Relationships, romantic and otherwise, can sometimes seem to be magical or kismet, or they “just happen!” Just like this old song says, “Some enchanted evening/ When you find your true love./ When you feel her call you across a crowded room,/ Then fly to her side/And make her your own.”
However, love is actually deeply seated in science. The main drive in an animal’s (and humans are animals) mind is self-preservation: staying alive. After that, it’s procreation, aka dating and mating.
We have this huge, instinctual drive to find a mate, and it can push our brain, our emotions, and our hormones to wild extremes.
Dating is a mix of biology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. I consider these to be the four tenets of humanity. Most things we do are a mix of them.
To understand the reasons why people do the things they do, we need to focus on these different aspects of dating. It’ll reveal the rhythms and motivations behind others’ actions. That way, we can maximize our benefits and minimize our losses in the dating world.
Luckily, lots of great places and people are doing some research into what makes us tick and how we can do better. So let’s take a look at some of the best reasons to study relationships!
1. Relationship Status is a Predictor of Happiness
Dr. Gary Lewandowski is a professor of psychology at Monmouth University as well as Chief Love Scientist at Love Strategies. His book, Stronger Than You Think: The 10 Blind Spots That Undermine Your Relationship…and How to See Past Them, offers his latest insights on all things relationships.
In an exclusive interview, he shared with me, “Your relationships are the single biggest influence on your entire life… Your choice of relationship partner is the one decision that impacts literally every other single decision in your entire life… It impacts your physical health, your mental health, your happiness, your well-being… There is literally no area of your entire life that your quality of relationship does not impact.”
I’ve seen the data on this, and it’s pretty telling! When you are in a healthy relationship, the whole world changes.
You produce more dopamine and serotonin, which makes you happier. You have someone to bounce ideas off of, support you, and mitigate risks.
People say that the world is set up for couples – and you see this in tax breaks, insurance, restaurants, and other subtle ways.
2. False Beliefs & Tropes Muddy the Dating Pool
I (only half) joke that I have seen a generation of women, singing, “Someday My Prince Will Come,” without doing any work on themselves or to participate in the courtship.
At the same time, I’ve met a generation of men who think grand gestures like filling a room full of flowers (Gilmore Girls), hijacking a PA system to sing a song to your crush (10 Things I Hate About You), unrealistic first dates (500 Days of Summer), or epic proposals (Glee) are the way to a woman’s heart.
Narrator: They are not.
Dr. Wendy Walsh is an expert on love. Host of the podcast Mating Matters, author of three books on relationships, a psychology professor, and host of The Dr. Wendy Walsh show on iHeart Radio.
She was named Person of the Year in 2017 by Time Magazine as a Silence Breaker who helped pave the way for the #MeToo movement.
She told me, “There are so many myths in our culture. The myth that love is about luck, not skills. The myth that it might happen to you like it’s Cupid and their bow. And the myth that relationship is not a science when we know very much it’s a biological, psychological, and sociological science.”
All these myths and misunderstandings surround romantic love, so it’s worth looking into the science to know what the reality is.
3. Technology is Always Changing
Any time a new technology or tool is developed, there’s a figuring out process, and a group of naysayers who always dunk on it. Here’s Plautus in 250 BC complaining about the invention of the SUNDIAL!
Hungry Parasite:
The gods confound the man who first found out
How to distinguish hours! Confound him too
Who in this place set up a sundial
To cut and hack my days so wretchedly
Into small portions! When I was a boy,
My belly was my sundial: one more sure,
Truer, and more exact than any of them.
A Benedictine monk from the 1500s didn’t like the printing press: “They shameless print… material which may, alas, inflame impressionable youths.”
In 1985, we got this tirade against the telephone from the Seventh World of Chan Buddhism:
“The telephone is the devil’s instrument. Ideally, anyone on the Path should have his telephone disconnected, with a special ceremony performed as the line is severed. Had the device been around in Siddhartha’s day, the 6th Precept would have been non-telephoning.”
So do modern-day experts believe all of this new technology like smartphones, apps and the internet good for dating? It’s a mixed bag.
Dr. Liesel Sharabi is an associate professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication and Director of the Relationships & Technology Lab at Arizona State University. Two months ago, she announced that she and her co-founder were launching the Modern Love Collective (MLC).
“More and more people are turning to social media, they’re turning to dating apps to find partners.” Dr. Sharibi shared with me. “And yet at the same time, more people are single today than, compared to, say, 30 years ago. And so in a lot of ways, there are signs the technology is failing people.”
4. Young Daters Carry Healthy Love Lessons Into Adulthood
I think it’s important to teach students about relationships in a formal education setting. After all, love doesn’t start when you’re an adult.
In the UK, in 2014, the Relationships Alliance called upon the Department of Education, “to develop standards for those delivering Relationship and Sex Education and set an expectation that schools recognize that developing relational capability is an important function of education and a child’s future.”
Dr. Thao Ha is a developmental psychologist and director of the @HEART Lab (Healthy Experiences Across Relationships and Transitions Lab). Her research explores how emerging technologies (social media, AI, and VR) reshape adolescent romantic relationships at a time when love is at its most pure and vulnerable, yet profoundly formative in shaping lifelong love, relationship patterns, and mental health.
She is a co-founder of the Modern Love Collective and thinks the focus on teens is going to be where the real change happens. “When we think about love, we often forget about teens and about their love because we often study adults. But adolescence is the time in which we are naturally wired to love.”
This is when all your hormones start to kick in, and your brain is forming new areas. “And so teens, their brains are developing,… their bodies are developing. And everything is wired for them to learn all about love. What we learn in our teens will set us up for the rest of our lives.”
Love Is Worth Studying & Fully Understanding
Every year, new research and data come out to help us understand ourselves and the world around us.
Without such research, dating and love can feel wild and unpredictable. But as you learn more and more, you understand how to maximize all this data so you can use it in the real, practical world.
And let me tell you, love rocks!
