"I spent a long time imagining that I’m talking to somebody who is single and struggling, because they’re not meeting people or not clicking with anybody,” Arts & Sciences alum Paul Eastwick ’01 says of writing his new book, "Bonded by Evolution."
“There’s this frustration that everybody out there on the apps is terrible, and people don’t want to settle. And I get it: online dating reinforces a hierarchy that suits some people well—and others not at all.”
The book, subtitled The New Science of Love and Connection, parses psychology research for a general audience, with some self-help lessons woven in. Part of Eastwick’s mission is to challenge decades-old findings in the field of evolutionary psych that cast heterosexual dating and mating in a rather—well—Darwinian light: that men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and romance is a zero-sum game.
Such notions aren’t just unproductive, Eastwick argues—they have been hijacked by an incel culture and a “manosphere” that promotes misogyny and even violence.
“It’s tempting to think that dating and relationships are about competition and where you fit within a pecking order—that you’d better hope you’re a nine, and God help you if you’re a six, but at least you’re not a two,” says Eastwick, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis.
“By taking people through the science, I hope I can get them to think about dating in a way that’s a little less mercenary, and a little less personal: if you’ve been rejected, don’t take it as a sign of how good you are.”
