Books
Not all insights about love come from relationship guides. These reviews explore works on loneliness, attachment, culture, and human nature that illuminate the deeper forces shaping how we connect.
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Why 1950s experts thought wives cheated (and what they got wrong)
How a 1950s sex manual mistook constrained strategy for female pathology Chapter Six of Sex Vices in America bears the title “Why Wives Are Unfaithful” — but what it actually describes is something broader and stranger. Lawton and Archer are less interested in affairs per se than in the various…
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Costly signaling and fidelity
In 1953, Shailer Upton Lawton framed a husband’s moral code as mate insurance. A wife who invested heavily created the conditions for him to want a firm moral code and develop it himself. Without that ongoing investment, Lawton argued, husbands became vulnerable to any of the psychological reasons that lead…
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Selling costly signals in 1879: Victorian visiting cards and the logic of modern dating
On calling cards, costly signals, and buying your way into polite society with George D. Carroll’s (1879) Art Stationery and Usages of Polite Society.
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The 1973 dating manual that predicted Tinder: costly signals in action
Andrew DuBrin’s The Singles Game, and the application of management theory to dating advice In 1973, while the rest of America preached free love and “going with the flow,” a management professor in Rochester, New York, was doing something deeply unfashionable: treating dating like a business problem. Andrew J. DuBrin…
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Costly signaling across a century of dating advice
What bowerbirds, a 1920 love manual, and brutal modern advice reveal about trust A 1920 dating manual, a book about animals having sex in a zoo, and a profane modern self-help book walk into a library, and somehow all say similar things about why dating feels so broken today. That’s…
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Why “playing hard to get” has survived 2,000 years of dating advice
Why Ovid, The Rules, and pickup artists all say the same thing about scarcity and desire “Don’t call him back right away.” “Let him pursue you.” “Be easy to be with but hard to get.” If you’ve heard this advice, you’ve encountered an idea with a surprisingly long pedigree. “Playing…
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10 Dating books that changed how people date (and mate)
From ancient Rome to the pickup artist era—a curated list with commentary from my research into the evolution of dating advice Essential dating books Some dating books sell millions of copies and vanish without a trace. Others reshape how an entire generation approaches romance. After a decade spent building an…
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Concealed polygamy: what a 1914 book reveals about situationships
Over 100 years of hidden harems Our monogamy is constantly varied by polygyny, or pseudo-polygamy, lacking the sanctions and responsibilities of Mohammedan plurality. That’s not a hot take from a controversial dating podcast. It’s from a book published in 1914, written by Walter M. Gallichan, an Edwardian sexologist who spent…
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The gold digger: archetype, empowerment, or rooted in victimhood?
Unpacking the Gold Digger from Betty Van Deventer to 90 Day Fiancé The “gold digger” remains a potent cultural archetype—a figure, often a woman, who leverages charm, romance, or seduction to secure material advantages from a partner. This image gained traction in the early 20th century amid economic shifts and…
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5 Books that predicted the modern loneliness crisis
Long before dating apps and “situationships,” these authors saw exactly where we were headed. We talk about loneliness as if it’s new—a product of smartphones and pandemic isolation. But authors who studied American relationships over the past seventy years saw it coming, identifying the forces that would make genuine connection…
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Sexual Behavior in the 1970s
Attitudes, practices and data from the “Me Generation” Our very liberal attitudes toward sex have their origins in the “swinging sixties,” but it was during the 1970s that a more outlandish sexual culture emerged. While “sexual liberation” first manifested itself through pop icons and the developing culture of concert-driven, drug-fueled…
About the author
Andrew King
Author of Costly Signals: The Evolution of Dating Advice. PhD researcher with 500+ dating guides from the 1800s to today. Why do we take romantic advice from strangers? I have answers.
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Whether you’re a journalist, podcaster, or an event organizer, I’d love to hear from you. I speak on modern dating, evolutionary psychology, and the surprising history of dating advice.
© 2026, Andrew King