In her book, “How to Not Die Alone,” Harvard-trained behavioral scientist-turned dating coach, and Hinge’s Director of Relationship Science, Logan Ury, helps readers find and keep the connection of their dreams by making higher decisions along the best way.
The prom date vs. the life partner
Many of us don’t date for long-term viability. I call this pursuing The Prom Date. What’s a great prom date? Someone who looks great in pictures, gives you an evening stuffed with fun, and makes you look cool in front of your pals. Many of us finished highschool greater than a decade ago, and yet we’re still using the identical rubric to guage potential partners. Do you actually need to marry the Prom Date? To worry in case your partner goes to show you how to care for your aging parents? Or show as much as your kid’s parent-teacher conference? Or nurse you back to health after contracting a case of Montezuma’s revenge?
Those probably aren’t the questions you ask yourself if you first meet someone. The answers have little bearing on whether you would like to kiss the person or exit with them again. (And who desires to take into consideration diarrhea on a primary date!?) But if you’re in search of a long-term partner, you wish someone who will probably be there for you in the course of the highs and the lows. Someone you possibly can depend on. Someone to make decisions with. The Life Partner.
There are many individuals with whom you possibly can share a tryst but far fewer with whom you possibly can construct a life. When you’re enthusiastic about who to marry, don’t ask yourself: What would a love story with this person appear like? Instead, ask: Can I make a life with this person? That’s the elemental distinction.
But you’re not seventeen anymore. If you actually are looking for a long-term relationship with a committed partner, you might want to stop in search of a Prom Date and begin looking for a Life Partner.
What we get mistaken about what matters
In addition to coaching, I also work as a matchmaker and set my clients up on dates. As a matchmaker, I’ve met with dozens of individuals to learn what they’re in search of in a partner. Hundreds have filled out the matchmaking form on my website to hitch “Logan’s List.” Through this process, I’ve collected enough data to grasp what people think matters most in a serious partner. We can compare that to what the tutorial field of relationship science tells us actually matters for long-term relationship success.
We can thank John Gottman for a lot of these relationship science insights. He spent a few years studying romantic relationships. He and his colleague Robert Levenson brought couples into an observational research laboratory dubbed the “Love Lab” by the media. There, he recorded them discussing their relationship. He asked couples to share the story of how they met after which recount a recent fight. He even invited couples to spend a weekend in an apartment he’d decked out with cameras to watch how they interacted during on a regular basis moments.
Years after they participated within the apartment study, Gottman followed up with the couples to envision on their relationships. They fell into two camps: the “masters,” couples who were still happily married; and the “disasters,” couples who had either broken up or remained together unhappily. He studied the unique tapes of those two sorts of couples to learn what patterns separated the masters from the disasters.
When we take a look at Gottman’s findings, and the work of other relationship scientists, we will see clearly which qualities contribute to long-term relationship success. In other words, the research tells us what makes an excellent Life Partner. However, these aren’t the traits my matchmaking clients are likely to ask for. Instead, they give attention to short-term desirability—or the characteristics of an excellent Prom Date.
What matters lower than we expect
Not only will we undervalue the qualities that matter for long-term relationships, we overvalue irrelevant ones. People are likely to fixate on certain superficial characteristics and ignore the much more necessary aspects which can be correlated with long-term relationship happiness (more on those in a moment).
Superficial qualities like looks and money matter less for long-term relationship success than people think they do because lust fades and other people adapt to their circumstances. The same goes for similar personalities and similar hobbies.
What matters greater than we expect
When I work with clients, I rarely hear them say their primary goal is to seek out someone who’s emotionally stable. Or good at making hard decisions. Sometimes they’ll mention kindness, but normally after telling me their height minimum and maximum. And yet these are all examples of qualities that relationship scientists have found contribute far more to long-term relationship success than superficial traits or shared interests.
It’s not that folks don’t know that these items matters; quite, they only are likely to underestimate the worth of those attributes when deciding whom up to now. (One reason is that these qualities could be hard to measure. They could also be discernible only after spending time with someone. This also explains why dating apps give attention to the easier-to-measure, matter-less-than-you-think traits.) If you would like to discover a Life Partner, look for somebody with the next traits: loyalty, kindness, emotional stability, and a growth mindset. You want an individual with whom you possibly can grow, make hard decisions, and argue with constructively.
Leaving the prom date on the prom
As you’ve seen, the things that matter lower than we expect for long-term relationship success are likely to be superficial traits which can be easy to discern if you first meet someone. And the things that matter more normally reveal themselves only if you’re in a relationship or have gone on no less than a number of dates. That’s why you may have to intentionally shift your approach as a way to give attention to what really matters.
Excerpt from How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science That Will Help You Find Love by Logan Ury. Copyright © 2021 by Logan Ury. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc., N.Y. All rights reserved.
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