Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Paul Eastwick joins Frank Schaeffer for a Conversation about attachment, companionship, masculinity, and the science of long-term connection.
I was so excited to talk with psychologist Paul Eastwick about love, attachment, marriage, masculinity, sexuality, and the stories modern culture keeps telling us about relationships that may simply not be true.
Drawing from his book Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection, our June It Has to Be Read. offering, Paul challenges the now-familiar idea that relationships are mostly about status, competition, dominance, “mate value,” or trying to land the best possible deal in a romantic marketplace. Instead, he argues that human beings evolved as bonding creatures. We are wired less for conquest than for attachment, caregiving, mutual support, and emotional connection.
Our conversation moves from online dating culture and the manosphere into deeper questions about what actually helps people stay together over time. I reflect on my own 56-year marriage, caregiving, raising children and grandchildren, and having to unlearn the rigid –and ridiculous– ideas about masculinity I inherited growing up in an authoritarian evangelical world. Paul explains how relationship science increasingly points away from simplistic gender stereotypes and toward something more human, complicated, and hopeful.
Please share this Conversation with someone you love!
_____
LINKS
pauleastwick.com
lovefactuallypod.com
Our June It Has to Be Read. offering,
"Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection" on Bookshop
bookshop.org/a/99692/9780593593981
Paul Eastwick joins Frank Schaeffer for a Conversation about attachment, companionship, masculinity, and the science of long-term connection.
I was so excited to talk with psychologist Paul Eastwick about love, attachment, marriage, masculinity, sexuality, and the stories modern culture keeps telling us about relationships that may simply not be true.
Drawing from his book Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection, our June It Has to Be Read. offering, Paul challenges the now-familiar idea that relationships are mostly about status, competition, dominance, “mate value,” or trying to land the best possible deal in a romantic marketplace. Instead, he argues that human beings evolved as bonding creatures. We are wired less for conquest than for attachment, caregiving, mutual support, and emotional connection.
Our conversation moves from online dating culture and the manosphere into deeper questions about what actually helps people stay together over time. I reflect on my own 56-year marriage, caregiving, raising children and grandchildren, and having to unlearn the rigid –and ridiculous– ideas about masculinity I inherited growing up in an authoritarian evangelical world. Paul explains how relationship science increasingly points away from simplistic gender stereotypes and toward something more human, complicated, and hopeful.
Please share this Conversation with someone you love!
_____
LINKS
pauleastwick.com
lovefactuallypod.com
Our June It Has to Be Read. offering,
"Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection" on Bookshop
bookshop.org/a/99692/9780593593981
