The authors explain that they define “mate value” as the average first impression of how attractive someone is, based largely on things like looks, charisma, and professional success, and “unique value” as the extent to which someone rates a specific person above or below that average first impression. For instance, they explain the unique value of a man they call Neil like this: “Even if Neil is a 6 on average, certain women may vary in their impressions of him. Amanda fails to be charmed by his obscure literary references and thinks he is a 3. Yet Eileen thinks he is a 9; she finds his allusions captivating.” In most cases, people’s unique traits and values are difficult to recognize, let alone appreciate, in an initial encounter. There are just too many things going through our minds to fully take in what makes that other person special and interesting. People’s deeper and more distinctive traits emerge gradually through shared experiences and intimate encounters, the kinds we sometimes have when we give relationships a chance to develop but not when we serially first date.
No wonder that, as Eastwick and Hunt report, “Most people do not initiate romantic relationships immediately after forming first impressions of each other” but instead do it gradually, when an unexpected or perhaps long-awaited spark transforms a friendship or acquaintance into something sexual and serious. According to one recent study, only 6 percent of adolescents in romantic relationships say that they got together soon after meeting.7 The number is surely much higher among adults, especially now that online dating is so prevalent, but even people who meet through Tinder or OkCupid are much more likely to turn a random first date into a meaningful relationship if they follow the advice of our Monroe friend Jimmy: There’s something uniquely valuable in everyone, and we’ll be much happier and better off if we invest the time and energy it takes to find it.
But seriously, if the person doesn’t clip their toenails or wear clean socks, look elsewhere.
There are plenty of options.
CHAPTER 5
INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATIONS OF LOVE
When I decided to write this book, one of the things I really wanted to explore was how the different issues in modern romance manifested themselves in other countries. My interest in this started one night when I was doing stand-up in a small club in New York. I was talking about texting and I asked for a volunteer who’d met someone recently and had been texting back and forth with them. I read the back-and-forth messages of one gentleman and made jokes about how we were all dealing with some version of this nonsense.
I quickly noticed that one woman seemed very puzzled. I asked her why she looked so bewildered, and she explained that this was something that just didn’t happen in France, where she was from. This kind of back-and-forth simply didn’t exist, she claimed.
I asked her, “Okay, well, what would a guy in France text you, if you met him at a bar?”
She said, “He would write . . . ‘Fancy a fuck?’”
And I said, “Whoa. What would you write back?”
She said, “I would write yes or no depending on whether I fancied one or not.”
I was stunned—that kind of makes so much more sense, right?
Internationally, there’s a huge variety of dating cultures that have their own quirks and dilemmas. Our interviews in Doha were interesting and made me excited about the possibilities of researching dating in other cultures. Obviously, we couldn’t study all of them, so Eric and I had to be very selective about where we went. After a lot of debate, the places we landed on were Paris, Tokyo, and Buenos Aires.
The reason for Paris is obvious. It’s the city of love, blah, blah, blah. Also, relationships in Paris are similar to what we’d read about in other European countries, where dating as we know it in America is not really part of the culture. People hang out in groups of friends, and if they want to start a relationship with someone, they just do it. They are also a bit more casual about sex and have a different attitude toward infidelity, as we will see in the next chapter.
Tokyo was the next place I suggested. This was done less in the interest of the book and more in the interest of me enjoying some delicious ramen. However, after discussing the idea with Eric, we realized Tokyo was a great place to go because Japan is going through a crisis of sorts. Marriage and birthrates are in a huge decline, many young people are showing a lack of interest in romance, and also, again, I love ramen. It was clear Tokyo was a great choice, both for the book—and our tummies.*
While Japan is experiencing a decline in sexual interest, we also wanted to see the other extreme, so we went to explore the romantically aggressive culture of Buenos Aires. There’s a good reason that Buenos Aires is often called the world’s best city for dating.1 PDA is rampant. People are dancing in sweaty clubs until eight or nine in the morning. Sex is everywhere you look.
So there’s our itinerary. While we couldn’t go everywhere, these places all provided a uniquely interesting take on modern romance around the world. Okay, let’s go. First stop, Tokyo!
TOKYO:
THE LAND OF HERBIVORES AND TENGAS
My initial thought was that Tokyo would have a highly active dating scene. It is a booming metropolis, throbbing with life and energy, arguably even more so than New York. You have everything—the tastiest restaurants, the coolest stores, and the weirdest stuff that you can’t find anywhere else in the world. An entire video arcade filled with nothing but photo booths? Yep. A vending machine that grows and sells fresh heads of lettuce? Yep. A restaurant with a dinner show where bikini-clad dancers ride in on huge robots and tanks? What else do you think goes down at the Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku?