David Brooks

Various research teams have conducted a simple study.  They hire a woman to go up to college men and ask them to sleep with her.  More than half the men say yes.  Then they have a man approach college women with the same offer.  Virtually zero per cent say yes.

(Perhaps the least surprising paragraph in The Social Animal, the new book by David Brooks.)

David Brooks

I've come to think that flourishing consists of putting yourself in situations in which you lose self-consciousness.

It happens sometimes when you are lost in a hard challenge, or when an artist or craftsman becomes one with the brush or the tool.  It happens sometimes while you're playing sports, or listening to music or lost in a story.

 And it happens most when we connect with other people.

(From the new book, The Social Animal, by David Brooks.)

An illustration that accompanied the excerpt from
The Social Animal that appeared in the New Yorker

David Brooks

Despite the saying about opposites attracting, people usually fall in love with people like themselves. . . .  [During their blind date], Harold and Erica quickly discovered they had a lot in common. . . . People generally overestimate how distinct their own lives are, so the commonalities seemed to them a series of miracles.  The coincidences gave their relationship an aura of destiny.

(From the new book, The Social Animal, by David Brooks.)

David Brooks

David Brooks

Harold and Erica got their first glimpse of each other in front of a Barnes & Noble. They smiled broadly as they approached, and a deep, primeval process kicked in. Harold liked what he saw, from the waist-to-hip ratio to the clear skin, all indicative of health and fertility. He enjoyed the smile that spread across Erica’s face, and unconsciously noted that the end of her eyebrows dipped down. The orbicularis oculi muscle, which controls this part of the eyebrow, cannot be consciously controlled, so, when the tip of the eyebrow dips, that means the smile is genuine, not fake.

(That little tidbit about the orbicularis oculi muscle could come in very handy someday.)

David Brooks

You'd think, if you listened to cultural stereotypes, that women are the more romantic of the sexes.  In fact, there's evidence that men fall in love faster and are more likely to believe that true love lasts forever.  Though men normally spend twice as much time talking about themselves as women do . . .

(New York Times columnist David Brooks is the author of The Social Animal, which is being published today.  The book uses the lives of a composite America couple -- Brooks calls them Harold and Erica -- to illustrate what scientists have learned in recent years about fundamental human nature.)