Sonja Lyubomirsky

It was like all the self-driving stuff and like really cool features that I had not seen before.

And I enjoyed it.

And at the end of the drive, I said, you know, I'll just call him Patrick, not his real name.

I said, Patrick, you've persuaded me.

I'm going to date your Tesla.

Like, I'm impressed.

And he actually, he's a funny guy.

He actually said, well, you know, in a few years, you probably can.

But he was trying to impress me the whole time with how great his car was.

You know, maybe after thinking about it, he might have been aware of it.

But he's a smart guy.

I feel like he should have been aware of it.

But I feel like it's so human.

It's part of our human nature to want to impress others, right?

It's evolutionarily adaptive for us to impress a new potential date or a new business partner or a new friend.

And so when we talk to each other, especially towards the beginning of relationships, we want the other person to think that we're kind and interesting and intelligent and funny.

And we might succeed in impressing the other person, but what it doesn't do is it doesn't really forge a connection, right?

So you don't really leave that interaction feeling like, ah, I really am connected with that person.

I had a relationship with someone who really did love me, who I knew loved me, but I actually broke it off.

And it's going to sound almost crazy about what the main reason was that I broke it off.