Make a mental list of attributes you’d require in your perfect mate. Do you picture a handsome, tall man, with six figures in the bank, a sharp wit, a sweet sensibility and an Ivy League diploma to round him out?
Well, I have a bridge to sell you.
That’s because in love, as with genies, we only get three wishes, says relationship expert Ty Tashiro. The more traits you pick that are above the average, the lower the statistical odds that you’ll find a match. And three is the tipping point.
Imagine you have a room of 100 men. If you choose mediocrity — the trifecta of average income, looks and height — you’ll have, statistically, only 13 suitors out of 100 to choose from. Increase your criteria to an attractive man at least 6-feet tall who makes $87,000, and you’re left with only one.
Add another trait — funny, kind, even a political affiliation — and it becomes statistically impossible to find him out of 100 men.
Tashiro, a professor at the Center for Addictions, Personality, and Emotion Research at the University of Maryland, has run the numbers and thinks we’re approaching this whole finding-a-mate thing wrong. He urges singles to be more statistical in their approach to the “irrational” world of dating.
“All this wishing has led to a case of wanting everything and getting nothing,” Tashiro writes in his first book, “The Science of Happily Ever After: What Really Matters in the Quest for Enduring Love” (Harlequin). Dating should be “about learning to weed out the undesirable traits and rethinking our views about what really matters in a romantic partner.”
Our fairy-tale view of romance — 88 percent of adults believe in soul mates — has contributed to the fact that although 90 percent of people will marry in their lifetimes, only three in 10 will find enduring love, Tashiro says. (He gets this statistic by adding unhappy marriages and separations to the 50 percent divorce rate).
When finding a long-term partner, don’t waste your wishes, he warns.
Well, I have a bridge to sell you.That’s because in love, as with genies, we only get three wishes, says relationship expert Ty Tashiro. The more traits you pick that are above the average, the lower the statistical odds that you’ll find a match. And three is the tipping point.
Imagine you have a room of 100 men. If you choose mediocrity — the trifecta of average income, looks and height — you’ll have, statistically, only 13 suitors out of 100 to choose from. Increase your criteria to an attractive man at least 6-feet tall who makes $87,000, and you’re left with only one.
Add another trait — funny, kind, even a political affiliation — and it becomes statistically impossible to find him out of 100 men.
Tashiro, a professor at the Center for Addictions, Personality, and Emotion Research at the University of Maryland, has run the numbers and thinks we’re approaching this whole finding-a-mate thing wrong. He urges singles to be more statistical in their approach to the “irrational” world of dating.
“All this wishing has led to a case of wanting everything and getting nothing,” Tashiro writes in his first book, “The Science of Happily Ever After: What Really Matters in the Quest for Enduring Love” (Harlequin). Dating should be “about learning to weed out the undesirable traits and rethinking our views about what really matters in a romantic partner.”
Our fairy-tale view of romance — 88 percent of adults believe in soul mates — has contributed to the fact that although 90 percent of people will marry in their lifetimes, only three in 10 will find enduring love, Tashiro says. (He gets this statistic by adding unhappy marriages and separations to the 50 percent divorce rate).
When finding a long-term partner, don’t waste your wishes, he warns.
by Susannah Cahalan, NY Post | Read more:
Image: Shutterstock
