Dr Paul Eastwick

But I can tell you that these kinds of studies, especially at the time frame that we're talking about, people initially meeting, are we going to have sex or not?

There are so few studies that look at this because this is hard work to do.

And really only the close relationships folks are doing it.

This is not how things are done in the ev psych scientific literature.

But we agree these would be the best data.

Yeah.

No, it is, I think, an astute observation that people go through those stages that you're describing.

And I would say that one thing that I try to do in the book is make the case that a lot of the human connection, right, how we feel about somebody else,

it gets away from a lot of the tens will beat the twos kind of material pretty early on.

One of the things that people can do in an initial interaction that will shock you how much this can build closeness, how much this can get somebody to like you, is ask a deeper question than you think.

Something like, what is something you're worried about that you've never told anybody?

And if you're willing to disclose that back,

Like, that is magic right there.

I mean, that is the best experimental manipulation we have ever come up with in our science for getting people to like each other.

It's disclose more than you naturally would in getting to know somebody over the course of an hour.

So all of this stuff is important, and you don't have to wait until date 10 to get into this stuff.

You can do it earlier than you think.

I think a lot of it is around support.

A lot of what attachment is, is feeling like I need to be around this person, if not literally, at least in your mind, at least through various forms of communication, but being in touch and

Having somebody who's going to be there for me when things go badly and having somebody that's going to be there for me when things go right.