A closer look

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy ensures that pessimism is a wildly self-sustaining ecosystem. If you go into a date convinced it will be a disaster, your body language becomes defensive, you ask terrible questions, and you radiate hostile energy. Shockingly, the date goes poorly, and your brain smugly pats itself on the back for correctly predicting the future, completely ignoring that you actively sabotaged the entire thing.