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The art of Attraction: what makes two people compatible?

Samantha Rhodes, Managing Editor

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Nearly everyone has, at some point in their lives, made a “wish list” for their ideal partner.

Our checklists can be incredibly long, specific or obsessively detailed. But when we come face-to-face with potential lovers, somehow our logic often dissipates.

The science behind romantic attraction and compatibility still puzzles scientists. To understand why we pick certain partners over others, they’ve conducted a bamboozling number of studies ranging from examining facial symmetry to subconscious reactions after smelling sweaty T-shirts.

Even pupil dilation can be an indicator of sexual orientation and arousal, according to researcher Ritch Savin-Williams, a developmental psychologist at Cornell University.

“There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that romantic compatibility is complex and variable,” said Assistant Professor of Public Health Kimberly McBride, who also has a Ph.D. in health behavior. “There is no magic formula because humans are immensely complicated and shaped…by factors that interact in ways that we do not completely understand.”

 

It’s in your genes

Sneak a peak at someone who makes your heart flutter — that guy with the chiseled jawline and washboard abs or the slender gal whose clothes seem to hug every curve just right. Millions of neurochemicals and hormones just exploded in your brain.

Oxytocin, noradrenalin, dopamine and melanocortin just roused your attention to sexual stimuli. Give up trying to be rational — you’ve surrendered the reins to biology.

Relationship expert Wendy Walsh, also a professor of psychology at California State University, appears regularly on The Today Show, Good Morning America and Inside Edition.

Walsh breaks down biological compatibility into two components: sexual compatibility and neurochemistry. Contrary to what it sounds like, Walsh said sexual compatibility is determined by disparate immune systems and pheromones.

“Immune systems actually combine and become stronger, so for survival of the fittest, you want to mate with somebody who has more immunities to different bugs than you do — a different immune system,” Walsh said. “And the way that Mother Nature signals these different immune systems are through body odors — pheromones.”

In fact, several studies conclude our bodies’ naturally-occurring scents serve as attractiveness ratings.

“One study had heterosexual men smell T-shirts worn by women and examined the impact on subjects’ levels of testosterone,” McBride said. “What the researchers found was that men’s testosterone levels increased when they smelled the shirt of a woman near ovulation. Another study looked at human body odor and found that heterosexual men were least attracted to the body odor of men who were gay.”

If studies about pheromones are correct, McBride believes that by using perfumes, colognes and hygiene products, we may actually be destroying our bodies’ natural scent-based attraction methods.

But don’t start skipping showers to find a date just yet. According to Walsh, neurochemistry also plays a defining role in two people’s ability to tolerate one another.

Walsh divides people into two categories: those with “very wide mood swings” or drama queens, and those who are “wide and narrow” or more rationally driven and practical.

“What research has shown is that the most compatible couples are those where at least one of the pair has a relatively narrow range of mood swings,” Walsh said. “If you get two people who both have a wide range of mood swings, they’re almost guaranteed to have a ticket to divorce court in a few years.”

 

Socialization under way

With a single, steamy glance, the two of you know how to light a fire. But as time passes, your relationship will wither if you have nothing in common.

Similarities in age, education, income level and religion are social factors that generally improve compatibility. But when rating what’s most important in a potential partner, McBride said cross-cultural research has found that kindness, understanding and intelligence top the list.

According to Patricia Case, sociology and anthropology department chair of the University of Toledo, intellectual stimulation is a form of attraction that might lead you to prefer one person’s company over others.’

Consequently, according to McBride, we can find someone emotionally attractive without also being physically attracted to them, and vice versa.

“In some of my own research on women’s sexual arousal, we found that some women said they were most sexually-aroused by their partner when that person was engaged in a task where they displayed a talent, like playing the piano, while other women said that they were most turned on by a partner that was able to stimulate them physically,” McBride says.

 

Peas in a pod or opposites take all?

According to McBride, a large body of evidence suggests we’re attracted to those similar to ourselves. But like the lure of a revving engine, we’re also drawn to the thrill — making partners starkly different from us quite appealing.

“What science has found is that the idea may be true in the short-term because some people are drawn to novelty,” McBride said. “But over time, these relationships don’t tend to last unless there are some basic points of similarity and partner differences have to compliment one another.”

The alignment of attitudes and values, according to McBride, is crucial for a healthy relationship.

“Things like personality can be more variable or activities — like if you like a certain activity and your partner doesn’t — that kind of thing doesn’t matter as long as you’re on the same page about how you approach the world,” McBride said.

 

Digging into the past

According to Walsh, all humans develop a predisposition for a certain romantic attachment style within their first three years of life.

This “blueprint for love” is molded by your childhood environment — whether pleasant, disturbing, nurturing or abusive — and will be part of your lifelong psychology.

“That blueprint then becomes their roadmap for love and they go out into the adult world and start to become attracted to people who trigger those same phenomenon in their brain that reminds them of what happened in their early life,” Walsh said.

If you find yourself in a rut falling for the same type of person over and over again, examine your blueprint.

“That’s why girls who are victims of trauma in early life — sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse — tend to love those bad boys, the ones that can’t love them back because this time they’re going to make daddy love them, right?” Walsh said.

 

Finding the one(s)

It’s a hot debate — do we each have a divinely ordained soul mate or is happily ever after open to anyone?

The experts are going with the latter.

“I don’t believe in soul mates. I think it’s a nice idea, but I don’t believe it,” Case said. “If soul mates really existed, our divorce rate wouldn’t be as high as it is and people wouldn’t fall in and out of love so frequently. My personal opinion is that we’re compatible with a whole bunch of different people and we can make a relationship with any of the people that we’re compatible with work.”

If you want to narrow the field and find compatible relationship partners quickly, Case said “you need to not hook up.”

Avoid an “undefined sex and text relationship,” as Walsh frankly puts it. Instead, you should be “asking questions about values and family long before you’re having sex.”

“Don’t be afraid to get to the real issues on the first date,” Walsh said. “Ask about family of origin, what kind of relationship did you have with your mother, how close are you to your family?”

Because of the “mere-exposure effect,” McBride explains that we’re often attracted to people we encounter more frequently, which is why people fall in love with someone they grew up with.

She advises people to step away from computers and cell phones to “get out and do things that allow you to meet people who might be like you.”

Sex might just tip the scale in your favor — that is, if you wait.

According to Walsh’s book, “The 30-Day Love Detox,” having sex within 30 days of meeting someone equates to a 90 percent chance of breaking up in one year. However, if you wait 31 to 90 days, there’s a one in four chance you’ll be together one year later. And your chances only get better the longer you hold off.

Once sex starts, Walsh warns that you lose your ability to fairly assess your partner, comparing it to “taking a drug.”

“No matter what they say or do, you think they’re perfect,” she said.

Rather than actively seeking out relationships, Case encourages people to build a life that makes them happy.

“I think the best relationships honestly grow out of friendships and the best friendships grow out of the relationships that you build while you’re building a life you’re content with,” Case said. “If you’re out there looking for a relationship, that’s your way of saying there’s something about my life that I’m not happy with, and you need to build a life you’re happy with. Then you’re not looking for somebody to fix it.”

 

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Serving the University of Toledo community since 1919.
The art of Attraction: what makes two people compatible?