We do everything wrong in the search for love, says bestselling author on relationships

In the courtyard of an upscale condominium complex, lying on the rocks between a sauna and a blue ping-pong table, Logan Ury listened to the woman sitting across from him talking about how he connects with people. A hot tub bubbled in the background and strings of fairy lights stretched between the trees.

The woman said she is “avoidant” and that’s why she was single and was seeking Ury’s help.

Ury said the woman might not have been anxious – perhaps she was in the habit of complicating things and making her own life difficult. That is, she would be her own “blocker”.

Since the woman had met her past romantic partners in person, Ury suggested that she spend some of her spare time, which was little, practicing rock climbing, chatting with fellow climbers and looking for potential partners, rather than tinkering with dating apps.

Ury is 34 years old and is part of a long lineage of specialists in love who have built a veritable industrial complex for this type of professional. They’ve been joined more recently by Tik Tok influencers, podcasters, and Instagram infographic makers who cast random “rules” for finding partners: Wait three hours before replying to a message, tell men they give you a sense of security, control the urge to fight with your partner.

But not everyone has credentials like hers: a psychology degree from Harvard and the author of a book, “How to Not Die Alone”, which is now in its eighth edition and has been translated into 14 languages.

Back at his desk an hour later, Ury ran a Zoom session for 67 people who paid nearly $2,000 each for a six-week course, giving them the opportunity to ask their most pressing dating questions.

A man wanted to know why the woman he’d just dated turned down a second date, despite her hugging him long when they said goodbye and her knees facing him for much of the date.

“Yes, I need to confirm that this is bewildering,” Ury said slowly.

That’s her job: to validate what people tell her and propose strategies for finding love in the modern world that, according to her, are confirmed by research. “Look for love with a scientist’s attitude!” she recommended when a woman asked how old she was too young for her to view the person as a potential romantic partner. (That is, date some younger men, see how you feel, and then recalibrate.)

Using numbers to find love

Ury always talks like he’s on a podium. She is a generous interviewee: it sometimes takes 25 minutes to answer a single question about her work. She uses data frequently, quotes Adam Grant, and refers casually to experiments in behavioral economics.

Its language makes a subset of its customers “feel safe,” Ury said. “If you’re an engineering-oriented guy, I talk about ‘loss aversion’ or ‘sunrecoverable cost fallacy.’ I know that with certain people, that makes them want to work with me.”

Logan Ury’s own life is also data-driven, from the intermittent fasting diet she follows to living in the upscale Radish community, which she sees as a scientifically engineered utopia.

The community is a complex of four buildings that she and her husband, Scott, share with 12 engineers, behavioral scientists, venture capitalists and others, where the soap in the bathroom is made from goat’s milk and residents communicate through a channel. from Slack called ” not_a_cult” (“not a cult”).

Clients bring Ury their grievances, love language, and childhood trauma, and Ury tells them about his romantic life, using easy-to-understand charts. She has them fill out an eight-question quiz after a romantic date. Questions range from how stiff and uncomfortable they were on the date to whether they felt “heard” by the other person.

If a client decides to bet on a relationship, Ury sometimes recommends that he or she complete a “relationship contract” with the partner — a 17-page document that covers, among other things, the minimum number of times the couple will commit to have sex within a specified period.

If the relationship ends, Ury proposes his separation agreement, which sets boundaries, such as whether ex-boyfriends want to stay in touch via LinkedIn and how they intend to characterize the breakup when talking to acquaintances.

There’s a mathematical principle that Ury especially likes to use to calm his data-conscious clients: a behavioral science conundrum known as the secretary problem. You need to hire a secretary (the principle became popular in the 1950s) and there are 100 candidates for the job. How to choose the right person? The mathematically ideal answer is that you should interview 37% of the candidates and find out the person you liked the most so far. That person becomes your “meaningful reference.” You should hire the first candidate who appears to be better than this “benchmark”.

The version proposed by Ury goes like this: if you are going to be actively dating from 18 to 40 years old, by the age of 26.1 you will have already dated 37% of the people you are going to date. So when you reach 26.1, the best ex you ever had will be your significant reference. The next time you find someone you like more than this “reference”, bet on that person.

That’s not always what customers want to hear, and some readers of Ury’s book have rejected what they saw as a dry vision of modern love.

In her review of Ury’s book, Shani Silver, who writes about dating and relationships, opined, “If you want a book that recommends you give up not exactly all criteria, but definitely the idea of ​​truly falling in love , then add this book to the library of titles that tell you how pathetic and hopeless your singleness is or must be.”

Ury doesn’t mind this kind of feedback. For her, people are terrified of settling for less than ideal.

“I’ve had conversations where I’ve said to someone, ‘I understand that your parents have been married for 40 years, that they had a fairy tale romance that started in high school, that you grew up hearing about it and that’s what you want. But you’re 37. If you go on a date every other month, and the guys you like don’t like you, or you don’t like the ones who like you – then you’re just not meeting enough people. ‘”

How to get to “intentionally forever”

Something that started for Ury as a customer here and a phone call there has grown into a business that may be beyond his capacity.

Ury offers individual coaching in six-session packages. He often delivers a Google Slides form to the customer, with photos that the person must add to their profiles on search engine relationships. It also sends a document with suggested amendments to its prompts on dating apps.

She offers one-on-one coaching in six-session packages and often delivers a Google Slides presentation to the client, with photos that the person must add to their dating profiles. She also uploads a doc full of suggested edits to her various dating app prompts.

In May, she ran Propel, a week-long “training camp” for 128 people at a cost of $480 a head, and is gearing up to launch another bigger, longer dating course in the fall.

She often mentions her gift for “pattern recognition”—the ability to see and synthesize points in someone’s dating history. To do this, she asks her clients to complete “relationship audits” — detailing who they dated, how they met each person, and why the relationships ended.

“I don’t set myself up as a guru,” said Ury. “I tell people: I’m going to create a system that helps you face your blind spots and change your decisions.”

We were talking at the Blueberry, a purple building that houses Radish’s kitchen, and Ury was getting impatient. We went out for a walk; she took me for a walk through the city streets, holding a mug of black coffee with the words “INTENTIONALLY FOREVER”.

I asked if she was surprised at the effort her clients put into molding their stories and jokes, their jobs, their childhoods and ex-boyfriends, into “palatable” packages. Ury laughed.

“Finding someone to date is a serious problem,” she said. “If the person is single and wants to find someone, they are willing to do a lot to solve their problem.”

Translation by Clara Allain