How to Build Romantic Relationships | Dr. Paul Eastwick & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Better Speed Dating Questions

00:00two people are on a date and they have only a few minutes. It's kind of a speed dating type situation and they need to make a good assessment as to whether or not they genuinely would like to spend more time with the person again. Uh what what are the questions they should ask?

00:14All right. So, I like the questions that are a little bit more offbeat. You know, what people tend to do on speed dates is they they want to find common ground quickly. You know, if it's college students, maybe we're going to talk about their major.

00:26Uh do we share a major? No. uh like pivot uh where are you from? And they'll try to find something that they can bond over [snorts] and that can work very well. But I think the core of what we want in an initial interaction with somebody is to take away something that feels like it was at least a little different than all the other interactions that we have.

00:48And so sometimes what that means is going a touch deeper than people are comfortable with. Now in in 4 minutes it's tricky if

36 Questions Test

01:02you have a little bit longer like a regular evening length date. I really like the 36 questions test like this is the sometimes it's called the fast friends procedure. But these are questions like, you know, what's one thing that you've never told somebody that you've always wanted to tell them and what's stopping you?

01:18Or people answer that. Yeah. I mean, after if you've been hanging out with somebody for 60 to 90 minutes, that is a pretty good way to elicit real depth and give like both people a chance to do some reciprocal self-disclosure cuz that's what people want.

01:38That's what people connect over is like I've like I feel like I've just heard maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but I feel like you've just told me something that you haven't told most people and maybe you haven't told anybody. I vividly remember falling for somebody when that moment happened.

01:55It's like I really you are telling me this. I I don't I don't think you've ever told anybody this before and it is such a rush. I I think like I don't know, man. The internet, it's like convinces all we care about is like sex and hotness.

Building Trust Through Vulnerability

02:14There is nothing like the rush of having somebody tell you something that they've never told anybody else. And again, this is like the stuff that gets relationships researchers excited cuz this is what we see in our data. Responsiveness, closeness, like building trust and all of that stuff.

02:28Now again, four minutes is really hard. Four minutes, you just got to get a little nugget of something that you want to build off later. And maybe that is your hometown and maybe it is like, "Isn't this a weird experience that we're only going to get to chat for four minutes, but whenever there are roots to go for a little bit more disclosure, I usually advise that that people go for it.

02:49It it it will pay off on average, even if it can feel kind of awkward in the moment." Do you think there's uh more excitement if one gets the sense that the other person is um taking a bit of a risk in disclosing it? Not like I've been dying to tell somebody this and there's never been opportunity.

03:10Thanks for giving me the opportunity and you know I whatever. I always, you know, wanted to come back in my second life as a guppy or something. I I don't know. I'm picking a trivial example on purpose. It's not true. Much better [laughter] tropical fish.

03:23Big tropical fish enthusiast. much better freshwater discus. Much better fresh owned by me cuz it would be have a really good life. Um, take really good care of my freshwater discus. But in all seriousness, does that mean that people are walking around harboring, especially single people are harboring parts of themselves that they're craving intimacy, you know, that that's of the exchange things that they've never told anyone that they wish they could tell someone, feel safe enough to tell them.

Connecting Through Personal Narratives

03:52Is that what you're talking about? you know, creating a real moment of intimacy early on. That's not physical intimacy. It's I don't even know if it's emotional intimacy. It's like it's like human connection, right? It's like I'm a person that's had particular experiences and you're a person that's that's had particular experiences and we have these like narratives and stories about ourselves.

04:15Again, the science historically has been so focused on traits and I get it. Like I and I understand the evolutionary focus on traits, but man, humans are stories, right? We're narratives and we want other people to be privy to that narrative and then maybe eventually be a part of it.

04:33So I think that that is often what can be very powerful. Now for people who are single and they like want to be in a relationship, I do think that it can be that sense that they're lacking. A lot of people are single and are very very happy with their single lives.

04:50And I also understand that a lot of people if they're single and they're dating. Look, there's a lot of reasons to be

Costs Of Forming Relationships

04:57cautious. Forming a relationship is a low base rate event. It doesn't happen all that often. And it's time costly. It can be financially costly. It's energetically costly. It's very energetically. Exactly. Like we don't go around forming relationships with everybody.

05:11But I I also happen to think that like once the ball gets rolling, the pull can be very strong. And part of that pull is this this desire to have somebody kind of see me, get me, understand me. I might be talking about securely attached people on average, right?

05:29There's always going to be that avoidance pull too, like people need to self-protect to some extent, but the sort of desire to open up and have somebody like really get you, it's it's so core to the relationship science worldview and and I think it says a lot about like who we are as a species and like how we form mating relationships.

05:53[music] [music]