WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.240 I have a phrase for you today that feels like 00:00:02.240 --> 00:00:04.620 it was basically engineered in a lab to start 00:00:04.620 --> 00:00:07.280 a massive argument at a dinner party. Oh, I love 00:00:07.280 --> 00:00:09.960 these. Yeah, it's emotional promiscuity. And 00:00:09.960 --> 00:00:11.660 I'll be honest, when I first saw the title of 00:00:11.660 --> 00:00:13.279 the source material you sent over, I thought 00:00:13.279 --> 00:00:17.239 we were doing some sort of, you know, retro cosmopolitan 00:00:17.239 --> 00:00:19.620 quiz from 1998. Right, like an are you loving 00:00:19.620 --> 00:00:23.059 too much kind of vibe. Exactly. But once I actually 00:00:23.059 --> 00:00:26.019 opened the documents, specifically that pretty 00:00:26.019 --> 00:00:28.960 chaotic Wikipedia entry, I realized we aren't 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:31.399 just looking at a pop culture buzzword. We're 00:00:31.399 --> 00:00:34.119 looking at a battlefield. It really is. It's 00:00:34.119 --> 00:00:37.539 a classic case of one single term being fought 00:00:37.539 --> 00:00:40.179 over by two completely different groups of people, 00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:42.700 groups who honestly have absolutely nothing in 00:00:42.700 --> 00:00:45.049 common. Yeah, you have the popular press definition 00:00:45.049 --> 00:00:47.429 on one side, which is heavily rooted in a very 00:00:47.429 --> 00:00:49.990 specific religious morality. And then on the 00:00:49.990 --> 00:00:52.250 other side, you have the scientific literature. 00:00:52.450 --> 00:00:54.170 And the scientific side is just trying to turn 00:00:54.170 --> 00:00:57.549 it into a measurable descriptive psychological 00:00:57.549 --> 00:01:00.390 trait. But they are both using the exact same 00:01:00.390 --> 00:01:03.530 words to describe totally different human experiences. 00:01:03.820 --> 00:01:06.359 Which makes the Wikipedia page for this a total 00:01:06.359 --> 00:01:08.659 mess. It's flagged for multiple issues, which 00:01:08.659 --> 00:01:10.819 I always love seeing. It's like the digital version 00:01:10.819 --> 00:01:12.519 of police tape. It's trying to build a bridge 00:01:12.519 --> 00:01:14.780 between two wildly different sources. Right. 00:01:14.959 --> 00:01:18.180 It connects a book from 2007 by Brianne Merck 00:01:18.180 --> 00:01:20.540 called Avoiding the Heartbreak and Emotional 00:01:20.540 --> 00:01:23.579 Promiscuity with a scientific thesis from 2011 00:01:23.579 --> 00:01:26.609 by Daniel Jones. And honestly, those four years 00:01:26.609 --> 00:01:29.870 between 2007 and 2011, they might as well be 00:01:29.870 --> 00:01:32.790 a century in terms of how differently they approach 00:01:32.790 --> 00:01:35.349 the human mind. So for today's deep dive, here 00:01:35.349 --> 00:01:38.099 is our mission. We need to figure out if emotional 00:01:38.099 --> 00:01:40.200 promiscuity is this moral failing where you need 00:01:40.200 --> 00:01:42.700 to guard your heart or if it's just a neutral 00:01:42.700 --> 00:01:44.519 personality setting. Like being an introvert 00:01:44.519 --> 00:01:46.780 or an extrovert. Exactly. And more importantly 00:01:46.780 --> 00:01:48.579 for you listening, I want to get to the end of 00:01:48.579 --> 00:01:51.239 this research stack. Because the science actually 00:01:51.239 --> 00:01:54.799 suggests that falling in love too fast is a literal 00:01:54.799 --> 00:01:57.359 physical health hazard. That link to physical 00:01:57.359 --> 00:01:59.439 health is the real pivot point of this whole 00:01:59.439 --> 00:02:01.780 topic. But to understand why it's physically 00:02:01.780 --> 00:02:04.140 dangerous, we first have to understand what it 00:02:04.140 --> 00:02:06.879 actually is. And that depends entirely on who 00:02:06.879 --> 00:02:09.580 you ask. So let's start with the 2007 definition. 00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:12.020 We're looking at Brianne Merck's book. I read 00:02:12.020 --> 00:02:15.759 through this, and it is not a subtle text. No, 00:02:15.919 --> 00:02:17.979 it is highly prescriptive. Yeah, it's telling 00:02:17.979 --> 00:02:20.319 you exactly how to live your life. And we should 00:02:20.319 --> 00:02:22.539 be clear, this is written from a very specific 00:02:22.539 --> 00:02:26.400 Christian point of view. The tone is intense. 00:02:26.639 --> 00:02:29.460 It falls squarely into what we call the purity 00:02:29.460 --> 00:02:32.699 culture framework. In this author's worldview, 00:02:33.569 --> 00:02:36.030 Emotional promiscuity is something to be actively 00:02:36.030 --> 00:02:38.310 avoided. It's the habit of allowing yourself 00:02:38.310 --> 00:02:40.930 to feel romantic connections with too many people. 00:02:41.270 --> 00:02:43.569 Right, and Merck argues that doing this, indulging 00:02:43.569 --> 00:02:46.050 in these feelings, dilutes your ability to bond 00:02:46.050 --> 00:02:48.689 with your future spouse. The phrase that kept 00:02:48.689 --> 00:02:51.349 popping up in the text was guarding the heart. 00:02:51.550 --> 00:02:53.389 Guarding the heart, yes. It essentially treats 00:02:53.389 --> 00:02:55.840 your heart like a bank vault. You have a limited, 00:02:56.060 --> 00:02:58.840 finite amount of emotional currency. And if you 00:02:58.840 --> 00:03:01.800 spend it on high school crushes or casual flings... 00:03:01.800 --> 00:03:04.240 You're bankrupting your future marriage. Exactly. 00:03:04.340 --> 00:03:06.139 But there's a deeper claim here that I found 00:03:06.139 --> 00:03:08.840 really interesting. Merck's whole argument rests 00:03:08.840 --> 00:03:11.479 on the idea that emotions themselves cannot be 00:03:11.479 --> 00:03:14.620 trusted. Yes. It takes a very strict view on 00:03:14.620 --> 00:03:17.759 self -regulation. The book essentially argues 00:03:17.759 --> 00:03:20.199 that your internal check engine light is broken. 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:23.099 So you need to manually override it with these 00:03:23.099 --> 00:03:26.460 strict rules. Precisely. It views emotional openness 00:03:26.460 --> 00:03:29.740 as a gateway drug. The argument is that if you 00:03:29.740 --> 00:03:32.759 allow yourself to be emotionally promiscuous, 00:03:32.879 --> 00:03:35.000 you know, sharing deep secrets, dreaming about 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:37.759 a future, feeling that intense connection, you 00:03:37.759 --> 00:03:41.639 are inevitably going to slide into sexual promiscuity. 00:03:41.759 --> 00:03:44.159 The classic slippery slope argument. Right, first 00:03:44.159 --> 00:03:46.000 you're sharing your hopes and dreams, and the 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:47.639 next thing you know, you've crossed a physical 00:03:47.639 --> 00:03:50.159 line that the author views as immoral outside 00:03:50.159 --> 00:03:52.479 of marriage. So the solution, according to this 00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:55.319 2007 text, is to just cut it off at the source. 00:03:55.539 --> 00:03:58.000 Don't even let the feelings start. Set strict 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:00.080 physical and emotional boundaries. Which is a 00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:02.259 fascinating theory of the mind, because it assumes 00:04:02.259 --> 00:04:04.919 you have total conscious control over the onset 00:04:04.919 --> 00:04:07.620 of an emotion. It suggests falling in love is 00:04:07.620 --> 00:04:10.639 a conscious choice you make, or rather a mistake 00:04:10.639 --> 00:04:13.780 you make, by not keeping your guard up high enough. 00:04:14.120 --> 00:04:16.240 And I think anyone who has ever developed a crush 00:04:16.240 --> 00:04:18.720 on someone, they shouldn't. like a boss or a 00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:21.379 friend's partner, knows that the feeling part 00:04:21.379 --> 00:04:23.439 doesn't really ask for your permission. No, it 00:04:23.439 --> 00:04:26.699 just happens. But Merck's point is that indulging 00:04:26.699 --> 00:04:29.279 that feeling is the moral failure. It's a lack 00:04:29.279 --> 00:04:32.079 of discipline. Exactly. So that is the prescriptive 00:04:32.079 --> 00:04:34.860 religious view. Emotional promiscuity is a behavior 00:04:34.860 --> 00:04:37.240 you need to stop. OK, so that's the chapel's 00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:40.819 view. But then we fast forward to 2011. The lab 00:04:40.819 --> 00:04:43.439 doors open. Enter Daniel Jones and his colleagues. 00:04:43.680 --> 00:04:46.310 And they pick up this exact same term. dust it 00:04:46.310 --> 00:04:49.069 off and say, actually, let's measure this. And 00:04:49.069 --> 00:04:51.930 this is where the definition totally flips. Jones 00:04:51.930 --> 00:04:54.009 isn't interested in whether it's good or bad 00:04:54.009 --> 00:04:56.910 morally. He wants to know if it's a stable psychological 00:04:56.910 --> 00:04:58.910 trait. Right. He moves it from being descriptive 00:04:58.910 --> 00:05:01.290 to weight, from prescriptive to descriptive. 00:05:01.850 --> 00:05:05.189 He defines emotional promiscuity as the predisposition 00:05:05.189 --> 00:05:08.939 to fall in love. easily, fast, and often. Easily, 00:05:08.959 --> 00:05:10.959 fast, and often. It sounds like a marketing slogan. 00:05:11.259 --> 00:05:14.519 It really does. But the key here is that he separates 00:05:14.519 --> 00:05:18.000 this from behavior. It's about how your brain 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.699 naturally processes attachment. It's about loving 00:05:21.699 --> 00:05:24.259 the feeling of falling in love. And he didn't 00:05:24.259 --> 00:05:26.860 just theorize about it. He actually operationalized 00:05:26.860 --> 00:05:29.459 it. He created a metric called the emotional 00:05:29.459 --> 00:05:33.060 promiscuity scale, the EP scale. Yes. I looked 00:05:33.060 --> 00:05:34.759 at some of the questions on this scale. They 00:05:34.759 --> 00:05:37.290 asked things like, I feel romantic connections 00:05:37.290 --> 00:05:39.990 almost immediately, or I fall in love with people 00:05:39.990 --> 00:05:42.350 I hardly know. It's essentially a test to see 00:05:42.350 --> 00:05:44.829 how hair -trigger your love response is. But 00:05:44.829 --> 00:05:47.329 there is a massive nuance here that usually gets 00:05:47.329 --> 00:05:49.449 lost in the cultural conversation, and I know 00:05:49.449 --> 00:05:51.389 you spotted this in the source material. The 00:05:51.389 --> 00:05:54.129 distinction between emotional and sexual promiscuity. 00:05:54.350 --> 00:05:56.509 Yes. Because in Merck's book, and honestly in 00:05:56.509 --> 00:05:58.149 most people's minds, those two things are glued 00:05:58.149 --> 00:06:00.069 together. If you do one, you automatically do 00:06:00.069 --> 00:06:02.730 the other. But the scientific data Specifically 00:06:02.730 --> 00:06:04.709 citing research by Simpson and Gangestad from 00:06:04.709 --> 00:06:08.089 1991, says they are entirely distinct metrics. 00:06:08.290 --> 00:06:10.329 They are totally separate. They are correlated, 00:06:10.410 --> 00:06:12.230 meaning they often show up in the same people, 00:06:12.509 --> 00:06:14.550 but they are not the same mechanism. This was 00:06:14.550 --> 00:06:17.629 my biggest aha moment. You can score off the 00:06:17.629 --> 00:06:20.069 charts on the EP scale, falling in love every 00:06:20.069 --> 00:06:23.069 week, writing poetry, feeling that intense soulmate 00:06:23.069 --> 00:06:26.009 bond, and yet have a sexual partner count of 00:06:26.009 --> 00:06:28.149 zero. Absolutely. You can be a serial follower 00:06:28.149 --> 00:06:30.680 and lover, but be completely celibate. Because 00:06:30.680 --> 00:06:32.899 you are addicted to the romance, not necessarily 00:06:32.899 --> 00:06:35.399 the physical act. And the reverse is true too, 00:06:35.480 --> 00:06:38.360 right? Yes. There are sociosexual individuals 00:06:38.360 --> 00:06:41.759 who score very high on sexual promiscuity, but 00:06:41.759 --> 00:06:44.560 very low on emotional promiscuity. They have 00:06:44.560 --> 00:06:47.560 many physical partners, but rarely, if ever, 00:06:47.939 --> 00:06:50.680 feel that swooning -in -love sensation. So they 00:06:50.680 --> 00:06:53.579 are operating on pure biology, whereas the emotionally 00:06:53.579 --> 00:06:56.220 promiscuous person is operating on fantasy. Fantasy 00:06:56.220 --> 00:06:58.639 and dopamine. Yeah. But there is another major 00:06:58.639 --> 00:07:00.649 distinction we need to clear up. because listeners 00:07:00.649 --> 00:07:02.649 might be hearing this and thinking, wait, isn't 00:07:02.649 --> 00:07:04.629 this just anxious attachment? I will admit that 00:07:04.629 --> 00:07:06.610 was my first thought. If you fall in love instantly 00:07:06.610 --> 00:07:08.829 with strangers, it sounds like you're just terrified 00:07:08.829 --> 00:07:11.389 of being alone. It is a super common mix up. 00:07:11.750 --> 00:07:14.610 But Jones cites Hazan and Shaver's 1987 work 00:07:14.610 --> 00:07:17.470 on attachment styles to show the psychological 00:07:17.470 --> 00:07:20.350 drivers are completely different. Anxious attachment 00:07:20.350 --> 00:07:23.430 is fear based. It's a please don't leave me signal. 00:07:23.509 --> 00:07:26.509 It's driven by a deep fear of abandonment. You 00:07:26.509 --> 00:07:28.769 cling to someone because you are afraid of the 00:07:28.769 --> 00:07:31.399 void. So anxious attachment is running away from 00:07:31.399 --> 00:07:36.100 pain. Correct. But emotional promiscuity is reward 00:07:36.100 --> 00:07:39.259 based. It is running toward pleasure. Oh, wow. 00:07:39.579 --> 00:07:41.300 Yeah, these people aren't necessarily scared. 00:07:41.759 --> 00:07:43.899 They are thrilled. They love the high of the 00:07:43.899 --> 00:07:45.439 spark. They aren't clinging to you because they 00:07:45.439 --> 00:07:47.660 feel broken. They are clinging to you because 00:07:47.660 --> 00:07:50.860 you are the newest source of that specific emotional 00:07:50.860 --> 00:07:53.360 rush. That is such a crucial difference. One 00:07:53.360 --> 00:07:56.279 is, I need you to survive. And the other is, 00:07:56.319 --> 00:07:58.680 wow, this feeling is amazing. Let's go. Precisely. 00:07:58.839 --> 00:08:01.379 The emotionally promiscuous person is often quite 00:08:01.379 --> 00:08:03.660 confident. They just have a very, very low threshold 00:08:03.660 --> 00:08:06.019 for what they consider love. Okay, so we've established 00:08:06.019 --> 00:08:08.259 this is a personality trait. Some people are 00:08:08.259 --> 00:08:11.040 just wired to be ranting drag racers. Zero to 00:08:11.040 --> 00:08:13.120 60 in three seconds. And if we stop the research 00:08:13.120 --> 00:08:15.120 there, it would just be an interesting psychological 00:08:15.120 --> 00:08:17.779 fun fact. Right, just a quirky trait. But we 00:08:17.779 --> 00:08:21.250 don't stop there. Because in 2012, Jones and 00:08:21.250 --> 00:08:23.649 Paulus did a follow -up study that takes this 00:08:23.649 --> 00:08:26.170 out of the theoretical realm and into the emergency 00:08:26.170 --> 00:08:28.149 room. This is where we hit the dangerous intersection. 00:08:28.470 --> 00:08:30.889 Yeah, this part genuinely startled me. We just 00:08:30.889 --> 00:08:33.909 talked about how Emotional and sexual promiscuity 00:08:33.909 --> 00:08:36.389 are on different scales, but some people do score 00:08:36.389 --> 00:08:39.009 high on both. The dual high scores. Exactly. 00:08:39.450 --> 00:08:41.470 And the research found that if you are in that 00:08:41.470 --> 00:08:43.350 group, meaning you fall in love fast and you 00:08:43.350 --> 00:08:45.970 are also comfortable with casual sex, you are 00:08:45.970 --> 00:08:48.750 significantly more likely to engage in unprotected 00:08:48.750 --> 00:08:52.690 sex. Yes. It creates a very specific vulnerability 00:08:52.690 --> 00:08:55.919 to physical health risks. Having a lot of partners 00:08:55.919 --> 00:08:58.639 is one thing, but having many unprotected partners 00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:01.179 is a massive health hazard. And the reason why 00:09:01.179 --> 00:09:03.340 this happens is the most important insight of 00:09:03.340 --> 00:09:05.860 the whole deep dive. It isn't just because they 00:09:05.860 --> 00:09:08.860 are impulsive. It's a cognitive mechanism. The 00:09:08.860 --> 00:09:11.539 study calls it premature trust. Premature trust. 00:09:11.960 --> 00:09:14.639 Because normally we assume people have unprotected 00:09:14.639 --> 00:09:17.759 casual sex because they are maybe under the influence 00:09:17.759 --> 00:09:19.379 or they just don't care about the risks or they 00:09:19.379 --> 00:09:21.559 get carried away in the moment. That is the standard 00:09:21.559 --> 00:09:24.629 societal assumption. But Jones and Paulus argue 00:09:24.629 --> 00:09:27.350 that for the dual high, emotionally promiscuous 00:09:27.350 --> 00:09:30.649 person, it isn't about not caring. It's that 00:09:30.649 --> 00:09:33.230 their brain has literally tricked them into thinking 00:09:33.230 --> 00:09:35.750 the situation is safe. Walk us through that glitch. 00:09:35.950 --> 00:09:39.470 How does the feeling of falling in love make 00:09:39.470 --> 00:09:42.210 your brain think someone doesn't have an SDI? 00:09:42.690 --> 00:09:45.250 Think about how trust is normally built in a 00:09:45.250 --> 00:09:48.289 standard relationship. It's a slow accumulation 00:09:48.289 --> 00:09:50.879 of data over time. You see how someone handles 00:09:50.879 --> 00:09:52.720 stress, you meet their friends, you learn their 00:09:52.720 --> 00:09:55.340 relationship history. Over a period of months, 00:09:55.700 --> 00:09:57.960 your brain gathers data and says, okay, this 00:09:57.960 --> 00:10:00.039 person is safe, we can let our guard down. So 00:10:00.039 --> 00:10:02.539 trust is essentially a vetting process. Exactly. 00:10:02.799 --> 00:10:05.460 But for the emotionally promiscuous person, the 00:10:05.460 --> 00:10:07.960 intense feeling of intimacy arrives almost instantly. 00:10:08.379 --> 00:10:10.460 They meet someone, they have a deep two -hour 00:10:10.460 --> 00:10:12.960 conversation, the dopamine floods their system, 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:15.580 and they feel that instant soulmate sensation. 00:10:15.779 --> 00:10:18.039 And because that intense sensation mimics the 00:10:18.039 --> 00:10:20.100 feeling of long -term love, the brain assumes 00:10:20.100 --> 00:10:22.340 the vetting process has already happened. It 00:10:22.340 --> 00:10:24.779 completely conflates emotional intensity with 00:10:24.779 --> 00:10:28.039 actual security. The subconscious logic goes 00:10:28.039 --> 00:10:31.120 like this. I feel incredibly close to this person, 00:10:31.519 --> 00:10:33.539 therefore I must really know them. If I know 00:10:33.539 --> 00:10:35.220 them, they wouldn't hurt me. If they wouldn't 00:10:35.220 --> 00:10:38.259 hurt me, I don't need protection. That is terrifying. 00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:40.940 It's a literal hallucination of safety. It is 00:10:40.940 --> 00:10:43.120 a massive cognitive error. They aren't being 00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:45.919 self -destructive on purpose. They're acting 00:10:45.919 --> 00:10:48.799 entirely rationally based on a reality that their 00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:50.940 own emotions have fabricated. They genuinely 00:10:50.940 --> 00:10:53.539 feel safe with a total stranger just because 00:10:53.539 --> 00:10:55.840 their internal love dial is turned up to 11? 00:10:56.200 --> 00:10:58.740 Yes. It's like giving the keys to your house 00:10:58.740 --> 00:11:01.399 to a guy you just met at a bar simply because 00:11:01.399 --> 00:11:04.360 he has a really trustworthy smile. You feel great 00:11:04.360 --> 00:11:06.639 about it, but the physical lock on your door 00:11:06.639 --> 00:11:09.179 does not care about your feelings. That is the 00:11:09.179 --> 00:11:11.820 perfect analogy. The virus, the bacteria, they 00:11:11.820 --> 00:11:13.679 don't care about the romance. They don't care 00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:15.440 that you feel like you've known this person in 00:11:15.440 --> 00:11:19.080 a past life. Biology is brutal that way. And 00:11:19.080 --> 00:11:21.000 you know, this brings us back in a really weird 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:23.740 full circle way to Brianne Merck and that religious 00:11:23.740 --> 00:11:26.480 book from 2007. It really does. Because Merck 00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:28.820 started this whole conversation by claiming emotions 00:11:28.820 --> 00:11:32.039 cannot be trusted, she meant it in a purely spiritual 00:11:32.039 --> 00:11:34.820 sense that unvetted emotions lead to moral failing. 00:11:35.299 --> 00:11:37.960 But now the scientists in 2012 are looking at 00:11:37.960 --> 00:11:41.299 the data and saying, emotions cannot be trusted 00:11:41.299 --> 00:11:44.299 in a biological sense. Because unvetted emotions 00:11:44.299 --> 00:11:47.399 lead to health crises. It is a harsh convergence. 00:11:48.220 --> 00:11:50.960 But yes, both sides, despite living in totally 00:11:50.960 --> 00:11:54.039 different universes, agree on one fundamental 00:11:54.039 --> 00:11:56.580 thing. The raw impulse of falling in love is 00:11:56.580 --> 00:11:59.379 a terrible guide for actual behavior. Merck says 00:11:59.379 --> 00:12:01.720 guard your heart. Science says guard your health. 00:12:02.379 --> 00:12:04.519 But the required mechanism is exactly the same. 00:12:04.620 --> 00:12:07.399 You have to override the feeling with logic. 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:09.519 You have to insert a manual pause button. You 00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:12.320 do. If you know you're someone who scores high 00:12:12.320 --> 00:12:15.159 on that EP scale, if you tend to swoon hard and 00:12:15.159 --> 00:12:17.519 fast, you have to intellectually accept that 00:12:17.519 --> 00:12:19.519 your vibe check is broken. You cannot trust your 00:12:19.519 --> 00:12:22.539 gut because your gut is drunk on dopamine. Exactly. 00:12:22.600 --> 00:12:25.019 You have to outsource your judgment to protocol. 00:12:25.620 --> 00:12:28.039 You have to say, I feel like I love this person, 00:12:28.220 --> 00:12:30.679 but the protocol says we talk about testing before 00:12:30.679 --> 00:12:33.179 anything happens. You have to be smarter than 00:12:33.179 --> 00:12:35.799 your own instincts. Which is, let's be honest, 00:12:36.100 --> 00:12:38.700 incredibly unromantic. It's the least romantic 00:12:38.700 --> 00:12:42.889 thing possible. But it is the only way to navigate 00:12:42.889 --> 00:12:46.210 the modern dating world safely if you carry this 00:12:46.210 --> 00:12:48.730 specific personality trait. I do think that's 00:12:48.730 --> 00:12:50.730 an empowering way to look at it, though. It takes 00:12:50.730 --> 00:12:52.929 all the shame out of the equation. It really 00:12:52.929 --> 00:12:55.750 does. Because the religious text relies heavily 00:12:55.750 --> 00:12:58.529 on shame. It tells you that you are bad for feeling 00:12:58.529 --> 00:13:01.509 this way. But the scientific view is just, hey, 00:13:01.789 --> 00:13:04.370 you aren't bad. You are just vulnerable to a 00:13:04.370 --> 00:13:07.090 specific optical illusion. Exactly. It removes 00:13:07.090 --> 00:13:09.450 the moral judgment entirely. You aren't promiscuous 00:13:09.450 --> 00:13:11.750 in a derogatory sense. You are just high connection. 00:13:11.830 --> 00:13:14.210 But high connection comes with high risk. Yes, 00:13:14.210 --> 00:13:16.129 it does. I want to zoom out for a second before 00:13:16.129 --> 00:13:19.049 we wrap up, because this core concept we uncovered 00:13:19.049 --> 00:13:21.809 today, this idea of premature trust, once you 00:13:21.809 --> 00:13:24.029 see it, you really can't unsee it. And I don't 00:13:24.029 --> 00:13:26.250 think it stops at dating. How do you mean? Well, 00:13:26.250 --> 00:13:29.350 if our brains are biologically wired to mistake 00:13:29.350 --> 00:13:31.710 liking someone for trusting someone, that has 00:13:31.710 --> 00:13:34.730 to apply to everything in life. Think about business 00:13:34.730 --> 00:13:37.269 deals. Think about sales. Oh, absolutely. We've 00:13:37.269 --> 00:13:40.769 all met that one salesperson who is just incredibly 00:13:40.769 --> 00:13:42.789 charismatic. You feel like your best friends 00:13:42.789 --> 00:13:44.669 after five minutes of talking to them. Right. 00:13:44.909 --> 00:13:46.909 And you end up buying the expensive expended 00:13:46.909 --> 00:13:49.190 warranty or you sign the contract without even 00:13:49.190 --> 00:13:51.470 reading the fine print. Why? Because of premature 00:13:51.470 --> 00:13:55.129 trust. That is spot on. The emotional click. 00:13:55.940 --> 00:13:58.759 overrides the required due diligence. You assume 00:13:58.759 --> 00:14:01.860 that because the interaction feels so good, the 00:14:01.860 --> 00:14:05.000 deal itself must be good. Or even hiring people. 00:14:05.299 --> 00:14:07.460 You interview a candidate and you just get a 00:14:07.460 --> 00:14:09.500 really good feeling about them. They seem amazing, 00:14:09.620 --> 00:14:11.860 so you skip calling their references. And then 00:14:11.860 --> 00:14:14.700 three months later, you realize they are completely 00:14:14.700 --> 00:14:17.080 unqualified for the job. It is the exact same 00:14:17.080 --> 00:14:19.659 psychological mechanism at play. You conflated 00:14:19.659 --> 00:14:22.759 interpersonal chemistry with professional competence. 00:14:23.179 --> 00:14:25.240 It really suggests that emotional promiscuity 00:14:25.240 --> 00:14:27.620 might actually be a fantastic lens for looking 00:14:27.620 --> 00:14:30.679 at how we make bad decisions in general. We prioritize 00:14:30.679 --> 00:14:33.840 the immediate emotional payoff over the boring 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:36.259 logistical reality. It tells us that guarding 00:14:36.259 --> 00:14:38.639 the heart, if we strip away all the religious 00:14:38.639 --> 00:14:41.799 baggage from that phrase, is actually a crucial 00:14:41.799 --> 00:14:44.759 critical thinking skill. It's the ability to 00:14:44.759 --> 00:14:47.200 pause and say, I feel really good about this, 00:14:47.320 --> 00:14:49.759 but I am going to verify it anyway. Trust but 00:14:49.759 --> 00:14:52.960 verify. It worked for the Cold War, and it apparently 00:14:52.960 --> 00:14:56.059 works for dating and hiring. It is quite literally 00:14:56.059 --> 00:14:58.860 the only safety net we have against our own biology. 00:14:59.240 --> 00:15:01.299 So for you listening, here's the big takeaway. 00:15:01.820 --> 00:15:03.840 If you are the kind of person who falls head 00:15:03.840 --> 00:15:06.220 over heels in love with a new partner, a new 00:15:06.220 --> 00:15:09.279 business idea, or even a new hobby every other 00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:11.980 week. Enjoy the ride. The feeling is fantastic. 00:15:12.100 --> 00:15:15.500 It is. But maybe, just maybe don't sign the contract 00:15:15.500 --> 00:15:18.200 or skip the protection until the dopamine actually 00:15:18.200 --> 00:15:20.720 wears off. Maintain a very healthy skepticism 00:15:20.720 --> 00:15:23.529 of your own joy. Thanks for diving deep with 00:15:23.529 --> 00:15:25.429 us today. Hopefully we didn't break your heart, 00:15:25.629 --> 00:15:27.149 but maybe we saved you a trip to the clinic. 00:15:27.389 --> 00:15:29.750 Stay curious and stay safe. We'll catch you on 00:15:29.750 --> 00:15:30.669 the next deep dive.