What do you look for in a partner? Or what were you looking for while you were on the hunt? Do you want someone sweet, polite, and considerate, or would you rather someone bold, adventurous, and courageous?
Our taste in romantic partners is something unique to us, something that's shaped by our years of experiences, our particular personalities, and our hopes for the future. That doesn't mean that there aren't common trends, though, both in what people want and don't want from their other half.
Finding a partner that's right for you can feel like an uphill battle, but it doesn't have to be.
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We all have specific traits we want in a partner, of course, but did you know that there's another layer to that? A layer in which we assume what traits other people want in a partner. We're taught to believe that everybody wants things like honesty, creativity, or a good sense of humor, so we try to adopt those traits ourselves in hopes of improving our chances of finding our significant other.
Thankfully, a 2018 study did a lot of that work for us, surveying the public to find out what traits people really look for in a relationship. Though, there's an interesting twist to their findings that's actually rather surprising.
The survey, based in Australia, asked 383 people to rank the characteristics they desire most in a prospective partner. The top four answers were kindness, easygoingness, intelligence, and physical attractiveness.
Now, some of those traits are subjective. What one person finds attractive could be a major turnoff for someone else, for example. Otherwise, though, these traits are pretty standard fare. Of course we want our partners to be kind, relaxed, and intelligent. The real surprise came when these traits were looked at even further.
Some traits, namely intelligence and easygoingness, have an upper limit. If someone is too intelligent or too easygoing, those qualities suddenly become less attractive.
As Dr. Gilles Gignac, the first author of the study published in the British Journal of Psychology, explained, "Previously published research suggests that elevated levels of intelligence may incite feelings of insecurity in some people, which may reduce desirability.
"Correspondingly, exceptional easygoingness may be viewed as an indication of a lack of confidence or ambition."
The team behind the study was able to narrow it down, coming to the conclusion that once someone was in the top 10% of either intelligence or easygoingness, their attractiveness started to decline.
However, being in the top 10% for physical attractiveness or kindness had no effect, good or bad, on the person's desirability.
"So, on average, there doesn't appear to be any gain to being exceptionally kind or exceptionally physically attractive in the context of attracting a romantic partner," Dr. Gignac said.
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Further research found that there are some people who are attracted to very high intelligence in particular, but they were unable to pin down the exact type of person who finds that high intelligence alluring. You might expect it to be other highly intelligent people, but in fact, that was the only demographic that researchers could confidently say isn't seeking out equally intelligent partners.
"This result is surprising, considering there is assortative mating for intelligence that indicates a correlation between people in a romantic relationship having similar intelligence levels."
As mentioned, some of the traits this study listed are subjective, and so are the traits people want in a partner. While there are certain trends, we're still all unique people with unique tastes, tastes that matter and are important to us.
So don't let fears about being too much or not enough of one particular thing stop you from putting yourself out there. You don't need to force yourself into a mold of what you think a perfect partner should be. Just like you have your own taste, so does everyone else. You are already exactly what someone out there is looking for. You just have to find them.
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