Paul Eastwick

But our romantic partners, it's not that they don't acknowledge those issues, but they have ways of putting them in a box.

So your friend also might have been like, why are you with Erica?

Like, she's such a stress case all the time.

But to you, you would honestly say back would be something along the lines of, yeah, but like, it's kind of exciting.

That's why I love being with her.

I never know what's coming next.

And you're not lying.

You're honestly perceiving her as

in that particular way when nobody else does.

Again, these sorts of biases are really important for people's ability to maintain their relationships.

Otherwise, we'd get so frustrated with all the negative aspects of our partners, we wouldn't be able to keep it up for long.

Yeah.

So it is true that people tend to marry other folks who are of similar levels of attractiveness.

We also tend to marry folks who are like similar levels of SES too, right?

Socioeconomic status, income, and things along those lines.

That's usually because that's who you're meeting.

But on the attractiveness side...

Usually because, yeah, when people do form relationships quickly, when they have initial impressions of each other, yeah, the attractive people are better at attracting the other folks who are going to be similarly hot.

But ultimately, if your relationship is matched or mismatched, it doesn't predict that much.

It doesn't predict how long your relationship is going to last.