Well then. Lord knows this happiness engineer isn’t one to pass up a non-pharmacological psychedelic experience, so I was in, baby. What transpired was novel, literally electrifying, completely unexpected, and potentially transformative.

In my 12 years of yoga practice, I had never experienced a kundalini yoga class before. In this style of hatha yoga, you use the breath and repetitive, rhythmic movements of the body to change your physiology. For example, you exhale forcefully through your nose a few hundred times (breath of fire) while holding your arms up at 45 degrees. Or you bend over and exhale, sit up and inhale for, oh, half a week or so.

Amidst the serious burn I was starting to feel in my shoulders as my arms wanted to detach and fall dead to the ground, a curious thing started to happen. I became mostly oblivious to the pain. It was still there, for sure, but thanks to the fast, rhythmic breathing and Tommy’s entreaties that “it’s all in your mind”, I started to gain a healthy perspective on the pain. It was there, but it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. Pain without narrative, without drama. How very novel and exciting.

By now it’s about 4.10pm, already 100min into the class, and I’m pretty high on my own breath and movement, thinking that the class was already worthwhile, whew, thank god we’re done. And then something strange happened. Tommy said, “Are you guys ready to go deep now – I mean, deep deep?” At this point, maybe two muscle fibers from my deltoids hadn’t been singed already – but hey, I’ve paid good money for this, and I’m a sucker for deep deep, so why the heck not?

That’s when Tommy led the lion’s paw exercise: in a seated position, contract your hands into claws, palms facing upwards, arms semi-straight, exhale to bring your arms up above your head, inhale to bring them down. Continue for 10min. (For an illustration, go to minute 5:00 on this video of my friend Camilla demonstrating lion’s paw kriya).

Partway through the exercise, something cracked inside me. My whole body was already flooded with electricity, and then I felt this expansion in my chest. Perhaps this is what people meant when they talked about their heart opening up. What I can say is that the feeling I had was one of beauty. The thought with the feeling was this: the beauty you’ve been seeking is already inside you.

And that’s when I cried. Because I realized that all the pretty things I had been chasing down my whole life (read: cute girls) were already residing inside me. Hundreds of times I had told friends and students that you can only see in others what you already have inside yourself: “If you think someone is petty, mean, vindictive, or shallow, that means you have some of that trait yourself. And the more it pisses you off, the more you resent that trait in you.”

But how about the beauty? If you see someone as kind, compassionate, generous, pretty, or vivacious, isn’t it because you have that trait inside you, too? And the more you feel elevated by their virtues, does it not mean that you possess more of that virtue, too?

Yup. It has to go both ways. All of this reminded me of a passage I read three years ago:

“This book is about reminding you of who you really are.  You are beauty.  You are kindness.  You are joy.  You are the embodiment of the divine goddess.  It’s also about reminding you that full effort is full victory.  And if you’ve read this book and found your way to your own inner kindness, joy, and divinity, then you have found fulfillment.  As we said in Chapter 2, the work is the wealth.  Sure, a decent guy would be icing on the cake.  But you already possess the cake, and it is you.”

Crazy thing is, I wrote that stuff. It’s the closing of The Tao of Dating for Women. And yet, it is one thing to understand something intellectually, and another to experience it directly. And, quite frankly, I hadn’t gotten it myself until around 4.20pm on 4/20/2012 – an auspicious time for psychedelic breakthroughs, I hear.

So what I would encourage you to do, my dear readers, is that once you grasp the printed word, to go beyond it. Once you notice the nodding of your head in intellectual assent, go do something that cracks your heart open, too. Move the energy inside your body. Maybe it’s a hike in nature. Maybe it’s volunteering at a shelter for homeless kids. Maybe it’s looking into the bottomless eyes of a newborn. Maybe it’s breathing hard with your arms flapping up and down like a resurrected zombie in a kundalini class. You don’t have to do ayahuasca in Peru, you don’t have to go to India or Africa — the source is much closer to you than that. However you do it, get back in touch with your body, your heart, and reconnect to your source of wonder. Because that wonder is you. The beauty is you. If you can see the beauty, it’s you. And once you notice that your bank account of beauty and joy is already overflowing and has always been just by virtue of being alive, then you’ll know you have a lot of it to share with others.

Wouldn’t that be fun?

Now, by now you may have gathered that, unless I’m underwater, I have a lot more to say than just 5min. So what could I possibly convey to this attentive crowd in 5min that’s potentially life-changing?

Ah yes — happiness engineering. In those 5min, I taught 3 exercises to the audience, each taking less than a minute to do, which measurably boosted their mood. And in the extra minute, I managed to squeeze in another exercise.

Increasing happiness and engineering it in our daily lives is a topic I’ve been studying for several years now. In fact, you could say it’s the main focus of the Tao of Dating books for men and women. So expect a lot more on this topic coming from me in the near future.

And now, the video. If you find it useful, make sure you ‘Like’ it on YouTube, leave a comment so I know you’re alive, and share it with your friends via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, smoke signal and carrier pigeon. Thanks!

These truly are the aspects of my life I am most concerned about, and I’d be happy to talk about it all on a 1st or 2nd date (or whenever appropriate). My health, finances, and family relationships are all very solid. Are straight men interested in saving damsels with these kinds of problems?  :)  Thanks!” — Nina

Thanks for the letter and the kind words, Nina!

So what I’m detecting here is that you may be afflicted with a very deadly disease. It’s called perfectionism, and like a potent antibiotic, it prevents most life forms from thriving.

Think about it: if babies were perfectionists, they’d never learn to walk. They’d fall 5 times, then say, “Well that ain’t ever gonna work.” And they’d spend the rest of their lives as oversized pink amoebas. If chefs were perfectionists, they’d never get past their first fallen souffle. If Thomas Edison were a perfectionist, he’d quit by the 2nd try and never get to attempt #1000, when he actually got the light bulb to work.

My suggestion: decide that you are going to stop judging yourself. Realize that there is no failure, only feedback, and go out there and HAVE SOME FUN! There’s no contest to win, and nobody’s keeping score. In fact, why don’t you go out on a couple of dates with the express purpose of screwing it up, just to see what happens. Go out there and get a little muddy. You don’t strike me as the kind of person who likes to get muddy, Nina. Which means that you must get muddy. Like, soon.

And to answer your en passant question about guys being interested in saving damsels in distress: um, no. See, dating is a lot like fishing: the kind of fish you nab has a lot to do with the kind of bait you put on the hook. So if you’re a damsel in distress, as you call it, you will attract either a guy who’s damaged in a similar way, or one who is into saving women. The guy who is whole and healthy will generally seek out other whole and healthy people and avoid the distressed. So if you nab a guy while you’re in distressed damsel mode, he’s damaged goods by definition.

That said, there’s nothing in your letter suggesting there’s anything wrong with you. Not being able to cook may be a deficiency — one that’s easily rectified — but it’s no sin. Making a stir-fry is orders of magnitude less complicated than getting an Ivy-league engineering degree, believe me. Not sure what you mean by the ‘domestic arts’, but most are overrated except for cooking, massage and sexual expertise. And those are easy to learn, too.

So the bad news is that you’re young and probably pretty, intelligent and capable — pretty much in the prime of life — and nothing’s broken. The good news is that you’re in the prime of life, and nothing’s broken. This is a good time to appreciate who you are, what you have, what you’re capable of contributing, and to start contributing immediately. And to get a little muddy in the process.

All the best, Dr Ali B

“I just read ‘Orchid Ice Cream’ and have a question. How do you balance the ‘I love sex but I am not a slut’ with a man’s need to be the pursuer and feel like he has won a prize? We all know if it is too easy, he loses interest. And yet, for those of us who love sex as much as any guy, saying “no” can feel like just so much game playing. So how to balance all this, especially if we are reasonably sure he is still having sex with other women as well?” – Dr Judi Bloom

That, Dr Judi, is a fantastic question, because it’s about that ever-elusive ideal: balance. And if the Tao is about anything at all, it is balance: between light and dark, masculine and feminine, high and low, excess and lack, privation and indulgence.

In the Tao of Dating for Women, I offer a simple rule: you should only have sex with a man for the first time when you really want to. The corollary to that is that you shouldn’t not have sex when you really want to have it, either. How to balance the two?

Let’s introduce you to an idea which I’ll call the near side and far side of sexual power. If we assume that the woman is the gatekeeper when it comes to sex, then she can grant or deny access. This is the near side of sexual power.

After a couple has had sex, the woman does not have as much near-side power. However, she can have a different kind of power: the power to be incredibly good in the sack. This is what I call far-side power.

For better or for worse, in most Western countries, most of women’s sexual power has been concentrated in the ability to deny. The standard sexual narrative is something along the lines of “if you go through these Herculean labors and prove yourself worthy, then you may gain access to my platinum-plated goodies, big boy.”

The problem with this, as Dr Judi pointed out, is that women love sex, too. At least as much as men, and often a helluva lot more. So the amount of near-side power she has is directly proportional to the amount of deprivation she imposes upon herself.

This does not sound like a fun party.

There’s a second problem, though, which may be even worse. If a woman’s sexual power derives primarily from her ability to deny, then she’s going to get a lot of practice in the denying, but not the actual sex. And so when the guy actually arrives at the platinum-plated destination, he may find out that the plating is very thin indeed. And the much-anticipated party ends up not being a lot of fun.

Downer, dude.

But rejoice! There is a solution. It is simple, although it may not be easy. And it is this: get really, really good at sex. Have more far-side power!

Because when you think about it, near-side power is limited by nature. It’s a one-trick pony, to risk a terrible pun. Or to risk an even more terrible pun, it’s like a balloon: one prick, all over.

Whereas far-side power is infinite! There is no upper limit to how good you can be in the sack, how much you can enjoy yourself, and how much your partner can enjoy himself (or herself) with you.

So let’s get back to the original question: how does a woman balance her desire to have sex – perhaps right now, even – with her desire to maintain sexual power in the relationship by not being too easy?

Well, if all you have is near-side power, then that’s you have to work with, sister. Make the guy be the pursuer, the chaser of the skirt, the hunter of the gazelle. Be elusive enough such that you whet but not kill his appetite. Make him earn it!

But if you have far-side power, too, then you have a lot more versatility. That means you can forgo some or all of your near-side power and still have several metric fucktons of power left. Why? Because he’s never experienced such soulful, invigorating, mind-shattering, body-levitating, guilt-free, joyous sex in his whole life before you waltzed into it, that’s why. And he’d have to be a flaming idiot to pass up repeat experiences of that kind.

Actually, it’s even more than that. When a guy has amazing sex with you, addiction circuitry gets strongly activated in his brain. It’s as if he’s on a drug, and that drug is you.

Hey, someone’s gotta put the dope in dopamine. Might as well be you.

So the super-amazingly awesome news for the women is that sexual skill can be acquired. Like piano-playing or plumbing ability, we are not born with it. And it’s relatively easy to get yourself in the top 1% of the population in this domain, because most other women have studiously avoided getting good at it their whole life.

So go forth and get thee educated, girl! And no, that does not mean picking up the latest issue of Cosmo.  That stuff is crap.  Get an awesome book like Touch Me There by Yvonne Fulbright, or David Deida’s Enlightened Sex Manual, or Nicole Daedone’s Slow Sex. Great books like that give you not just a whole repertoire of techniques but also a healthy and empowered mindset for dealing with masculine-feminine dynamics.

Oh, and a partner to practice with would be useful. Luckily, as a woman, that’s not very difficult. All you have to do is ask. Most men are gracious enough to oblige as a guinea pig for such noble causes. Moreover, there are plenty of skills you can practice that don’t require the presence of a man (eg Kegel exercises to strengthen the pubococcygeus muscle).

Since it is true that a guy can lose interest if it is “too easy” as Judy put it, a point of finesse: you must always leave him wanting more. Make sure he realizes that you’ve left something in reserve, and the next time will be even more mind-blowing. It’s one of the main principles of The Tao of Dating, and one I cannot emphasize enough.

To address the ‘I love sex but I’m not a slut’ issue: one of my teachers told me that you tend to become the thing you avoid being. If you say “I don’t want to be a slut”, you’re still putting energy into the concept of slut. See, sluts are a little bit like Santa Claus: the less you believe in them, the less they exist. So instead, put your attention on what you want. ‘I love sex’ is plenty good enough.

In his supercool (and blissfully short) book Finite and Infinite Games, philosopher James Carse defines a finite game as one in which the goal is to end the game (eg by having one party win). An infinite game is one in which the goal is to keep playing. Nobody needs to lose, ever. The fun can go on.

The game of near-side power is a finite one, whereas that of far-side power is an infinite game. I don’t have to tell you that infinite games are more fun to play and last longer than finite ones – you’ve already figured that out. Right?

You may have also figured out that because of that rude interruption at the end, life itself is a finite game. However, to live it well is to live it as if it’s an infinite game. Hopping from one attempted win to another only makes you miserable in the long run. Why? Because it sucks when you don’t win, and even when you do win, you get that “ok now what?” downer which just sets you up for needing a bigger fix next time. It’s basically a bottomless pit that cannot be filled.

The most satisfying and meaningful aspects of life are those that play like an infinite game: raising children, deep relationships, lifelong learning. My guess is that if you bring that mindset of infinite games to your sex life and play to keep playing, you’ll end up enjoying even more fun and fulfillment.

1. It’s easy to be fooled by inaccurate signals online.

Do you think you’re beautiful?

What most people call ‘beauty’ is actually evolution’s very thorough system of broadcasting our suitability as mates.  Clear skin, good posture, broad shoulders, sonorous voice, bright eyes, shiny hair, graceful movements, pleasant aroma, facial symmetry, articulate speech: evolution has engineered features such as these into us to signal health, fertility, strength and intelligence.

When you go online, instead of seeing a person up-close, hearing him speak and watching her move, what you get is a blurry, postage-stamp size series of static photos which cannot be heard, felt, or smelled.  What you do get a fair amount of is a person’s writing, which has been heretofore irrelevant in the eons of evolution of mate selection.

Most important of the missing signals may very well be smell, which some scientists believe underlies most of male-female attraction – what literally constitutes sexual chemistry.  Studies show that we sense immune compatibility through smell – one way in which evolution decides whether which two people should have kids together or not.  This compatibility is vital to the viability of offspring, so it’s bypassed at our peril.

So when you go online, you’re subverting a process that has worked just fine for propagating the human species for the past 3 million years.  Add to that the fact that pictures can easily lie about age, complexion and physique, and you’ve got yourself a lot of inaccurate signals to go on.  Which brings us to…

2. You can waste a lot of time online chasing what you end up not really wanting.

Here’s the timeline of a typical online courtship for a guy.  He sees a profile of a woman he likes.  He writes her.  A day or two later, he gets a response.  An online correspondence ensues.  If she’s receptive, the conversation moves to email after a few exchanges.  If her interest continues, they speak on the phone, and then plan a meeting.  A week or two later, after anywhere from 3-10+ points of online and phone contact, they meet in person.  And it turns out that she has bad skin (which didn’t show in the flatteringly lit photos) or her butt is gigantic (which didn’t show in her waist-up photos), or he’s 6 inches shorter than advertised – or some other insurmountable shortcoming that could have been ascertained in the first 30 milliseconds of an in-person encounter.

In an instant, all those hours spent on witty emails, all of that effort to be charming on the phone, learning all about her and impressing her go whoosh down the toilet.  And worst of all, you kinda feel like a fool for building it all up in your mind for naught.

Buddy – you’re never getting those two weeks back again.  So save yourself some time, and meet people in person first before you pursue.

3. Online sites present an abundance of ultimately annoying false choice.

The central premise of Barry Schwartz’s 2003 book The Paradox of Choice: Why Less is More – which everyone should read – is that more choice does not make us happier.  More choice actually makes us more miserable.

Why?  First, it makes the selection process burdensome.  Picking one jam out of three possible tasty choices is easy.  Picking one out of 43 is well-nigh torture.  Second, it causes us to second-guess any decision that we do render.  I got the blue Prius, but should I have gotten the red one?  Or maybe a Nissan Leaf instead?

Online dating sites are a classic case of too much choice.  A search on a major site for women in your city may yield thousands of results.  So much possibility!  Or so it may seem.  So which ones do you pursue?  Do you go after the good-looking ones that, because everyone else is also pursuing, never respond (see section above on wasted time)?  Or maybe look for the diamond in the rough?

If you’re a good-looking woman online, you’re probably inundated by unwanted attention.  Let’s say you pick seven good ones out of the pile of hundreds.  What if all 7 of them say yes – then what?  When you pick one, will you always wonder how the other 6 would have turned out?  This feeds right into the next issue:

4. Irrelevant information presented out of context can derail a good match.

I’ve been writing and speaking on courtship for over 10 years now, and I’m always curious about how married couples first met.  One of the most common responses I get from the women is, “Y’know, I really didn’t like him that much when I met him first.”

Really.  So all that stuff about instant chemistry, butterflies in the stomach, the earth shaking underneath your feet are bogus?  Turns out they’re not nearly as important as you think for a successful long-term relationship.  Especially if you’re a woman, you have the useful gift of eventually finding attractive a man who makes you feel good, regardless of how good he actually looks.  Ladies – nod if you’ve ever ended up dating a guy whom you initially thought was kind of a troll, and had a fabulous time anyway.

The problem with online dating is that it puts right up front and center a whole bunch of extraneous information that could derail a potentially lovely relationship.  When we’re online, because of the overabundance of choice, we’re in zero tolerance death-sort mode, tossing out contenders at the slightest provocation.  Obsessed with the Cubs?  Ew.  Watches Jersey Shore?  Spare me.  Listens to Kenny G?  Delete.

And so you may nonchalantly toss out the woman who makes a mean ravioli and really knows how to perk you up after a hard day at work, or the guy with iron hands to knead your tight back muscles into putty who’d make a great dad.  All because you saw some randomass information first that tripped your prejudice button and precluded a beautiful connection.

5. People online behave more rudely than they do in person.

Have you noticed how much sheer hatred and incivility there is online?  Under the mask of e-anonymity, people have no compunctions about flaming one another with scathing remarks that they would never dare deliver in person.

Why is there such a discrepancy between online and in-person behavior?  Animals have evolved mirror neurons to literally feel one another’s emotional state.  Mirror neurons are the physiological basis for compassion, and they’re simply not activated in online interaction.

As a result, it becomes easy to dismiss summarily a message that an admirer has invested time, effort and emotion to craft in fervent hopes of gaining your attention.  A man who would never be ignored in person can be blown off hundreds of time online.  And, as the authors of the book Freakonomics pointed out, over 90% of men on dating sites never end up meeting a woman.  Near-certain disappointment that you have to pay for doesn’t sound like a fun party.

6. Strangers with low accountability can get away with antisocial behavior.

In The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman’s Guide to Being Irresistible, I emphasize that women should only date men who are embedded within their social network – a friend of a friend at the very least. That social accountability reduces the chances of their being axe murderers or other ungentlemanly tendencies.

When you go online, there’s no guarantee of anyone having a back-connection into your social network.  It’s the wild west, baby, and anything goes.  Especially in a big city, people will do bizarre, rude things under the cover of unaccountability.  Stories abound about the girl who ordered everything on the menu at an expensive restaurant, or the guy who showed up to the date already drunk who proceeded to hit on the waitress – or far worse.

Even though they make great stories in retrospect, these are not experiences that you need to have even once per lifetime.  Going out with people whom you implicitly know and trust keeps you safe and reduces the chances of weird shit from happening.

“The Conversation about women’s bodies exists largely outside of us, while it is also directed at (and marketed to) us, and used to define and control us. The Conversation about women happens everywhere, publicly and privately. We are described and detailed, our faces and bodies analyzed and picked apart, our worth ascertained and ascribed based on the reduction of personhood to simple physical objectification. Our voices, our personhood, our potential, and our accomplishments are regularly minimized and muted… ” Continue reading here

As a personal favor, I have wrangled her into giving us an interview on the key principles in her book. I’ll be doing the interview this Monday, 26 March 2012. Here’s the information:

• Date: Monday, 26 March 2012, 6pm PDT/9pm EDT/2am London/6am Dubai/12 noon Sydney
• Call-in number: +1 218 862 1300
• Access code: 667202
• Duration: 40min interview, 15min Q&A

Why do you want to attend this call live? Because I’ve seen Olivia speak many times, and I can attest firsthand to the power of her teachings. Charisma can be learned, and quickly — and there aren’t a lot of people better at teaching it than Olivia. Now that she’s not jetting off to train some South American head of state and we have her all to ourselves, you definitely want to be on the call live so you can ask her your burning questions about how to present yourself even more effectively. Ideally, you would read the book beforehand so you can ask the deep questions that usually only the El Presidentes paying her megabucks get to ask.

Some of what we’ll be covering:

• Is charisma innate, learned or a little bit of both?
• The three components of charisma and how to dial each one up or down to be like Colin Powell, Bill Gates or the Dalai Lama
• Which type of charisma to use for a given situation
• Three ways to increase your charisma pretty much instantly
• Side effects and dangers (?) of charisma

Here’s a little sampler from one of her talks on a related topic:

There’s no charge for any of this, so feel free to spread the word and tell your friends about it — they’ll thank you for it.

See you there and then

Dr Ali B

PS: It is now the day after the interview, which means it already happened – and now we have a recording. I was unexpectedly on the road away from my studio equipment, so the quality of my voice is so-so. But Olivia comes through great, and that’s who you wanted to listen to anyway, so here ya go:

Interview with Olivia Fox Cabane on her new book ‘The Charisma Myth’

Right-click to download full interview with Olivia Fox Cabane on The Charisma Myth (20mb, 55min)

Now, with the divorce rate above 50%, it seems like marriage in this country has, at best, a coin flip’s chance at success. That’s just not right in my book.

And with the very public blowup of celebrity marriages, sometimes you have to think: what the hell were they thinking when they got married? Surely they should’ve known better.  (Read: Katy Perry, Sandra Bullock, the poor sap who married that Kardashian woman, and the procession of simpletons who keep marrying Charlie Sheen).

In fact, a little secret: I wrote the Tao of Dating books because I saw my friends in crappy relationships (married or not), and I thought they deserved better.

Now I’m your guy when it comes to dating.  For long-term relationships, on the other hand, I send you to the experts like Dr John Gottman — and Dr Isabelle Fox.

My friend and colleague Isabelle has been a practicing clinical psychologist for over 30 years. She just published a book entitled The Prospective Spouse Checklist: Evaluating Your Potential Partner, co-authored with her husband of 64 years, Robert Fox, J.D.

If you’re interested in marriage or any other kind of long-term relationship, this book may be the best $14.95 you’ve ever invested.

In this book, she gives you the 35-item list for what you should look out for in a partner — including the 11 dealbreakers. Item #1, for example, is ‘must be single.’ May seem obvious, but you’ll be amazed at how many people gloss over this one and get nailed in all kinds of painful places.

There are many, many reasons why I like this book. Here are three:

• It’s full of that most uncommon of commodities — common sense.  Basically, you wouldn’t go into business with someone without doing thorough due diligence.  Lifeling partnership is such a decision.  This is about getting out of your starry-eyed fantasy and checking out the goods with a clear head.
• It’s full of case histories of real couples.  Over her 3 decades of clinical practice, Isabelle knows that of which she speaks.
• And, speaking of walking the walk, Isabelle has been married to Robert, her co-author, for 65 years.  That’s gotta be some kinda record.

Isabelle and Bob were kind enough to let me interview her this Thursday.  You can listen to the interview right here: either right-click on the link to download, or stream the audio to your heart’s content:

The Spouse Checklist interview with Dr Isabelle Fox and Robert Fox – right-click to download (34Mb, 65min)

Hi Dr. Ali,

I just bought and read your book on my kindle this weekend and as a Persian girl, born in America, was wondering how you think your principles would work with Persian men?  I am at a point where I am ready to settle down and it seems like all the Persian men just want to play around. I’m 28 and I see a lot of pretty, educated and single Persian girls over the age of 32.  I sit and wonder what they are doing wrong (how are they still single?) and then stress out that I will end up like them.

The principles in your book make so much sense but it just seems like the Persian community has its own dating rules…what’s your take?  Forget the Persian men who play around and start dating guys from all backgrounds?  Thank you for your book, I look forward to implementing your advice. Looking forward to hearing from you — Mary M.

Well well well. I really hope some of you are out fishing right now, because we’re about to open up a big can of worms here.  Let’s talk about dating within your tribe, and whether it’s a good idea or not.

First, let’s think about where these tribes come from.  Until the 20th century, most people lived their entire lives within 10 miles of where they were born.  As a result, you got people of similar genetic, linguistic and ideological makeup all concentrated in the same area called countries.

Planes, trains and automobiles allowed people to pick up and move to spots they heard were better than their own – e.g. America, Australia, Canada, Brazil.  As a result, you’ve got some seriously multi-ethnic populations in those countries.

Now, the interesting thing is that those immigrants put themselves through all that trouble to leave their countries.  But when they landed, they re-created miniature versions of their homeland – Little Italies, Koreatowns, Little Tokyos, Tehrangeles and so on.

I’m all for preservation of cultural and linguistic heritage (and have written about it before).  But if you’re just going to eat the food from the old country, listen to the music from the old country and hang out with the people from the old country, then why bother leaving the old country?

Usually, it’s for the economic opportunity.  But the treasure they accidentally stumble upon is diversity.  In the same way that your immune system strengthens by exposure to different environments and foods, so does your mind expand by exposure to different people and their languages, traditions and ideas.  Come for the sizzle; stay for the steak.

Now let’s use Mary’s case to illustrate.  There about 1 million Iranians out of 300 million in the US.  To limit yourself to that 0.3% of the population through some self-imposed rule is to deny yourself the abundance of the universe – and the opportunity for growth it’s offering through diversity.  (Especially when Iranian dudes are kinda pains in the ass, but that’s a rant for a different day — takes one to know one).

If the right guy happens to be Iranian – hey, game on.  But in this country, there’s a 99.7% chance he won’t. In any case, guys from other backgrounds will appreciate you more (’cause to them you’re exotic), and mixed-race kids tend to be healthier, smarter and better-looking anyway.

I’m not totally making this stuff up.  It even has a name: hybrid vigor.  The more the immune systems between mother and father differ – at the level of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) for the scientifically inclined – the more diverse and versatile the kid’s immune system will be.

That’s the health part.  As for smarter: if you raise your kid bilingual, he’s going to be more verbally adept and better at picking up languages.  Not only that, but there’s new research showing that bilingual kids receive a host of other cognitive benefits.

For example, children who speak two languages test higher on executive function skills than monolingual kids.  What are executive function skills good for, you ask?  Everything: response inhibition, working memory, organizational skills, reasoning, problem solving, and abstract thinking.  Also, scientists speculate that a lifetime of living with two languages protects against cognitive aging.  Think of it as long-term brain insurance.

As for better-looking – scientists have conclusively proven that halfsies, hapas, biracials and multiracials are just hot.  Kidding aside, psychologists hypothesize that average features are the most attractive.  Perhaps mixed-race kids end up with more average features instead of reinforcing the idiosyncrasies (eg big nose, epicanthal fold) of a single ethnicity.

So.  If there are so many advantages to dating and mating outside your tribe, why do so many people in the US go out of their way to stay within their tribe?  Parental pressure may have something to do with it.  Anecdotally, Indian and Jewish parents can get pretty rabid about marrying only a desi or MOT.  And perhaps there’s some primitive, selfish-gene mechanism at work here, too.  By marrying within the tribe, maybe you stand a better chance of perpetuating genes similar to your own.

But I believe there are some other factors going on here.  One is simply fear of the unknown.  You’re comfortable with your own tribe and culture, but those other people?  Their ideas and traditions are frankly a little weird and scary.

Actually, it goes beyond that.  Somewhere deep down inside, in the dark corners of your mind that you would never expose to daylight scrutiny, you secretly think that your culture is superior to theirs.

Okay, maybe you’re particularly open-minded and don’t think that way.  But I’m pretty sure that most Americans think they’re cooler than everyone else.  I’m pretty sure the Japanese think that way, too.  And the French.  And the Chinese, Italians, Germans and most definitely the Iranians.

And you know what?  They can’t all be right, which means they’re all wrong.  And that’s the honest truth.

Being attached to such randomly assigned entities as your ethnicity, culture and even name is like being attached to a roll of a die: “Omigod, I’m a 5!  Five is the best number, like, ever!  Fives rule!  All you non-fives suck!”

Sounds silly, doesn’t it?  And yet people do exactly that all the time, and are willing to beat up others with a different number.  That ‘number’ sometimes shows up as being white, black, Hutu, Tutsi, Serbian, Croatian, Israeli, Arab, Hittite, Phoenician, Roman, Trojan, Carthaginian, Merovingian, Spartan, Babylonian, Assyrian, or any other number of arbitrary labels that have since expired or will soon.

There are cognitive biases – such as the mere exposure effect, which makes us prefer things we’ve seen before – that make us consistently behave in such irrational ways.  All you have to do is randomly assign red and blue jerseys to a bunch of 4-yr olds, and soon they’ll say the other team is less deserving of candy (this experiment has actually been done).

This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if attachment to identity didn’t cause a feeling of separation – what Alan Watts called “the illusion of being this isolated bag of skin.”

The price of holding on to the illusion of separation is the loss of a much more expanded vision of ourselves as infinite beings.  When you see yourself as one with your different-looking neighbors, it’s not a stretch to include people on the other side of the world as well.  And from there, it’s easy to include other animals in the fellowship.  And then maybe rocks and water and stars and everything else are a part of you, too.  That’s why it’s called a universe – all one.  Tat tvam asi – you’re it.

And that expansiveness, that inclusion – that is real love, and an infinitely rich life.  Exclusion (manifesting as identity, ethnocentrism and nationalism) is ego, smallness and a limited life.

So to get back to the original question that motivated this article: if you find a companion who is a partner and catalyst in your continued growth who just happens to be in your tribe, go for it.  No need to exclude him.  At the same time, realize that dating outside of your tribe is an opportunity for even greater growth, learning and expansiveness, both for you and your future offspring.  I leave you with this from Joseph Campbell:

“We must recognize the various tribes we belong to and begin extricating ourselves from the unexamined assumptions each of them mistakes for the truth.”  And that’s the truth.

Hi Dr. Ali,
I enjoy every article you wrote and read them all. Most of all I read your wonderful book, The Tao of Dating. I wanted to ask for your opinion on my current situation. I am currently dating a man (has 3 kids by same woman who he was not married to and long distance, I know how you feel about long distance.)

He treats me like a queen, he is smart, educated and charming. But the man has emotional baggage! He has been hurt in the past and is afraid to love! Multiple times he had asked me to move in and I am considering it.  My question to you is: Is there anything I can do or be that will help him learn to love again?  I look forward to your response! Tara

Tara –
Thanks for the kind words and the letter!
Wow.  Sounds like a lot of things happening concurrently here.  Long distance, 3 kids, emotional baggage.  Well, let me ask you this, Tara:

Do you deserve a guy who treats you really well AND lives nearby, has no kids so he can give his attention to you and contemplate a future family with you?  If not, then you should definitely move in with this guy — or any other guy who asks.

What I believe is that if you’re a smart, attractive, financially indepedendent woman, it’s like you’ve got money in your pocket and you’re looking for a restaurant.  Do you go to McDonald’s or Jack in the Box just because they’re open and welcoming?  Or do you hold out a little longer, maybe drive a few blocks more, where you can find true nourishment?  And remember — once you’ve had the fast food lunch, there’s no room for the good stuff.

An exercise that would be instructive in this situation is to put a number on how likely it is that this is going to work.  Relationships that start out really well (e.g. marriage) have a 50%+ failure rate in this country.  So to start, you’re looking at a coin flip at the very best.  Let’s say the strain of having 3 kids makes it another 10% less likely for it to work.  Now you’ve got a 40% success rate.  Living together also reduces the probability of it working out, let’s say another 10%, and the emotional baggage another 10%.

We are now down to a probability of this working out being about 20%.  More instructively, the probability of it not working out is about 80%.  It’s like asking if you’d stake your happiness and well-being on one roll of a die coming up the number 6.  Is that a bet you would let your best friend take?  Then you shouldn’t take it yourself, either.

There’s one more thing: “Is there anything I can do or be that will help him learn to love again?”  This is a big no-no.  The ability to love, like the ability to breathe, eat, and wipe his own butt, is one that you should require in your partner as a prerequisite.  I mean, isn’t that the whole point of partnership — to love one another? This ‘helping him learn to love again’ business is a violation of one of my dating commandments: Thou shalt not save.  You don’t run a rescue shelter, hon.  This is your life and happiness we’re talking about, so please be loving to yourself first and quit trying to save others.

Let me give you another metaphor: love is like food. The best you can do is to cook up an amazing meal, set the table and invite him to it.  If he chooses to join you — great!  If not, it is not your job to chew the food for him and spoon feed it.  If he’s not in a position to appreciate your offering, chances are there’s some other guy who does.

So recognize that moving in with this guy — which sounds like you have to move to a different city — precludes your ability to welcome some other guy into your life who’s a much better match for you.  Although I haven’t met the guy you just described, it sounds like a big gamble.  And if I were you, I wouldn’t gamble with my happiness.  We are here to serve the world, and the world needs you to be the happiest, healthiest version of you.  Always keep that in mind.

Best
Dr Ali B