Category: Personal Development

  • How to not fall for the wrong guy and floating trashcans (bonus: Dr Ali vs the Dr Ali-bot)

    Recently, a reader posed one of the all-time classic dating questions:

    Hi Dr. Ali,

    I listened to your book, The Tao of Dating for Women. I’m successful, I love myself, I’m all about the Tao and being happy in the world as it is. I can channel the “O Brother Where Art Thou” scene.  Here’s my problem: I get infatuated with men too quickly, before I have a chance to actually get to know them. I beckon to men who in retrospect weren’t worth beckoning to. My imagination makes a version of them in my head that I fall in love with, then I end up disappointed with the actual guy when I learn he’s a human like everyone else and doesn’t offer that fulfillment his imaginary counterpart offers.

    Any tips?

    I’m grateful for the time and research you put into your books and endeavors, you’ve helped me and I’m sure many others. Dating is pretty damn exciting. Thank you! Cheers, Sarah

    This is such a great question because it addresses a root challenge everyone has. It really does affect everyone, because it’s about a key feature of the human brain. And it touches upon the most mind-boggling thing I learned this year.

    Are you ready for it? Here it is: according to the latest understanding of neuroscience, we don’t really perceive the world through our senses. Say what?!

    Apparently, the brain, based on scant information, generates a quick model of what it thinks is happening. Then it refines that model by taking into account the “prediction error” provided by sensory input coming in from our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin, etc. Prof Andy Clark elaborates on this in his engrossingly thought-provoking book The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality. 

    The technical term for this is top-down processing, meaning that the Boss (aka your brain) takes in a little bit of information, then confidently proclaims, “Hey, I think we’re looking at a floating trash can.” Then your eyes chime in and say, “Um, I think the shadow thing is actually a puddle. And, by the way, trash cans don’t float.” After this prediction error goes to the brain’s higher processing centers, the model gets updated and you see a regular non-floating trash can.

    The floating trash can illusion

    Why does your brain make deficient models of reality based on scant information? To save energy, that’s why. Your brain is the most energy-hungry organ in your body, using up 20% of your oxygen and glucose even though it’s only 2% of your weight. Before the advent of Whole Foods market and hot dog carts, food was scarce for the first 3 million years of hominin evolution. So it made sense to have a brain that was super-efficient at generating a good-enough model of reality. Good enough to survive—but not necessarily to thrive.

    What does this have to do with getting infatuated with potential partners before getting to know them well? Everything, it turns out. 

    When you meet a new hottie, your brain rapidly goes off to make a model based on scant information: “Oh yeah this one’s great!” Based on some sketchy heuristics and very few real data points (age, height, profession, looks, proclivity for Radiohead and bad puns), it makes a snap judgment. 

    Unfortunately, the track record of this snap judgment is not very good. Next thing you know, you think this guy’s a mashup of Adonis, Apollo, and Clooney. Your brain starts to make stories about how great he is, even though you hardly know anything about him. 

    This is problematic for many reasons. First, it can result in bad matches. Less obviously, the disappointment hangover of the real version of guy colliding with the fantasy in your head can derail a potentially decent match! Fantasies don’t come free, apparently.

    So how do we change this lose-lose situation? Some ideas, straight out of my essential new book, The 5 Hidden Love Questions: Radically Simple Strategies to Date Smarter, Own Your Power, and Flourish (now available in ebook, print and audiobook formats): 

    1) Extend the length of courtship. For most of human history, when people were nomadic or lived in small villages, people had a lot of time but not a lot of choice in mates. Now that we live in big, busy cities, we have a lot of choice but not a lot of time. So to make better matches, you want to extend the length of courtship so it better resembles the environment our brains are adapted to: more time, less choice. Per The Tao of Dating, if someone has any potential, resolve to go on at least 3 dates before consigning them to Friendzone oblivion.

    2) Limit choice. This is the second half of the “more time, less choice” protocol. You want to get off the dating apps, because they expose you to thousands of potential partners. This creates too much choice for our paleolithic brains and puts it in maximizer mode, where you get super-picky and try to go for Mr Perfect instead of Mr Good Enough for You. I call this “Fancy Feast syndrome,” since it’s like turning you into a feline that won’t eat regular food after tasting high-end Fancy Feast. Chapter 3.5 of the book is all about this, as is this here article on the 10 supremely compelling reasons you should delete your dating apps right now.

    3) Take your imagination less seriously. Having an active imagination is a powerful advantage in creative endeavors; less so when choosing a partner. So take a step back from your own thoughts to see them as the patterns of electrical activity that they are, and not necessarily absolute reality. And hey, the brain’s making inaccurate maps all the time anyway (see levitating trashcan)—you sure you want to take it so seriously? 

    Meditation helps create that essential distance between you and your thoughts. Eastern wisdom traditions call this witness consciousness. If you already have a meditative practice, good on you and please continue forever. If not, it’s a little bit like that old saying about planting a tree. Best time to do it? Twenty years ago. Second best time? Today. Start meditating, like, now. 

    4) Have a definite outcome in mind. A remarkable fact about the 5000 or so letters I’ve received from my readers: none of them contained a real question with an outcome in mind. For example: “What’s your take, doc?”, or “Any tips?”, as in the current letter.

    Considering how your choice of partner is the biggest decision you’ll ever make, you absolutely positively want to have a well-defined outcome in mind when it comes to courtship. Would this person make a good partner, spouse, or parent? Do they demonstrate the Katz Criteria—character, consistency, communication, kindness, and commitment? Or my five ASKOR qualities: accountability, self-awareness, kindness, optimism, and resilience? 

    What’s more important than which framework you use is to have some values-based framework by which to evaluate potential partners. This not only keeps you from just rolling the dice and hoping for the best, but also sharpens your vision to spot great matches that may be less obvious.

    And now, things get interesting. Enter the Dr Ali-bot. (You may now stop reading if I’ve satisfactorily answered the original question. But if you’ve read this far, clearly you’re the curious type, so keep going.)

    I went to Microsoft Copilot, and gave the prompt to read my blog articles, then to answer this question in my voice: ‘How can I prevent getting infatuated with men who are not a good match for me?’ Voilà Dr Ali-bot’s response:

    “Ah, my dear seeker of love and wisdom, you’ve come to the right place. Buckle up, because we’re about to embark on a journey through the tangled jungle of infatuation, armed with the machete of neuroscience, the compass of psychology, and the ancient scrolls of Eastern wisdom. Dr. Ali Binazir, at your service.

    Step 1: Know Thy Brain. Our brains are like overeager puppies, sniffing out novelty and chasing after shiny objects. When you meet a new man, your brain lights up like a Christmas tree. It’s a dopamine fiesta! But here’s the kicker: dopamine doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care if the guy is a Nobel laureate or a professional couch surfer. So, my dear, before you start composing sonnets about his jawline, take a deep breath and remind yourself: “This is just my brain on dopamine. It’s not a sign from the universe.”

    Step 2: The ‘Not-So-Subtle’ Art of Self-Delusion. Ah, the human mind! It’s like a magician’s hat, pulling rabbits out of thin air. You meet a guy, and suddenly he’s the reincarnation of Prince Charming. He’s kind, he’s witty, and he even recycles! But wait, did you notice that he also leaves his socks on the floor and thinks “Game of Thrones” is a documentary? Yep, that’s your brain doing somersaults to fit him into the “perfect partner” box. So, my dear, put on your skeptic glasses and see him for who he truly is: a fellow human with quirks and idiosyncrasies. No magic spells required.

    Step 3: The Tao of Compatibility. Now, let’s consult the ancient scrolls. Buddhism teaches us impermanence, my friend. Everything changes, including our infatuations. So, instead of asking, “Is he my soulmate?” ask, “Is he my now mate?” Compatibility isn’t about finding someone who checks all the boxes; it’s about finding someone whose weirdness complements your weirdness. Like yin and yang, but with more laughter and fewer fortune cookies.

    Step 4: The Art of Detachment.  Picture this: you’re floating down a river on an inflatable unicorn. The current is strong, and you’re clutching onto a branch for dear life. That branch? Yep, that’s your infatuation. Now, my dear, loosen your grip. Detach. Let the river carry you. Because when you cling too tightly, you suffocate the magic. Breathe. Enjoy the ride. And if the unicorn turns out to be a rubber ducky, well, at least you had a good float.

    Step 5: The ‘No-BS’ Zone. Psychology time! Set your boundaries like a boss. If he’s flaky, inconsistent, or allergic to commitment, wave your red flag. Remember, you’re not auditioning for the role of “Woman Who Puts Up with Nonsense.” You’re the star of your own rom-com, and you deserve a co-star who knows their lines and shows up for rehearsals. So, my dear, when in doubt, channel your inner Buddha and say, “Namaste, drama. I’m out.”

    In summary, my intrepid seeker, infatuation is like a summer thunderstorm—intense, electrifying, and fleeting. Embrace it, dance in the rain, but don’t forget your umbrella of wisdom. And when the lightning strikes, ask yourself: “Is this a passing shower or a Category 5 hurricane?” Choose wisely, my friend. The Tao of Dating salutes you.

    P.S. If all else fails, remember that chocolate and good friends are excellent antidotes to infatuation”

    —End of AI response to question

    Okay, so how crazy was that?! The AI convincingly mimicked my tone and style. It cracked a bunch of jokes, some of them better than mine. It came up with a list of stuff, just like I did—and a pretty good list at that! You could argue that 3 of the 5 were in my own response above, albeit with less scientific detail. And the masterstroke of putting a chocolate emoji in the answer? Hard to argue with that kind of genius.

    Still, us humans have a persistent advantage over software: we know what it’s like to be human. My new book, The 5 Hidden Love Questions, is about just that. Think of it as a reference manual for recognizing and stopping the patterns that give our power away and make us less happy (e.g. infatuation with wrong person). Down with self-sabotage; up with thriving! Time to change the game.

    So if you’ve ever felt:

    • not enough
    • powerless in a relationship
    • physically or psychologically unsafe
    • unsure of what you want or who you really are

    then a) you’re in the same boat as the rest of the planet and b) the book’s for you! It’s the best of Western science and Eastern wisdom to help you thrive and flourish, and I hope you get a lot out of it.

    To your continued growth, Dr Ali (aka Dr Victor)

     

     

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  • Dating App-ocalypse: 10 Reasons to Delete Your Dating Apps Right Now

    Lately, several trends have gotten me thinking about the end of the world: military escalation, global warming, nascent pandemics. And more pernicious than them all, dating apps. Y’know, like Hinder, Stumble and Cringe. If you think I’m kidding, you’d be only partially right. Because those innocent-looking swipey apps are far more destructive than you’d imagine. So I’m going give you 10 reasons to delete those apps right now. Your choice: save yourself from a world of pain, or it’s app-ocalypse now. Let’s see what we can do to save your corner of the world.

    1. Apps are designed to make them profit, not make you happy

    There’s just enough variety amongst the dating apps to distinguish themselves from each other. But in the end, they all have one thing in common: they are businesses. Number of dating apps that are a saintly charity devoted to finding you a perfect match: exactly zero.

    And you don’t need an MBA to know that dating apps don’t make money when you leave their app. Let’s say you to come on our hypothetical app, Hinder. On day one, you get matched with a studmuffin who’s 100% absolutely perfect for you, with whom you proceed to trot off into the sunset and off the app. That would be great for you — but a disaster for Hinder. Why? Because they can’t make any more money off you (and Mr Perfect) when you’re both happy and gone! Their entire business model depends on keeping you on the platform for as long as possible.

    This means that your goals and their goals are at odds with each other. Economists call this perverse incentives. It’s like hiring a lawyer to work on your case by the hour. While you want the case to end as quickly as possible, he gets paid more the longer the case goes. Will he have your best interests in mind, or his own?

    In the case of the dating apps, it’s pretty clear: they have their own best interests in mind. So it only makes sense for Hinder and Stumble to show you the profiles of people who are okay-but-not-great matches for you. Basically, they’re in the business of hindering your ability to find a long-term partner.

    Now if you’re looking for fling but not ring, then no problem — your incentives and Hinder’s are aligned. Go to town! Otherwise, know that their matching algorithms are optimized for making them a profit, not making you happy.

    2. Ordering humans on an app just doesn’t seem right

    Have you ordered anything online in the past month? Food? Books? Clothes? Shoes? The idea of searching for exactly what you want, finding it, ordering it, and having it magically appear at your doorstep is far too seductive to pass up. And unless you live under a rock, you have ordered something online in recent memory.

    How about people? Have you ever ordered people online? Before you rail at me — omigod that’s like human trafficking SO wrong — isn’t that exactly what you’re doing when you’re on a dating app? Granted, you don’t always get what you thought you had ordered, like when people’s profile pics are from 10 years or 50 pounds ago. And sometimes the same-day delivery isn’t so reliable (except for Grindr, which I hear has same-minute delivery). But the process? Pretty much the same.

    On the dating apps, the people are the products you’re selecting from. Now, I don’t know how romantic it sounds to you to turn the potential love of your life into a commodity like sneakers or spare phone chargers. But commoditizing people sounds like a terrible idea. Moreover, by being on the apps, you’re agreeing to turn yourself into a commodity, too. You, the supreme goddess of love, beauty, and joy, reduced to the status of compression socks and charging cables.

    Consider this instead: refuse to commoditize other humans or let yourself be commoditized. Give yourself and others the dignity they deserve as the unprecedented miracles they are, and get off the damn apps. That way you can meet one another in natural human habitats — dinner parties, cafés, Zumba classes — and connect in a way that doesn’t turn you into glorified widgets.

    3. Apps addict you with slot machine psychology

    I recently read that users of Tinder, the original swipey app, spend 90 minutes a day swiping on it. 90 minutes! That’s enough time to read War and Peace, learn French, or take paddleboarding lessons. Apps can hook you for hours on end because they are designed like slot machines. As Prof Natasha Dow Schüll explains in her engaging book Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas, these gizmos use a technique called intermittent variable reinforcement to keep you addicted.

    It basically works like this. For those of you reading this in a glorious future in which these apps have reached their well-deserved eternal demise and therefore have no idea what I’m talking about: you express your interest in someone by swiping right. You don’t match with everyone you swipe right on. But every once in a while, bing bing bing JACKPOT you get a match! Hallelujah! That’s when your brain gets a little hit of happy juice called dopamine, which is the same reward chemical you get when you do cocaine or heroin. Which keeps you going for the next fix. Which is why most of us get literally addicted to these apps, swiping on them for hours at a time. No wonder why drug addicts and app customers are both called users.

    As your friendly neighborhood Happiness Doctor, I believe that the opposite of happiness is not depression. It’s compulsion, because it robs you of your will, depriving you of the freedom to spend your life as you choose. It’s like imprisonment, just without the chic orange jumpsuit.

    I don’t want you to be captive to some app designed to make you its miserable slave. I want you to be happy. So delete the damn apps and get out there instead. That French paddleboarding instructor just might want to cuddle up and read War and Peace with you.

    4. Apps kill civility

    Ever noticed how people are just ruder online — including yourself? No need to feel guilty — it’s a universal issue. Online, a host of factors, including absence of face-to-face contact or accountability, bring out our worst selves (same is true when driving, incidentally).

    And so people will easily dismiss someone online who could be a great match in person. Or match with you on the app, but not respond when you message. Or say something unbelievably crude. Or not call when they say they will. Or not show up to a date.

    It’s one thing to deal with a single instance of incivility. But collectively, these little indignities add up and gradually age your soul. They could even make some people lose their faith in basic human decency. How much more of any of that do you need in your life?

    The good news is that people tend to be much more civil in person. They say “hi” back. They will give you the time of day. If you look desperate enough, they may even point you to the bathroom. So instead of wading neck-deep into the swamp of disappointing behavior that is dating apps, you may want to go meet much nicer people in real life through friends and family.

    Don’t get me wrong — the humans will still be disappointing. After all, it’s all the same earthlings. But at least this swamp will be just ankle-deep.

    5. Apps hijack your drive state, turning you in to a zombie couch potato

    Let me tell you a little more about this crazy little multitalented molecule called dopamine. One of dopamine’s duties is to serve as our main mental fuel driving us to seek survival goods, like food, shelter, and sex. Drive states are essential to our survival, both as an individual and a species. Any kind of addiction — drugs, video games, porn — can hijack these drive states. So now instead of going out foraging for food and seeking a suitable mate, you just stay home and play video games, smoke meth — or swipe on an app. Not good for you; not good for the species.

    This is particularly pernicious because using the apps messes up your neurology to prevent the one thing you need to do to alleviate your singlehood: to get off the damn couch and go meet some eligible humans. So if after an hour of swiping on an app, you feel strangely depleted and unmotivated to go out, now you know why. Delete the app, and go get some sunshine (or moonshine) so someone has a chance to take a shine to you. Don’t do it for you; do it for the species.

    6. Winners take all on the apps, leaving most people in the cold

    When I was a kid, we once took in a stray cat, which we imaginatively called Kitty. Initially, we fed Kitty dry kibble, and he loved it. “This is great! So much better than being a hungry stray!” he would have said, if cats could talk. One day, I saw some TV ads for a cat food so fancy as to have the word in its name: Fancy Feast. The next day, I bought some Fancy Feast on my way back from school. Kitty devoured it with the glee of a child encountering brownies for the first time. Hell, Fancy Feast works!

    Except for one problem: after we ran out of the Fancy Feast, Kitty refused to go back to the regular kibble. It wasn’t so much disdain as it was a complete refusal to acknowledge the kibble’s existence. “What, you want me to go back to that dry, flavorless stuff that comes out of a bag? What do you take me for, some kind of stray? Feh.”

    Something similar happens when people get on dating apps. The app shows her Chad, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed 6’3″ former college athlete who’s making bank at an investment bank, and she thinks, “That’s what I’m talking about! Swipe right for Mr Right.”

    This is fine, except for one problem: once you’ve seen Chad, normal Joes who are just 5’10” sub-zillionaires just ain’t going to cut it anymore. They have been reduced to the status of dry kibble, and you couldn’t possibly stoop that low. You ain’t no stray.

    Congratulations — now you and Kitty have something in common. You both have Fancy Feast Syndrome (FFS). A core feature of human (and cat) neurology is that once you’ve seen a delectable dish like Chad, it’s hard to go back to sloppy Joe. This isn’t evil or wrong; it’s normal. But it does have a series of far-reaching consequences, none of which are good for your happiness or society.

    First, because the likes of Chad are getting all the attention, all the regular guys are not. By some accounts, 90% of all matches are going to less than 10% of the guys. And according to studies, the match rate for guys on apps hovers somewhere around 0.5%. That’s 1 in 200. While normal Joe can barely score one date, Chad has to hire Scooter, a personal booty-call scheduler, just to service his 300 matches. This winner-take-all situation leaves most of the guys on apps frustrated and lonely (and Chad very tired).

    Second, because it’s not just you who’s trying to match with Chad but also every other woman on the platform, he just may not have time for you. In fact, with his excess of choice, he’s got even worse Fancy Feast Syndrome than you. Anyone less than a supermodel just might not capture his attention. You and Chad could be a perfect match, destined to make beautiful genius babies together. But if you’re not his idea of Fancy Feast, you’ll never get the call from Scooter (Chad’s too busy to call, remember). So now most of the women on the platform are frustrated and lonely, too.

    And third, because of the winner-take-all setup, you have prioritized inaccessible fantasy men while devaluing and neglecting all the normal Joes who could actually be a great match for you. If frustration and neglect isn’t your idea of fun, may I suggest that you delete the apps and instead meet real men in real contexts. They may just surprise you with character, kindness, consistency, reliability, resilience — qualities that may not always come through a shirtless Hinder thumbnail photo.

    7. Apps prioritize bullshit criteria

    The other day, I was at a party and this girl came up to me and asked, “Hey! How tall are you? How old are you? And what do you do for a living? And how long is your left pinkie?” Pretty jarring, if you ask me. I mean, who does that? The answer is nobody, because I just made that up. I mean, how weird would it be if those were the first questions someone asked?

    And yet, that’s exactly the kind of information that the dating apps put up for everyone to see first: height, age, job. And so, whether we like it or not, those are the first criteria by which we judge potential app matches — even though we never do it in real life.

    What happens as a result is what I call optimization for bullshit criteria. Even though things like height, age and job have no correlation with relationship satisfaction, we end up optimizing for them because, well, that’s what the apps show us. If they showed us left pinkie length, shoe size and kidney shape (I can just see the Cosmo article: “Boomerang or a bean? Know your type!”), then we’d end up optimizing for those. Which would be just as useless as the current data the apps choose to display.

    But you don’t have to take my word for it. Prof Samantha Joel and co studied a very large data set of couples (11,196 to be precise), looking for correlates of long-term relationship satisfaction. You know what didn’t end up mattering? Basically all the things people try to optimize for on apps:

    • Race/ethnicity
    • Religious affiliation
    • Height
    • Occupation
    • Physical attractiveness
    • Previous marital status
    • Sexual tastes
    • Similarity to oneself

    What did matter, you ask? Intangibles that are hard to discern via an app, like kindness, resilience, and self-awareness. So if you don’t want to get waylaid by bullshit criteria, do this: delete the apps. Then meet people through friends and family, and select for the stuff that actually matters, like how well they treat you. Otherwise you just might end up with a guy with freakishly long pinkies and a boomerang kidney.

    8. Apps dangerously shorten courtship time

    Here’s an unusual fact about how my mom and dad got together. Before they ever met in person, they talked on the phone — for a whole freakin’ year. Totally not kidding here. After hundreds of phone calls often stretching into the wee hours of the morn, they finally made a real date, met, and found each other attractive enough to start going out, fall in love, and produce glorious offspring like yours truly. As of this writing, they’ve been married for three and a half centuries.

    Contrast this with the current courtship paradigm on dating apps. Instead of getting a year to really get to know someone, people are dismissing or accepting mates in less time it takes to wipe a nose. Too short. Too poor. Too hairy. No sense of style. Hot, but the shirtless pics are too cheesy. Job’s too boring. Job’s too exciting. Has a cat. Actor. Drives a Camaro. Pass, pass, pass, pass, hard pass.

    My point: it’s difficult to fully assess another human in the 500 milliseconds we’re giving them on the swipey apps. And how would you feel if someone only took half a second to evaluate your whole amazing, unprecedented existence? Would that be doing you justice — you, the complex, multidimensional, utterly magnificent creature? Hell no! Would take millennia if not eons to get to fully know you.

    So why would you assume that everyone else on the app isn’t equally worth getting to know? Hmmm.

    The best solution is to opt out of this shallow, low-attention span environment altogether and delete the damn apps. Slow the courtship process down. Behind the bullshit criteria that dating apps display may just be a person worth not just half a second of your time, but maybe even a whole lifetime.

    9. Apps increase danger

    One of the consequences of meeting guys off the internet is that most (if not all) of them will be total randos. They will have little to no connection to your network of friends and family. This is problematic because for the last few hundred thousand years, that’s exactly not how things worked. You met boys from your own tribe or the neighboring tribe — someone who was already embedded within some network of social trust.

    Right up until the advent of online dating at the turn of the 20th century, that’s mostly how things worked. You met guys through a friend, work, school or family. As such, they had some kind of back-connection to your extended social network. Although this didn’t always guarantee impeccable behavior, it was a decent deterrent to guys being total jerks. Violating social norms carried heavy penalties.

    You still could have met a rando at a bar or nightclub then, but that was the exception, not the rule — and one that carried a stigma. Couples who had met at a bar would only admit to it sheepishly, or change their origin story altogether.

    Funnily enough, that’s initially how people treated online dating when it arose in the 1990s. I remember couples who met online inventing all kinds of stories to circumvent admitting it — “Umm, we met through a mutual friend.” Sure you did. First name Intern, last name Ett.

    Now in the 2020s, meeting someone via a dating app seems to be superseding the in-person encounter. Which means meeting a lot more randos. Which means meeting a lot more potentially toxic randos with zero accountability for their behavior.

    The problem is widespread. I don’t believe I’ve met a single woman who hasn’t had some kind of regrettable experience from online dating. It’s so bad that a whole new set of terminology around it has entered the vernacular: catfishing (misrepresenting yourself online to take advantage of people); doxxing (making private information public without permission); and revenge porn (making very private information public). Hell, they even made a (fictional) movie about it called Catfish in 2010, and a (real!) documentary called The Tinder Swindler in 2022.

    If that’s not enough to scare you, then I encourage you to read Carrie Goldberg’s book Nobody’s Victim: Fighting Stalkers, Psychos, Pervs and Trolls. She’s a lawyer whose firm defends women who have had harmful dating experiences. Her book is a gripping (and harrowing) memoir as well as a safety guide. Goldberg tells tales of terrible things that toxic randos have done so they don’t happen to you. Nearly all of the stories have one thing in common: the ladies met these douchebags online.

    If you think I’m being a little alarmist, you’re right. Because a little alarmist is not nearly enough! Ladies — your long-term well-being is at stake here. Some wise woman once said that the worst thing that can happen to a guy on a date is he gets laughed at. The worst thing that can happen to a woman is she gets killed. Truth! All it takes to ruin your life is one toxic, determined dickhead. Dating apps are the dark alleyway where these dickheads lurk, awaiting their next unwitting victim.

    My suggestion: avoid the potential stalkers, psychos, pervs and trolls entirely by choosing not to walk in virtual dark alleyways (i.e. dating apps). Only meet people within your extended social network of friends, family, work, and school. Although things may still not work out, the experience is far less likely to endanger you. And at the very least, you’re not willfully walking into a dark alley where you’re liable to get mugged, literally and figuratively.

    10. Apps make users miserable with an excess of false choice

    When I moved to the US at age 13, one thing completely blew me away: American supermarkets. Such an avalanche of products on display! I was a huge cereal fan then, and just couldn’t believe the bounty on display before me: Cap’n Crunch! Count Chocula! Froot Loops! Trix! Lucky Charms! Cheerios! Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs!* I could have a different cereal every day of the month and not run out. It made me dizzy just standing in the aisle looking at the vast selection.

    Not only has that not changed, but it has gotten much worse. And not just for cereals, but for almost everything (including dating). There is so much choice right now that it’s not unusual to see people standing in the supermarket aisle, too dazed to decide on a jam, kombucha or toilet paper because there’s umpteen zillion choices. Psychologists call this decision paralysis. Like most forms of paralysis, it’s not fun, and it’s one of the byproducts of having too many options.

    But wait — it gets worse. In his outstanding 2009 book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, Prof Barry Schwartz tells us that when we try to pick the best possible choice (i.e. maximize) in a regime of excessive options, it makes every phase of decision-making unpleasant:

    • Sorting through the choices is annoying and hard, especially when the choices (e.g. dating profiles) are similar.

    • Picking one from amongst the multitude of choices is hard because you’re committing to one and forgoing the rest. How do you pick just one of your matches and leave the other 121 behind? So painful and wrong.

    • Committing to one of the choices is tricky and annoying because how can you ever be sure you made the best choice? Surely #42 of the 121 you neglected must have been better than #44. You will live in the Land of Perpetual Buyer’s Remorse, which I hear has the slowest wi-fi, ever.

    That sounds like a whole lot of self-inflicted terribleness. So how do we overcome our maximizing tendencies and the paradox of choice so we can have an outside chance at happiness? Three ideas:

    • Voluntarily limit choice. The data is clear: less choice equals more happiness. So limit yourself to the people you can meet from your immediate social circle, instead of the thousands on the apps.
    • Practice satisficing instead of maximizing. The great multidisciplinary super-genius Herbert Simon coined the term satisfice as a mashup of satisfy and suffice. It means, for example, that instead of reading the entire 1000-page Cheesecake Factory menu before deciding, you pick the first thing that sounds good enough, close the menu, and go with it: “I’ll have the grilled salmon, please.” Studies show that people who satisfice are much happier with their choices than those who maximize.
    • Use the 37% criterion. If picking the first good-enough choice feels too much like settling to you, then you can go with this procedure borrowed from computer science. A true maximizer would go on a date with every single guy on an app before deciding on one. Instead of that self-imposed hell, you pre-decide the upper limit of dates you’re going to go on — say, 100. Then, you go on 37 dates without making a decision (that’s the 37% part), while making a mental note of the best guy you met in that batch (let’s call him Napoleon). After that, the first guy you meet who is as good as or better than Napoleon is your man. You pick him, close the menu and you’re done.

    Taking up the satisficing habit may take a minute, especially if you’re a lifelong maximizer. But once you start doing it, this new way of dealing with the world opens up so much time and energy that you’ll never go back. Give it a try and delete your dating apps. And thanks for doing your part in preventing the appocalypse.

    You did it! You just finished reading a 4000-word article! You ROCK! This was an excerpt from my upcoming book, The Five (Hidden) Love Questions. It’s a complement to my earlier book, The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman’s Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible (paperback, ebook and audiobook), which was the highest-rated dating book on Amazon for 7 years and has been highlighted over a million times. 

    Would love to hear your thoughts about this excerpt! If you’d like to help me make the book better, click here to join my Editorial Board. You’ll get early access to the manuscript, an acknowledgment in the book, and other goodies you can help me dream up.

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  • The 3 Big Questions to Turn Your Dating Life Around (10th Anniversary Post)

    It’s been about 10 years since I published The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman’s Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible (ebook, print, audiobook). Although most of the stuff I wrote that long ago has become too cringeworthy for me to read, this book is mostly okay. And thanks to the support of readers like you, it’s once again Amazon’s highest-rated dating book for women (4.5/5 stars). So I’m starting to think it’s useful to people.

    In the meantime, I’ve had a decade’s worth of personal experience, 5000 letters from readers, and countless talks and seminars to reshape my thinking about dating and love for the modern woman. From that mass of data, three big principles have emerged that I’d like to share with you today.

    1. Are you buying or selling?

    When I was in Helsinki last summer, going to the farmer’s market was one of the most enjoyable things I did. Finland is big on berries, and has an abundance of wild blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, cloudberries, lingonberries, hinkleberries and floinkenberries. Okay, so maybe I made up the last two, but the rest are real and tasty. And at the farmer’s market, you’ve got all these vendors with acres of the stuff selling it for cheap.

    So there I was, armed with my all-powerful berry-buying euros, thinking, “Hmm, which vendor should I buy from?” Here, let’s make it a multiple-choice quiz so you can help me out:

    Vendor A: pretty solid berries but starting to look a little tired, 4 euros
    Vendor B: big juicy bright superfresh berries, 3 euros
    Vendor C: big juicy bright superfresh berries, 5 euros

    So—which one should Dr Ali choose? If you said “B, duh”, then you understand the idea of being a buyer with money in your pocket and options to choose from. You know what you want, and you pick the best option.

    Now, let’s switch the scenario around a little bit and pretend this is what happens instead:

    You arrive at Vendor A. Hey, look, berries! They look a little worse for wear, but overall not bad. Oh, you’re willing to sell to me? No way! It must be my lucky day! I’ll take ‘em all. Will you pleeeez take my money?

    What, you won’t even look at the other vendors, even though you’ve got money in your pocket? Do you see how much nonsense that makes? And yet, that is exactly how most people approach the relationship market. They act like they’re selling when they should be buying.

    You’re selling whenever you try to persuade people how wonderful you are. I’m a great cook! I make mad money! I give body-melting massages with hot chestnut oil! I’m great in the sack! I’m pretty! Choose meeee!

    And it’s possible that you’re all of those things and an excellent salesperson, and thus get all kinds of attention.

    But in the end, the best salesperson in the world has less power than even the least skilled buyer. The science of game theory guarantees it. Because the buyer has choice. And choice in the marketplace is power.

    How do you practice being the buyer in the dating world? By being playfully discriminating. The attitude is something like, “Hey, you seem pretty interesting. Let’s find out what you have going for you and whether there’s a potential match here.”

    This would be in contradistinction to “Omigod you are so amazing and beautiful and great please give me a smidgen of attention pretty please I promise I’ll make it worth your while even though deep down inside I’m not worthy but give me a chance anyway? Pretty pleez?”

    Yeah, that may not work so well.

    And yet, in spite of the inherent weakness of the seller stance, it’s the one most people in the relationship marketplace assume by default. So if you are that rare person who has the presence of mind to adopt the subtle shift in perspective to become the buyer, you will win more often.

    It does not cost anything to assume the buyer stance. You don’t have to lose weight, get a new hairdo, go to the gym, go on a diet, or get cosmetic treatments to assume it. And yet, it will make you more attractive than all of those external interventions.

    In The Tao of Dating, I call this the picky buyer stance. And while I want you to be picky, I also want you to remain compassionate and kind. It’s very easy to lapse from picky to hardass to jerk. But you will never do that, because you will remain your playful, fun, kind self. Right? Right. The point is to keep your heart and mind open while conveying that you have standards.

    The picky buyer stance is especially important to remember when meeting people online. This is because an online profile is basically an advertisement, which is by definition what people utilize to sell things. So when you go online, there’s no way around going into sell mode initially. Once you receive some messages from interested parties, then you can go back to being the picky buyer.

    Being the buyer vs the seller feeds directly into the next principle, which may not only be the most important principle for dating, but also for lifelong happiness and fulfillment.

    2. Are you enough?

    One of the two things that struck me about the 5000 or so readers’ letters I’ve received in the past 10 years is that they all basically contained the same question even though on the surface, they looked different:

    • “I’m a 37yr old divorced mother of two. Will any guy want to go out with a woman with young children?”

    • “We had a great first date, and I texted him the next day to thank him. It’s been two days and he hasn’t responded yet. Has he lost interest?”

    • “We’ve been dating for three years and I thought we were headed towards marriage. But now he’s saying he wants some space. What should I do?”

    • “Does my butt look good in these pants?”

    But deep down, they were all variations on the same question:

    “Am I enough?”

    The problem: it’s the wrong question. Merely attempting to answer it puts you in a seller position that’s impossible to escape from. Also: Enough for what? The changing whims of culture and fashion? The unfathomable desires of millions of different potential partners, most of whom don’t even consciously know what they want? Your own pointlessly harsh standards?

    Some of you reading this right now are probably thinking, “Omigod, he’s right! I’ve been am-I-enoughing myself forever! How terrible!”

    And that would be funny, ‘cause there you go doing it again. But it’s okay: everybody does it. There are multi-billion dollar industries arrayed to make us feel terrible about ourselves: TV, movies, cosmetics, advertising, exercise, diet. Making us feel bad about ourselves is how people sell us stuff.

    Luckily, there are remedies. You can re-read The Tao of Dating and Marianne Williamson’s A Woman’s Worth. Then, for a permanent solution, do these three things:

    (a) Instead of asking “Am I enough?,” ask “How can I be of service?”

    Even if you do happen to think you’re enough for one brief shining moment, that moment will pass. The hair will have a bad day. The outfit will go out of style. The culture’s ideal butt will go from Reubens to Marilyn to Twiggy and back, while yours stays attached to you mostly unchanged. And there’s no escaping self-criticism (except for the solution in (c) below).

    Trying to be enough is a game you cannot win. It is temporary power at best, because it can be taken away from you.

    The good news is that on any given day, wherever you are, you have the opportunity to be someone’s answered prayer. You have the power to elevate those around you, appreciate them genuinely, and make them feel like a billion bucks:

    “Love how you’ve put together that outfit!”

    “Really enjoyed your presentation. So uplifting!”

    “Thank you for a fantastic dinner! So wonderful of you to bring us together!”

    The power to elevate others is power that cannot be taken away from you. You can do it anytime, anywhere. And because of the hypersocial human brain, when you make other people feel good, you feel good. And when you feel good, you glow, and people want to be around you. You’ll feel great, and you won’t ever be lonely again.

    To implement this into your life, start by setting a goal of giving one more compliment per day than you were before. For most of us, that adds up to one compliment per day. The bus driver, the receptionist, an old friend, your partner—everyone is eligible. Let’s make a habit out of this.

    Another interesting thing happens when you make being of service a part of your identity. Potential partners will go from wondering if you’re good enough for them to thinking if they’re good enough for you. Your mere presence will want them to be a better man! How’s that for a shift from “Am I enough?”

    (b) Practice self-compassion

    Self-compassion would be the opposite of the voice inside your head saying stuff like “I can’t believe I left the food on the stove overnight again what a bonehead just shoot me now.” Prof Kristin Neff of the University of Texas suggests three things you can do to replace the habitual self-harshness with some self-compassion:

    1. Self-kindness. Imagine your 7-year old nephew breaks a plate. Would you crash down on him like a titanium anvil, or say something like, “Oh, careful now but don’t worry about it too much”? Self-kindness means being as nice to yourself as you would be to the 7yr old nephew.

    2. Recognize our common humanity. Everyone screws up. Everyone has issues like Kleenex has tissues, and they’re all the same issues, no matter how exotic and unique you think yours are. As the recipient of all of your letters, I have proof that whatever problem you’re having, hundreds of others have it, too.

    3. Mindfulness. According to Prof Neff, “Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, receptive mind state in which one observes thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them. We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time.” This is about allowing yourself to feel whatever emotion you’re experiencing without over-identifying with it. Acknowledge it, feel it, and let it pass.

    (c) Get rid of your small self.

    One of the foundational tenets of Buddhist philosophy (and all mystical traditions) is to get rid of your sense of self entirely. If there is no you, then nobody can belittle you, insult you, betray you, or break your heart. No self, no problem!

    The problem is that getting to no-self ain’t so simple. One path is to meditate. A lot. And while you meditate, you take one step back from your own thoughts and feelings so you can stop identifying with them. Instead, you identify with the pure consciousness behind those thoughts or feelings. Think of your consciousness as the TV screen, with your thoughts the programs showing on it. You are the TV screen, not the programs.

    Eventually, the state of dis-identifying from your thoughts goes from being a state to becoming a trait. That’s what the sages call samadhi, or satori, or awakening.

    As a regular meditator, I’ve come to appreciate the slight impracticality of telling folks to solve their relationship problems by practicing no-self (anatta). It’s like telling an out-of-shape person to take up ultramarathons. That said, you can begin the practice of dis-identification by meditating.

    Meditation is by far the single most beneficial practice I’ve taken up. And you can begin with just 2 minutes a day. Who doesn’t have time to sit and do nothing for 2 minutes? Apps like Calm, Headspace, and Waking Up are excellent ways to ease yourself into it.

    3. What do you want?

    The second thing that struck me about the 5000 letters was that they almost never contained a real question. I’d get a novella about how they met, the minute-by-minute unfolding of the first three dates, his lingering attachment to his ex, and then: “What do you think I should do, Doc?”

    And that’s when I would say with total certainty, “Buy Tesla stock! It’s, like, totally undervalued.”

    Well, actually, I don’t really know about that. I also don’t know about what you want. And until you tell me what you want—some kind of desirable outcome—I have no basis to dispense advice, dubious or sage.

    There are some general guidelines, of course. Hang out with people who bring out your best self and catalyze your growth. Don’t chase bright, shiny objects without regard for whether there’s an actual fit between you. Only date people who are actually single and available. “Separated”, “divorcing”, and “like totally separated but ex still lives in the house” are not the same as single and available.

    So. You need to ask yourself, “If I could wave a magic wand here and get exactly what I want, what would that look like?” You’d be shocked and amazed how much clarity this simple mental exercise will give you.

    For example, sometimes what you really want is not a relationship with a hotshot who has repeatedly signaled his unavailability with poor communication and a busy schedule, but something simple and more reliable. Sometimes you just want a fun fling, not something serious. Sometimes you don’t actually want the long-distance relationship to work out, but rather to handle your latent tendency to avoid real intimacy. Sometimes you want the bad boy you’re dating to propose to you, and you know he’ll never do that, which means you’re free to look elsewhere.

    Sometimes it’s okay not to know exactly what you want. Last thing you want is to spend lots of time and effort attaining a lofty but ultimately wrong goal. On the other hand, things like growth and fulfillment are directional goals. So long as you’re on the path to greater growth and fulfillment, you know you’re going in the right direction.

    And sometimes, it’s okay to just go into the silence and practice solitude. Work on yourself. If you can’t stand your own company, how can you expect anyone else to stand you? Learning to be alone without being lonely is one of the cornerstone skills of relationship.

    Conclusion

    The principles I just described are simple to grasp. They may not be trivial to implement them into your life, especially if you’ve been practicing their opposites for years. But it’s certainly possible to change. One of the most hopeful aspects of human existence is neuroplasticity. The brain can change and grow no matter how long you’ve been alive. You can learn new ways of doing things.

    So if you’ve been playing the seller your entire life, go ahead and try playing the buyer for a while and see what happens. Experiment! Make a game out of it. If you’ve been acting as if you’re not enough, shift to practicing self-compassion and being of service, and notice the results. If you haven’t been a meditator, start with 2 min a day. And if you’re having a difficult time figuring out what you really want, start with a list of things you really don’t want. That should help clarify the values you hold dear, which is a signpost to what you want in your life.

    I hope you find a way to implement these principles into your life. I’m interested in hearing about your thoughts and experiences. There are thousands of you and only one of me, so there’s a lot more collective wisdom in your midst than in my noggin. Either comment on the article below, or write to me directly at DrAliB (at) TaoOfDating.com. If you have a question, keep it under 250 words and make sure you include a question :) And if you’d like me to do more consultations and office hours, let me know so I can make time for it in the schedule.

    All the best, Dr Ali

    Additional resources

    To further explore some of the principles I discuss in the article, here are some useful resources:

    • Prof Kristen Neff’s Self-Compassion website

    • Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach (ebook & print). One of the best books ever written on meditation and living at peace with oneself. Just might be the best $11 you’ll ever spend.

    • A Woman’s Worth by Marianne Williamson. Great antidote to feelings of not-enoughness.

    • Meditation apps: Calm, Headspace, and Waking Up.

    • The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science, by Norman Doidge, M.D. (ebook & print). Neuroplasticity is real and applies to everyone, including you right now. Some tremendously inspiring stories in here. Probably the most hopeful book I’ve ever read.

    • The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman’s Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible by Ali Binazir, M.D., M.Phil. (ebook, print, potentially free audiobook). Just in case you haven’t read it yet.

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  • Tao of Dating 2018 Workshop, Helsinki Edition (audio)

    Over the weekend of 3-5 August 2018, I presented some workshops at the Magnesia Festival in Helsinki. One of them was entitled “The Tao of Dating: The Modern Woman’s Guide to Loving and Being Loved.” Some things have changed to modern romance since I first published The Tao of Dating book (ebook and print). I’ve also learned a lot from the 5000+ letters readers like you have sent me, so think of this talk as an update and supplement to the book that incorporates the new stuff.

    The talk has 5 themes:

    1. How to get better at selecting men: Avoiding psychopaths and sociopaths. The heart-spine selection criteria. Avoiding Bad Boys in favor of selecting Good Guys.
    2. How to present the best possible version of you.
    3. How to find him at his best: the importance of venue and context.
    4. Set up dating so you win.
    5. How to avoid unforced errors: on communication habits, giving love a chance, overdependence on devices, and the cure for negative self-talk.

    Download link for The Tao of Dating: The Modern Woman’s Guide to Loving and Being Loved (Sun 5 Aug)
    Download link for Saturday version of same talk (Sunday one was better)

    If you are a fan of yoga, meditation and dance and can free your schedule for the first week of August, I highly recommend the Magnesia Festival. It’s set on a beautiful island in Helsinki harbor, with healthy food, fun classes, and serious sauna. Many thanks to Mari Rasimus, Kaisa Kärkkäinen, Asaf Peled and Oded Peled for inviting me and taking such good care of the speakers!

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  • Tao of Dating 2018 Workshop recap + recording + Mindful Living

    Thanks to all of you who made it to the “Tao of Dating 2018” workshop last week in Santa Monica! When you spend months on end like me staring at a computer screen, it’s a real treat to see some of you face-to-face and answer your questions in real time.

    We covered a lot of ground during the workshop. More specifically, I talked about six themes:

    1) The fallacy of the Western Romantic Narrative and how it can cause more pain than joy
    2) Guy selection.
    3) How to present the best possible version of you, and how online dating apps can hinder that.
    4) How to find him at his best
    5) Benefits of prolonging the courtship: patience pays!
    6) How stop inadvertently shooting yourself in the foot in the dating arena.

    It’s this last one that I want to touch upon briefly. Dating can be plenty challenging as it is without committing unforced errors. Here are some simple ways you can get out of the way of your own success:

    • Minimize negative self-talk: Do you ever find yourself saying things to yourself like, “Omigod you’re such an idiot!” Or “You screwed that one up again because you don’t really deserve to be happy anyway.” Or worse?

    Everyone has a little negative soundtrack running in their heads, and scientists have noticed that it’s particularly prevalent amongst women. Nobody knows exactly why, but I’m pretty sure that all the advertising imagery emphasizing women’s inadequacy is probably not helping.

    What’s the solution? Two ideas: First, limit the amount of (more…)

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  • “Understanding Men” Lecture (audio)

    This week, I gave a talk in San Francisco entitled Understanding Men: On the election, sexism, insecurity, and your love life. I started with a story about my mom, who was a butt-kicking professional woman in Iran, and how she refused to put up with the sexist nonsense that the fundamentalists were propounding after the Revolution. From there, I spoke about how the male vote in the 2016 Presidential elections relates to men’s feelings about dating smart, strong women. The 15min excerpt below talks about the prime directives in male and female behavior, and how that creates three choices for strong women when it comes to choosing and relating to a man:

    Excerpt from “Understanding Men” 5 Dec 2016

    A lot of people were sad to have missed it because of time (or distance) conflict, and asked for a replay. So I’ve edited the talk to 57min and made it available for download. People who attended live paid $15-20, so I’ve decided to let you name a fair price for the download — somewhere between two 3-minute songs from your favorite Justin Bieber album, or the full album. NOTE: Downloads don’t work well from mobile devices, so please make the purchase from a computer.

    Other topics covered in this talk:

    • The two components of partnership with a Good Guy: spot him, and partner with him; how to do it
    • Knowing the difference between mere marketing bluster and honest signals
    • The implicit association test (IAT) and what it says about misogyny amongst women
    • Pernicious sources of female insecurity
    • Perfectionism as a form of covert self-loathing, and what to do instead
    • An exercise for rewiring your brain to tame your negative inner voice

    Click here to purchase the full lecture.

    Tue Dec 13: How to Meet Good Men Over the Holidays

    In the meantime, on Tue 13 December, a week from today, even though I object to the word “webinar”, I’ll be holding the free webinar “How to Meet Good Men Over the Holidays”, just ’cause I like you guys so much. Also, over the 15 years I’ve been teaching this stuff, one thing I’ve learned: most women could be better at meeting men. A lot better. “Nice girls don’t do that”, “It’s the guy’s job”, “What do I even say?” — it’s time to jettison those excuses and expand your repertoire of skills beyond just standing there and looking pretty. We’ve already got 200 signups, so register here so you get the reminders, esp since I’ll be doing live Q&A at the end.

    And do send your questions. Under 250 words, and make sure it contains a question regarding the outcome you desire!

    Go forth and conquer, Dr Ali

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  • Resources for Resilience

    I understand that many of you had a rough week.

    You saw a candidate who routinely insulted minorities, immigrants, handicapped people, and LGBT folks become President-elect of the nation. You saw a man who bragged about sexually assaulting women win the highest office in the land. And you saw friends, family, and fellow Americans disregard all of that ugliness and vote for him anyway.

    If in the past week you have felt less safe; disrespected as a woman; in despair about the state of democracy; worried about the future of your self and country – I hear you.

    So I’m having free office hours tomorrow Wed 16 Nov from 12 noon-2pm PT/3pm-5pm ET. If you want to talk about stuff, just call 213 444 6826. If I’m talking to someone else, leave a message and I’ll call you back.

    In the meantime, even though something very strange has happened, worry is not going to help. The world keeps turning, and frankly it needs you. So if you are not feeling tip-top, here are some ways to improve your resilience and bounce back, pronto:

    1) Move. There is nothing that changes your mood more reliably than exercise. So get out of the house and move – go for a run, do yoga, take an exercise class, or just enjoy a long walk. Even if you really, really don’t feel like it and it requires a crane to get you out of the house, just do it. You’ll thank you for it.

    2) Reconnect. We humans are hypersocial creatures. And yet, as books like Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone show, the sense of community in America has been eroding over the years. Singles living alone are now the biggest demographic group in America, and nothing about the 6 million year history of hominin evolution prepared us for living by ourselves. So get together with people. Organize a movie night, go watch sports together in a bar, go dancing, have a dinner party. Good company is healing.

    3) Listen to music. If you’ve noticed that music has mood-altering qualities, it’s because it does. It’s like a fast-acting, totally legal drug. Which also explains why so many repressive cultures ban music (think the Taliban or fundamentalist Iran). So grab your smartphone, fire up your Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music or Pandora, and listen to some seriously uplifting tunes. If said tunes make you dance, even better (see #1 above). Here’s a list of a hundred or so songs that never fail to get me jammin’.

    Classical music is particularly powerful for me. Some pieces that get me going when I need to scrape myself off the floor: Brahms Piano Concerto #1 (more on the kickass empowering and passionate side of things rather than just cheery); Mendelssohn Symphony #4, “Italian” (relentless exuberance); Beethoven Symphony #6 “Pastoral” and #7.

    4) Meditate. Sit. Yeah, just close your eyes and sit. And don’t do anything else. That’s basically what meditation is. For extra credit, do your best to clear your mind of thoughts. You do this by focusing on something other than random thoughts – say, the sensation of breath as it goes through your nostrils. Repeating an internal sounds also helps you focus. You can say “calm” as you inhale, and “mind” as you exhale. Mantra is the fancy Sanskrit name for this, and some religious organizations charge $5000+ for giving you one. Which is bananas. Just email me a beer instead.

    5) Practice mindfulness. Wait, I thought we just talked about meditation, didn’t we? Ah. Meditation is a form of mindfulness, but not the same thing. Mindfulness is something that doesn’t require that you sit or close your eyes. You can practice it all the time. It just means you’re paying attention to this present moment instead of the past or the future. Because, if you really think about it, all of your problems reside in the past or the future. Right now – this tiny sliver of a second constituting the present moment – is frankly too narrow to contain any problems.

    Mindfulness means that if you’re washing dishes, do that and only that. Feel the warmth of the water, the hardness of the plates, the slipperiness of the suds. Hear the sounds of splashing water, and the squeak of sponge on dish. If you’re walking, feel your footfalls. Which part of your foot hits the ground first? Which one is next? How do your legs feel as they alternately support and swing? What are your arms doing?

    As you do this, you may notice something: this moment in time is always fundamentally okay. If you’re reading this now, chances are you’ve got a roof over your head, you’re in reasonably good health, you’re fed, you’ve got friends and family who care. And then the next moment in time – still pretty good. And the next one? Yup. String together enough of these mindful moments, and you get whole days, months and years. This way, you can get through anything.

    6) Serve. One of the best ways to cheer yourself up is to help cheer other people up. Hey, why do you think I do this stuff? So call up a friend, offer to listen, go deliver a hug in person, send them this list, and otherwise make yourself useful.

    7) Be grateful. Let’s try an experiment: think of something you’re grateful for. Could be your family, your health, your car that gets you around. Now notice that while you’re feeling gratitude, it’s impossible to feel demanding, slighted, indignant or otherwise grumpy. I mean, you’re here! On Earth! With free gravity keeping you from being flung into space, free atmosphere giving you oxygen courtesy of plants, and a magnetic field and ozone layer that deflect cosmic and UV rays so we don’t get baked. Pretty sweet, eh?

    So go ahead and grab a piece of paper, and write down 3 things you’re super grateful for. Meditate on them, and deeply appreciate them in your life for 30sec each. Then go on with the rest of your day. Science shows that making this a daily or even weekly practice has measurable benefits for your long-term happiness. This really should have been at the top of the list; thanks to eagle-eyed reader Maria for bringing it to my attention.

    SF: THE TAO OF DATING AND LOVE, MON NOV 28

    All of the things I just mentioned are free and available to you right now. If you’d prefer to buy a ticket and you happen to be in the San Francisco Bay Area, you’re in luck. Because I’m doing one of my rare live events in a couple of weeks! The Tao of Dating and Love will be on the evening of Mon Nov 28. I’ll do a short (30-45min) lecture followed by Q&A. Tickets are cheap. And if you’re not in the neighborhood, tell your friends who are! Would be great to see them.

    WORLDWIDE: OPEN OFFICE HOURS WED 16 NOV, 12NOON-2PM PT

    As I already mentioned, for those not local to SF, I’ll have Open Office Hours tomorrow, Wed Nov 16, 12pm-2pm PT/3pm-5pm ET. Just call 213 444-6826. If I’m free, I’ll pick up; if I’m talking to someone else, I’ll call you back. Simple.

    PROJECT IRRESISTIBLE: NEW LIVE COHORT

    I’m starting a new live cohort of Project Irresistible two weeks from now on Tue 29 Nov. Why? Because it’s the holiday season, when a woman’s thoughts turn to love and “Who should I take to the office party?” and “Whom will be making out with at midnight on New Year’s Eve?” Most people have a lot on their plate during the holiday season (literally and figuratively), but they’re also going to a lot of social events. Moreover, everyone’s in a sunny holiday mood (read: slightly tipsy and/or desperate). Translation: This is a really good time to meet new people. Why do you think the most number of kids are born in August? Because people are hooking up left and right during the holidays, that’s why.

    Anyway, there are 6 sessions in total. We’re going to do 4 sessions before the New Year, which should get you in excellent shape to capitalize on all the social happenings. The remaining 2 sessions will be in 2017. If you join in the next 48hrs, you get $100 off with code “FALL100”. After that, it’s a $75 discount.

    And remember, the course is evergreen. All the material is online, and you can come back to it as often as you want, and join a live cohort whenever I have one. So if you’ve been meaning to get your love life in shape and find some warm, kind, steady, and fulfilling partnership, now is a really good time to sign up to refine your skills.

    STILL MOPING?

    Hey, I hear ya. Things were probably rough even before they got rougher! We live in uncertain times. But guess what: as the ever-wise Jack Kornfield brought to our attention in his talk at Spirit Rock last night, any human who has ever lived has lived in uncertain times! None of this is entirely new. And you know what? You’re ready to handle whatever comes your way. I have faith in you.

    And just so you can have even more faith in yourself, here are two resources straight from my secret stash that have been very useful to me:

    • The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have, by Mark Nepo. This is a daybook. You get an essay for every calendar day. For example, for May 1, it’s entitled “Burying and Planting: The culmination of one love, one dream, one self, is the anonymous seed of the next.”

    Mark Nepo has been through a lot (cancer, divorce etc). As a result, he always writes from a place of deep vulnerability. He also writes beautifully. No wonder Oprah went gaga over his book when she found out about it in 2010. You will, too, so get yourself the paperback gift edition for a mere $11 (or the ebook) and put it on your bedstand. You’ll be glad you did.

    • Reverend Dr Michael Bernard Beckwith speaks on Wed evenings and Sun mornings at the Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles. You can either watch the livestream or go to watch from the archives right now for no charge (perhaps the Nov 9 service will be of interest; lecture starts around 51:00). He is one industrial-strength wallop of inspiration and the best living orator I know. The services are spiritually-oriented and non-denominational. I think of it as church for people who don’t usually go to church.

    There are some recurring themes to his messages: you have the power to think independently of circumstance; you have a gift, and the world is waiting for it. Yet somehow, every time it feels as if he’s directly addressing you and the challenge you’re having right now. Oprah has also recently discovered Rev Michael and had him featured on Super Soul Sunday. Rev Michael was a pivotal part of starting my writing career 11 years ago. He is an extraordinarily helpful resource in times of trouble or joy.

    And if you have a go-to resource that you’d like to share with the rest of the Tao of Dating community, please write it down here in the comments! Whether it’s running, knitting, playing with your pet, a particular book or poem, I’d personally love to hear about it, and I’m sure the rest of the readers could benefit from it, too.

    All the best, Dr Ali

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  • The Science of Meditation: 5-day online class, Oct 19-24

    Meditation has been the single most transformative practice I have taken up. It has made me a calmer, less reactive, more thoughtful person. The first thing I do every morning is meditate, and I consider it the most important part of my day.

    For years, I’ve been talking about meditation to whoever would listen. I’ve offered some rudimentary training in it in articles and workshops, and even talked about the science behind it. So I’m thrilled to announce that our friends at the Shambhala Mountain Center are starting a 5-day “Science of Meditation” online course featuring some of the best meditation teachers in the world.

    For someone deep into meditation, the list of teachers reads like the Team USA Basketball team roster: all the superstars in one spot. I am not exaggerating when I say these folks are the best at what they do:

    Anyway, the whole thing is broadcast for your benefit without charge; you may access the recordings up to 48hrs after they’re broadcast. Should you decide to purchase a package of the recordings, I receive a part of the proceeds. And frankly, if I didn’t receive a penny, I would still tell everyone in the world about this. There’s a few millennia worth of wisdom amongst these teachers, and they receive my highest recommendation.

    I’ll be listening to the lectures myself. Whether you’re a long-time meditator looking to deepen your practice, or a novice looking for a right excuse to jump in, you can’t do better than the teachers on the roster for the Science of Meditation Summit. Meditation is the life-changing practice, and I sincerely hope you can join me. Click here to sign up.

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  • Marriage Part 2, crash test dummies, and how to stop beating yourself up

    Wow! So many comments from the Garden Gnomes article — a new record for the site, in fact. Apparently marriage is on people’s minds. Some of the ladies had pressured to get their partners to propose, and saw the error of their ways:

    “This was just what I needed to hear today, thank you! We have an amazing relationship & have only been together a little over a year. I don’t want to weaken it by putting pressure on him about marriage. Now I just need to share this with my well-meaning friends who pester me about why I don’t have a ring yet every time I see them! Thank you!” – Renee

    “I recently put pressure on my boyfriend about this, and we can both feel the strain in the relationship now. It’s not worth it to push any issue. It would definitely feel much better if it were his decision without the pressure, and I feel very selfish now. I guess I needed this article, and I thank you. Marriage does still remain important to me, but I think a good relationship with a man I trust is better.” – Michele

    Others were more of the Beyoncé camp: girl should stick to her guns, and if the dude wants to stick around, he should put a ring on it:

    “She should be able to discuss what her relationship needs are. Most women do not thrive when they are in limbo. Most women want relationship security. Most women want to know that the man they are with has a current intention to be with them in the future. Maria should feel 100 percent comfortable checking in with her man to see if they are still on the same page. If she genuinely and lovingly communicates to him what her genuine needs are, and he cannot meet them, she should wish him the very best for the future and move on. There is abundance and a lot of opportunities for love in this world.” – Elle from Oz

    All salient points. Now I know a little bit about the courtship and dating — y’know, the part leading up to the scary forever promises and written contracts and stuff. But if you want advice on marriage and relationships from the source, I encourage you to consult the magus himself, Prof John Gottman, starting with The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (ebook and paperback). In addition to being married himself, he has videotaped, analyzed and advised thousands of couples and written reams about the topic. 

    Marriage is a supremely complex topic that we could debate till the end of days. So I’ll just say a few words before we move on to new letters. Specifically, that marriage does not necessarily bring you security.

    Reader Tess Bee’s comment encapsulated the theme of the pro-marriage camp: “I’m not saying a marriage certificate will stop a man from leaving. But the very fact of swearing in front of witnesses to remain “’til death us do part” shows a level of commitment which imbues a woman with a sense of security that is simply not there without a tangible commitment.”

    Well, let’s imagine this scenario: suppose I offer you a ride crosstown, and I tell you, “By the way, there’s only a 50% chance that we’ll crash — you should be fine.” How safe would you feel about that ride? Would you even take it?

    Dumb question, I know. That’s what crash-test dummies are made for. And yet, 50% is also the intrinsic failure rate of marriages in the US. And for some reason, there are millions of people clamoring to get in on that deal.

    Dunno about you, but a coin flip to crash ain’t my idea of security.

    Now I know what you may be thinking: “Oh, that’s the other 50%. They weren’t talking about us. Our bond is special.” This would be a prime manifestation of one of the most pernicious cognitive biases known to man — namely, the bad shit only happens to other people bias. May want to go ask those other people if they thought themselves “other people” when things went sideways.

    There is only one thing that will bring you security in this world: being comfortable with insecurity. There’s a great book about it — The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts (ebook and paperback). Because the truth is that the world is eternally in flux. Everything is jiggling, twisting, shimmying, dodging, weaving, all the time. Even that rock sitting there, seemingly quiescent, has quintillions of molecules vibrating unimaginably fast, perpetually. Everything is moving and alive. Chapter 76 of Tao Te Ching has something to say about this:

    Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard.
    Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry.
    Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death.
    Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life.
    The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail.

    So according to Taoist thought, wishing for ultimate security — a form of stasis — is like being anti-life. I see how a huge promise made in front of all your friends may make it harder for both parties to back out. But like any wall, it also makes it harder for you to get out. What if he or she turns into a monster right after the marriage? What if you find out you’re not the one suited for married life, even though you asked for it?

    The other thing is that marriage is a cultural construct, not a natural phenomenon. We made it up. And, like tattoos and skinny hipster jeans, just ’cause everyone else is doing it doesn’t make it necessarily the right thing for you. Data shows that single women’s overall life satisfaction goes down after marriage (while that of men rises). You sure you want to sign up for that? Like the Buddha said, ehi passiko — go figure things out for yourself and see if it works for you.

    Which brings us to a letter about uncertainty:

    Hi Dr Ali — I told myself that all I really wanted was to just meet the guy and have fun so I messaged him last Wednesday and told him that I was free Saturday afternoon. He never replied. And for some unknown reason, and never having met the guy even, I’m absolutely heart broken.

    All I really wanted to do was to meet the guy and break this fantasy that I have of him in my head. Meeting him would have shown me that he is human, giving the infatuation less power. But now I am devastated because I don’t think I’ll get the chance to do that and I’m feeling awful. I’m regretting not talking to him at that event and really beating myself up for it to the point of it feeling painful. I’m upset that he wasn’t willing to follow through with asking me out and just disappearing. I know, it’s likely just a simple case of not being interested or even dating someone else, but I can’t help feeling as awful and sad as I do. I felt like you may have some words of wisdom for me, and actually being on my trip to do my rotation without my friends or family isn’t helping me much. — Lily the 24yr old med student from last time

    Well, Lily, one thing I know for sure: this is no longer about the guy, since he is nowhere near, and you haven’t even met him in person yet. So right now he is about as real as the spawn of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. What is very real is the misery you’re feeling right now. And since he’s not there, we know the exact address of the source of your pain: your own mind. This is a good time to learn how to run it so it serves you instead of running amok for the next 70 years. Three main suggestions:

    1) Meditate every day. If one good thing can come from this mediocre experience, it’s that it got you started on a lifelong practice that improved your existence more than anything else. So get meditating. Start with 2min a day, and extend it to 20min or beyond. If you don’t know how, get Tara Brach’s book Radical Acceptance (ebook and paperback) or the “Headspace” app. If you don’t start meditating, I’ll just assume that you prefer to feel miserable.
    2) Exercise. A run or yoga session will clear your head and expand your vision in a way to make this issue shrink to its proper tininess in the grand scheme of things.
    3) Practice self-compassion. This beating up on yourself needs to stop. I know it’s a pretty common practice nowadays, but it doesn’t make it any less weird or pathological. Also, which part of you is beating up on which? Are you slapping yourself in the face like Annette Bening in American Beauty? Is it the left hemisphere of your brain attacking the right? I’m asking these questions to illuminate the absurdity of beating up on yourself. Just stop and do crochet, street graffiti, skydiving — y’know, anything less detrimental and annoying.

    Prof Kristin Neff came up with the three elements of self-compassion:

    • Self-kindness: “Self-compassion entails being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.”
    • Common humanity: “…Suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience – something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to “me” alone.”
    • Mindfulness: “Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, receptive mind state in which one observes thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them.”

    On her website, she has some exercises you can try out. If what I’ve said to you about self-compassion so far speaks to you, the exercises can be life-changing. When you combine practices like meditation, exercise and self-compassion, you become resilient, like the reed that bends in the wind instead of breaking. And that is real security in the face of the flux of the world.

    I understand that change is hard, though. And even ideas that cognitively make a lot of sense — “Wow, I should totally do that!” — sometimes pass us by without making a lasting difference in our behavior. So for those of you interested in real change and tangible growth, I propose Project Irresistible. In it, we address some neglected but fundamental questions like, who are you, really? What’s your point for being on this Planet Earth? What are your most deeply held values? What are your goals vis-à-vis men and relationships? Do they mesh with those values? Are you ready for love? And that’s just the first two modules. Written exercises, listening assignments, guided meditations and real-world exercises get you expanding your envelope of existence to embrace a grander vision of you — and to manifest that in your daily behavior. The $100 off promotion is over, but you can still use coupon code “SPRINGY” for a $75 discount, which makes the price for the 6-week course less than a single session of therapy.

    And finally, to Lily and all the other ladies out there: the pain of being neglected and rejected is very, very real. Return people’s phone calls, texts, and emails, especially when it comes to romantic matters, even if it’s just to say “No thank you.” A clear “no” is a thousand times better than silence, which is perceived as “You’re not even worth a response.” As guys, we’re used to rejection, but the amount of infelicity and casualness in communications these days must be at an all-time high. Treat people the way you want to be treated, and be the change you want to see in the world.

    THERAPY THURSDAYS

    By popular request, I’ll be doing three therapy sessions per week via Skype on Thursdays. Time slots are 1pm, 2.30pm and 4pm Pacific Time. If you’re from a time zone where these slots are inconvenient, let me know and we’ll see what we can work out for you. Write to me directly and put “I want a session!” in the subject line, and include your PayPal address and Skype ID. $175 per 60min session.

    SPEAKING SCHEDULE

    Fri, May 6, online – “The New Way to Date” teleseminar series put on by my friend and colleague Alicia Ashley. Free to sign up and listen.

    Mon May 9, San Francisco, 6.30-8.30pm – “This Is How You Heal Yourself: Advanced Techniques for Overcoming Heartbreak, Phobias and Trauma.” I’m excited to bring some new techniques from recent trainings I’ve attended. This is powerful, effective, fun stuff. Location: Downtown San Francisco. Early bird tix are $45. Sign up here.

    Thu May 12, Los Angeles, 7pm – “This Is How You Heal Yourself.” Location not yet confirmed — if you know of a good spot, or if you are able to host 15-20 people in your office or living room, esp on the Westside, that would be super useful.

    Sat May 14, Los Angeles, 11am-5pm – I’ll be speaking at TEDx Echo Park: Paradigm Shift. My talk’s called “Happiness Engineering: A New Paradigm for Success.” TEDx events are usually fun, and I know a couple of the other speakers to be pretty cool. I’m scheduled to be the first talk. Tickets are $45 and available here. I’m not necessarily endorsing this event since I’m not putting it on. But do feel free to swing by if you’re local and the topic interests you.

    Go forth and conquer, Dr Ali

     

     

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  • Love Better, Present Better, and Perform Better Through Presence

    ***ANNOUNCEMENT: The next This Is How You Heal Yourself: Rewire Your Brain to Overcome Pain workshop is in San Francisco on Tuesday, 19 Jan 2016. I’ll be teaching you tools to get over heartbreak, phobias and trauma. Sign up here.***

    Here’s a story for you: just last month, my professional singer friend Valerie was terrified of her upcoming auditions because of crippling stage fright. Right about that time, I was fortunate to attend a talk by Amy Cuddy on her new book. Valerie couldn’t attend, so I gave her an advance copy of Presence (hardcover and ebook) that Amy had kindly given us. Valerie watched Amy’s TED talk, read half of the book, executed the “power pose” (i.e. expansive body postures like the “Wonder Woman” and the “Usain Bolt” held for 2min) and “self-affirmation of core values” techniques right before her auditions, and nailed ’em: three auditions, three gigs booked. And it all worked that fast.

    What would you say if I told you that there was an essential life skill that could make you a better speaker, help you nail job interviews, get you better dates, improve your performance, and make you a better partner and parent? What if I told you that no one has ever bothered to teach you this skill, mostly because we didn’t even know what it was? That secret skill is presence, “the state of feeling connected with our own thoughts, values, abilities, and emotions, so that we can better connect with the thoughts, values, abilities, and emotions of others.” And Amy Cuddy’s book can teach this state of “self-assured enthusiasm” to you and a whole lot more.

    People — this is life-changing stuff. We can all think of a time when (more…)

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  • How to Get Over a Breakup: Professional Edition

    I had a breakup recently. It sucked royally.

    Except that it wasn’t even a breakup. The woman just stopped returning my communications. Calls unanswered. Voicemails not returned. Texts unacknowledged. Emails languishing in a mailbox, gathering e-dust. Hell, I even wrote her a handwritten letter. Four pages long! Hadn’t done that in over 15 years. Still nothing.

    Breakups are never fun, but of all the ways one can be dumped, the disappearing act probably feels the worst. I mean, it’s one thing to say to my face that I’m a terrible boyfriend/husband/partner/lover and you can’t stand me anymore for reasons X, Y and Z, spurious or true. It’s a completely different thing to vanish completely. Because in the former case, the mind perceives it as rejection, which registers in the same part of the brain as a poke in the eye That pain is so similar to regular pain that it is ameliorated by acetaminophen (aka Tylenol, paracetamol). Bet you didn’t know that.

    But when someone goes poof, the brain perceives it as a death. So you don’t just experience the pain of rejection, which is bad enough already. You go into mourning.

    The disconcerting news is that this kind of thing seems to be happening with such frequency nowadays that it has a name: ghosting. How fucking terrifying is that?

    So lest anyone think that the existence of this word somehow legitimizes the practice, let me make this clear: ghosting is an act of violence. If you ghost on someone — especially someone with whom you until very recently used to share secrets, food, bed space and bodily fluids, and was basically decent to you — you are a horrible, terrible, awful human being. This is an act of omission that is very much an act of commission: you are leaving someone for dead. And nice people don’t do that.

    But I’m preaching to the choir here, because you’re probably reading this to recover from a breakup, not to inflict one. Well, you’ve come to the right place darlin’, because I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of these. I should know from breakups.

    There’s more that makes a breakup painful than the pain of rejection and mourning, however. You also come to (more…)

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  • How the Psychologist Found Love + Beta Testers Wanted for New Course + Birthday

    This last week was my birthday. I received a hundred or so messages from readers like you via my Facebook profile (to which I’d be delighted to add you should you wish to witness my miscellaneous ramblings), and another few hundred messages, texts and phone calls from friends and family. If you were one of them — thanks so much! By the end of the week, I was brimming with gratitude & joy from all of your kindness and support. This one below was one of the most heart-warming of all, and it wasn’t even sent for my birthday:

    “Hi Dr. Binazir! I don’t have a question, just a testimonial for your book (and I’ll add one on Amazon, too)! I read it about a year and a half ago after some unfortunate online dating experiences (I admit, you were right).

    weddingcake

    I’m a psychologist, but at times even the principles of therapy you provide for others just don’t sink in with regard to yourself. Your book really helped me with that, and I was able to let go of my desperate search for a partner. I think the things that helped the most were starting to attend a guided meditation practice, and using much of that time to focus on the principle of abundance. I really began to see my life as complete, and also kept my eyes and heart open.

    Almost the instant I reached and maintained a state of acceptance and peace, my friend happened to (more…)

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