In love there are no guarantees. You can put yourself out there, fall in love and then spend weeks, months, years building a relationship with no formal assurance that things will even work out. While online dating does lead to a lot of happily ever afters, there’s always the chance you’ll invest time in someone, only to realize the future you’ve been envisioning with them is never going to materialize. It’s what makes dating so scary, but also exhilarating.
What if I told you that you could actually predict whether someone is marriage material? According to a new study published in Social Science Research, you can predict the marrying type.
Michael T. French, a sociology professor at the University of Miami, studied data of over 9,000 people from adolescence through young adulthood from 1994, when they were all in middle school, to 2009, when they were all grown up and aged between 29 and 34. Participants were rated on a scale of 1 to 5 on their looks, personality and personal hygiene/grooming — in other words, the things that would initially attract you to someone upon first meeting.
What’s interesting is, while men who rated higher on the attractiveness scale were more likely to get married, in general high scores on only one of the three criteria made both men and women more likely to get hitched. So, basically if researchers find you were lacking in one area, you can make up for it by excelling in another. For example, maybe you’re not the snappiest dresser, but you have an awesome personality. Bingo! You win.
As the creators of the study note, “Though certainly not definitive, these results suggest that individuals may be able to trade-off different personal traits to enhance their competitiveness in generating offers and finding a suitable mate.”
It’s good news for anyone looking to get hitched. And, if you feel you’re lacking in an area you can’t change – i.e. the looks department – all hope is not lost.
“The results also suggest they may be able to compensate for a deficiency in one desirable trait by enhancing the presence of another,” researchers said. “For example, a person lacking in physical attractiveness may choose to invest more in grooming in order to become a more attractive partner.”
You don’t have to be a supermodel to score a husband or wife – a great sense of personal style, presentation and/or personality can help even out the romantic score. In other words, you don’t have to be the complete package to get married, you just have to be a package that has some really great qualities. Living in a society where many of us feel the intense pressure to look a certain way and be awesome in all areas of our life, this news is refreshing to say the least.
Short of getting extreme plastic surgery (and even then…) there’s only so much we can do to change the looks that we were born with. But, we can still do things to put our best foot forward when it comes to being marriage material.
1. Be healthy.
File this one under “grooming and presentation.” Despite what ads for exercise videos and detox teas would have you believe, you don’t have to look like a fitness model to find a mate. But, you know that saying, “fix the inside and the outside will follow?” Being kind to your body is the first step. Instead of worrying about whether or not you have washboard abs, focus on stuff that actually makes you feel good. Put healthy food into your body. Get outside. Go on an adventure. Move your body. Stop being a jerk to yourself. Resolve to heal and let go of old emotional wounds so you can move forward. Learn to love your body in it’s current state. These are all actions that will make you a happier, healthier person and shine from the inside out. And yes, other people will take notice.
2. Take pride in your grooming.
Work with what you have. If you shave, shave. Clean your shoes. Dry clean that coat. Find clothes that you actually feel good in and that express your personal style (not just what you think other people expect you to wear.) If cargo pants and skate shoes are more your speed than golf shirts and khakis – own the heck out of your sartorial choices. Confidence is all about feeling good in your own skin.
3. Be yourself.
When I think of people with “great personalities,” they’re the ones who are unequivocally themselves. Stop trying to be who you think people want you to be and just do you. You want someone to want you for exactly who you are, right? So, embrace it.
