A Hard Yuk Story

I'm a 34-year-old struggling comic. My girlfriend is a 29-year-old children's therapist. We've been together for a year. She wants to move in with me, wants me to meet her parents -- adult relationship stuff that I don't feel ready for now. I love her, but I live in a studio without a kitchen. I don't even have a car. As a man, I want to be a "provider" for the woman in my life. She doesn't want to wait.

--Don't Wanna Lose Her

On the upside, you aren't without savings. There's that jar with all the change that you take to the Coinstar twice a year. Your reluctance to be all "let's move in together and start a life over my hot plate" probably comes out of how (according to cross-cultural research by David Buss and other evolutionary psychologists) women seem to have evolved to seek men with the ability to acquire resources -- that is, to "provide." Men coevolved to expect this -- and feel they need to rise to the occasion in order to get (and retain) the ladies. In other words, you, as a man, are psychologically driven to feel unsettled when, in terms of sheer earning power, you're just this side of living in your car. This might lead you to wonder why, if you're so wigged out about being broke, your girlfriend's evolved psychology seems to be all "yeah, whatever." Well, there was no such thing as "wealth" in ancestral times, so cues to the ability to acquire resources seem to point to mate quality. As I've written before, a woman's seeing ambition, entrepreneurial thinking, and high intelligence in a guy who isn't exactly raking in the bucks with a crop harvester may ring enough of her psychological bells to make him a choice. A woman who isn't yet in "let's make babies!" mode might also be more open-minded than realistic. Think about the life you want, and ask your girlfriend to think about the future she wants, and then put your wants together (along with the timetable for each) and see how well they fit. Sure, comedy is a career that can eventually pay off Seinfeldanormously, but for many, it never goes beyond driving around to do $50 sets in suburban Yuk-Yuk Huts. If it's "babies or bust!" for her, consider how willing you'd be to trade your comedy dream for a dad job -- the boringly stable kind with a reasonable weekly paycheck. Unfortunately, actual money tends to go over better at the kids' dentist than a pair of free tickets to The Chuckle Castle plus a garbage bag of recyclables and a pledge to come back with more every day until mid-2024. ... For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.