"She's a ten to me and that's the part that matters." — Paul Eastwick
If it's Valentine's Day, we must be talking about love. Paul Eastwick studies attraction and relationships at UC Davis, and his new book Bonded by Evolution takes aim at the "old science" that treated romance like a competitive market where everyone gets assigned a number. The incels, of course, ran with that research to compound their paranoia about the other sex. Eastwick says they got it wrong—and so, with the exception of Paul Eastwick, did most academics.
When two people look at the same photograph and make a hot-or-not judgment, Eastwick explains, they only agree about 65% of the time. After they've known the person for months, agreement drops to barely better than a coin flip. So there isn't any universal hierarchy of desirability. What's real is that some people will think you're an 8 and others will think you're a 3—and that quirky disagreement explains most of what happens in the science of attraction. The problem is that dating apps make everything feel like they're in a market, thereby filtering out the "slow burn" people who need time to grow on you. Eastwick's advice, therefore, is forget swiping, reboot your social networks, throw candle lit dinner parties where nobody knows each other. It's more democratic, it takes longer, and it actually works. Happy V day everyone.
About the Guest
Paul Eastwick is Professor of Psychology at UC Davis, where he studies attraction and close relationships. He is the author of Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection (2026) and co-host of the podcast Love Factually with Eli Finkel.
Concepts discussed:
The mating market hypothesis treats attraction like an economic exchange: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mating_market
Limerence is the academic term for infatuation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence
The Dunbar number (~150) represents hunter-gatherer group size: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
Pair bonding emerged about two million years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_bond
Attachment theory describes deep bonds of trust and support: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory
Also mentioned:
Eli Finkel is Eastwick's podcast co-host: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Finkel
When Harry Met Sally (1989) depicts "one of the most beautiful friendships on screen": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Harry_Met_Sally...
Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_%2B_Juliet
The incel community has misused 1990s attraction research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.
Website: https://keenon.tv/
Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/keen-on-america/id1448694012
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4MvPXVxAI8u5LtMJIr4S1b
Chapters:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:36 Happy Valentine's Day
00:01:42 The pressure of Valentine's Day
00:02:34 Old science vs. new science
00:03:02 The incel corner of the internet
00:04:05 We've lost the art of socializing
00:05:06 Love as a market
00:06:52 What happens after swiping
00:08:03 Slow burn people
00:09:07 Twos, fives, and tens
00:10:31 The hot-or-not experiment
00:11:33 Is there something un-American about this?
00:13:13 The Dunbar number and hunter-gatherers
00:14:10 Did love exist before modernity?
00:15:07 Passion and limerence
00:16:39 Looking for yourself or the other?
00:18:15 Machine learning can't predict compatibility
00:19:43 Why we pair bond: helpless babies
00:21:30 Men got gentler and lost their canines
00:22:52 What polyamory tells us
00:24:36 Gen Z and the delay of first sex
00:26:48 Paul's love life
00:27:44 She's a ten to me
00:28:01 Romcoms and Love Factually
00:31:08 Advice: reboot your social networks