Advice

5K or 1 MILE VIRTUAL RACE www.beatbeethoven.com

Maestro Sponsors

Lasala Images

Media Sponsors

Footzone ~ Hooker Creek Companies ~ Brooks Resources Old Mill District ~ Bigfoot Beverages ~ Pierce Footwear ~ Cooper Designs

2020 H o l i d a y AD DEADLINE I s s u e ! OCT 28

ON STANDS NOV 12

Advertise in the Holiday Issue of Bend Nest to be seen by families during the holiday shopping season!

From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve, we’ve got your family covered with warm and cozy reads on: • Holiday Baking • Growing your Family through

Adoption • Nonprofi ts you’ll Love • Keeping your Family Healthy this Winter • Holiday Books • Winter Craft for the Kids • Outdoor Family Fun and More!

SCIENCE ADVICE GODDESS

What An Earl Wants be triggered into committing when they sense they have competition, like

This new guy I’ve been dating said through your dating other guys. It’s likehe wants to keep things casual. I’m wise possible this wouldn’t change anybummed because I’ve caught some pretthing; he might simply be in the thick of ty intense feelings for him. Is it possible his sexual safari years. So, applying the he just needs to get to know me better old 80/20 equation to your situation, 80 and once he does, he’ll feel differently? percent of success in love is showing up; —Wishful however, the other 20 percent is making

Pursuing a relationship with this guy sure you aren’t showing up to hookup is like sentencing yourhell in a wedding dress. self to live out the rest of your days stuck in that “distracted boyfriend” meme. Understanding your situation starts with a peek into book publishing. Unbeknownst to most people, the most profitable area in publishing is the romance and erotica genre. Most romance novels have pretty much the same theme: a high-status man, often Ex To Grind I’m seeing this new guy, but his ex-girlfriend is absolutely awful: rude, unfriendly, and less-than-intelligent. It makes me question his judgment. If he’s interested in a girl like that, I’m not sure I want to be with him. —Legitimate Fear? Amy Alkon wildly wealthy, who has shown he can’t Really good sex can keep a man from be tamed but who, nevertheless, evenseeing the romantic hellshow he’s in, tually is -- by the irresistible beauty and especially when the thinking cap he specialness of one particular woman. automatically reaches for comes from a This genre is literary catnip for the ladies, small square package marked “Trojan.” earning $1.5 billion in 2015, while the next We assume someone’s romantic partbest-earning book genre, mystery and ners are a result of carefully reasoned crime, brought in a measly $730 million. choices. In fact, many people meet some

It turns out art reflects life -- or rathone, have sex with them, want more sex, er, how women wish their romantic lives and end up in a relationship -- totalwould play out. Evolutionary psychololy bypassing any assessment of whether gist Catherine Salmon explains that, in this might be a ruinous idea. Eventually, romance novels, “in the end, the heroine is the initial hot-sex fog recedes a little, and typically the one in control,” while the hero their partner’s terrible qualities become is “a slave to his passion/love for her.” She increasingly apparent. Time to break up, references romance novel bloggers Sarah right? Well, there’s a problem. Wendell and Candy Tan, who, hilariously, Psychologist Daniel Kahneman refer to the heroine’s hold over the hero as explains that we tend to be “loss averthe power of the “magic hoo hoo.” Once sive”: deeply disturbed by potential lossthe hero has this particular hoo, “he desires es (more than we’re excited by possible no other,” writes Salmon. Or, as some gains). We often succumb to the “sunk researchers put it, a “dad” is being molded cost fallacy”: irrationally deciding to conout of the ashes of a confirmed “cad.” tinue investing time, money, and/or ener

Salmon explains that women’s longgy in what we know is a losing gambit, ing to be irresistibly desired emerges based on the investment we’ve already made from evolution’s effect on female emo(that is, “sunk” into it in the past). Howtions, pushing women -- who, unlike ever, that prior investment is gone. The men, can get pregnant from sex -- to be rational approach is seeing whether future commitment-centric. This “female desire investment would pay off sufficiently and, to be irresistible” is ultimately a desire by if not, cutting our losses (perhaps while a woman “to be secure in the belief that waving a forlorn goodbye to all the days, her choice of mate is the right one and months, or -- gulp! -- years we wasted). that he will never stray.” As for the powTo determine how active a role your er and prevalence of this desire, Salmman’s judgment played in his previous on notes previous research finds that entanglement, ask him about what he more than half of female sexual fantasies values, in general and in a partner, and revolve around “the desire to be sexually then ask what draws him to you. You irresistible,” and this desire seems to be should see whether he’s with you for “at the heart of the bodice-ripper style of reasons you respect or whether you’re romance and fantasies of submission.” just a random variation on the nasty,

Now, it’s within the realm of possikitten-eating sexbots of what might bility that this guy only thinks he wants be called “Cinder” (Tinder when a to keep it casual, and he’ll come around guy’s penis repeatedly picks emotional and become your Mr. One And Only. arsonists who’ll burn his mental wellResearch suggests men can sometimes ness to the ground).