The Pragmatist's Guide to Relationships: Ruthlessly Optimized Strategies for Dating, Sex, and Marriage

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I was pretty floored with the last book in this "Pragmatist's Guide" series, and I was excited to start on this one. Simone and Malcolm take a logical, pragmatic approach to researching and writing about the topics in this series. It's a bonus that the profits from these books go toward nonprofits; it shows that the Collins just want to help make people more aware, intentional, and overall better. I recommended this book to my male friends who are struggling with the dating scene as well, since I personally found this book to be insightful and useful. I think bearing in mind that the concept of BATNA (best alternative to negotiated agreement), aka Opportunity Cost in Economics (the second best alternative you can get next to the option you are evaluating), is incredibly important while dating, as the authors are trying to remind us readers. You should always know what your objectives are, how much you are willing to concede and if nothing works, what truly can make you happy in your personal life, BEFORE going into a relationship or even falling head over heels over someone. Culture: Through media and awareness campaigns, we work to create a culture in which people are celebrated for exploring new and alternate ideas, engaging in critical self reflection, and intellectually engaging with the views of those who disagree with them. The truth is hard and bitter. It's not fun. Yet, there is hope in this book, and it is very optimistic in its own way. It offers a plan, or rather a framework, in which to understand the various markets that exist in what we call romantic relationships: the sex market, the short-term (or: casual) dating market, the long-term dating market, and finally the new and ever evolving non-monogamous market. Mind you, all of these markets are horribly inefficient in the way they work. I wouldn't have designed them like that, and neither would you. They are the result of centuries of history and various relationship dogmas that are never updated in real-time, and often stand in direct contrast to basic human needs and desires. Simply put, they are a mess. Yet, this book shows you a way to understand them in a coherent manner, one that makes sense even if it seems ruthless and cynical. In that there is hope, that you can carve up a path for yourself in this world based on tools that are available and that work. It's not going to be fun, it's not going to live up to your fantasies, but it is a way forward, which is a lot more than most of us have. If not, why not for what may literally be a life-long investment? (or dynasties long if you play your cards right through the support of resources like this book)

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! Lesson 2: The beauty of a good marriage lies in sharing your mental load. The Collins’ have started The Pragmatist Foundation to uplift people through this philosophy, and all of their books’ proceeds go to this charity. The Pragmatist’s Guide To Relationships is an extremely comprehensive manual to all components of relationships. It will help you find the people you want and need in your life, attract them, and keep them around. It's also a really easy read. Of course relationships are a pretty interesting subject anyway. The writing is then very clear and direct, with a nice humour and little personal comments from the authors to stop it getting too serious. Assumption # 1 — Random sampling: the data are representative of the population (aka no selection bias) If reading this makes you defensive, if it leads you to think: "It's not my fault all my exes hate me!" then please try to picture the most incredulous-looking face your imagination can conjure - that is the face you should imagine us giving you right now." (pg 482)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. I liked how the author mixes practical advice with logic. Collins’ do a great job of breaking down complicated ideas into digestible pieces, so if you have an interest in understanding things from a pragmatic aspect then i would recommend this book. Books: We work to create “shepherd free” guides dedicated to assisting individuals in self reflection and challenging their core beliefs without biasing them to specific answers.

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.”

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Ruthlessly optimized? Very well delivered on, and I'm only 60% of the way through. I went through this for hours with my partner and it has kept us up for 2 days now. I write this review at 3.19am. In so many examples I finally understood some patterns and dynamics happening in my relationship life that I never knew what to make of them before. Here's your chance to look at relationships like two space aliens would, if they'd ever want to write a book guiding humans through the process of forming sustainable relationships! 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 life. Assumption #2 — No perfect multicollinearity: there are no exact linear relationships among the independent variables. Why do we need this assumption?