Science of Attraction, Compatibility & Romance | Dr. Paul Eastwick

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  'Mate value' markets describe first meetings well and ongoing relationships poorly

  Eastwick, a psychology professor at UC Davis, agrees that marketplace thinking fits initial attraction among strangers, where everyone notices the same surface traits. As people spend time together, those market forces weaken. Attractiveness never stops mattering entirely, but it matters much less once people actually know each other.

• 02

  Dating apps are among the most unequal 'markets' there are

  Right swipes and messages pile up on a small group of the most popular profiles, a skew Eastwick likens to a kleptocracy. Regular acquaintance is far less extreme. Because app companies care about engagement and probably need to recruit women onto male-heavy platforms, he doubts their incentives line up with users forming relationships. Matchmaking firms, which need happy dates, are more willing to share data with researchers.

• 03

  People disagree about who is attractive more than you might think

  When two people make quick 'hot or not' judgments about someone they have briefly met, they agree only about two-thirds of the time. That disagreement levels the playing field: different people pursue different partners instead of everyone chasing the same few.

• 04

  Attraction usually starts middling and builds through shared moments

  The typical first impression in relationships that last is 'fine', not fireworks. Attraction accumulates as you collect moments in which this particular person seems funny, smart, a good listener or hot to you, often things others never get to see. Reciprocal support during a unique shared experience is a common origin of attraction, even if it sounds less exciting than a spark.

• 05

  Copying other people's preferences is a junior-high strategy

  'Mate choice copying' means using who everyone else likes as a signal. Eastwick and Huberman see maturity as trusting your own subjective experience of a real person: 'she's hot but I'm not feeling it', or 'he looks unsettled, but I see a spark'.

• 06

  Men and women want the same traits in people they actually meet

  On questionnaires, men say attractiveness matters more and women say earning potential matters more. In speed dating, men liked ambitious women slightly more, and women liked ambitious men slightly more by an identical amount. Across roughly 20 years of work and 40-plus countries, those gender differences largely disappear when people evaluate real, met partners rather than profiles.

• 07

  Both sexes prefer slightly younger partners when it comes to second dates

  In matchmaking data covering about 4,000 people, where men in the pool averaged about four years older than the women, men were a bit more interested in younger dates. So were women, even though many had told matchmakers not to set them up with younger men. The effect was small in both cases.

• 08

  Men are consistently the more eager partner

  Recent reviews find a medium-sized, consistent difference: men want the relationship more, say 'I love you' first, push for exclusivity sooner and think more about exes after a breakup. Women more often initiate breakups. Eastwick's explanation is that many men lack the social-support networks women have, so they lean harder on a partner.

• 09

  Happy partners automatically downgrade tempting alternatives, but fantasies can rebound

  Satisfied partners rate alternatives as less desirable than they are ('derogation of alternatives'), which Eastwick calls a protective mechanism. Casual messaging with others can still escalate, so it is 'playing with fire'. Yet in studies where people fantasize about someone other than their partner, desire for the partner also rises, which echoes Esther Perel's view.

• 10

  Feeling your partner is a good lover is among the strongest predictors of relationship satisfaction

  The subjective sense that a partner is, or would be, a good lover tracks how positively people feel about the relationship overall and whether they want it to continue. Eastwick warns against fatalism: desire waxes and wanes with kids and stress and can be rekindled. Years of no desire, however, also erode self-worth.