Commentarama Dating Advice Goes Scientific

You laughed when we gave dating advice, but we knew what we were doing! Indeed, science has now proven what Commentarama already knew: successful dating is all about ideology.

The study in question took a look at married couples and tried to determine what factor or factors were most likely to predict a successful marriage. And what did these scientists find? Well, it turns out that political affiliation is by far the single most important factor. Yep. It’s more important than looks or personality or anything else. In other words, matching up with someone with the same political views is your best shot of finding someone to marry and staying married after you do the deed.

Said researcher John Alford:

"It turns out that people place more emphasis on finding a mate who is a kindred spirit with regard to politics, religion and social activity than they do on finding someone of like physique or personality. It suggests that, perhaps, if you're looking for a long-term romantic relationship, skip 'What's your sign?' and go straight to 'Obama or Palin?' And if you get the wrong answer, just walk away."

Yes, walk away. Don’t even waste your time trying to sway over that stupid liberal/conservative/libertarian/communist/fascist/socialist/anarchist/Ron Pauler/independent, it will only end in a messy divorce with shots fired and a heartbreaking division of the commemorative Elvis plates.

Now that you know this, you should feel happier. Do you know why? Because we’ve narrowed your choices and that makes you happier. . . I’ll bet you didn’t know that? It’s true though. Another recent study found that the more choices a person is given in terms of choosing partners for dates, the less happy the person was and the less successful they ultimately were at dating. They aren't really sure why this is true, but it seems to be.

Personally I would say it's "choice paralysis" caused by a combination of having too many inputs to make a rational decision combined with an increased fear that you made the wrong choice. . . like when you see more than 12 donuts you want.

In any event, this makes me wonder. People are marrying later and having fewer kids all over the globe. Many explanations are offered for this, but none of them actually work consistently across countries. In other words, if something like economic success were the cause, then we would be seeing a consistent fall in each country as they get richer. . . but we’re not, the falling rates are not consistent. The same problem is true with other explanations like availability of birth control, employment of women outside the home, culture, religion or lack of religion. I wonder if the problem isn’t staring us in the face in this study?

In the past, people tended to live in the towns they grew up in and they really only got to know a small circle of people, i.e. they had limited opportunities to marry. Thus, this study says they should have been more successful at finding mates and happier with their choices. Today, by comparison, people live in different cities at various points throughout their lives and careers. They're also more likely to run into possible mates at college or at their jobs than in the past, and then there is the internet. Perhaps all this extra choice is causing "choice paralysis" and ruining it for everybody?

Hmmm.

Any way, don’t date outside your politics and start ruling out more of your choices before you even start looking. You’ll be a dating monster in no time!

You're welcome.

Thoughts on any of these theories?