Against witchcraft (against sparks, butterflies, and other lies)

Part 4. Published under the title “Against witchcraft.” Central claim: intuition is one of the worst tools to use for choosing a partner, because it’s been trained on corrupt data.

Two modes of thought

• Many frameworks rediscover the same split: Kahneman’s System 1 (fast, intuitive) vs System 2 (deliberate, logical); Paglia’s pagan aestheticism vs “ascetic Palestinian creed”; the “nerd vs wamb” spectrum (literal information-traders vs aesthetically/socially attuned people).
• Logical mode = research and A→B→C reasoning; intuitive mode = gather stories, ruminate, “sleep on it,” and wait for what “feels right."

"Witchcraft” = things that hijack your intuition

• The author (a self-described lover of Puritans) wants to revive the ability to accuse things of “witchcraft” — meaning things that hijack intuitive sense-making: attractive people in adverts, charisma tricks (excessive eye contact, casual touch), emotive church music, and — the worst offender for reach — Hollywood.
• We gossip too little and consume too much fiction. For every real love story you hear, you absorb ~10 fictional ones that are ~10x more emotionally potent, and your intuitive brain logs them as real data.
• Her chronically single friends usually aren’t rejected by eligible men — they just don’t feel anything for the nice men who like them. Intelligent people over-rely on System 2 for things needing intuition (cooking only from recipes, dressing by colour systems / Kibbe types), then try to use their under-exercised System 1 on the most important decision of their lives — exactly where they shouldn’t.

Why fictional romance is bad data

• Genre conventions optimise for entertainment, not realism. Fictional plot: two people meet, feel chemistry, face an obstacle (internal or external), overcome it (or someone dies). Real healthy couples: meet, mildly like each other, clearly communicate interest, keep meeting, and let feelings deepen gradually.
• Mammals love intermittent rewards; the fictional version hijacks the reward-seeking psyche. “You can’t yearn for someone who communicates their intentions clearly.”
• This is why negging, lovebombing, and hot-and-cold BPD dynamics generate butterflies — and why a stranger on your commute can spark more feeling than the perfect-on-paper setup. Passion is not a signal of a good relationship; the obstacles that create yearning are anti-correlated with domestic happiness. Socially savvy people can manufacture that feeling, and they’re “not the tools of good, stable people.”

Other reasons not to trust your gut

1. Your attraction system evolved for a different environment — the sexiest men often have good-caveman traits but make “sub-par actuaries.”
2. Evidence finds little difference in quality between arranged marriages and love matches, tentatively suggesting initial attraction has little to do with long-term love. If neither partner is a sociopath, you share values, build a life, and have regular sex, you’ll probably grow to love each other. (A commenter disputes the strength of this evidence.)
3. Many people have unhelpful kinks — e.g. seeking signs of dominance. Given how scarce good dominant men are, if you only slightly prefer it, drop the preference.
4. People fixate on strange, random points of similarity (e.g. a shared joke-delivery style) and over-weight them.
5. You may be “stickier” when young and inexperienced; sparks likely get rarer with age as you desensitise to oxytocin and guard your heart — so don’t let intuition shrink your options further.

Takeaway

• Intuition is “massively overrated in romance.” You’ve been trained on bad data. Court like you’re arranging your own marriage, not like you’re starring in a rom-com.