5 essential lessons from Nash’s work for daters.

  1. Make sure you can talk honestly with your date about everything of importance to you. If you want to cooperate at all, if you want to negotiate a good time together and maybe make some agreements, it is indispensable that the communication is open and honest. Otherwise, your agreements will be incomplete, or shaky, i.e. unreliable.
  2. It is important that you can make agreements that work for both. It almost goes without saying, but after all I hear and see happening to many friends that are dating, I am not sure we can take this one for granted. Nash himself felt he needed to point it out as a key assumption before modeling cooperative games. You need to be able to agree on something, so that both of you understand what is meant by the agreement, and understand it in the same way. You also need to able to comply with and fulfil any agreements made. Given that we are talking dating, these agreements can range from the light (like, agreeing on a time to meet to go to the cinema) to the serious (agreeing to go exclusive, or, eventually, marry…). The ability to fulfil agreements implies:
  3. None of you should have outside commitments that interfere with the relationship. Again, it should go without saying, but I am writing up some rational strategies here, based on a level-headed rational economist’s work. And from that perspective, anything can happen. Better check that your date does not come with baggage none of you is able to deal with. Neither should you. Incompatible outside commitments include, for example: being married, having another exclusive dating relationship, or having existing financial or time commitments that leave no money or no time worth mentioning for a new relationship.
  4. Don’t take altruism for granted. It is safer to assume that your counterpart will go as far as he/she can without losing you. Better assume this first and assess any degree of altruism well before agreeing to, like, go steady. (Hint: you want a lot of altruism, while being mindful that all that looks too good to be true probably is.)
  5. You may need an accountability framework. It is great if you can just blindly trust yourself and each other. But this is neither granted nor, possibly, as frequent as we’d like it to be. Nash suggests ‘something like an umpire’ to enforce agreements. Now, as this can prove complicated in dating, what about the following proxies: (i) a joint network of friends that knows or gets to know both of you well, and with whom you are willing to share where you stand dating wise; and (ii) for the younger or the more conservative among us: parents who are kept abreast of essential agreements. The accountability thing is naturally a small circle affair; I don’t advise publishing on facebook. It also should not be something that locks you into a relationship, but rather a trusted group that is in the know but otherwise neutral.

If this sounds too businesslike for love, ask yourself when you last held someone to these standards? If anything, your dating life deserves much more.

All this with the grain of salt that we are sometimes too irrational to apply the rationally obvious. But try and let me know how it goes!