Kate Murphy

I think those are real important questions to ask because if you think about your social interactions as your daily diet, what are you feeding yourself?

And also turn it the other way.

What are you feeding other people?

Really think about, am I leaving this person better or worse than I found them?

Because it goes both ways.

It is a dance.

Sinking is something that is going back and forth.

That's why I think I resisted the manipulation.

It is this mutual thing that happens between two people that is really beautiful and magical.

And it can last a moment.

Like when you have that moment of connection with somebody, like when you're checking out of the grocery store and you just have that moment of connection.

Again, it's not like you're going to end up spending all your holidays with them, but you had that moment, that little surge of neurochemicals where you felt better and you felt connected to the world and the other person did too.

And when you're talking about dating, I'd be really careful about trying to date online because an algorithm can tell you who your perfect match is.

Somebody can seem like your perfect match online.

But again, as we talked earlier, you're not going to get the full compliment online.

of these neurophysiological signals from the other person.

That's why they can look like the perfect match online, but then when you finally meet them in person, all you can think about is what you'd rather be watching on Netflix.

It's not there.

And you can't make yourself be attracted to someone any more than you can make yourself not be attracted to someone.

And so there's still some magic to all of this, which is wonderful.