{"id":29578,"date":"2019-07-14T20:06:27","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T01:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=29578"},"modified":"2019-07-14T20:06:27","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T01:06:27","slug":"briefly-four-ways-our-brains-fool-us-when-it-comes-to-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=29578","title":{"rendered":"Briefly: Four ways our brains fool us when it comes to love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Couple-in-matching-t-shirts.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-29579\" src=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Couple-in-matching-t-shirts.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"460\" height=\"290\" srcset=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Couple-in-matching-t-shirts.jpg 460w, https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Couple-in-matching-t-shirts-300x189.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 460px) 100vw, 460px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Your brain has almost certainly tricked you into making bad romantic choices. A California psychology professor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/the-modern-heart\/201902\/4-ways-our-brains-fool-us-when-it-comes-love\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">writes in Psychology Today<\/a> that there are four things our brains do that cause trouble: <strong>1)\u00a0We think we know what we want \u2014 but we don\u2019t.<\/strong> I\u2019ve seen this in myself and if you haven\u2019t seen it yet, you will. The things I wanted in a mate when I was young are completely different from what the mature version of myself wants. <strong>2) We like more choices \u2014 as many as possible.<\/strong> We tend to believe that more choices lead to a better selection in all sorts of areas, but the truth is that too many choices tend to lead to the paralysis of failure to choose. <strong>3) We try to be rational by \u201ckeeping our options open.\u201d<\/strong> We\u2019re scared to make the choices we need to make, because we\u2019re scared of doing the wrong thing. This keeps us trapped in bad situations \u2014 and better choices <a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=15639\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">eventually disappear<\/a>. <strong>4) We stay with the wrong people, because we don\u2019t want our effort to go to waste.<\/strong> I\u2019ve done this. Maybe you have, too. On several occasions, I\u2019ve stayed in a relationship that I knew was dead and needed to end. At this point in my life, I know to trust my gut. It\u2019s a lot smarter about most things than my conscious brain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your brain has almost certainly tricked you into making bad romantic choices. A California psychology professor writes in Psychology Today that there are four things our brains do that cause trouble: 1)\u00a0We think we know what we want \u2014 but we don\u2019t. I\u2019ve seen this in myself and if you haven\u2019t seen it yet, you <a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=29578\" class=\"more-link\">Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[556],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-briefly","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-7H4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29580,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29578\/revisions\/29580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}