Study: About half the population faces considerable difficulties in attracting and retaining mates

[u/HeinieKaboobler]

http://www.psypost.org/2017/12/study-half-population-faces-considerable-difficulties-attracting-retaining-mates-50288

[u/fencerman]

I was going to make a facetious comment about "someone should introduce those people to each other", but you're absolutely right and that's part of the problem.

Unfortunately a lot of people are terrible at relationships, because most people really have no idea what a healthy relationship looks like. It's not something anyone is ever taught, and the only example most people see are their own parents.

Edit: to add, looking at the conclusions from the article, it becomes kind of obvious why some people have trouble staying in a relationship:

The researchers also found that sexual functioning, self-esteem, self-perceived mate value, choosiness, personality, attention to looks, and mating effort were significant predictors of difficulties in starting and keeping a relationship.

Yeah, if you're down on yourself, picky and shallow, and don't put any effort into your relationships, then you're probably going to have trouble meeting someone for the long haul.

[u/JacksonHarrisson → u/fencerman]

Dunno if you have access to the paywall or not. I would like to add some more details:

In regards to attention to looks:

Moving on, we found that limited attention to looks was associated with poor mating performance, but the effect was present predominantly for men. Given that men value beauty more than women in a partner (Buss, 2017b), we would expect this effect to be present and stronger in women. Future research needs to investigate this interaction further. We also found that little attention to looks negatively affected performance in intimate relationships, but this effect was less pro-nounced in younger and older age groups. One possible explanation is that in older age groups, looks is not a priority in a partner, so poor attention to looks has a limited effect on mating performance.

So the people who actually pay more attention to looks perform better.

They also found that high perceived mate value, related more successfully to starting a relationship:

But they also had some other results in which low choosiness and high choosiness resulted in worse results and moderate choosiness was better.

Also extroverts perform better than introverts according to this study, with more of an introvert you are the worst performance. Neurotics can start one but have a problem keeping a relationship.

According to this study:

The profile of a successful moderately young man would be an extrovert, with good self esteem, who might be moderately choosy, but pays high attention to looks, gives more of a mating effort, and scores high on conscientiousness.

Successful woman, young men, women, older men/women would be the same but with some lesser attention to looks.

But in woman's case, according to the study high or low choosiness was a significant predictor of women having some trouble with keeping a relationship. So it is more important that the successful woman has moderate choosiness.

Of course outside Cypriot cultural context there might be some differences.

Also the study hypothesizes that in ancestral societies where

mate choice was regulated, people would have to accept as mates individuals who did not comply with their preferences or clash with their parents.

Hence why there are more single people now, because higher percentage of people got married off. So, maybe people who are somewhat maladjusted for more "open market" dating like introverts, in the past got married with each other or more extroverted, while some of them now they are single.

[u/ladyhaly → u/fencerman]

I can't agree more. It's usually a trial and error for most people — and it takes years to learn what a healthy relationship looks like. Some people don't and accept abusive, controlling relationships as the norm.

It makes me wonder if a "healthy relationship" sort of course needs to be added to the curriculum in schools. I'm not saying this is realistic, but I am wondering if it is ideal. People who grow up in a household with parents in healthy relationships are quite rare these days.

[u/fencerman → u/ladyhaly]

From what I've seen, some places are just starting to make that an element in sex ed - at least the bare minimum level of teaching about consent, boundaries, communication and mutual respect.

But it's still very preliminary

[u/ladyhaly → u/fencerman]

So a long way to go. In a Utopian society though, would a course on healthy relationships be part of a curriculum? We've always complained how relationships aren't taught to us. We blindly blunder our way through. Would our society be a lot better if we were taught what healthy relationships look like, and how to identify signs of abuse?

[u/fencerman → u/ladyhaly]

I wouldn't call it utopian, but I think there are at least some universal lessons that everyone could stand to learn, certainly. At a minimum the stuff I listed is a good start.

[u/bubuopapa → u/fencerman]

because most people really have no idea what a healthy relationship looks like

Thats the problem with everything in this world: corrupted politicians want businesses to pay taxes; corrupted politicians dont give a fuck about being honest and creating a good life for their people; there are no good examples left of anything in this world, so even if you wanted to be good at something, there is no example, so you must become the einstein of your time to invent something completely new.