The Pragmatist's Guide To Relationships

The Pragmatist’s Guide To Relationships is an extensive, practical guide to finding a companion, be it for marriage, dating, or sex and building a healthy, happy life with them.

According to the Collins’, a relationship lure is the value you offer a potential partner. It sets the stage for the short and long-term quality of the partnership, so it’s vital that you get it right.

Relationships lures work like fishing lures. If you want to have a specific kind of relationship, you’ve got to use a certain lure. When we make an excuse like “all guys are the same,” often, we’re just trying to attract someone the wrong way. If a fisherman thinks all fish have whiskers, he’ll only use bait designed to catch catfish – and catfish(ed) is all he’ll get.

The Collins’ describe 12 lures in total. The first six – dominance, niceness, sexual exploration, easiness, sneakiness, or a promise of love – are inefficient. They lead to unstable relationships. The last six work better in securing a good, lasting relationship:

Pygmalion: Appeal to a person’s desire to improve themselves by identifying their potential and working with them to achieve it. Status: Show how you’ll elevate someone’s status through their being with you. Self-Identity: Highlight how a relationship with you reinforces your desired partner’s idealized vision of themselves. Friend With Benefits: Sometimes, being close friends can make the transition into a relationship easier. Long-Term Relationship: Openly explaining that you’re looking for a long-term relationship will appeal to those who want the same. Social Construct: Matchmaking is still a great way to meet someone. All parties are vetted through their friends, so there should be a decent amount of shared values!

These lures are not the end of a good relationship but the beginning. Use them wisely, and, once you’ve found someone, the real work begins!

My wife never has to think about our finances, but she does help me with my work. I don’t have to worry about groceries, but I do help my wife plan meals. This is what the Collins’ call “cognitive integration.” When you work together, you’ll be able to do more than double what one of you could do alone. This is like two horses being able to pull more than double the weight of just one horse. The three levels of cognitive integration are: Separate Siloed Integrated Cognitive separation is when people are simply roommates that share some income, have sex, and maybe even kids or pets. If you’re in a cognitively siloed relationship, you divide entire life domains, like finances or child-raising, between each other. A cognitively integrated couple, however, shares the various stages of the decision-making process across all domains of…