Name: The Science of Happily Ever After
Rating: 4.4 (44 reviews)
Author: Ty Tashiro

What’s in it for me? Find out how to make your “happily ever after” a reality.

If you’re dreaming of finding your Mr. or Ms. Right through a dramatic act of fate, your eyes meeting, passion erupting, and happily ever after ensuing … then prepare to be disillusioned. Did you know that you are most likely trying to choose a mate using “outdated software?” In other words, your brain is wired to seek a mate based on survival even though what you really want is a forever kind of love. Those are two very different goals that require very different processes.

In our Blink of The Science of Happily Ever After we’ll talk about why you only get three wishes for a relationship, go into the history of humanity and why we’re suddenly so ill-equipped to choose a lifelong partner, and lastly, we’ll deliver to you the three wishes you should be looking for and how to systemize how you identify and prioritize these traits.

Choosing wisely

Anna was a senior in high school, a top student, and very organized. One day, she decided that she didn’t want to leave high school with her virginity intact. So she made a resolution that she’d finally have sex with someone.

When it came time to choose the lucky guy, she decided she wanted someone good-looking, athletic, and Catholic. She set her sights on Jake, who fit the bill perfectly. They went on some dates, and finally, the moment came to do the deed.

They were so aflame with passion that they forgot to use protection. Almost as soon as it was finished, Anna looked at Jake and started noticing all the things about him that weren’t very attractive. She spent the next couple of weeks in fear that she may have conceived a child with someone she didn’t even like very much.

This story is the perfect microcosm for what goes wrong in relationships. Before we pick apart Anna’s story to find what she did wrong and what she did right, let’s define love.

Love, at least for this Blink, is defined as “liking plus lusting.”

Liking consists of three traits: loyalty, kindness, and fairness.

Studies show that lust declines faster than liking, which isn’t surprising. It’s common knowledge that the “honeymoon” doesn’t last forever. With that knowledge, the obvious solution would be for people to prioritize liking someone a bit more heavily than lusting for them.

If that sounds a little too cerebral and unromantic, then brace yourself for the next part. You get three, and only three, wishes for your future partner. The reason why is a matter of statistics and probability.

Scientists use the Drake equation to determine the possible number of planets in the universe that might support life. Essentially, it’s a process of elimination. For example, in order to support life, the planet needs to be orbiting a star like the sun. That immediately narrows down the possibilities.

When it comes to finding a mate, your three wishes also narrow down your pool of possibilities dramatically, especially if you prioritize some of the rarer traits like a guy over six feet tall or a woman with a PhD.

As unromantic as it sounds, achieving a happily ever after is about statistical probability.

Let’s take a quick detour into why that sounds unromantic. We’re inundated with fairy tales from our earliest days, and many of us continue partaking in fairy tale stories via movies or romantic novels.

Meeting someone we’re attracted to is exciting. It floods us with endorphins. There’s a feeling of fate about it. We can only see positive traits. It feels like this was meant to be.

Unfortunately, it’s the belief that meeting your happily ever after is an act of fate rather than intent that likely leads to only 4 out of 10 couples achieving it.

Back to those three wishes. Maybe this number is upsetting. Maybe you have a top ten list of traits. Prioritizing your top three wishes isn’t about settling. Most people you meet will have more than three of your favorite traits. But to set yourself up for the best chance at a happily ever after, it’s important to be deliberate and purposeful about prioritizing your top three traits.

One thing Anna got right was that she chose only three traits – good-looking, athletic, and Catholic. What she did wrong was prioritize lust over liking.

Fortunately, she didn’t get pregnant and she learned to prioritize liking over lust when choosing her top three traits. In that way, she was able to find someone she has a much higher probability of living happily ever after with.

Why we’re romantic

Frédéric Chopin was a famous composer in the 1800s, right in the midst of the Romantic period. He was a small, sickly man suffering from tuberculosis.

One night at a gala, he met a woman named Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, otherwise known by her pen name, George Sand. She was six years his senior and frequently spoke of him as though he was a small child.

Getting to happily ever after

Dan had a huge crush on Elyse. She was one of the first in the cafeteria each morning which was where Dan originally caught sight of her. Beautiful, composed, and put together, yes, it was a little odd that she ate salad for breakfast, but that didn’t matter too much to Dan.

He spent weeks wishing he could talk to her before he finally got up the nerve. He took his pancakes and headed her way, but he was a little embarrassed about his breakfast, so he stopped by the salad bar to try and fit some greens onto his plate. As he stopped to evaluate his choices, he looked up to see Elyse at his side. She smiled and invited him back to her table.

Final Summary

Relationships don’t have to be a matter of fate or chance. In fact, it’s best if they aren’t. While we’ve been hardwired since the beginning of our species to seek mates based on survivability, in the last 150 years lifespans have increased and people are now able to pick mates based on preference. Unfortunately, our mate-selection processes are still wired for survival. So we have to take a deliberate and purposeful approach to dating. This includes focusing on the top three traits we want that predict the longevity of a relationship.

Worum geht es in The Science of Happily Ever After?

The Science of Happily Ever After (2014) digs into the history of mating throughout the history of the human species and answers the question of why some couples live happily ever after and some don’t. Part history and anthropology lesson, part self-help, it offers explanations and advice for anyone seeking love.