Dr. Gad Saad

After that, it gives you zero weight.

What gives you a lot more happiness, if I can answer that?

Well, there are several things that I discuss in the book, but let me mention a few.

Overwhelmingly, and you mentioned your wife,

Overwhelmingly, the singular decision that you'll make that will either impart great happiness to you or great misery, depending on whether you made the right choice or not, is the choice of mate that you make.

Now, there is no foolproof method, right?

Life is about navigating through statistical minefields, right?

And so statistically speaking, this is what is most likely to increase your chances of having successful marriage.

You ready?

In evolutionary psychology, we have two principles.

One is called assortative mating, or birds of a feather flock together.

The other one is called opposites attract.

For short-term mating, opposites attract works well.

I might be a very introverted person that is very sexually restrained.

The person that I am connecting with might be the exact opposite, and that creates a complementarity that ends up

leading us to have a nice trice behind the bushes but for long-term success for long-term mating a marriage birds of a feather overwhelmingly predict success now birds of a feather flocking on which feathers here we're talking about whether you share the same foundational values so if i for example i'm a outspoken atheist and you

you know, organize your entire life around your religion, well, it's nice to think that love conquers all, but you really are starting on the wrong statistical foot, right?

Because my atheism is so important to me, your religiosity is so important to you, we're going to have problem down the line.

And so,

Birds of a feather flock together is incredibly predictive of future success.