In one early Seinfeld episode, George Costanza became convinced that his girlfriend was going to break up with him. When they talked on the phone, he was so tense that he made a list of odd, unnatural conversation topics, like how good he was at reversing in his car. When he asked her to dinner, and she wanted to do lunch instead, George had enough. He decided to break up with her before she could break up with him.
In nearly every episode of Seinfeld, George represented the stereotypically neurotic person: someone with a lot of anxiety who frets about everything, including romance. Earlier this year, a recent review of 148 papers on neuroticism found that this trait and relationship quality are negatively associated – when one goes up, the other goes down.
