By Ty Tashiro
Science-based guide to choosing partners wisely
Subject
Themes
Only three in ten married couples achieve enduring love. The remaining two-thirds end in divorce, permanent separation or chronic unhappiness. Understanding why so many relationships fail, and what distinguishes the successful minority, requires dismantling the concept of being "in love" into its component parts. Being in love requires two essential ingredients: liking (built on kindness, fairness and loyalty) and lust (driven by biological and hormonal urges). Liking declines at 3 percent per year in marriage, while lust declines at 8 percent, making investment in liking the smarter long-term strategy.
Only three in ten married couples achieve enduring love. The remaining two-thirds end in divorce, permanent separation or chronic unhappiness. Understanding why so many relationships fail, and what distinguishes the successful minority, requires dismantling the concept of being "in love" into its…
Published in 2014, this work arrived during a period of significant transformation in how people form and maintain romantic relationships. The rise of online dating platforms such as Tinder, which launched in 2012, and the continued growth of OkCupid and Match.com had begun to reshape the landscape…
Partner selection operates under a mathematical constraint that most people never consciously acknowledge. Each trait wished for in a romantic partner eliminates a substantial portion of the available dating pool. Wanting someone who is six feet tall removes 80 percent of men. Wanting someone who is…
Two of the most deeply embedded human preferences in partner selection, physical attractiveness and wealth, represent a mismatch between ancestral survival needs and modern relationship realities. For the vast majority of human history, when life expectancies sat below forty years and a third of…
Personality traits are the most powerful and underutilised tools for predicting whether a romantic relationship will endure. The Big Five model of personality, comprising openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism, provides an empirically validated framework for…
The way adults behave in romantic relationships is shaped profoundly by the attachment bonds they formed with their caregivers during infancy and childhood. Attachment theory, rooted in John Bowlby's observations of disturbed youth in the 1950s and Harry Harlow's groundbreaking monkey experiments,…
Knowledge about what makes relationships succeed is necessary but insufficient for finding enduring love. The gap between knowing what to look for in a partner and actually choosing partners with those traits is where most people fail. Behavioural activation, developed by Carl Lejuez at the…
Grant, an anxious engineering freshman at the University of Minnesota, loses his mother unexpectedly and spirals into constant worry. His therapist, a second-year psychology graduate student, guides him through anxiety treatment protocols. During a public outing at a coffee shop, Grant discovers…
Anna, a perfectionist high school senior who maintains a perfect grade point average, plays volleyball and teaches Sunday school, decides it is time to have sex for the first time. She pulls out one of her oversized yellow legal pads and lists three criteria for the ideal partner: hot, athletic and…
A piano teacher named Lydia, a doctoral student steeped in the music and history of the romantic era, introduces a critical lesson about modern love through the story of Frederic Chopin and George Sand. Chopin, the brilliant composer, fell into an intense infatuation with Sand, a novelist who was…
Huggins, an affable man with a stocky athletic build, lives in Colorado Springs, where military bases create a severe imbalance of single men to single women. One evening at a grocery store, he spots a stunning woman and becomes so overwhelmed by lust that he follows her around the aisles, unable to…
Two people from farming backgrounds meet on a blind date at a candlelit Italian restaurant. She finds him largely unimpressive: poor fashion sense, inadequate table manners and about twenty pounds overweight. But he drives a brand-new red Chevrolet Impala, and her weakness for fast cars earns him a…
Dan, an anxious freshman, admires Elyse from across the dormitory cafeteria for three weeks, watching her eat salad in the morning sunshine. On the fourth week, he approaches the salad bar with a plate already covered in pancakes and sausage links. With no room on his plate, he begins awkwardly…
During one of the most important high school football games the state had ever witnessed, Ethan, a rail-thin 150-pound quarterback, is tackled by the 200-pound linebacker Lars and sent flying out of bounds, crashing into the legs of Catherine, the opposing team's head cheerleader. As she falls…
Ten-year-old Micah serves as an unofficial member of the University of Maryland lacrosse team, lugging medical equipment and keeping statistics alongside towering athletes. During a game against Princeton, star defender Tyson collapses on the field after taking a vicious hit. His heart rate plummets…
Will and Katie arrive for their fourth session of couples therapy. Will sits with gauze taped to his forehead, his gray eyes darting with alertness. Katie, a Tae Bo and spinning instructor, monitors his expression for signs of grace. The previous night, Katie came home exhausted to find Will's dirty…
On New Year's Eve in a luxurious Brooklyn penthouse overlooking the East River, Daniel watches his girlfriend Sophia caress the pectorals of a former professional football player. She is stunningly beautiful, mysteriously tan for a Manhattan winter, with facial features sharp enough to cut glass. As…
By Ty Tashiro
Subject
Themes
Only three in ten married couples achieve enduring love. The remaining two-thirds end in divorce, permanent separation or chronic unhappiness. Understanding why so many relationships fail, and what distinguishes the successful minority, requires dismantling the concept of being "in love" into its component parts. Being in love requires two essential ingredients: liking (built on kindness, fairness and loyalty) and lust (driven by biological and hormonal urges). Liking declines at 3 percent per year in marriage, while lust declines at 8 percent, making investment in liking the smarter long-term strategy.