Dr Paul Eastwick

The boxes that you think are so important, I can tell you, they go right out the window once you meet face-to-face, for good or for ill.

Um, I think, I think, look in broad strokes, they do get some of these things, right?

I mean, they think they want somebody that, that they find intelligent and somebody that they think has got a good sense of humor and, and somebody who's going to be loyal to them.

And indeed, like these are qualities that matter.

It's really important that we feel that our partners have these things.

If anything, both men and women underestimate how much attractiveness is important and

And here, what I'm really talking about is the feeling you have that somebody else is attractive.

I think sometimes both women and even men to some extent think it's a little shallow if I put attractiveness at the top of my must-have attributes.

But it is important to think that your partner is sexy.

It's especially important to think your partner's a good lover.

I mean, we found that that was number one in terms of what actually mattered.

in terms of predicting how happy people were in their relationships.

If you ask people to rate that on a scale, it's not quite so high.

So those are a few of the examples.

But I think in large part,

What makes people happy in relationships is, yeah, you want to think your partner has all those things, but let's also don't forget about the dyadic stuff.

It's like, if I had a crappy day, do I feel like I can talk to you about it?

And you're going to listen to what went wrong with my day.

You're going to try to bolster me back up.

If something good happened to me, are you more excited about it than I am?