Your Ex-Boyfriend Will Hate This (2015)

Chapter Three

Remixing Romance

Among the women I’ve known who repeatedly suffer through bad relationships with lousy men, most are quick to point out how “unlucky” they have been at love. Some even go so far as to pin the fault on love, as if the concept itself were to blame.

“Love is bullshit,” one of my friends told me after yet another terrible breakup. “It’s a rigged game that you can’t win. I’ve had better luck playing blackjack, and I don’t even really know the rules. At least blackjack has rules.”

My friend was right about love being a rigged game, but she was wrong to compare it unfavorably to blackjack. The rules of blackjack are set up to give an absolute advantage to the dealer, and thus to the casino hosting the game. Even the most skilled player in the world will always be at a statistical disadvantage over the course of time. The advantage is so great that 2011 marked the first time any casino in Atlantic City[v], New Jersey, had ever shown a monthly loss at the blackjack tables. It happened at the Tropicana, which lost $1.86 million in the month of April due to the record success of one player who had won an unbelievable $5.8 million at one of the casino high stakes tables.

Only one casino, in one month, in the thirty-two-year history of Atlantic City lost money at the blackjack tables because one guy had an incalculably, unlikely hot streak. Now, that is what I call a rigged game. Statistically, you will not, and arguably cannot, win.

Love isn’t like blackjack for several simple reasons. First off, people’s “luck” in love isn’t consistent from one person to the next. Some people have such better “luck” at love than others that it seems like they aren’t even playing the same game. The reason for this is simple.

They aren’t.

Think about the relationships you’ve been exposed to throughout your life—those of your parents, your relatives, your friends, people you work with, all the couples you’ve come into contact with. Now think about the successful relationships you’ve witnessed, the ones that lasted long after the others had dissolved. Have you ever asked the successful couple about their experiences before they met?

If you asked them together, you would probably get an answer along the lines of, “My old relationships were nothing compared to the way I felt about [insert partner name].” As true as this might be, it’s unlikely to be an entirely candid response. No one who has been successfully married (or in a great relationship) for many years is likely to talk about how deep, passionate, and sexually gratifying their prior relationships were in front of his or her significant other. Withholding this information is one of the reasons that they’re still together. (“Full disclosure” is a nemesis to lasting relationships, to be discussed later.)

To verify my point, ask people individually what their relationships were like before meeting their significant other. You’ll likely discover that this happy partnership isn’t their first. People who are that successful at the “game” tend to have a much more accomplished history playing it. They choose better partners and demand more of them. And their demands are more thoughtfully determined, because they have a better idea of what is necessary for their own happiness. Just as important, they show more consideration for what is important to their chosen partner.

Mia Hamm, the leader of the U.S. Women Soccer Team, was once asked how her squad had managed to remain the best in the world for so long. Her answer was simple.

“Success breeds success,” she said.

As it goes in soccer (or any game), so it goes in relationships. Small early victories lead to more substantial ones later on. By its very nature, any relationship that lasts forever will inevitably have been preceded by some that didn’t. However, the fact that those earlier relationships didn’t last doesn’t automatically mean they were failures. If you’re the least bit thoughtful and introspective (which you clearly are by choosing this wonderful book), you learned something valuable from each of your former so-called “failures.” You discovered something about yourself—your needs, your fears, your insecurities, your desires, and the nature of the love you’re capable of giving and receiving.

This awareness leads to a valuable point in our discussion, one that’s not terribly popular with those who prefer to think of love as the mysterious, unyielding force often found in soap operas and romance novels: love is rational.

According to two popular sayings, “love is blind” and “the heart wants what it wants.” Both sayings aren’t only wrong, they’re craftily malignant to real love, at least insofar as their common usage. Most often, shopworn words like these are employed to excuse foolish or even downright destructive decisions. For instance:

“Why did I go back to [Theoretical Shitty Boyfriend A], even after catching him cheating?”

“Love is blind.”

“Why do I keep choosing these selfish, narcissistic bad boys who never reciprocate my love?”

“The heart wants what it wants.”

The truth is that love isn’t blind. Love sees just fine, thank you very much. On the other hand, lust can’t see worth a damn. Lust is so blind that it could toss an anchor off a boat in the middle of the ocean and miss the water. As for that silly business about the heart wanting what it wants, it would be more accurate to say that the heart wants what it wants, but that sometimes the loins want something else a little bit more.

If your “heart” keeps telling you to choose the wrong kind of man, it’s more likely that a different part of you is to blame. Your heart may be telling you what it wants loud and clear, but it’s not what you’ve been choosing because parts south of there are yelling a little bit louder. Try to block out all that dumb, lascivious yelling and listen closely. Our culture loves to tell women that they’re the less rational gender. Men are the analytical sex, while women are more emotional. Do you know what says otherwise?

Science.

Research has shown that the minds of men and women are about 99 percent alike. The key difference lies in that other one percent, which says something extraordinarily contrary to what we’ve been taught. As it turns out, the males’ amygdalae (the brain structures that control our “fight or flight” reaction) are larger, but females have a larger frontal lobe, the part of the brain responsible for problem solving. In addition, females have ten times the amount of “white matter,” the connective tissue between different parts of the brain. Scientists speculate that this white matter is responsible for women’s superior ability to multi-task, as well as their superior skill with language.

This means you have a biological advantage over men in any argument. So the next time your mate tells you that women aren’t logical, tell him that the current scientific understanding of human brain activity instructs otherwise. Moreover, refuse to engage him in discussion until his gender evolves to catch up with yours. If it takes him a little extra time to understand what you’ve said, you shouldn’t be too hard on him. His brain is at a natural disadvantage to your own.

Speaking of disadvantages, one of them actually confirms a popular stereotype. It turns out that we men really are led around by our genitals, biologically speaking. Not only do our larger amygdalae increase our sexual drive, but the portion of our brains that controls sexual drive is 2.5 times larger than in the fairer sex. So not only are we unable to reason as well as you women can, but we’re also far more susceptible to our sexual desires, which are about as far from logical as you can get.[vi]

Not only are we men biologically less rational than you women, we’re also more easily led. So if you really want to ensure winning an argument with a man, wear a mini-skirt. He’ll never stand a chance.

This research underlines the extent to which the culture has repeatedly lied to you. You’ve been told over and over that you’re the emotional one, and that “love is blind” is your universal truth. Men (or at least the men I’ve known) have always known that expression to be a load of crap. We generally choose our mates with an established set of criteria that make sense, at least to us. We’re shoppers in the marketplace of love.

Which leads us to our next point…