Science Explains Why You Dated that Loser for Two Years

By Chiara Atik for HowAboutWe

Most of us have a some sort of blip in our dating lives - an ex that, looking back, makes us question our sanity. ("What was I thinking? How did I stand it?")


Well, Science has an explanation. The next time a friend or family member brings up your worst ex and asks you, for the billionth time, why you dated that loser for so long, you can simply place the blame on the perceptual processes of your brain.

Related: What Sex Really Means to Men: 6 Deep Dark Secrets

"Our brains, you could say, are the original autocorrectors. In her book Being Wrong - a meditation on human error of all kinds - Kathryn Schulz explains how we constantly take sensory messages from the world and unconsciously alter them slightly. She points out that, for the most part, these alterations serve us well: take the blind spot, which is the part of the eye where the optic nerve passes through the retina and blocks the reception of visual information. Even though each of us has one, none of us sees blanks in our field of vision, she says, 'because our brain automatically corrects the problem'."

And it works for words, too. For instance, read this:











…did you notice the typo? (I didn't, at first.)

Related: 7 Signs He Wants to Be Just Friends

In other words, our brain is really good at seeing what it thinks we're supposed to see - like the world without our nose in it, a graphic without typos, and…a perfect significant other. While your family saw a hyper-demanding woman who belittled you at every step, you saw a pretty and nice girlfriend. While your friends saw a guy who could use one less beer and one more shower, you saw a perfectly acceptable boyfriend. It wasn't an error in judgement. It was just your hyper-corrective central processing system stepping in on your behalf.

What can I say? Nature's a bitch.

MORE ON HOWABOUTWE
6 Texts You Should Never Send To Someone You're Dating
How to Sound Like You Have Cool Taste In Music
Are You Dating a Boy, or a Man? 9 Ways to Tell